Test shows that Rolling shutter on the 5D Mark IV is a pretty big issue with 4K

The folks over at DPReview have got their hands on a 5D Mark IV. One of the tests they’ve performed with respect to video is how well it handles movement. Rolling shutter artifacts are just a fact of life with CMOS sensors. These types of sensor capture a scene line by line. They do it very quickly, although not quickly enough to prevent things from appearing to lean or just looking plain weird.

CMOS sensors have improved on the rolling shutter issues over the last few years. Canon’s new 5D Mark IV, however, doesn’t really seem to be that great at all. It’s certainly not as good as many were hoping for, especially if shooting 4K.

In the video, the 5D Mark IV is shown alongside the EOS 1D X Mark II. They also put it up against the Sony A6300.  In each test, they had both cameras connected to an arm simultaneously to ensure they both moved at the same speed.

At every framerate, the 5D Mark IV shows quite a substantial amount more “lean” due to rolling shutter than the 1D X Mark II. If your filming is largely static, then it might not be much of an issue. If you want to include any kind of pan, or have subjects moving across the frame, this may not be the ideal camera for you. Even slow pans showed buildings to be vertical on the 1D X Mark II yet showed significant lean on the 5D Mark IV.

When put up against the A6300, though, the results are a little more interesting. Framerate changes don’t seem to make much difference to the 5D Mark IV. Regardless of what you shoot at. At 23.98fps, the amount of lean appears to be the same. Bumping things up to 29.98fps, the A6300 shows a slight improvement (similar to the 1D X Mark II), where the 5D Mark IV does not.

They do say that the issue is not so much of a problem when shooting 1080p. They suggest that when shooting fast action or when camera movements are required, that you drop the resolution. Although, that does kind of defeat the purpose of shooting a camera which records 4K.

Between this, the crop factor, and that it does not allow for a clean 4K output to an external recorder, the 5D Mark IV is turning out to not quite be the video beast many were hoping for. But, we’ll see how it is in the real world once it becomes available and in the hands of filmmakers.

You can see sample screen grabs and further analysis over on DPReview.

Has the 5D Mark IV news coming out disappointed you? Or are you optimistic that it’s not as bad as some reports make it appear? Are you going to get one? Will you get something else instead now? Or will you stick with your 5D Mark III for a little while longer? Let us know in the comments.