Tech Talk: The Canon 5D mk IV - Our Hands-on First Impression

You know that ‘new camera smell’? Yeah, we love that smell. For that reason (and other, more important reasons), we picked up three new Canon 5D mk IV cameras. I wanted to dig in and get all the settings synced and set the way we wanted, then calibrate all of our lenses with each body before taking the new kit out into the field. It was quite the process, and may still require some tweaking, but I thought I’d do a bit of a first-impressions write up on the way.

It has been years since Canon updated their 5D series and I had been watching the rumour mill closely in anticipation of these babies. The specs looked great and touched on many of the things that we were hoping for – 30.4MP (a great boost in size over the previous generation’s 22.3 MP), more dynamic range, a faster focusing system, and the ability to shoot 4K video were some of our key drooling points. Then, there’s the built-in Wi-Fi. That’s the stuff dreams are made of after using the huge, awkward, wired brick that is the WFT-e7a wireless system. 

Well, I set to work getting everything going and setting up the wireless with our newly-calibrated 5D mk IV bodies. The Wi-Fi worked well with the easy connection process but forces you to use the Canon EOS Utility software, which I don’t love and because its finicky at best when trying to connect. I have yet to try the more-complicated FTP transfer method, which I think I will prefer, but if the set up is anything like setting up the old transmitters, I dread the thought of it.

On our first big shoot using the new gear, here are a few points we noticed:  

Pros:

• The screen is amazing – so many dots make judging sharpness from the camera back a joy. Also, touch screens? Yes, please.
• The camera controls, for the most part, have stayed the same and buttons are where you’ve always known and loved them if you’ve shot with previous-generation 5D cameras.
• Truly wireless wireless. We can’t stress enough how great it is to not need an extra brick (taking up the tripod mount) attached to the camera with a wire.
• The wireless connection was strong and solid. Also, while initiating the Wi-Fi session is a bit of a pain forced through EOS Utility, it is actually nice to be able to see and adjust settings through the computer.

Cons:

• This camera is a battery pig. Sure, the battery is doing double-duty as a camera battery as well as a transmitter battery but each camera chewed through 3 batteries over a 10-hour shoot day where we may have used only 1.5 batteries with the 5D III system.
• Resetting the connection to the computer after changing a card or battery can be tricky. Sometimes it figures itself out and connects back up automatically, sometimes it doesn’t. At this time, I have no idea why it’s different each time. I’m looking into it – it’s annoying.
• The 5D III would fill a 32GB card with about 1050 large RAW plus their medium jpeg images. The mk IV stuffs about 820 RAW+jpeg images on the same card – but it’s a necessary price to pay for the MP bump.
• Finally, previewing images on the back of the screen after a burst of images often gives the ‘busy’ black screen. Again, this may get better using the FTP transfer method but will need further testing.

OK, but what are the images like? In a word: beautiful. Huge, detailed, richly coloured, and sharp. We can’t wait to really work the processing in the RAW images and bring out the best in each frame.  

So, our first impressions? I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.