I decided to buy a new camera because the 5D Mark II was starting to show signs of being many years old. I bought a new 5D Mark IV because I could get a good price - better than a Sony A7RII/A7RIII plus metabones adapter - that was similar to what I paid for the 5D Mark II. This post has been put together after a month's use, not a day and a half of "Oh wow, Canon sent me a new thing to punch out a review on so I can get lots of web traffic." I take photos, not run a review website, so ...
What Canon fixedThe Noise and stripes in shadows that were clearly evident in the 5D Mark II and 5D Mark III are gone. It is now possible to do some amount of shadow recovery. Not a lot is needed, just enough to turn "black" into something with texture. Might not be up to Nikon or Sony level of quality, but it no longer makes you swear.
The shutter is much quieter now, allowing a little bit more discretion. Coming from a 5D Mark II, this is most welcome.
Allowing 3 or 5 shots for a bracket, including out to +/- 3 as the base is a good change. The camera now does all 3 or 5 shots when the shutter button is pressed rather than needing to hold it down or repeat presses.
What Canon brokeJust try using the half-press to adjust the exposure bias without taking a photo. The half-press detection point is very hard to get a feel for and I've got a light touch - it almost doesn't exist now. It makes the distance to press shorter (and thus camera "response" quicker to take a photo on demand but...). I can sometimes take a dozen photos of the ground before I get the exposure bias changed. A dedicated wheel for exposure bias would be nice as it would solve this problem.
I expect that pro's like the shutter button like this because the more sensitive shutter button means lower lag time between finger press and image capture but it comes at a cost. Too bad there's no torque adjustment for this. I don't know if this is new to the 5D Mark IV or has been inherited from the 5D Mark III.
Auto-focus in "Live View" mode cannot be removed from shutter release without also impacting OVF shooting. On the 5D2, "Live View" shooting can be AF-on focus only whilst OVF is shutter button or AF-on. The 5D Mark IV doesn't appear to have this level of flexibility. This means it is no longer possible to "focus" once and then move focus point for exposure across many photos. Now you need to set exposure and then focus, each and every time. Workaround: focus once, set lens to manual focus and then move focus point with joystick for exposure. Just remember to re-enable autofocus later.
What Canon hasn't fixedThis is a feature where Nikon has it right and it appears that Canon doesn't know what to do with it.
My rationale for that statement is as follows: I suspect that few Canon pro-level photographers actually use these. Consider what pro's do. If you're a sports photographer then your cameras are always set up in a very specific way for that task. The same for studio, models, etc. It is only when you want to change a lot of settings at once to go between different roles that you realise how limited and useless the custom settings are vs what they could be. The Custom settings are limited to "which priority mode" and the setting for it. This feature is of most benefit to the "family man" where he has one camera that is used in many different roles, from shooting his children's weekend sports activity to birthday cakes and holiday snaps and on a camera where no pre-fab role modes exist.
Consider what's required to go from "landscape mode" to "animal/bird capture."
- Exposure: "whole frame" to "spot"
- Drive: "time delay/single shot" to "high speed"
- Autofocus tracking: "N/A" to "as per custom settings"
- Priority: "aperture at f/16, ISO 100" to "shutter, minimum 1000, ISO auto"
Try and do all that before a large cat that wanders out from a bush disappears back into the bush. This is what "Custom Settings" should allow yet Canon just doesn't. Nikon has worked this out.
What's new and annoying- The rubber thing next to where your fingers wrap around the grip
I never use it yet it keeps getting opened up. Who thought it was a good idea to put this here?
What Canon needs to deliver in new firmwareThe camera that I see this being really important for is the 5DS Mark II and the advent of CR3 in the M50 is almost
like a "beta testing" to get this tested (and prompt third party vendors to update their software) before it arrives
in a pro-level product.
Larger files take longer to transfer in addition to just using up more space on disk (and getting fewer on a card.) I don't see the 5D Mark IV as a likely to happen but it would be nice. This is where Canon could learn from Apple: Apple always delivers all of its new software features to all of its models, not just the latest model. Every Canon model should have the option of a firmware upgrade that delivers CR3.
- Proper Custom Settings Savings
Let me save the entire set of camera settings.
EpilogueI would be interested to know if others feel the same about my observations or otherwise disagree.