Canon 5D Mk IV First Impressions

(Basket of Driftwood, my first Mark IV image)

I am in Bandon, Oregon and have just received my new Canon 5D Mark IV today. I have spent only a few hours with it and wanted to share my very, very first impressions.

First, it’s pretty easy to learn since it’s so much like the Mark III. That’s a good thing.

But they’ve added several new features that will make my life easier, including:

They have moved the position of the remote control terminal to the front of the camera. This means that you can now use the remote cable release and keep the left side connector covers in place. This is important because previous models have had a light leak on the left side when doing very long exposures. I’m hopeful that leaving the covers in place will now block the light leak.

The Camera now has a long exposure timer, something that they introduced on the 5DS.  This means I can use Bulb mode to do very long exposures without a cable release, or more importantly, continue to shoot very long exposures if my cable release fails (as happened when my primary and backup cable releases failed on Easter Island).

A wonderful new feature allows the Mark IV to wirelessly transmit JPEG images to my iPhone. Here’s a Bandon image that I shot on the Mark III and then transmitted with the Mark IV:

My camera is set up to save a RAW and a JPEG, which I then transmit to the iPhone where I can do some minimal adjustments.

And then there’s the Mark IV’s sensor increase to 30 megapixels, which is a 7.5% improvement.  I feel this is a more reasonable and balanced increase than what they did with the 5DSr going to 50 megapixels. 

Which brings me to the real test of the camera (for me and my applications): how much noise is introduced by the new sensor during a very long exposure (greater than 2 minutes).  If you will recall, I had a very bad experience with excessive noise on the Canon 5DS images  

So I had the camera shipped to me here in Bandon, where I was hoping to do some long exposure work and put the camera to the test. However we have had two big storms and I’ve only been able to get out shooting twice.

And now they’re saying the storm arriving tonight will bring 80 mph winds, 40 foot waves and rain through the duration of my trip!

(audible sigh)

Cole