Nikon D850 vs Canon 5D Mark IV | Part 2: AF, Resolution, Video, & More | 4K

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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott, and I'm here today to give you a part two of my breakdown of the
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comparison between the new Nikon D850 and then the Canon 5D Mark 4
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That has been kind of my, you know, everyday staple for the last year and a half, roughly or so
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since it's been released. And so in our last episode, which if you missed, you can catch here, I broke down
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the kind of some of the sensor performance from the D850 and including looking at its
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performance over the ISO range what happens if you push you know under exposed or
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overexposed and trying to recover highlights and shadows and what we found there
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is that there was some give and take in the sense that over the a lot of the
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native ISO range I actually preferred the images that came out of the 5d mark 4 but
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If you're pushing at the extremes, either at ISO 12,800 and higher
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I feel felt like the D-850 closed the gap there and was maybe even a hair better
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But where the D-850 really excelled is if you needed to recover shadows or highlights
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And that additional dynamic range that's there just gives you a little bit more latitude
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in drawing out information from the shadows in a brighter, cleaner way
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and recovering a little bit more shadow information. And so really an excellent sensor
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And of course, today we can take that a step further by looking at the advantages you get
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and the disadvantages that come with having a higher resolution sensor. This is a 47 megapixel sensor in the new D850 compared to a 30 megapixel sensor in the 5D mark 4
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And so that's a significant difference. In fact, if we look at this comparison here, it shows you how much, how deeply you can crop into an image
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and actually get the same native pixel dimensions of the 5D Mark 4
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And so in some ways, the Nikon D850 is much closer to Canon's 5DS or 5DSR in terms of the raw resolution
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The 5DS, 5DSR, a combo is just a little bit higher at right over 50 megapixels
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And so, you know, not enough to really break the bank either direction
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But as I noted in my review of the Canon 5DSR, and if you miss that, you can catch it here, you know, 50 megapixels, or in this case 47 megapixels, it has both strengths and weaknesses
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It obviously gives you a tremendous amount of latitude in the way that you can approach scenes
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You can deeply crop images and still have a lot of pixels left on there
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And of course, it allows you to, you know, to crop down and really kind of become competitive with crop sensor cameras
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in terms of absolute reach, even with that kind of native cropping ability, while retaining
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the strengths of full frame. And so because of that, it's actually become a somewhat of a surprise
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winner for even some that shoot wildlife. Although, of course, with the 5DSR, you're limited by
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what is, by today's standards, a slowish burst rate and buffer, whereas obviously the D850
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has really improved in some of those areas. to where in a lot of ways it's competitive with the 5D Mark 4 when it comes to those attributes
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in terms of the burst rate and then, you know, the buffer retention there
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And so, you know, that certainly can be a strength, the ability to deeply crop
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And of course, you know, in a studio to be ability to have, number one, a tremendous amount
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of resolution, but then to be able to deeply crop into images to kind of choose your framing
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That certainly is a plus there. For landscape photographers, it means you're going to be able to be able to
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to squeeze some extra detail out of there. And yes, the argument can be made that you really need
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to make very large prints to even really appreciate that. And for the most of the way that our work
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is viewed, you know, in digital space, it's not going to make any difference at all. And that does
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have its arguments. But the counter argument to that is that I do find benefit in taking higher
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resolution images and then downsampling them to a smaller viewing resolution, but being able to
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pack all that additional information into the frame, which just results in, you know, much, much
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sharper looking at extra detail, particularly for critical landscape or architectural work
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extra detail that's captured there. And so there certainly are upsides to having that great
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amount of resolution. There are some downsides, of course. Downsides being, of course, that all of your
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file sizes go up significantly, as do the requirements for processing speed and, you know
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you know, if you don't have a pretty good size workstation, you know laptop or a home computer of some time you may find that your engine kind of chugs along there trying to keep up with you know just the tremendous amount of just raw file sizes that comes out of a high megapixel
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body like this. And so it's my opinion that not just not everyone needs, you know, 47 megapixels
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or in the case of the 5DSR, 50 megapixels, my opinion is that most people don't
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And to be honest, one of the things that I was excited about when the
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5D Mark 4 was announced was the very fact that it was 30 megapixels instead of something larger
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And I find that it kind of hits a sweet spot, at least for me personally
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in providing enough resolution for just about every purpose that I have
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while not being quite so onerous in file size. So, you know, pros and cons there
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There are also some pros and cons when we break down the autofocus systems
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Now, both of these cameras have outstanding autofocus systems in them. And, you know, in the case of the 5D Mark 4, it's basically inheriting the, you know
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Canon's best from the 1DX Mark 2. And there's also some trickle-down effect, you know, coming from the D5 into the D850 here
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And so certainly some strengths there. And to be very honest, when it comes to squeezing the most out of the D850, I'm a Nikon rookie
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And so, yeah, I have experience with a lot of camera systems. But, you know, in trying to, you know, kind of learn the behaviors and set things up to get the most out of it
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I'll confess that I'm definitely better at doing that with the 5D Mark 4
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And so unsurprisingly, as a result, I got better results. You know, when I did tracking with this Tamron 70 to 200, a G2 lens
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I got more consistently good results out of the 5D Mark 4 than I did out of the D850
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The biggest difference that I saw, however, was with all points active
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With all points active, the D850, it tended to get stuck on me and get stuck behind my subject
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And as the subject moved closer to the camera, it just wouldn't keep up with it
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As the subject gets closer to the camera with all points active on the 5D Mar 4, it actually gets even better
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And so I got more consistent performance there. As you can see from these sequences that are playing here
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What I found is that when I got a little bit more selective and I went with the center grouping on the DA50, that I got much, much better results and results that were more consistent with what I got when I shot the same way with the 5D Mark 4
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And so, you know, I think it's a matter of your mileage may vary. Again, I don't feel qualified to say which has the better, you know, phase detect, focus system
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I mean, both of them are exceptionally good. I don't really think that there's any reason to complain either way
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For me, I got a little bit more, I was able to squeeze a little bit more out of the Canon
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but again, that has a lot to do with what I'm familiar with. What isn't disputable, however, is if you go into live view mode
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there's definitely a significant difference between live view mode in both stills and video
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on the D850 compared to the 5D Mark 4, which has canon's unparalleled
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DPAF or dual pixel AF focus system in live view, which frankly nobody is nearly as good
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And I've tried it with, you know, with Sony. I've tried it now with Nikon. And, you know
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nothing is as good as DPAF. And that's really, really clear. And when you're just, you know
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trying to actually acquire focus in live view. And so, you know, with the, here when I'm using
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the Nikon, it's just a, it's a little less of a. certain process. It's slower to acquire focus. And, you know, for me, it was like a regression
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going back not quite to pre-DPAF days with Canon Live View, which was painfully slow. So not
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not that bad, but, you know, slow by the standards of what I'm, you know, I'm accustomed to these
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days. And by contrast, you know, if I'm, if I'm shooting with the Canon in DPF mode
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focus acquisition is just instantaneous. It's just there. And, you know, and that's true even with
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third-party lenses that I have mounted. Now, what's also interesting is that there's some give and
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take in the video here as well, in that, you know, obviously the DA 50 has got several significant
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advantages. Number one, it's got not an articulating, unfortunately, but it does have a tilting
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touchscreen here, which is certainly an asset compared to the fixed screen that's on the
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the cannon and I dearly wished that they had gone with the articulating screen, you know, like they put on the new 60 Mark 2
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It's just fantastic and it makes life simpler in so many ways. But here we've got a tilting screen, which is, you know, at least a step in the right direction
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Beyond that the Nikon in 4K mode it gives you a full frame without any crop factor and so you can get a full frame look to video whereas the Canon in 4K mode has a pretty significant 1 times crop factor
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And so that's definitely an advantage here. The other advantage is in the codex in that the Nikon gives you a choice of either an MP4 or MOV file form
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formats, even in 4K mode. Whereas with the Canon, it has those options up to 1080, but if you move up to 4K
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you're stuck with the motion JPEG, which footage is fantastic. It looks great. There's no question
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about that. And I've done the C-log upgrade on my 5D Mark 4. So that's great as far as that goes
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but it also, that footage is massive. It's huge file size. And so there are settings. If you're a serious
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videographer and you're getting serious footage, that's an upside, not a downside. But for kind of the
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more running gun type footage that I use, say, for this channel, it's overkill. And it just means that
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there's a lot more processing time involved, which is why, of course, I'm filming on a Sony A6500 right now
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instead of a cannon. And so as a result, that's certainly a strength here for the Nikon. One other thing
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for the Nikon is if you want to do slow-mo, it will allow you to do 120 frames per second
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in 1080, whereas the cannon tops out at 60, and if you want to get to the 120, you've got to drop
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down to 720, and it's really not all that fantastic. So some advantages there. Of course, where you're
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let down is when it comes to the actual live view tracking, which isn't nearly as good, nearly as smooth
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as the cannons either in focus, racking, as you can see here
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There's more pulsing, and it's not as fast or as smooth. The cannon, it's just, it's fabulous with that
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The other thing is in actual face tracking. And the Nikon actually does a pretty fair job
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However, you'll note that in these scenes, for example, if I'm moving in and out away from the camera
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it's not nearly as smooth or as effective as just keeping everything perfectly in focus
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as what the canon is. Okay, now with the Nikon DA 50, I put it into face recognition mode
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and so let's try the same test. Looking over to the side, and looking to the other side
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looking up, looking down, hiding my face, looking back into the camera
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Okay, one more torture test on the DA50. I'm going to move at varying speeds in
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and out of my face towards the camera, just seeing how it does and adjusting for those focus
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changes and continue to track my face. Okay, so we're testing the face tracking
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I'm going to look to the side, to the other side, look back at the camera, look up, look
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down, cover my face, look back into the camera. Now for the torture test for the Canon DPAF, I'm going to move my face
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face also back and forth at varying speeds, just seeing how well that the tracking keeps up with that
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and follows movement and how rapidly and smoothly can make those adjustments. And so there's some
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give and take there as well. Now, as far as the ergonomics go, I mean, I'm not really qualified
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again, to make a fair determination in that I have been a cannon shooter for a lot of years
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everything is right where I want it pretty much on the Canon body
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It's got an excellent touchscreen. The menu I find are very well organized
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And something that the Canon does extremely well is its quick menu, the Q button
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which not only brings up all the information there, but allows you to make a quick change just kind of instantaneously there
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It's not quite the same here on the D850, at least that I figured out because whereas I can bring things up here and then I can show the kind of
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the equivalent of a quick menu, I don't find that I have the same flexibility in just making
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instantaneous changes right there at the same level. And so I don't find that process quite as
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refined. The other thing that I found is that there are probably a strength and a weakness
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Strength is that there is a lot of different physical buttons on this
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And so once you won't become familiar with where everything is, it allows you to, you know, make changes, you know, on the fly fairly quick
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However, some of these, you know, button placements, I just don't understand
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One of those is that I was having an issue trying to change where the focus point was and it was kind of locked into the center And it turned out I had to I looked and looked and finally I googled it and you know
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discovered that there is a switch here on the back that locks the focus point to the center
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Why? I can't figure out. I'm at this stage, I'm a pro shooter and have been for a long time
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and I don't necessarily see the advantage of that. The other thing is, is that when it comes to, you know
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trying to quickly select your kind of burst mode here. Using this dial requires you to hit
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a kind of a little finicky button and then turn a dial that, you know, frankly could move a little
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bit smoother to choose that mode. And so I don't, I didn't find that all that intuitive. And I know
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that for a long time Nikon shooters, having, you know, your AF button down here on the side is
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is probably second nature to you. I find for myself that it disrupts
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what I'm normally going to be doing with my left hand and supporting, having to bring it back
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to the body to get at that. And I think that, you know, Canon having a button right here by comparison
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that kind of accomplishes the same thing to me is just much more intuitive because I can go at it
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without disrupting my actual process. And so as far as the build of it, it actually has a really
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fantastic grip. It's a little bit chunkier the grip than that of the 5D Mark 4. And if you have
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small hands, you may find the D850 a handful. For me, it actually fits my hand nicely, and I
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you know, I like the feel of the grip. And so I'm sure that I would adjust to the ergonomics here
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but I just don't find some of the things as intuitive as what I would like. And it's not like I've
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only used Canon. I've used other systems that I found even in them, just a little bit easier
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to be able to figure out to make it do what I wanted to do without having to revert to
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Googling and reading and, you know, digging into a manual to find out how to make that change
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And so I did have to do that some on several occasions with the D850
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And so I would say ergonomically, I think that Canon, in my opinion, still has a bit of an edge
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when it comes to that. But, you know, bottom line and all of these things is that there is no
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perfect DSLR out there. You know, if I had the ability to do it, I would love to be able to
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take some of these strengths, you know, from Sony systems and from Canon systems and from
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Nikon systems and build the perfect DSLR with all those pieces. But they all have their
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proprietary technologies and they're all have their own unique advantages. And so I think as you've
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seen in this, even in the sensor performance, there is some give and take. I think in all of these
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systems. The reality is, is that all of the top cameras, and I'm looking forward to soon reviewing the
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Sony, A7R Mark 3 that seems to finally be at a place where it is a true competitor to some of these
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DSLRs. I think that with all of these systems, they're really so good as far as the sensors that
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if you can't get good images out of them, it's not the camera's fault. They all have the ability to
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do more in post with the images than what we've ever seen before. And I think that what
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Nikon has done here is unlike the 5DSR, the 5DS, 5DSR, they are specialist cameras and that they're
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very good at doing the high resolution thing and they're only, you know, so-so at doing the other
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things. D-850 is a camera that has managed to take the strengths, most of the strengths of the
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5DS, 5DSR and has managed to put them into a package that is actually a lot more like the
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you know, the 5D mark for. And so that's certainly a, you know, a pretty smashing success for Nikon
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And yes, while there is some give and take, I don't think that there's any question that out of the current crop of, you know, in this kind of category of cameras, the D850 has got more going for it in terms of not just the spec list, but the reality of what it brings to the table than what any of them have
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I'm not about to go and trade in my 5D Mark 4
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This is a very familiar, comforting piece of gear that does everything I ask it to do
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I have no complaints really on that sense. But at the same time, I'm objective enough to realize that there are certainly some things that the Nikon D850 does a little bit better
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I'm Dustin Abbott, and if you'll look in the description down below, you can find a gallery of images that I've taken with the D850 during my brief review period here
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Of course, you can follow me on social media. You can become a patron and tell you what I'll do
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I'll throw some raw files from the D850 there for you to play around with for my patrons if you want to access those
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And of course, if you haven't already, please click that subscribe button. Thanks for watching
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Have a great day

Nikon D850 vs Canon 5D Mark IV | Part 2: AF, Resolution, Video, & More | 4K

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Nikon D850 vs Canon 5D Mark IV | Part 2: AF, Resolution, Video, & More | 4K

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