Canon 5D M IV - any good news

[Vishal Jadhav]

Hi All,

Guess there is a lot of talk about this camera and most of it suggests its not good for video.

Anyone has had a try at its Video capabilities especially the 4K , i know that its really space hungry format however whats the quality of 4 k produced , i use the GH4 for 4k currently and thinking if i would like to Jump the gun, have a 5D miii for stills so using 2 cameras isnt great idea so want to see if the 5D Miv is worth the buy or should be given a miss.

[Jon Fairhurst]

I haven't used the 5D4 yet, but here are some things we can expect for its 4K video.

1) 4K is windowed with a 1.75 multiplier. So a 50mm lens becomes 87.5mm. The 16-35mm lens becomes 28-61mm. A Tokina 11-16 becomes 19-28mm. So one consideration is if the available lenses match your needs for both video and photos.

2) Because all of the photosites are read, there is no spatial processing (aside from de-Bayering) in the camera. Sharpness and anti-aliasing of video should look identical to cropped photos.

3) The Motion JPEG codec has a high rate and should look great. But it's data hungry. If you do long takes, you would need lots of storage space and you might run into a workflow bottleneck. For shorter form video, it's probably not an issue.

4) The camera is limited to 8-bits. With good exposure, it should work great for a natural look. With a flat picture style, dynamic range (for the scene) should be okay, but push it too far and it will be bit-starved. Don't expect to do extreme, cinema grading.

5) DPAF has been well received on Canon cinema cameras. It should work at least as well on the 5D4.

6) The 5D4 will have limited exposure and focus assist tools. There's no electronic view finder. There are no XLR inputs. That means you either need external gear or that you need to compromise. It's the typical DSLR situation.

One question I have is whether you can get a clean 4K output without losing the video to the camera LCD. If so, one could get an Atomos Shogun or similar recorder, have a big monitor, video exposure and focus tools, and a number of codec choices while recording into an SSD. It would also offer better audio preamps.

Typically, I've used a loupe, but with a loupe, one would lose the touchscreen for DPAF focusing. If the screen turns off when HDMI is used, that would also stop DPAF. So simultaneous HDMI and LCD could be must-have feature.

HD recording offers some benefits:

1) It can shoot 1080/60 or 720/120 for slow motion effects.

2) It is full frame which might be good for wide angle and shallow DOF shooting.

3) It shoots HDR, which could be killer for backlit and other difficult scenes. (I haven't used it, so I don't know if it's great or terrible.)

The big question on HD is if the resolution and anti-aliasing look good. Line skipping aliases. The 5D3 filtering was too soft. Did they improve this for the 5D4? We don't know yet.

To me, the big question is on simultaneous HDMI. If that exists, and you don't mind adding a Shogun, the 5D4 could be a killer 4K cam. If you want slow motion, sub-f/2.8 lenses at wide angles, and in-camera HDR, it all depends on the HD quality and HDR quality.

As always, whether or not this will work for you depends on your project needs. I hope that this helps.

[Seth Bloombaum]

That's a good summary!

The current specs say no 4k out via HDMI - I hope that will change. Jon has hit on the head one of the weaknesses of Canon's current DPAF with touchscreen implementation - that there's no way to select the point for focus tracking using the touchscreen with a loupe/hood or an external monitor.

Having owned a 70D for while, also DPAF / touchscreen, I've gotten more used to working with the built-in monitor as my only monitor, *trusting* that if the focus tracking indicator is following the subject I care about that it will be in focus. Haven't been burned yet, but it's inevitable that I will be at some point.

Anyone interested in this cam might want to review this thread:
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/digital-...es-lenses.html

[Jon Fairhurst]

It's possible that a 2K HDMI output would be helpful.

First, all of the 4K pixels will be available to the signal processing chip. That means that it can do high-quality down scaling, rather than line skipping or poor filtering. If the 2K quality is high, it can be sent to an external monitor/recorder, which would provide the video tools, audio inputs, critical monitoring, and a backup recording. If you need HD, the external recording would do the trick. If you need 4K, you'd still need large, fast CF cards and would still face the workflow challenge, and the HD recording would be just for emergency backup.

So it seems that we have these questions remaining:

1) Is the LCD and simultaneous, clean HD output available over HDMI?

2) If the HD over HDMI quality high, when derived from 4K?

3) Is the full frame HD quality high?

4) Is the HD HDR quality high?

Even if all the answers are "yes", if one needs 4K, one needs to consider if the CF card cost and related workflow are acceptable.

It would be nice to have a product where you plug in the CF and it automatically writes it to two (or more) SSDs. Does such a battery-based product exist? That way, you could keep shooting, keep backing up content, and avoid a workflow bottleneck. It would be great if such a product did a "verify" operation to ensure that everything is golden before one re-formats the card.

[Gary Huff]

Originally Posted by Jon Fairhurst

1) 4K is windowed with a 1.75 multiplier. So a 50mm lens becomes 87.5mm. The 16-35mm lens becomes 28-61mm. A Tokina 11-16 becomes 19-28mm. So one consideration is if the available lenses match your needs for both video and photos.

That's not how that works. A 50mm lens does not become an 87.5mm lens. A 50mm lens on a Canon 5D Mark IV, a GH4, a A7S Mark II, is a 50mm lens. Always has been, always will be. The image will simply cropped in on that 50mm by 1.75x on the 5D Mark IV when shooting video versus still frames. That's it. You need to not conflate focal length with crop factor. They are two separate things.

I have an A7R Mark II and can shoot Full Frame video in 4K. Let's say I do that with a 50mm focal length. Then I take my 4K footage and crop it to approximate Super 35mm (about 1.5x from photographic 35mm) in 1080. It doesn't suddenly become a 73mm lens, and it will bare no characteristics of the image if I swapped out the 50 for a 73mm (if such a lens existed). The field of view will be similar to what I would see on the sides of a 73mm, but that's it. And every time you gloss over that nuance, you help fuel ignorance, so please be more exact about crop factor and don't separate out the millimeters which is not correct. People who are confused by this also don't really think about what focal lengths match up anyway except on the camera they use, and with the myriad of cameras and crop factors out there, it's really pointless to bring up anyway. It's just a "tick the box" negative.

4) The camera is limited to 8-bits. With good exposure, it should work great for a natural look. With a flat picture style, dynamic range (for the scene) should be okay, but push it too far and it will be bit-starved. Don't expect to do extreme, cinema grading.

Most people don't do "extreme, cinema grading". Adding a LUT and tweaking contrast and saturation is not that at all, no matter what people think. Do not use a flat picture style on the 5D Mark IV. There have been some attempts to sell a fake CLog style to people and it's not worth the money. Here's the number one rule of shooting Log: if you're camera doesn't come with a Log curve, don't even try to emulate one. I can make any footage look like Log, just decrease the saturation and bring up the contrast. That's not log, that's just a visual approximation of it. But Log is not that, it's a way to encode more details into the image and the look of it is the result of that encoding, not the whole ballgame.

And "pushing too far" has a lot more to do with bitrate than the color precision. MotionJPEG is the actual basis for ProRes, so it's similar to that codec (roughly analogue to ProRes 422, between HQ and LT).

HD recording offers some benefits: 1) It can shoot 1080/60 or 720/120 for slow motion effects.
2) It is full frame which might be good for wide angle and shallow DOF shooting. 3) It shoots HDR, which could be killer for backlit and other difficult scenes. (I haven't used it, so I don't know if it's great or terrible.)

The biggest problem with the 5D4 is that the 1080 modes are back to the H.264 encoding of the 5D3, it's not MotionJPEG (which is only for 4K). Another issue is that 1080 will be 16:9 while 4K is DCI which is wider, 1.9:1. So you'll have to crop in the DCI 4K images to match the AR of the 1080, or upscale the 1080 and cut off the tops and bottoms.

Also, the HDR samples I have seen look very muddy in the details. This could be due to HDR, or it could be that in the 1080 mode, the 5D4 is roughly the same quality as the 5D3.

[Jon Fairhurst]

Gary, you are correct about the sensor size not changing the lens focal length. Still, it's a common way to communicate the resulting field of view. For instance, the specs for 1/3 and 1/2-inch cameras rarely list the real focal length and crop factor. They only list the FF equivalent.

Since a 1.75 crop is unique to this camera, it's helpful for me to look at the FF equivalent numbers so I can "get" the expected framing. Focal length with crop factor is hard to envision. Angle of view isn't ideal, since the vertical and horizontal angles differ. So we're left with equivalent FF focal length as a shorthand.

That said, you are technically 100% on solid ground. A 50mm lens is always a 50mm lens. (Except when you change the distance to the focal plane, but that's a different topic. :) )

...

Regarding not being CLog, again that's true. And that's especially important if you want to mix with other cameras. So yeah, it's limited to 8-bits. It's not CLog (though reducing contrast can help capture a larger range, which helps in some circumstances.

Note that we don't know if the OP wants a natural look or some other look, will shoot in natural or controlled light, or plans to go straight from the camera or massage the color in post. But yeah, 8-bit without CLog or equivalent limits the options.

---

Good point on the aspect ratio difference between 4K and HD. Regarding the codec, an external recorder would provide more coding alternatives. And yeah, we have more questions than answers when it comes to HD sharpness and HDR quality.

Also on HDR... since it's implemented with a double shutter, it's likely most effective with locked down (or at least smooth), low-motion shots. Unless the processing is exceptional, it's unlikely to do well with handheld action scenes.

[Gary Huff]

Originally Posted by Jon Fairhurst

Still, it's a common way to communicate the resulting field of view.

But still erroneous, so it shouldn't be a common way.

For instance, the specs for 1/3 and 1/2-inch cameras rarely list the real focal length and crop factor. They only list the FF equivalent.

They do list the real focal length and then compare it to a 35mm still camera. The XC10 has the real focal lengths on the lens itself (8.9 to 89mm) for example. I will concede that this is done on these smaller sensors. It can still be confusing and should be phrased carefully when maintaining a changeable lens camera system.

It's not CLog (though reducing contrast can help capture a larger range, which helps in some circumstances.

Reducing contrast will never help capture a single bit of data in a "larger range". All reducing contrast will do is make your image look less contrasty.

Also on HDR... since it's implemented with a double shutter, it's likely most effective with locked down (or at least smooth), low-motion shots. Unless the processing is exceptional, it's unlikely to do well with handheld action scenes.

Here is a sample straight from Canon USA:

Canon EOS 5D Mark IV HDR - YouTube

To me, this is a poor image.

[Jon Fairhurst]

Yes, when shooting flat or with low contrast, the image out of the camera will have less contrast. But it captures more bits in the highs and lows. From there, one can grade it, possibly with power masks, and get an improved result. I remember seeing footage of a man with very dark skin while wearing white that was shot with CineStyle. The graded result was quite good. The standard picture styles, even with minimum contrast, would have blown out the light areas and crushed the dark areas.

But it's scene-specific and requires post processing. Shooting a low contrast scene like that would be the wrong approach as would be delivering flat video straight from the camera. Anyway, it's a good tool to have in the tool kit, but it requires skill to know when to use it and to process it well.

Regarding the HDR video clip from Canon, there are definite problems there. The beach walk isn't too bad in HDR compared to HDR Off. There's enough motion blur that neither is terribly sharp. And there's definite codec grunge. It's hard to determine the weak link in the chain. I'd love to see this captured via HDMI so we could eliminate the codec.

That said, I paused the video and didn't see any ghosting on the larger leaves. The motion detection and compensation for HDR seemed to work well on that scene. The 5D3 softness probably remains, but we'd need to bypass the codec to tell for sure.

On the car scene, the HDR tracking wasn't as good. The beard and the hair on the guy's arm went soft in HDR. But that's handheld with the car jostling around while trying to track fine detail.

It would be great to always be able to capture backlit subjects. But it seems that HDR will only work well when fine details are relatively still, and when capturing with an external recorder, and possibly when adding an unsharp mask to bring back some detail in post. Not a good set of limits when shooting for hire. But for the DSLR shooter who chooses their own shots, HDR might be a good tool at times. But yeah, who wouldn't rather have a C300 Mk II (if we could afford it)? As I've written before, 8-bits is my biggest disappointment.

[Benjamin Maas]

Just got mine, but haven't had a lot of time to play with it due to other work commitments. I was going to bring it along with me to a concert shoot I'm doing on Friday. I have messed with it a bit, however, around my house and office. A few thoughts:

I'm totally looking forward to using it as a still camera. So many fantastic features. Focus is good, ergonomics work really well- especially after you remap the buttons on the back.

Touch screen works very well. the touch focus has been fantastic. I had to slow the focus time back a bit, but the touch focus makes racking focus super easy and effective. Makes up for the difficulties of seeing focus on a small screen.

DPAF is fantastic for the video. Face detection is great. It's touchy, though, to the mode you're in. When the sensitivity is too high, it will randomly search for focus. That being said, the detection is also very cool in that it can really track focus when the subject or camera moves a lot. Should be great for some of those narrow depth of field shots.

4K is a pig. You must have fast CF cards. My fastest sdxc cards all dropped out of record because the buffer overflowed. The CF cards seemed more reliable. You will need the fast ones, though. Most of mine are 1000x cards and they were ok in general. I do long form event work (ie concerts). Probably won't be able to use 4K because that one camera will probably end up filling multiple 256GB cards. (And across 4-7 cameras? Forget about it) I will say, however, that at first glance, the 4K video looks really good.

4K crop- for me a non issue. The crop is less than a GH4. Field of view will be diminished a bit, but I'll use wider lenses if necessary. I rarely go that wide, though. The ability to digitally zoom in would be great. Picture doesn't fall apart as much as with the Panasonic.

HDR video. Haven't played with it, but be aware that it only uses the heaviest compression. Probably won't be using it because of that.

1080- looks pretty darned good. Much sharper than I've seen out of many of the canon dslrs. Color is also better- doesn't seem to have that strange overly contrasty saturated look that doesn't really grade. I'll also test it this weekend with Cinestyle. My shoot on Friday is with multiple C100s and a C300Mk2 (and perhaps a GH4 as well).

More I suppose after I do more serious work with it.

-Ben

[Vishal Jadhav]

Hi All,

Thanks for the detailed replies on this, i was a bit out of town shooting in the wilderness and couldn't check on the replies.

I normally shoot Nature , wildlife , GH4 gives me the 4K however it really sucks in light being low which might be a case in wilderness 50% of the times , Canon 5D MIII does perform good in that light and hence i just switch to it when the light is a challenge, however then i loose out on 4k, even though all my stuff is finally edited in HD this isnt a issue but if we are trying to future proof the footage then a 4k one is more preferred , being a canon used for last 12 years got canon glass in the bag so trying to use a Canon camera might be a better way of going and i liked the tracking function on the 5D M IV .

i do realize that the Motion Jpeg is a heavy format and eats up too much of Cards , however on the other side its a very uncompressed format and might give better output than the heavily compressed formats, however here i am no expert .
4k 4:2:2 8 bit is something that can be lived with

[Jon Fairhurst]

I've seen some recent evidence of moderate to high rolling shutter effect on the 5D4 when shooting 4K. I'm not sure if HD is better; the example was 4K only. If you shoot on a tripod, it should be okay. Fast pans could show trees leaning. That could be fixed in post.

It looks like one tradeoff would be cards vs. an external recorder. A recorder like the Shogun would record HD to a large SSD and could use a ProRes codec for a good balance of size and quality. It would give you exposure and focus tools, etc. The downside is more size and weight and more batteries required, which could be cumbersome in the wild. And we still have two things to confirm: 1) Is the in-camera downscale from 4K to HD of good quality, and 2) Does the LCD touchscreen continue to operate while the HDMI connector puts out clean HD with no overlays. Both of these questions must be answered "yes" to make an external recorder viable.

Going with cards means high card cost and a slow workflow (due to data transfer times). It also means no exposure and focus tools or larger screen, but it would be lightweight and there aren't any open questions as to whether it would work.

Should be very good in low light if 8-bit video and rolling shutter aren't an issue.

[Vishal Jadhav]

Jon,

Almost all my work is done on some stabilized system, tripod , slider or 3axis gimbal, so guess it may work, i simply got the fast pans out of the book when i decided to use DSLRs for my work.

I have done videos on older 5D like the Mark II and Mark III and can trust the screen a lot when i want to look at exposure , a external monitor is somewhat cumbersome to carry in wild as time for setup will be huge. Some times i need to shoot from the car using 2 beanbags for support :) depending on where i am shooting .

i think i would in coming time hire a 5D MIV and try it for some time before making a decision, the photo part of the camera is surely one to upgrade to and the DPAF is something i did like as a feature only thing i miss is the slow motion but guess thats living with DSLRs

[Benjamin Maas]

My video work is almost exclusively acoustic music (and to narrow it further, classical music) performances- situations where I'm on sticks and the camera moves are quite slow. Therefore the rolling shutter thing is a non-issue for me. I could absolutely see how it would be for others, though. Just not something that I test as I don't have to deal with.

I've got shows today and on Sunday. I may be able to post a small clip when all this is done if my clients allow me to.

--Ben

[Jon Fairhurst]

I'm not surprised that you're using good camera mounting and don't want the extra size/weight/complexity of a monitor/recorder for nature projects. And like you, I've learned to make-do with the camera LCD for exposure and focus.

That means needing enough card budget and being able to handle the workflow, but I don't see any roadblocks. Renting the camera first makes sense before buying.

Regarding workflow, I've done some MagicLantern RAW shoots on the 5D2 using 1000x cards. The images are brilliant. And on-set it's so easy! You set the standard shutter speed, frame rate and ISO and simply adjust aperture (and possibly ND filters) for exposure. Love it!

But then one has to transfer all that data on the back end. Ughh. At least with 4K M-JPG you should be able to immediately edit it. With the RAW workflow, we needed to do some pre-processing and 1st pass grading. While the pictures were stunning and the green screen removal was brilliant, the back end was a slog. It really took the fun out of post.

As long as you are able to copy the CF cards to an SSD using a good USB3 card reader and USB3 port, you should be fine. But if there is any bottleneck, it could be frustrating.

If you hire the camera, please let us know the results.

[Tom Roper]

HDR (movie) mode in the 5DmkIV is not the same as is being discussed with Dolby Vision or HDR10. In the case of the latter two, the full sensor DR is captured in raw or log and display referred to an actual measure of brightness following the PQ EOTF in ST-2084. This requires an HDR10 or DV compliant display.

To use a metaphor, with Canon HDR movie mode you could print more contrast range details on paper but you could not change the DR of the paper itself.

When you watch the YouTube video, you can compare both modes SDR and HDR but with either you are still viewing in SDR on your 709/sRGB display with about 6-7 stops of DR. The actual displayed DR has not been changed by shooting in the Canon HDR mode.

What is happening with Canon HDR is that highlights are rolled off to preserve details. This could be useful. It's an artistic choice that's yours to make. It just should not be confused in the context of the current discussions on movies projected in DV or HDR10. Those don't have a specified HDR mode for shooting, all that's incumbent is to capture the full sensor range in raw or log; for later processing and display to HDR10/DV compliant displays in the Dolby Vision cinemas (check your AMC cinemas for availability), or your compliant Sony, Samsung, LG, Visio HDR/DV compliant UHD displays.

DV/HDR10 is delivered in HEVC level 5.1 with ST-2086 metadata which communicates to the display that it is receiving HDR, switch yourself into PQ-EOTF mode. This requires a display with HDMI 2.0a (HDR10) to support the metadata message.

I probably made that explanation too confusing, sorry.