Canon EOS 5D Mark IV review: Approaching perfection

The Canon 5D Mark IV promises to be everything you could hope for in an SLR. As per previous 5D models, it has a full-frame sensor, a big 0.71x viewfinder, a weather-sealed magnesium alloy body and plentiful controls and sockets. The new features read like a personal wish list: an upgraded 61-point autofocus sensor for improved subject tracking when using the viewfinder, a new 30-megapixel sensor with Canon’s dual pixel technology for fast, accurate autofocus in live view and video modes, 4K video capture, a touchscreen for video autofocus control, improved weather sealing, GPS, Wi-Fi and 7fps continuous shooting, up from 6fps on the EOS 5D Mark III and 5fps on the 50-megapixel EOS 5Ds.

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The screen isn’t articulated, though. I guess I could live without an articulated screen for video work, just about, if I really had to.

Canon EOS 5D Mark IV review: Design and layout

Externally, barely anything has changed since the 5D Mark III, and with good reason. There’s a button for virtually every photographic function, with most settings adjusted by pressing a button and spinning the command dial or rear wheel. The touchscreen is the biggest addition, not only helping with autofocus for live view and video modes but also speeding up menu navigation.

The view through the viewfinder is relatively uncluttered by default, with illuminated exposure settings at the bottom, but there are options to show an electronic level, battery capacity, exposure, drive and metering modes, white balance preset and various other settings overlaid across the optical viewfinder image. This means you can adjust virtually any setting without taking your eye off the viewfinder. The exception is calibrating the custom white balance, which in usual Canon fashion involves capturing a photo and navigating to a menu page to calibrate using that photo. Other cameras do the whole thing with a single click.

There’s a new, unlabelled button just below the mini joystick. It doesn’t do anything by default but I found it worked well for toggling through the various autofocus area modes. There are ten other customisable buttons. There’s also the option to disable autofocus on the shutter release button and move it onto the AF-ON button at the back, thereby letting you decide when to focus and when to capture a frame without refocusing unnecessarily.

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GPS is nicely implemented, with an option to keep the GPS radio on even when power is off in order to maintain an accurate position. With this option selected, a GPS icon flashes on the passive LCD screen to remind you it’s enabled. A hardware button or switch to turn it on and off would have been even better, but that’s not among the options for the customisable buttons. Most photos were accurately geotagged, with just a few occasions when the GPS radio temporarily stopped updating.

I had less success with Wi-Fi. It took me a while to find the menu page — labelled "Communication Settings" rather than more descriptive "Wi-Fi"— and when I did, the Easy Connection option proved to be anything but. I was able to establish a direct connection between the camera and either my Nexus 5X phone or iPad but the camera and Canon CameraConnect app usually failed to see each other. It worked on the fifth attempt. After each failed attempt the camera generated a new Wi-Fi SSID and password for me to enter.

The good news is that Wi-Fi and video capture can be used at the same time, unlike on previous Canon SLRs. That means a tablet can be used as a remote video monitor during capture, making up for the lack of an articulated screen. Touchscreen autofocus is available via the app but exposure compensation was too lethargic in the app to adjust while shooting.

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Canon EOS 5D Mark IV review: Autofocus and performance

There was nothing lethargic about this camera in normal use, however. I recorded shot-to-shot times of 0.4 seconds, and continuous mode hit its claimed target of 7fps. It continued until the card was full for JPEGs, and managed 21 RAW frames before slowing to 2fps — a strong result. After I'd enabled continuous autofocus, the camera delivered 5.9fps shooting and did a decent job of tracking moving subjects around the frame. The camera coped exceptionally well in the challenging conditions of a party lit only by moving disco lights.

Tracking autofocus was even more responsive in live view mode, thanks to the dual-pixel sensor, although performance was limited to 2.9fps. It was also slow in the Single drive mode with live view enabled, taking 1.4 seconds between shots.

Canon EOS 5D Mark IV review: Video

It’s exciting to have 4K video and dual-pixel autofocus in the same camera for the first time. I’ve seen 4K consistently outperform 1080p footage for detail levels, even when video projects are published in 1080p format. In the past, Canon SLRs have lagged behind Panasonic and Sony for detail levels in their 1080p videos, so the move to 4K is particularly welcome. Meanwhile, Canon’s dual-pixel technology has shown itself to be extremely effective at delivering smooth, accurate autofocus for video in the Canon EOS 70D, 80D and 7D Mark II. Bringing both of these technologies together in a full-frame camera bodes extremely well.

And, boy, does the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV deliver. Autofocus is smooth and responsive, with the touchscreen making it easy to move the autofocus point during capture, or to select a moving subject to track. Face detection works consistently well, with an option to jump between detected faces in the scene. There's loads of detail in its 4,096 x 2,160 footage, although pixel-for-pixel it isn’t quite as crisp as the Sony a7R II or the Panasonic GH4. It also exhibited slightly more noise at faster ISO speeds.

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^ 4K video frames aren’t exactly short of detail but the 5D Mark IV’s output isn’t quite as refined as the Panasonic GH4’s or the Sony a7r II’s.

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^ Noise levels at fast ISO speeds are a little higher, too. It looks like there’s no noise reduction applied to 4K video.

Another noteworthy feature is the use of Motion JPEG compression for 4K video. This encodes each frame as a discrete JPEG image, which virtually eliminates compression artefacts even for fast-moving scenes. The downside is the 500Mbits/sec data rate. That equates to 62MB per second, 3.7GB per minute or 225GB per hour of footage. Professional users may welcome the quality this delivers, but there’s a considerable financial and time cost attached to storing and manipulating this much data. For me, the GH4 and a77r II’s 4K footage encoded as 100Mbits/sec AVC format is far more manageable.

Canon EOS 5D Mark IV: Image quality

Let’s start by establishing that the 5D Mark IV’s photos are fantastic. What else did you expect from a full-frame Canon SLR? Details from its 30-megapixel sensor fell neatly into line between the 22-megapixel 5D Mark III and the 50-megapixel 5Ds. Noise levels at high ISO speeds were significantly lower than from the 5Ds, and a small but welcome improvement over the Mark III, particularly in terms of retention of fine detail in JPEGs. It also outperformed the Sony a7R II for noise levels but couldn’t quite match the 24-megapixel Nikon D750 for JPEG quality at fast ISO speeds.

The automatic exposure system handled tricky lighting conditions well but the camera doesn’t automatically raise the shutter speed to counteract detected camera shake or moving subjects. Most people spending this much will be happy to use shutter priority in these situations but I’d like the option for the camera to handle these issues automatically. I also noticed quite a few shots where details were slightly less than pixel-sharp, particularly for shutter speeds between 1/100s and 1/200s, and a couple of landscape shots where the viewfinder-based autofocus had focused on the foreground rather than the main subject.

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^ A well-balanced automatic exposure with natural colours. Focus is sharper in the immediate foreground than on the trees, though. (1/160s, f/7.1, ISO 100, 60mm)

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^ Excellent colours but focus isn’t quite pixel sharp once again. (1/125s, f/7.1, ISO 100, 50mm)

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^ Focus is better here, although that may be down to the faster shutter speed. (1/200s, f/5, ISO 100, 105mm)

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^ Pin-sharp focus with a faster automatic shutter speed. (1/320s, f/7.1, ISO 100, 93mm)

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^ There’s a bit of grain on the smooth gradients of the walls in this ISO 1600 shot but it’s well within print quality standards. (1/30s, f/4, ISO 1600, 24mm)

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^ I set the shutter speed to 1/200s to freeze motion. Autofocus is spot on and the ISO 2500 setting has had very little impact on details or noise levels. (1/200s, f/2.8, ISO 2500, 35mm, shutter priority)

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^ Another excellent result at ISO 3200, this time with a slower shutter speed in artificial light. (1/40s, f/2.8, ISO 3200, 28mm)

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^ There’s not much detail in the grass and foliage in this shot taken at dusk at ISO 6400 but it looks fine at modest sizes. (1/125s, f/4, ISO 6400, 105mm)

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^ The same goes for this ISO 12800 shot, although, as usual, the out-of-focus background shows noise more than the foreground. (1/60s, f/4, ISO 12800, 70mm)

Canon EOS 5D Mark IV review: Verdict

The 5D Mark IV builds on the exquisite Mark III to deliver a camera that is bang up-to-date and leaves barely anything to be desired. The £3,599 launch price is higher than the Mark III (£2,799) or the 5Ds (£2,999) cost at launch, though. It’s also vastly more than the superb Nikon D750, which currently sells for £1,599.

This is the first 4K camera I’ve reviewed that I would consider relying on its autofocus for mission-critical tasks. It isn't completely infallible but the success rate is close enough to be an acceptable risk. That’s a big breakthrough for news reporting, weddings, concerts and theatre performances where it’s often not convenient to focus manually but you don’t have the option to shoot again if the autofocus messes up. It’s just frustrating that this breakthrough comes with such massive file sizes. If video is a priority, the Panasonic GH4 remains my top recommendation, especially as it costs just £999.

Still, Canon users now have yet another excellent model to choose from. It’s the best 5D model for video capture, performance, autofocus and — narrowly — image quality. I don’t think it’s an essential upgrade for Mark III and 5Ds owners but this is the full frame Canon SLR that I’d choose.