# Initial thoughts on the 5D4 after some use



## [email protected] (Sep 12, 2016)

First impressions:

1 - F/8 autofocus is confident in good light. I now run the 5D4 by default with the 100-400 II + the 1.4 TC III, and it locks sharply. I have not tried this yet with birds in flight circumstances, but it works very well with crazy children hopped up on birthday party sugar and car license plates coming and going at 50 mph. I was frankly surprised, as the f/8 center focus point on the 1DX was a bit worse than this.
2 - 30 megapixels matters. The people who were convinced that 20 mp was a point where you'd find a diminishing rate of returns were - for my type of shooting - incorrect. 
3 - The autofocus is a league better than the 5D3. I feel it is more confident than the 1DX Mark I. The increased distance between the lowest and highest focus points is appreciable.
4 - There are lots of little easter eggs in the menus, with little improvements having been made here and there. Perhaps these were already in the 5DS series, and I never got the memo, but they weren't there in the 1DX, 5D3 or 7D2.
5 - The shutter feels much, much better than the 5D3, which clacked. Silent mode is optimistically titled, but not the joke it was with the 5D3 or 1DX.
6 - The build quality feels more solid than the 5D3 or 7D2. Saint Roger revealed why with his teardown (interlocking doohickies). But it is noticeably lighter too. I also perceive that the matte finish is more matte, with a real frictive feel to the hands. 
7 - The new, customizable Q menu is pretty handy.
8 - 7 frames per second seems slow, now that the 5D4 is arguably a pretty good wildlife body, this is its weakness. 

Caught this broad wing hawk on a wire near my house this afternoon. This is roughly a 1-to-1 crop of a JPG (can't abide Canon's DPP software, so waiting for Adobe before going back to RAW) from the 100-400 II at 400 with the 1.4TC III at f/8. No post production...


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## tpatana (Sep 12, 2016)

Cool info!

And having owned both 5D3 and 1DX(1), I don't think the silent shutter on 5D3 was joke. It was on 1DX though.

One thing I'm curious, on 5D4 should I always leave the anti-flicker on? What's the downside?


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## [email protected] (Sep 12, 2016)

I first had anti-flicker with the 7D2, and back then we were told that anti-flicker slightly reduced the frame rate. So I turned it off and never really thought about it. 

With the new 5D4, I've noticed, however, that the anti-flicker detector shows up in the eyepiece display, and it's been interesting. It turns out that a lot of my shooting situations where I thought there would be no flicker did indeed have flicker. I think it has to do with the LED lighting that is more common in residences nowadays. So I've turned it on a lot more recently. Not sure what - if any - the frame rate reduction is.


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## Big_Ant_TV_Media (Sep 12, 2016)

ive been putting my new 5D mark 4 thru its paces this week American HS football and New York Fashion Week
here's some sample JPGs
shooting in ISO's 160-too as high as 5000+


9H6A0349-1 by Big Ant TV Media LLC, on Flickr



9H6A0510-1 by Big Ant TV Media LLC, on Flickr


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## Jack Douglas (Sep 12, 2016)

I'm all ears as a nature shooter that ends up cropping a lot, now with the 400 DO II and considering the 5D4 over the 1DX II because of the 30 MP's. I've ruled out 7D2 and 5DS. 7fps is a negative but really good AF is far more important to me with 400 X2 being my portable source of reach that hopefully will alleviate some of my previous 300 X2 cropping. Moderately high ISO IQ is also a prime consideration. 

How about some RAW files - after all DPP is quite capable of handling the basics. 

Jack


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## tpatana (Sep 12, 2016)

BigAntTVProductions said:


> ive been putting my new 5D mark 4 thru its paces this week American HS football and New York Fashion Week
> here's some sample JPGs
> shooting in ISO's 160-too as high as 5000+



Wow, loved those NYC FW shots. I shoot local small shows, and I'd kill for runway lights setup where I can shoot 1/200 2.8 with ISO <200.


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## entropy69 (Sep 12, 2016)

[email protected] said:


> First impressions:



Same experience here regarding your first impressions. I traded in my 7d mk II and kept my mk III as a backup.
The mk IV is more than the best from 7D mk II and 5D mk III and love the AF and 30Mp. Feels like having brand new shoes which walk as comfortable as the worn-out ones 

Some additions to your list:
- like the extra AF thumb button (although I liked the ergonomics of the 7D mk II's little lever a bit better).
- Being able to watch along on the ipad will be a huge benefit in certain situations: customer can look during the shoot, no surprises afterwards, easier (wireless!) than shooting thethered
- Finally remote control via wifi so I do not need my camranger anymore

Please let adobe hurry up with ACR since postprocessing is a drama now.


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## GMCPhotographics (Sep 12, 2016)

tpatana said:


> Cool info!
> 
> And having owned both 5D3 and 1DX(1), I don't think the silent shutter on 5D3 was joke. It was on 1DX though.
> 
> One thing I'm curious, on 5D4 should I always leave the anti-flicker on? What's the downside?



I would agree with you about the 5D3's silent shutter. It's saved my ass a few times. It' not silent to the photographer, but to the person next to you...it practically is. The sound of the silent shutter is almost silent within a few feet away. A few years ago I had a notorious wedding registrar who announced...no photographs during the ceremony (the older female registras in Wiltshire are really controlling). My wedding client was really upset (not that the registra cared), and I was banished to the rear of the hall behind the seated guests. So I put my camera in silent mode, sat on the floor and using a few lens options...I shot the whole ceremony from the back peering around one of the guests. The registra never knew and the client got their ceremony covered and no one could hear the shutter. I couldn't have done that with a 1Dx, 5DII or any Nikon.


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## Jack Douglas (Sep 12, 2016)

Interesting story, GMC.

Jack


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## Act444 (Sep 12, 2016)

The silent mode on the recent Canon cameras has definitely come in handy at a few events. 

The 5D3 silent mode is nice, but the silent mode on the 6D I had prior was the best...the normal shutter is already fairly dampened so the silent mode was truly so outside of a couple feet - miss it somewhat, although the 5D3 mode still works well. 

BTW, to the OP - thanks for sharing your 5D4 experiences.


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## JohnUSA (Sep 12, 2016)

Thanks Tiggy for the great info! Have you shot in the higher ISO range around 3200-6400? That's where I'm most of the time during wedding receptions and church interiors and curious how the high ISO noise is compared to the 5D3.

At times I'm disappointed with the 5D3's focus performance.


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## tron (Sep 12, 2016)

GMCPhotographics said:


> tpatana said:
> 
> 
> > Cool info!
> ...


I agree. A couple of years ago I went to see my niece's dance demonstration. Her parents were told that flashless photography was allowed. But when the time arrived they announced that photography was not allowed! I wasn't able to put a big white 70-200 2.8 but I was able to use my 5D3 (with the 24-70 2.8 II attached) in silent mode.


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## Ph0t0 (Sep 13, 2016)

[email protected] said:


> I was frankly surprised, as the f/8 center focus point on the 1DX was a bit worse than this.



Hi Tiggy, 
Thank you for all the info. 
Seeing that you own 1DX I have another question for you. How does the image quality compare to the 1DX when shooting with moderately high ISO (1600-6400)?


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## BlurredShot (Sep 14, 2016)

tron said:


> GMCPhotographics said:
> 
> 
> > tpatana said:
> ...


Having been the guy who makes the "no photography" announcements at my daughter's dance recital, I can say that there have been some guests who have asked to tak ed pictures and who "know what they are doing" that will be allowed to take pictures if they ask before the show. The problem is that these days everyone and their iPhone shine the screens back on the audience and blind them. So, I wold suggest talking to the folks running the show next time ad showing them that you are using a real camera and you wI'll probably find them amenable.

That said, I have just received my 5Div which replaces the 7D my daughter confiscated for her photography classes. I'm glad I waited for this one rather than get the mark iii I had played with. The low noise in high is amazing. 

Question: I pulled down the update to raw therepee (sp?), and it's showing *alot* more noise than dpp. Is that normal?


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## [email protected] (Sep 14, 2016)

Answering some questions to the OP (me)...

- I haven't had the heart to produce RAWs yet through DPP. I fiddled with it in order to test out the DP RAW stuff (which was fun, if not overly useful), but that software is almost as bad as iTunes in terms of interface. I'm sure Adobe will come along shortly with an update. 

- Entroyp69, good additional points. As to the placement of the thumb doohickey, I agree that the 7D2's placement is better, but I suspect that the 5D4's was placed where it is because there will be a future camera that has both. 

- To JohnUSA, I haven't had cause to test the super high ISOs yet. That didn't stop me from doing so in light that was more generous than would normally deserve a high ISO. Things looked really good (as they always do in good light). From what I see and what I've heard, I think the 5D4 will show about the same quality at high ISO, but do so with half again as many pixels, so that if you squish the size of the photo down, the result will be a significantly better image. Also, the dynamic range is indeed better. Also, the shadows are pulling up much better with less noise. This means that you might choose a stop lower ISO with this camera knowing you can pull things up better. The upshot: guessing about a stop+ better effectively in lower light between the shadow raising and the downsampling options. 

- To Ph0t0, I think the image quality in ISO 1600-6400 is very much like the 1dX, except the shadows draw up better, and you have 30mp with which to do either cropping or downsampling. I really need to do some side-by-side comparisons, but my rough sense is that for low light, I'm not sure which is better because it's pretty close. My beef with the 5D4 is that it is only 7 frames per second. 

I'd like to do a shootout with the 7D2, the 1DX and the 5D4 to see which throws the best image quality at a long distance, where the subject would benefit from cropping (most of the time with me). Those three cameras come at the same problem with quite different answers. I suspect when I have time to do this, it won't be a blow-out under those circumstances. I'll have to do the 5D and 1D against each other for non-reach-limited, low light IQ as well.


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## tron (Sep 14, 2016)

[email protected] said:


> Answering some questions to the OP (me)...
> 
> - I haven't had the heart to produce RAWs yet through DPP. I fiddled with it in order to test out the DP RAW stuff (which was fun, if not overly useful), but that software is almost as bad as iTunes in terms of interface. I'm sure Adobe will come along shortly with an update.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the info. I guess many of us would like to know the results of your future tests. Incidentally shooting in FL limited situations and low light are my main interests too


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## DannyPwins (Sep 14, 2016)

BigAntTVProductions said:


> ive been putting my new 5D mark 4 thru its paces this week American HS football and New York Fashion Week
> here's some sample JPGs
> shooting in ISO's 160-too as high as 5000+
> 
> ...



Nice shots. Where are you from in Jersey? I have a feeling I met you at an event a while ago. Small world..


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## Ph0t0 (Sep 14, 2016)

[email protected] said:


> - To Ph0t0, I think the image quality in ISO 1600-6400 is very much like the 1dX, except the shadows draw up better, and you have 30mp with which to do either cropping or downsampling. I really need to do some side-by-side comparisons, but my rough sense is that for low light, I'm not sure which is better because it's pretty close. My beef with the 5D4 is that it is only 7 frames per second.
> 
> I'd like to do a shootout with the 7D2, the 1DX and the 5D4 to see which throws the best image quality at a long distance, where the subject would benefit from cropping (most of the time with me). Those three cameras come at the same problem with quite different answers. I suspect when I have time to do this, it won't be a blow-out under those circumstances. I'll have to do the 5D and 1D against each other for non-reach-limited, low light IQ as well.



Thks for the reply, I'm considering buying this camera for landscape and low light photography so I appreciate this info. I've been looking at the online comparisons and though the 5D IV images look like they have less noise on higher ISO, they do look a bit softer than photos from other Canon cameras even at lower ISO range. I'm not sure why that is. I hope it is just because of lack of ACR support at the moment.


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## aa_angus (Sep 14, 2016)

Ph0t0 said:


> [email protected] said:
> 
> 
> > - To Ph0t0, I think the image quality in ISO 1600-6400 is very much like the 1dX, except the shadows draw up better, and you have 30mp with which to do either cropping or downsampling. I really need to do some side-by-side comparisons, but my rough sense is that for low light, I'm not sure which is better because it's pretty close. My beef with the 5D4 is that it is only 7 frames per second.
> ...



Trust me mate, the 5DIV images aren't softer at all. When you pixel peep, they easily out perform 5DIII for pure sharpness. The "Fine Detail" picture style is also a godsend.


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## Wideopen (Sep 14, 2016)

How do you like the white balance compare to 5D III/6D. Is there an improvement?


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## vjlex (Sep 15, 2016)

[email protected] said:


> Answering some questions to the OP (me)...
> 
> - I haven't had the heart to produce RAWs yet through DPP. I fiddled with it in order to test out the DP RAW stuff (which was fun, if not overly useful), but that software is almost as bad as iTunes in terms of interface. I'm sure Adobe will come along shortly with an update.



Ahhh, the interface. Thank you for adding that context. In a previous thread, I tried to figure out why people hated DPP so much. I have had no major problems with its functionality, but I am not a fan of the interface either. That part I completely agree with.

It would be nice if Canon allowed you to save files to DNG format in camera. I read yesterday though that you can produce a JPG from RAW in camera though. That will be quite useful to me I think.


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## [email protected] (Sep 16, 2016)

Wideopen asked...
How do you like the white balance compare to 5D III/6D. Is there an improvement?

I find it an enormous improvement over the 5D3. Never owned the 6D, so I can't say on that one (it is newer than the 5D3). It is, however, not dissimilar to my 7D2, which really rocks the white balance when set on auto, except for obscure circumstances, like mixed lighting sources that are far off from normal. I think the AWB put into the 7D2 has filtered through to the subsequent cameras. I know they touted improved WB in the marketing materials, but I'm not sure if this isn't just the 7D2 tech brought into the 5 series. If there is a difference over and above the 7D2 tech, it's not a large enough difference that I've detected it yet.


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## [email protected] (Sep 16, 2016)

So, a bunch of you asked that I follow through with my musing about testing the 7D2 versus the 1DX versus the 5D4 on low-light, reach-limited circumstances. The three cameras approach this problem with very different advantages. 

I ran some very small tests today and it was interesting. The upshot was that, indeed, the 5D4 is likely to be my new wildlife camera under these circumstances. The catch: there are different sets of circumstances under which each camera is best. 

The setup:
- 100-400 II placed on a sturdy tripod
- Shady, wooded stone wall setting demanding at least 1600 ISO (also did well-lit set; more on that later)
- All shots manually focused via liveview with magnification
- With the 5D4, which can autofocus with f/8 on most points, I put the 1.4xIII TC on the lens (note, the difference in field of view between the crop camera at 400 versus the full frame + 1.4x at 400 was not much at all). With the 1DX, I tried it both with and without the TC. As a practical matter, with just the center point able to focus at f/8, I'm not going to keep the TC on the lens with the 1Dx if I think I'll be shooting anything that moves. 
- The 7D2 was limited to 1600 ISO, and the two full frame cameras were pushed to 3200, which is a realistic setting in these sorts of shooting conditions, especially given that they were shooting f/8 versus the 7D2's f/5.6.


POOR LIGHT RESULTS:
1) Here is the main result: when you have both low light and you need more reach, then the two full frame cameras do better than the 7D2. This was true both when I had them on the 1.4x TC III and when I used them bare. The full frame IQ advantage in low light just overpowered any crop reach advantage the 7D2 had.

2) Between the two full frame cameras, the 1DX shooting at 400mm without a TC (realistic conditions) did better than the 5D4, even when the picture was upsampled to the same field of view. Stick a TC on the 1DX, and it also out-resolved the 5D4 in low light just a bit. I don't consider a TC on the 1DX realistic, though because of the lack of focus points at f/8. These differences were very, very small, and among multiple shots done, the answer sometimes shifted based probably on slight variations of focus sharpness. Interestingly, I did some bare lens tests between the two of them later in even lower light and the 5D4 had better quality, largely due to significantly less noise. 

GOOD LIGHT RESULTS:
1) The 7D2 beat both full frame bodies. This surprised me in the degree to which it was better when zoomed in to 1:1 pixel ratio. In retrospect, I'd like to test the 5D4 without the TC against the 7D2 in good light. It may be that the TC slightly lessened the IQ, disallowing the 30 megapixel advantage from fully tolling. But, then again, 50 percent linear advantage in pixels isn't much of an advantage versus a 1.6x crop factor, which is geometric in how it affects the image.

2) Among the two full frame bodies, the 5D4 with 1.4x TC bested the 1Dx shooting the lens bare in good light. The megapixel advantage also tipped things in favor of the 5D4 in good light when the 1DX also had the TC on. 

THE UPSHOT:
In bad light, the order of most desirable camera for image quality is 1DX, 5D4 + 1.4xTCIII and then 7D2. Put these bodies in good light, however, and the order reverses to 7D2, 5D4 + 1.4xTCIII, and then 1Dx. I need to do more testing in other situations to be confident in these results. This is all a first impression.

I was thinking of selling my 1DX, but now I'm not so sure. Between it's incredible low light performance and the 12 fps, that would be a shame to lose. The decision will probably come down to my judgement of how good the autofocus is on the 5D4 with the TC attached. I have a very good impression of it right now, but I haven't yet had the opportunity to really stress it with birds in flight, etc. 

At some point in the future I will do similar tests with more varied setups and save some comparison images to post.


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## Jack Douglas (Sep 16, 2016)

[email protected], great feedback. Thanks.

Jack


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## Valvebounce (Sep 16, 2016)

Hi Tiggy. 
Thank you very much for the effort you have put in to this, interesting set of results. 

Cheers, Graham. 



[email protected] said:


> So, a bunch of you asked that I follow through with my musing about testing the 7D2 versus the 1DX versus the 5D4 on low-light, reach-limited circumstances. The three cameras approach this problem with very different advantages.
> 
> 8<8< snip snip for brevity.
> 
> At some point in the future I will do similar tests with more varied setups and save some comparison images to post.


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## bjd (Sep 16, 2016)

aa_angus said:


> Ph0t0 said:
> 
> 
> > [email protected] said:
> ...


I have tried to convert a few RAW images to TIFF with DPP, the results using default setting were a catastrophe. All detail was gone. Seems like DPP was using very high noise reduction and that killed everything. My main workflow, if you can call it that using DPP, is to take NR down a low as possible, and switch off all sharpening and then just check and correct exposure then convert and save to TIFF. 
Then I process the TIFF in LR. OK, as a short-term kludge to at least see some of what the Camera is capable of, but the ergonomics of waiting for DPP to get things done compared to LR showing alsmost instantaneous results is hard to stomach. I could imagine the internal engines and processing in DPP as being far superior to LR (they should be as the come from Canon), but the UI is very poor.
I love the Camera though, and having all Focus Points with TCs installed is heaven. 

Here are a few real-world examples from my 3 days with the camera so far.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/briandorling/with/28663748724/

Cheers Brian


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## Jack Douglas (Sep 16, 2016)

Brian, serious nice shots there. It's looking promising! 

Jack


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## bjd (Sep 16, 2016)

Jack Douglas said:


> Brian, serious nice shots there. It's looking promising!
> 
> Jack


Thanks Jack, it was in fact a windy days causing the stalks that the frogs are sat on to move about, so pretty much hit and miss, so the focus could maybe be improved upon. I have lots of out of focus shots on the card. 
Only one shot has any sharpening at all, that was done in PS.
The ergonomics of the Camera are great IMHO. 
Cheers Brian


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## [email protected] (Sep 16, 2016)

Brian, you point out something that may make my results invalid in some circumstances. 

I'd said that in low light the 1DX beat the 5D4, but the 5D4 shots were taken into DPP and converted, and I didn't stop to think that DPP might have ham-handedly modified things, as it ham-handedly does everything else. Crap. I'll have to shoot JPG on all three bodies and load into Lightroom just to see if I need to redo the entire test due to DPP meddling. I have a gut feeling the 5D4 may come out on top after this. Will inform.


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## Big_Ant_TV_Media (Sep 16, 2016)

DannyPwins said:


> BigAntTVProductions said:
> 
> 
> > ive been putting my new 5D mark 4 thru its paces this week American HS football and New York Fashion Week
> ...



no im not from nor live in NJ


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## Hjalmarg1 (Sep 16, 2016)

BigAntTVProductions said:


> DannyPwins said:
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> 
> > BigAntTVProductions said:
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Great images, very good results


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## bjd (Sep 17, 2016)

This I do not like:
Its a large JPEG straight out of the Camera, just cropped to keep the file size small. Pretty low light, the stones are properly exposed I think. Focus seems about OK, on the pebbles, but there is no detail whatsoever on the bird. OK, the bird is darker so somewhat underexposed. But there is just no information at all in the dark areas of the bird, just brown mush. 
My error? Just not ETTR enough? 

Cheers Brian


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## bjd (Sep 17, 2016)

bjd said:


> This I do not like:
> Its a large JPEG straight out of the Camera, just cropped to keep the file size small. Pretty low light, the stones are properly exposed I think. Focus seems about OK, on the pebbles, but there is no detail whatsoever on the bird. OK, the bird is darker so somewhat underexposed. But there is just no information at all in the dark areas of the bird, just brown mush.
> My error? Just not ETTR enough?
> 
> Cheers Brian


I wonder if this is an in-camera thing concerning how much NR is applied to a L jpg, I haven't changed any such settings, and maybe the default is very aggressive? Couldn't find anything like that.
Cheers Brian


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## Ph0t0 (Sep 17, 2016)

bjd said:


> bjd said:
> 
> 
> > This I do not like:
> ...



I don't know if this was meant as a joke or not, but the bird is clearly not sharp because he moved his body too fast for the shutter speed that you were using.


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## Alex_M (Sep 17, 2016)

I would say that your camera back focused by approximately 6-10cm. at 400mm, F13 and 5.7m distance to subject thats all the DoF you have available. ( 5cm in front and 5cm behind the subject. ). Camera shake is also likely as another factor..


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## candc (Sep 17, 2016)

as ph0t0 points out:

you are shooting at f/13, 1/750s, iso 6400 and the bird is moving so there is motion blur.


at least half of the bird photos you take are going to look like that unless you are shooting a really fast shutter speed. its okay to use a relatively slow shutter speed but you are going to have to take more shots and sort through them.


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## candc (Sep 17, 2016)

dilbert said:


> candc said:
> 
> 
> > as ph0t0 points out:
> ...




those little birds are really twitchy. 1/750 or even 1/250 is fine if they are not moving but if they are you need a really fast shutter speed to freeze them.


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## tpatana (Sep 17, 2016)

Ph0t0 said:


> bjd said:
> 
> 
> > bjd said:
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To further ask, is this joke or deliberate troll, since the camera does not have 1/750 setting. I have my camera here, after 640 the next is 800.

So was it shot at e.h. 1/250, and he manually fixed the exif to 750, and then wanted to troll/bash how bad the camera is? Or does 1/800 report as 750 for some reason?

And the picture is obviously motion blur. If you shoot birds and don't figure out that from the picture, you should go buy yourself T2i with kit lens. That'll fit the bird pictures better.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 17, 2016)

tpatana said:


> Ph0t0 said:
> 
> 
> > bjd said:
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You can get 1/750 sec, just select 1/2 stop increments for adjustment rather than 1/3 stop increments. It is under custom functions and has been for many years on some models.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 17, 2016)

For those interested the EXIF is 5D MkIV, 100-400 MkII. 400mm, f13, 1/750 sec, 6400iso. Subject focused at 5.7m.

If bjd did what they said and just cropped to keep the file size down then below is a rescaled image to show the actual crop.


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## scyrene (Sep 17, 2016)

bjd said:


> This I do not like:
> Its a large JPEG straight out of the Camera, just cropped to keep the file size small. Pretty low light, the stones are properly exposed I think. Focus seems about OK, on the pebbles, but there is no detail whatsoever on the bird. OK, the bird is darker so somewhat underexposed. But there is just no information at all in the dark areas of the bird, just brown mush.
> My error? Just not ETTR enough?
> 
> Cheers Brian



Okay a question - why are you shooting at f/13?

The bird is indistinct because a) it's moving, b) diffraction, c) noise reduction. Focus looks okay.

As other have said, lots of bird shots will be poor no matter what camera you use. What is the purpose of posting a single poor shot?


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## tpatana (Sep 17, 2016)

privatebydesign said:


> tpatana said:
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> > Ph0t0 said:
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Learn something new every day. Just learned the special BBF-tricks on 5D4. Now this. I wonder what other stuff I should learn before the big show tonight in Seattle 

No rush  Some people told me to use my old body, especially as LR don't take 5D4 yet. But I want to take my new baby.... and being lazy I'll shooting jpeg so the workflow is not pain. Store the raws away for later edit if I some day need to go back.


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## [email protected] (Sep 18, 2016)

Initial feedback on birds in flight with the 5D4 + 100-400II + 1.4TCIII...

Good vibes. I was at a hawk watch this morning for only about 15 minutes. Didn't have much action, but here's an example of a tough one. Crow was coming in with bright background from a good distance. Picked him up about 1/4 mile away. This picture is just after he shied away at about 60-80 yards. 

The 5D4 did pretty well focusing with all zones. Not as confident or zippy as with the bare lens, but the 1.4 TC didn't hinder either speed or image quality enough to make it a bad idea. I'm more excited to test it more...


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## TominNJ (Sep 18, 2016)

I'm still experimenting but what I've found so far:

From taking pics of my young grandkids with a 70-200 2.8 II the autofocus is superb. The facial recognition software gets it right. Much higher success rate than the 5D III. Amazing detail with eyelashes and reflections in the eye. Huge improvement.

I took a few pics with high iso and that seems greatly improved but will have to wait to confirm. I'll do some testing today at a bowling alley. Should be interesting.

I shot a short video of my grandson and was impressed with the quality. I'm not a cinematographer and can't speak for everyone but this camera is more than enough for me when it comes to video. I will say that the audio was quiet. I need to tweak that setting and possibly look into an external mic.

AWB isn't great. I still need to pay attention to the color of the light and set it manually. I'm somewhat disappointed with this. It might get better using picture styles. Haven't tried that yet. WB can be corrected later so not a big deal.

I activated lens correction and it slows down the shooting. A lot. Enough to make it unusable for my impatient self in most situations. It will be interesting to see if it corrects coma in my 24/1.4 during astro shooting.


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## cpsico (Sep 19, 2016)

I really love the files from this camera so far. This just a shot after sun down at iso 1600 standard picture style. All in camera noise reduction, enhancements disabled. Doing sunset shoots at 1600 should be a breeze with this camera. This is a 100 percent crop.


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## bjd (Sep 19, 2016)

I took some shots of a new cruise ship going down a small river yesterday, last shots taken in total darkness
using ISO 10000, standard NR in DPP as suggested by DPP. I think they are OK, but I did still screw up by having some highlights blown out. The Camera and AF performed flawlessly, all errors were behind the Camera.
I was very happy with the Camera. If you are interested they are on Flickr:



Dusk over the Genting Dream by Diane and Brian Dorling, auf Flickr

Cheers Brian


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## bjd (Sep 19, 2016)

Like everyone else I guess.

I can't wait to get a functioning version of Lightroom for this Camera...........
Dpp is very very clunky and slow.

Cheers Brian


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## Big_Ant_TV_Media (Sep 19, 2016)

bjd said:


> I took some shots of a new cruise ship going down a small river yesterday, last shots taken in total darkness
> using ISO 10000, standard NR in DPP as suggested by DPP. I think they are OK, but I did still screw up by having some highlights blown out. The Camera and AF performed flawlessly, all errors were behind the Camera.
> I was very happy with the Camera. If you are interested they are on Flickr:
> 
> ...



u said 10000 iso yet flickr says 6400 hmm


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## bjd (Sep 19, 2016)

BigAntTVProductions said:


> bjd said:
> 
> 
> > I took some shots of a new cruise ship going down a small river yesterday, last shots taken in total darkness
> ...



On Flickr there are various ISO shots, including some at 10,000. The one that I linked to here is 6400. 
Cheers


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## Silverstream (Sep 19, 2016)

bjd said:


> Like everyone else I guess.
> 
> I can't wait to get a functioning version of Lightroom for this Camera...........
> Dpp is very very clunky and slow.
> ...



I would pay to have someone call me the moment the LR update is available!!! I shot a fashion show the day they were released on the 8th and still haven't finished working my way through it because DPP takes so much longer. Also, the NR is not the best although the color noise reduction does work well (seems like more color noise than on the 5dmkIII). Also reducing exposure and particularly highlights produces a weird color shift when you push it. But I can't stop using the camera generally because the results rock. I check every day now for the LR update. I'm hoping they don't have to wait till they figure out Dual pixel raw format. I'll happily shoot as much stuff as possible without that.


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## tpatana (Sep 20, 2016)

Silverstream said:


> I would pay to have someone call me the moment the LR update is available!!!



What's your number?

You owe me $10.


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## [email protected] (Sep 20, 2016)

Adobe says (and I've confirmed with the updated Lightroom software) that it downloads DP RAWs, but treats them only as RAW files. No special tricks, and no suggestion that they're working on tricking it out further.

SO relieved to have Lightroom compatibility again. DPP was so awkward, I just show JPG these past couple of weeks.


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## dtgphoto (Sep 21, 2016)

I'm just loving the 5D4...


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## bjd (Sep 21, 2016)

[email protected] said:


> Adobe says (and I've confirmed with the updated Lightroom software) that it downloads DP RAWs, but treats them only as RAW files. No special tricks, and no suggestion that they're working on tricking it out further.
> 
> SO relieved to have Lightroom compatibility again. DPP was so awkward, I just show JPG these past couple of weeks.


So fabulous to just be able to work normally on the files again! Phew! I assume full DpRaw will come in LR sometime. But I can wait now LR does everything else.
Cheers Brian


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## bjd (Sep 21, 2016)

dtgphoto said:


> I'm just loving the 5D4...


And even getting "acceptable" results already ;-)
I think that is a great shot.
Cheers Brian


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## bjd (Sep 21, 2016)

Constructive advice needed, please. 
Shooting conditions sunday evening were difficult due to a large crowd, the darkness, the very bright LED lights on the side of the cruise Liner, and its normal lighting. So, I also tried bracketing some shots, most done by adjusting exposure time and not ISO. I've included a sample shot that was the least exposed.
For me the histogram shows at the right some overexposure, but no clipping at the left. I was worried about reducing the exposure even further to get rid of all overexposure and ending up with the rest of the photo being nearly black. For me the most obvious overexposure is on the funnel. Being too dark I was worried about noise if I lightened up the shadows to get some detail at least. 
Is there any solution in such extreme lighting conditions?
HDR or EDR or IDR with multiple shots is out of the question really due to noise and the ship moving.
So what would the professionals do?
Cheers Brain


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## dtgphoto (Sep 21, 2016)

bjd said:


> dtgphoto said:
> 
> 
> > I'm just loving the 5D4...
> ...



Thanks Brian.

I just blown away with it tbh. I have come from 70d rather than most of you that have been using the 5d in previous guises but the detail in both highlights and shadows is immense. It is possible to take them to unreal extremes without noise.

That shot was shadows pushed up and some dehaze and contrast but very little else.


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## YuengLinger (Sep 21, 2016)

tiggy, thanks for starting one of the very best threads in months!

bjd, please, stick to the OP's topic, helpful insights on Canon's newest. You can start other threads with questions on how to achieve results with settings, techniques, and post processing.


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## Danzig (Sep 21, 2016)

bjd said:


> This I do not like:
> Its a large JPEG straight out of the Camera, just cropped to keep the file size small. Pretty low light, the stones are properly exposed I think. Focus seems about OK, on the pebbles, but there is no detail whatsoever on the bird. OK, the bird is darker so somewhat underexposed. But there is just no information at all in the dark areas of the bird, just brown mush.
> My error? Just not ETTR enough?
> 
> Cheers Brian



The only person who could miss with this gun, is the sucker with the bread to buy it.


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## YuengLinger (Sep 21, 2016)

Danzig said:


> bjd said:
> 
> 
> > This I do not like:
> ...



So this is your insight, the one worth sharing with thousands of other photographers...after how long using the 5D4? Nice first post under this name!


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## Danzig (Sep 21, 2016)

YuengLinger said:


> Danzig said:
> 
> 
> > bjd said:
> ...



New camera, yes but the basics stay the same. Faster shutter speed next time please.


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## Valvebounce (Sep 21, 2016)

Hi YuengLinger. 

+1, well said. 

Cheers, Graham. 



YuengLinger said:


> Danzig said:
> 
> 
> > bjd said:
> ...


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## mackguyver (Sep 21, 2016)

bjd said:


> Constructive advice needed, please.
> Shooting conditions sunday evening were difficult due to a large crowd, the darkness, the very bright LED lights on the side of the cruise Liner, and its normal lighting. So, I also tried bracketing some shots, most done by adjusting exposure time and not ISO. I've included a sample shot that was the least exposed.
> For me the histogram shows at the right some overexposure, but no clipping at the left. I was worried about reducing the exposure even further to get rid of all overexposure and ending up with the rest of the photo being nearly black. For me the most obvious overexposure is on the funnel. Being too dark I was worried about noise if I lightened up the shadows to get some detail at least.
> Is there any solution in such extreme lighting conditions?
> ...


I don't make my living shooting as some here do, but if I were doing this as paid work, I'd focus on what was most important, the ship or the shadows. I would assume the ship, so I would prioritize the highlights and would try to use the shadows for composition (work with what you've got). I had a commercial shoot a while back and one of the shots my client wanted was of some local caverns, so I had similar choice in terms of highlights vs. shadows. I used the roof of the caverns and the formations to frame the shot and give it depth.

If I had to get an HDR type photo, I would likely use ISO to bracket 2 proper exposures of the ship and shadows to avoid having to push them and to freeze the action. I'd use high NR in processing on the shadows adding a tinge of Gaussian blur afterwards but before sharpening (or better yet, use DxO PRIME) and create a composite of the two exposures.

If I wanted to be creative, I might take long exposure (several minutes) to create a light trail of the ship and expose the pier correctly and possibly another clear shot of the ship at the end to overlay to give it a 2nd curtain look.


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## scottkinfw (Sep 21, 2016)

BigAntTVProductions said:


> ive been putting my new 5D mark 4 thru its paces this week American HS football and New York Fashion Week
> here's some sample JPGs
> shooting in ISO's 160-too as high as 5000+
> 
> ...



Two beautiful shots under vastly different conditions. No much not to love. Thanks for sharing.
Scott


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## bjd (Sep 21, 2016)

YuengLinger said:


> tiggy, thanks for starting one of the very best threads in months!
> 
> bjd, please, stick to the OP's topic, helpful insights on Canon's newest. You can start other threads with questions on how to achieve results with settings, techniques, and post processing.


Sure.


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## bjd (Sep 21, 2016)

Danzig said:


> YuengLinger said:
> 
> 
> > Danzig said:
> ...



True with the faster shutter, even though 1/750th should be OK for a starting bird, especially the body.
Maybe not the wings.
I have never seen such mush on the 5D3, I guess its just how the camera internal SW created the Jpeg out of this situation. I never used the Internal jpegs on the mk3 and now that LR is working, they are switched off on the mk4 again. I'm loving the quality of the RAWs.
Cheers


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## KeithBreazeal (Sep 21, 2016)

Yup, the 5-stop push. Like who would really do this in real life?
The DR is already a lot better than my 5D III was, but I couldn't
resist a peek at the "black hole".
I picked this shot from the Reno Air Races as an example.(my only shoot so far)



Canon 5D Mark IV 5 stop push LR6 3379 © Keith Breazeal by Keith Breazeal, on Flickr

back to the real world- editing 



Canon 5D Mark IV test LR6 3255 © Keith Breazeal by Keith Breazeal, on Flickr

and finished



Reno 2016 Steve working on Voodoo 4255 © Keith Breazeal by Keith Breazeal, on Flickr

One of the things that pleased me the most is the color reproduction of the 5D IV. I think the RGB metering system was a giant leap forward. Shadow color noise is greatly reduced and still good edge detail in the dark areas. 
I did test the in-camera lens corrections. I selected all the possible corrections and then fired away... one shot and it buffered for a few seconds. The lesson here is that it kills the ability to shoot multiple frames per second. Maybe Landscape photography would be the best use.
AI Servo focusing accuracy and speed produced a better keeper rate compared to the 5D III. That is major.

I think there are going to be a lot of great reviews coming. My experience after one week is nothing short of superb.


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## mackguyver (Sep 21, 2016)

Keith, thank you for the example, and 5 stops can be necessary at times, especially for those, "Oh bleep, I bumped the aperture from f/2.8 to f/16 shots." Not that any of us have ever done that.

Alas, I have a related question for the 5D4 shooters - how does this compare to the 5DS(R)? I picked one up recently and was surprised by the usable DR improvement over the 5D3. It reminded me of the boost from the 5D2 to the 5D3 in terms of improved ability to push the shadows.


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## bjd (Sep 22, 2016)

mackguyver said:


> bjd said:
> 
> 
> > Constructive advice needed, please.
> ...


OK thanks. I'll look into the NR processing just in the shadows, I assume you use something other than LR for that? 
CHeers Brian


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## mackguyver (Sep 22, 2016)

bjd said:


> OK thanks. I'll look into the NR processing just in the shadows, I assume you use something other than LR for that?
> CHeers Brian


I typically use DxO Optics Pro (scroll down to the PRIME 2016 to see the feature http://www.dxo.com/us/photography/photo-software/dxo-opticspro/features)

LR is great, too, though as the NR sliders allow you to customize the NR, but PRIME in the DxO software is quite amazing at shots over ISO 3200.


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## KeithBreazeal (Sep 22, 2016)

mackguyver said:


> bjd said:
> 
> 
> > OK thanks. I'll look into the NR processing just in the shadows, I assume you use something other than LR for that?
> ...



I've used DXO for a few years, but only on really challenging shots. This is from a few years ago with a 7D and DXO version 8.5. Newer versions are even better in the processing. The screen shot is really a crappy example, but you get the idea. 



Super Moon editing before &amp; after © Keith Breazeal by Keith Breazeal, on Flickr


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## Helevitia (Sep 23, 2016)

A quick test shot with my 5DM4. Shot a 1/125, F/4.5, ISO100. I'm coming from a 7D, so to me, the amount of detail I am getting out of the shadows and dark areas is amazing.


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## Jack Douglas (Sep 23, 2016)

KeithBreazeal, Helevitia, thanks for that. I'm on the fence until spring and am interested in the feedback. Reeding everything carefully. 

Jack


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## KeithBreazeal (Sep 23, 2016)

Jack Douglas said:


> KeithBreazeal, Helevitia, thanks for that. I'm on the fence until spring and am interested in the feedback. Reeding everything carefully.
> 
> Jack



The DR improvement is quite noticeable to me. Shooting backlit planes at the Reno Air Races was the acid test. Being able to bring the shadows up without noise and color problems was my biggest ah-ha moment.
You can look at all the charts and graphs, but in the real world the photos speak for themselves. I am 100% happy with my decision. There is a lot more to the Mark IV that what I saw early on. There are some really cool menu settings to manage exposure- especially centered around Auto-ISO.("save you ass settings")
Colors a really nice and pure. Even "day-glow" colors are reproduced as your eye sees them. I think the RGB metering kicks ass! The RGB metering system works with the Dual-Pixel object tracking to further enhance tracking the subject and accurate exposure. 
There is some very cool stuff in this camera.


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## bjd (Sep 23, 2016)

mackguyver said:


> bjd said:
> 
> 
> > OK thanks. I'll look into the NR processing just in the shadows, I assume you use something other than LR for that?
> ...


I have a licence for Topaz Denoise that I stopped using with the 5D3 as I saw very little improvement over LR. Just downloaded the newest version, it can also do NR separately for highlights and shadows. First results look good, I think I'll even take a look at a tutorial............
In LR I thought NR was OK if used sparingly, but using the trick with the ALT key and the masking slider always gave me strange artefacts.
And I'll take a look at DxO Prime too.
Cheers Brian


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## mackguyver (Sep 23, 2016)

bjd said:


> mackguyver said:
> 
> 
> > bjd said:
> ...


Topaz makes some of the best plugins out there. I can't tell you how many years of my life I have saved by using Topaz Remask and it and their other stuff seems to get better and better with each version. I haven't tried the Denoise one in a while, but I imagine it's pretty good. Definitely give DxO a try. They have a free trial version and the PRIME feature is pretty amazing, even for a jaded guy like me who has been using PhotoShop for 20+ years. It essentially give you another full stop of ISO, plus you can sharpen and boost colors without everything turning into plastic mush. It's pretty slow when you export the photo, even on a fast computer, but the results are worth it.


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## bjd (Sep 24, 2016)

mackguyver said:


> bjd said:
> 
> 
> > mackguyver said:
> ...


OK will do. Cheers.


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## DannyPwins (Sep 26, 2016)

Just used my 5D4 for the first time this weekend, shooting an event. Coming from a 6D this camera is a major upgrade. The best stills camera I've used to date.


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## cpsico (Sep 26, 2016)

Seems really good at higher ISO's that I would actually use in real life. This is from a converted raw file 100 percent crop. 
iso 1600
iso 3200


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## COBRASoft (Sep 26, 2016)

For what's it worth... I can agree on the DxO Prime capabilities. It's the best out there IMHO.

Topaz... Amazing, but often over the top. Most of the time, I reduce the effects by 50 or 65 %.


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## KeithBreazeal (Sep 26, 2016)

My first day with the Mark IV in daylight was quite pleasing.
Right off the bat, I could see the DR improvement, but the biggest surprise was the lack of blown out highlights.
Despite direct sun on the white paint, the exposure was perfect. Normally I would have to have done some manual exposure comp for the whites and lose the shadow detail.

This is a jpg and shot before we got the raw capability in Lightroom.



Canon 5D mark IV JPG test shot © Keith Breazeal by Keith Breazeal, on Flickr


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