Can the 5d IV Still Compete in Pro DSLR Market?

o, mine is kind of "old" Sony A7 Mark 2, I am yesteryear kind of buyer. I don't print bigger then 20x30, 24 mpix more than enough.

Thx, for complimenting my English:)

Understood, but clearly, you don't shoot a lot of birds-in-flight.

 

Out of over 80-shots, only this one had the wing touch the water:

 

Great Blue Heron On Landing Approach Near Sunset by David Stephens, on Flickr

 

Here's another, where 20-fps made a huge difference in selection of the very best shot:

 

Cooper's Hawk - In Flight by David Stephens, on Flickr

 

BTW, look at that focus. That's 693 AF points, simply pointing the camera at the bird.

 

With the excellent 5D MkIV (my second choice), I might have gotten those images, by chance, at 7-fps, but 20-fps is a huge advantage. In sports shooting, you're going to have similar instances, where 20-fps assures you the PEAK shot. 7-fps is just not in the same ball park. Also, the latency from shutter release to actual shutter actuation is 30-milliseconds. You're not going to miss the action.

 

Oh, also, with an electronic shutter, you don't have to worry about a mechanical shutter wearing out at 150,000 clicks. I'm trying to find the actual number of electronic actuations that might be expected out of an a9, but I'm betting it's well of 1 million.

Nope, 20 frames per second does not guarentee you capture peak action. It can up the odds, but only that.

Many of us shot wildlife and sports on various levels with manual focus gear for decades and did peak action well. Knowing the subject matter and its behavior helped a lot. Being able to anticipate that peak action is a key attribute for success.

The current reliance on "spray and pray" without honing the skills needed to anticipate peak action is OK but results in hundreds of frames to dump and a success rate lower than careful shooting with controlled use of the 'motor drive'.

I look at older work and still marvel at fight shots with the old Speed Graphics with bulb flash. Most work now is nowhere as good.

Technology is good in many respects but experience coupled with technology increases you chances of success.

ilkka said:

 

Why are you less convinced about DxO's lens testing?

 

First, I don't believe they take into account field curvature.

 

Yes they do. See the example below:

Sony FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS mounted on Sony A7R II : Measurements | DxOMark

What are you referring to? Nowhere have I found it mentioned that they refocus for each point in the image field before measuring their data. Where is this mentioned?

Anyway my main point is that their results do not correlate with my own experiences with many lenses, and they provide very little information for readers to find out where the problem is.

Nope, 20 frames per second does not guarentee you capture peak action. It can up the odds, but only that.

Many of us shot wildlife and sports on various levels with manual focus gear for decades and did peak action well. Knowing the subject matter and its behavior helped a lot. Being able to anticipate that peak action is a key attribute for success.

 

The current reliance on "spray and pray" without honing the skills needed to anticipate peak action is OK but results in hundreds of frames to dump and a success rate lower than careful shooting with controlled use of the 'motor drive'.

 

I look at older work and still marvel at fight shots with the old Speed Graphics with bulb flash. Most work now is nowhere as good.

 

Technology is good in many respects but experience coupled with technology increases you chances of success.

Who said "guarantee?" Your odds are, indeed, greatly increased, when you use both you subject knowledge and 20-fps. The 80-shots I referred to included several that were very strong, but only the one with the wing-touch. My odds of getting it would have been greatly reduced at 5 or 10-fps. I've taken many hundreds of thousands of bird-in-flight shot and I couldn't possibly take one shot (or five) and get that wing touch. There are simply too many variables.

Newbies, yes you need to learn you subjects, but don't be put off by derogatory language, such "spray and pray". There is NO SHAME in it. Look at my examples. If you'd like to do that, then follow my advice and join me in the 21st century, where we no longer need to ration 36-exposure rolls of film. (BTW, I used to do just that). "Hundreds of frames to dump" is NO BIG DEAL. Once you've bought the equipment and, particularly with an electronic shutter, they're close to free. With tools like Photo Mechanic, you can cull 2000 shots in 15-minutes. On my three-day puffin shoot, I took 13,000-shots and narrowed that down to 200-keepers. There were hundreds more that many would have been very happy with, but I had the luxury to pick and choose. The more choices you have, the more particular you can be.

So, join me in the 21st century and follow the sage advice of Zelph, "experience coupled with technology increases you chances of success."

I'd love to see some of those BIF Speed Graphics flash shots, if we could have a link. I too would marvel, I'm sure.

What are you referring to? Nowhere have I found it mentioned that they refocus for each point in the image field before measuring their data. Where is this mentioned?

 

Anyway my main point is that their results do not correlate with my own experiences with many lenses, and they provide very little information for readers to find out where the problem is.

They take into account field curvature, caused by the lens, by publishing an image of a grid, taken with the lens. You can see for yourself any barrel distortion. Look at the "Grid" tab.

You must be looking at something else. The DxO lens tests that I'm looking at are loaded with data. Do you take controlled test images to reach your personal conclusions. If so, please share some. For me, I'll rely on DxO's reliable, repeatable testing procedures and resulting comparisons.

They take into account field curvature, caused by the lens, by publishing an image of a grid, taken with the lens. You can see for yourself any barrel distortion.

First, barrel distortion is not field curvature - at least not in the sense generally understood. Barrel and pincushion distortion refer to in-the-image plane distrortion whereas field curvature is about whether that image plane is flat or curved (i.e. the out-of-plane direction). If a lens is not sharp in the borders/corners it could be due to field curvature (in which case focusing with an AF area in that region will prduce a much sharper image than the one focused with the center AF area). If the lens has intrinsically poor corner performance, then the choice of focus point wouldn’t matter and either image would be poor.

My Voigtlander 21/1.8 is a good example. Focused in the center, only the center region is sharp; focused off center and that region sharpens up and the center moves out of focus. Wide open, images tack sharp in the corner can be produced, but the center will be soft due to field curvature. Stopping down will often mask field curvature when both center and corners fall within the DOF. Field curvature can also have complex wavy forms.

Most lens tests (lensrentals’ being one exception) don’t address the issue regularly or at all.

As Ilkka points out, dxomark’s lens test are based on one copy (as are most others) and because of lensrental’s testing of multiple copies we now have a much better sense of sample variation. For example, testing a 24-70 gainst a 70-200 at 70mm one could come to the conclusion that either one is better depending on which sample is picked (an actual Canon case for their (I believe) previous generation lenses).

The big trouble with lensrentals is that they seem to test somewhat haphazardly, as the mood strikes them. Maybe I just don't know how to use the site. I tried the search function in the Blog area and the main area, but couldn't find my EF 14mm f/2.8L II or EF 500mm f/4L IS II, or FE 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 GM OSS. DxO and the-digital-picture.com have a much more comprohensive list of list of lenses tested. We they do test, I see mtf charts and pictures of trees and other random subjects, instead of repeatable test setups and charts.

I'm I looking at the wrong site?

The big trouble with lensrentals is that they seem to test somewhat haphazardly, as the mood strikes them.

They are in the business of renting camera gear and lenses, not in the business of testing lenses. AFAIK, they do test every lens they acquire, so they have a fairly decent database but they most certainly have not published the tests of each and every one of them - far from it.

Lensrental's tests also take lenses out of their rental fleet to test. While they do in house maintenance, and optics testing, their lenses are ones that have and are spending time in the field... not new out of the box, tweaked, and tested (my understanding is that is what dxomark does)...

All that said, if it has Sony on the box, or has Sony components inside, that seems to add a bit to the score at DxoMark. The math gets a bit fuzzy (which it should NOT), but if you use the same subscore valuation for Canon sensors as is used for Sony sensor scores (w/ the exception of the a9), Canon's overall sensor scores, are consistently below their 'earned score' ( every SINGLE one -> ranging from -1 to -4.5 pts) ... IDK, but they don't exactly seem to be to free with their method of calculations... ...and their math is DEFINITELY WAY to fuzzy for my liking...

Interestingly the a9 is the only Sony sensor (which I crunched numbers for) which is significantly underrated... IDK maybe it's just a software bug?

They are in the business of renting camera gear and lenses, not in the business of testing lenses. AFAIK, they do test every lens they acquire, so they have a fairly decent database but they most certainly have not published the tests of each and every one of them - far from it.

Makes for nice blog material, but only occasionally useful for research.

Makes for nice blog material, but only occasionally useful for research.

True if you are looking for test on each and every lens - which hardly any site provides. Certainly not true when it comes to information available no where else. What they’ve done is demonstrate amply how compromised tests can be that rely on single samples. And in addition to testing at often irrelevantly short distances (like all imatest reports on wideangle lenses are), they invested in an optical bench that allows them to test lenses at infinity. They also went to great pains to come up with a data presentation for lens field curvature. Whatever they publish is a lot more valuable information than any single lens test other sites report on (which quite often substantially contradict each other).

I always had my reservations about single sample testing but until lensrental published hard date on sample variation, all I could do is speculate as to the extent. Once the data was available, it became obvious why the results from different sites often didn't give the same picture at all. I took all single sample lens tests always with a grain of salt; nowadays, it's a couple of grains.

instead of repeatable test setups and charts.

Then you need to go back and have another look. You can't be looking at the wrong site - everything they do is published in their blog. I expect we will see a lot more in the future as it appears they have their procedures and protocols in order now.

True if you are looking for test on each and every lens - which hardly any site provides. Certainly not true when it comes to information available no where else. What they’ve done is demonstrate amply how compromised tests can be that rely on single samples. And in addition to testing at often irrelevantly short distances (like all imatest reports on wideangle lenses are), they invested in an optical bench that allows them to test lenses at infinity. They also went to great pains to come up with a data presentation for lens field curvature. Whatever they publish is a lot more valuable information than any single lens test other sites report on (which quite often substantially contradict each other).

 

I always had my reservations about single sample testing but until lensrental published hard date on sample variation, all I could do is speculate as to the extent. Once the data was available, it became obvious why the results from different sites often didn't give the same picture at all. I took all single sample lens tests always with a grain of salt; nowadays, it's a couple of grains.

 

 

Then you need to go back and have another look. You can't be looking at the wrong site - everything they do is published in their blog. I expect we will see a lot more in the future as it appears they have their procedures and protocols in order now.

I'd really appreciate a link. Navigating through their website isn't oriented toward finding lens reviews, other than copious MTF charts. I'm certain that I was on the lensrentals site, but not so sure that I found all the layers. The test I saw, on that site, had lots of tree pictures. Really.

It sounds like they could be useful, but they haven't tested any of my lenses.

No site is complete, but, DxO tries to stay up to date. Part of that is an outgrowth of measure lenses with various bodies, so that their digital lens optimization component of their RAW conversion software is a useful as possible. As a result, they end up testing a very high percentage of available lens/body combinations.

Your best bet is to start browsing from this page: Categories

Here is a general blog post on lens tests (about 4 years old, don't know if there is a newer one on the subject): There Is No Perfect Lens Test, Either

I look at Roger's site more as an educational tool than one to find out a detailed test of each lens or even an all-out test of any particular lens. He seems to be more interested in doing and showing what most other test sites don't. After all, he publishes a blog, not a lens test site per se.

Your best bet is to start browsing from this page: Categories

Here is a general blog post on lens tests (about 4 years old, don't know if there is a newer one on the subject): There Is No Perfect Lens Test, Either

I look at Roger's site more as an educational tool than one to find out a detailed test of each lens or even an all-out test of any particular lens. He seems to be more interested in doing and showing what most other test sites don't. After all, he publishes a blog, not a lens test site per se.

Dieter, I agree with you. That seems to be the best way to use the site. Someone up the thread was touting it as if it were THE reference for lens reviews and somehow preferable to DxO. It makes for some interesting and useful reading, but not really as a controlled reference, but for general background.

Do you know, do they do their multi-sample testing right out of the box? I wouldn't want comparisons of lenses that'd been out for rental vs. out of the box. Yes, lenses should stand up to heavy usage, but rental lenses have a particularly hard life at the hands of UPS, FedEx and some clueless renters.

Do you know, do they do their multi-sample testing right out of the box?

It appears that Roger has taken to evaluate newly released lenses as soon as they come in - so it seems fair to assume that they are tested straight out of the box. I would not necessarily extent that to every instance lens tests are published on the blog though. Lensrentals does a lot of lens repairs and adjustments themselves - probably the main reason for having those test stations at all. Whatever makes it onto the blog is a byproduct of their everyday operation with some "I'm curious" thrown in by Roger himself.

I wouldn't want comparisons of lenses that'd been out for rental vs. out of the box.

Fairly sure that if rented lenses are used, they are first tested, adjusted if necessary, then tested again with only the latter results published (unless it is to show how lenses have been treated that went out for a rental).

Given that he has the equipment and wants to avoid problems with customers, you'd think that he'd do some baseline testing on each and every lens, before he sends it out.

I would think so but wouldn't expect as thorough a testing as what he does when publishing results on the blog. The way I read what he wrote on the 70-200/4 comparison is simply that he never went and grabbed a bunch of them to test together. Be that as it may, the value of his testing to me is in showing sample variation (which everyone that discusses minuscule difference in measured values at other lens test sites should have a very good look at). The issue I have is that it is often hard to judge if those differences/variations actually matter in real life. Granted, in the lab, in a direct comparison, they can be picked out - but do they really matter in actual shooting situations? And who really can get 3, 6, or 12 samples of one lens, do the testing at home, keep the "best" and return the others?

When you compare the results of Roger's testing on the Sony and Nikon 70-200/4 with that of dxomark (there's none there for the Canon 70-200/4 IS), do you get the same impression from either site about the two lenses?

So I compared Sony to Nikon here, at DxO:

Sony FE 70-200mm F4 G OSS on Sony A7R II vs Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm f/4G ED VR on Nikon D750 | DxOMark

and here at lensrentals.com:

Just the Lenses: The 70-200mm f/4 Comparison

I see that both lenses had quite a bit of sample to sample variation, averaging about the same. On DxO the Sony shows slightly better in almost every parameter comparison.

So yes, I get basically the same impression. The minor differences in these lenses is going to be very hard to see in field usage and does not support one system being superior to the other. They're basically equivalent. (At lensrentals, the older Canon hangs in there very well).

The other thing that none of these test show is how good is the image after digital image correction. With my old EF 24-105mm f/4L IS, that made a huge difference. My lenses today are better than that old workhorse 24-105mm, but I still apply lens correction.

It's kind of like evaluating different bodies based on color accuracy of in-camera JPEGs. If the camera shoots RAW, does that really matter? My default RAW processing of my 5D MkIV is +3 Saturation, while with my Sony a9 it's -3. I'm guessing that the in-camera JPEGs of those two bodies are quite different, just as the RAW files are, but who cares?

Starting with no Chromatic Aberration and not having to correct at all is better than having a little CA to start and correcting it out, but not by much, in practice. You're looking at 200% to see those kinds of differences. A camera system today is body/lens/processing-software. You can look at each piece in isolation, but you can't get the full picture, pun intended, until you mount a lens on a body, take a picture and then process it.

So, yes, the 5D4 can compete in today's DSLR market. ;-)

They're basically equivalent.

For me, on dxomark, the two lenses look virtually identical, with a slight acutance advantage for the Nikkor at 200mm. From Roger's MTF curves, I can't help but expect the Sony to far much worse than the Nikon - lower contrast and less resolution but less deterioration approaching the corners; not at all what dxomark tells me.

I happen to have both lenses (actually two copies of the Nikkor) - and while I have not done a detailed one-on-one comparison, I don't feel either lens is inferior or superior and have no qualms using either.

In the end, it becomes rather pointless to even look closer at those tests. When I consider a lens purchase, I do look at tests on various sites just to make sure I am aware of possible issues. I also want to be aware how possible alternatives for the one I am considering fare - but often, there aren't any. In the last few years, I have only found two lenses that were so bad as to be useless on almost any DSLR: Nikon's 24-120/3.5-5.6 and Nikon's 20/2.8. There wasn't even the need to pixel peep; their shortcomings were obvious just looking at a few images.

A camera system today is body/lens/processing-software. You can look at each piece in isolation, but you can't get the full picture, pun intended, until you mount a lens on a body, take a picture and then process it.

On that, I have no trouble agreeing to.

So, if you compare a Tamron 150-600mm to a Canon 100-400mm, you wouldn't even consider the Tamron, if price weren't a large consideration, based on DxOMark.

dxomark would not be my first place to look for that comparison; it's most likely the last one I consult to confirm what I've seen at other places, mostly by looking at the acutance and related maps. I don't put much stock in their scores and I have a hard time understanding why a lens that is excellent on an FF camera turns into a mediocre one when mounted on an APS-C one (as is the case for the lenses you mentioned when switching from 5DS R or 5DIV to 7DII).

dxomark would not be my first place to look for that comparison; it's most likely the last one I consult to confirm what I've seen at other places, mostly by looking at the acutance and related maps. I don't put much stock in their scores and I have a hard time understanding why a lens that is excellent on an FF camera turns into a mediocre one when mounted on an APS-C one (as is the case for the lenses you mentioned when switching from 5DS R or 5DIV to 7DII).

The main part of the value to me in looking to DxOMark is that I use DxO PhotoLab for my RAW conversion, including their digital lens correction, since 2009. The lens/body interface is part of getting to the final product, an image. Intuitively, it would seem to me that a lens is a lens is a lens and a superior lens will be superior on any body, but that doesn't seem to be the case. So, I'm interested to see their comparative results with different bodies.

Bench testing, without a body, seems logical, but there's no denying that there's a lens/body interface. The placement of the sensor would seem to be a rather basic, fundamental exercise, but the robustness of the lens mount might have some impact. However, I think that in-camera processing has a lot more to do with the variability of the test results. EVERY Canon camera seems to have its very own CR RAW file format. Why is this? Intuitively, assuming the same processor and sensor, then the same RAW profile would be okay, but apparently not. Also, I remember firmware updates, for instance the purple banding in the 5D2, that "fixed" file errors, new to that body.

DxO's overall "scores" are something that I hardly look at, but I do study the graphs and charts for myself and like to put two lenses side-by-side.

I have the Canon 5D IV and absolutely love it. For professional work the most important thing is the dual card slots followed closely by the WIFI, GPS and timecode. I use Canon L-series lenses zooms and primes, the Tamron 24-70 F2.8 VC and a Sigma 35 1.4 ART. I disagree that there is an issue using third party lenses with this camera. I love the VC in the Tamron 24-70 F2.8 just as much as the IS in the 70-200 F2.8 IS II. I would rather have VC in a 24-70 than a Canon 24-70 F2.8 L II without IS.

If I needed to shoot 20fps I would just shoot 4K video 30FPS or 1080P video at 120fps and do screen grabs from the video. However, I have never had a need to shoot that fast as teh focusing and shutter response is amazingly fast. In terms of a professional camera I think the Canon 5D Mark IV, Canon 600 EX RT II flash and a nice lens like 70-200 F2.8 IS or Sigma ART\ Tamron VC will create incredible results.

It doesn't really matter if your camera is better than Sony or Nikon what matters is what you can do with what you have. If you can't create fabulous professional pics with a Canon 5D Mark IV and accessories you are simply in the wrong business. I personally don't like Sony's flash system and their batteries are way to small for how I shoot when traveling.

I disagree that there is an issue using third party lenses with this camera.

I had an issue with the Tamron 70-200 f/2.8 and had to have the lens firmware upgraded by Tamron. It was done under Tamron warranty but I had to pay the shipping. It resolved the issue. If this was a SIGMA lens I could upgrade the lens firmware myself. The newer lenses should not have any issue.

...

 

If I needed to shoot 20fps I would just shoot 4K video 30FPS or 1080P video at 120fps and do screen grabs from the video. However, I have never had a need to shoot that fast as teh focusing and shutter response is amazingly fast. In terms of a professional camera I think the Canon 5D Mark IV, Canon 600 EX RT II flash and a nice lens like 70-200 F2.8 IS or Sigma ART\ Tamron VC will create incredible results.

 

It doesn't really matter if your camera is better than Sony or Nikon what matters is what you can do with what you have. If you can't create fabulous professional pics with a Canon 5D Mark IV and accessories you are simply in the wrong business. I personally don't like Sony's flash system and their batteries are way to small for how I shoot when traveling.

If you shot anything that moved fast, you might have a need for 20-fps. Most people don't need 20-fps. For them, the Sony a7RIII is a much better choice than either the Sony a9, or 5D MkIV, thanks to it's higher dynamic range, much higher pixel density and 10-fps handling of 80MB files

For a shot such as follows, you NEED 20-fps, or lots of luck. 8-fps will not get it. Your screen grabs would likely have rolling shutter distortion, still, I'd like to see your results for comparison. I suspect that you're proposing a theory, rather than something that you've actually done.

Eyes Closed! by David Stephens, on Flickr

You're talking about generations old Sony batteries. There's now no difference between Sony and Canon batteries, in my experience. Profoto is the way to go with flash on Sony.