How Does the Canon EOS R5 Compare to the Sony a7R IV When It Comes to Shooting Stills?

Photographer and educator Matt Granger just got his hands on the new Canon EOS R5 and, trying to ignore all of the chat about overheating, set about comparing it for shooting stills directly with the Sony a7R IV. Check out this short video to get his initial impressions.

The Canon EOS R5 is pretty hard to get ahold of right now, and body-only it will set you back $3,899. The Sony a7R IV, released in September last year, is a few hundred dollars cheaper, offers an extra 16 megapixels (61 over the R5’s 45), and, unlike the Canon, will arrive in a matter of days.

Granger’s testing when it comes to low-light performance and image quality seems pretty exhaustive, and you can grab a zip file containing all of his raw files by clicking here.

Despite his best efforts to avoid getting drawn into the ongoing debate about overheating, Granger is — to his own frustration — unable to avoid it. The back and forth continues as to whether Canon has been somewhat disingenuous with its marketing of the R5’s video capabilities, but if there’s one advantage to the shortage of R5 units available, it’s that customers have plenty of time to do their research into whether the limitations make the new Canon flagship mirrorless camera the right choice for them.

Have a dig through the raw files and let us know what you think in the comments below.

Andy Day's picture

Andy Day is a British photographer and writer living in France. He began photographing parkour in 2003 and has been doing weird things in the city and elsewhere ever since. He's addicted to climbing and owns a fairly useless dog. He has an MA in Sociology & Photography which often makes him ponder what all of this really means.

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38 Comments

So you cannot take him seriously because of his body shape?

Something wrong with you . It’s unnecessary to be so mean spirited . You must hate yourself .

Wow, talk about being a jerk...

...and this statement is your contribution? Such spectacular junk. BTW, why are you still watching Barney?

These kind of comments should get you banned from this site. I don't agree with the nikon guy but this is unacceptable!!!!

Yet he is hanging out with hot Asian chicks, while you spend the days trolling the internet from your parents basement.

Since when did body shaming become part of a video critique ? Usually Matt puts out a good review but this one seems rushed and I was surprised it's title was about comparing photography features etc but he dislikes it because of video features.

A shameful comment.

Legendary comedy!

Wow, thats audacious ...

Why isn't this guy banned?

Pretty sure skinny has only been 'in' for about 150 years... Before that, it just meant you were poor.l AF.

You don't get it do you? You and your fucked up attitude is not welcome here, get lost.

Don't feed the troll.

David, are you kidding me??? Did you not see this assholes post above?

Classic troll symptoms; post an outrageous reply and watch for the reactions. Then, post absurd replies to the reactions. Probably getting his 'jollies' while reading the replies.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but to be honest, now you make me more curious to see the video. Likely you are just creating some free advertisements for him?

I wonder why your profile avatar displays the annoying insect that I just experienced in the country side. May be you have to hide some of your own ugliness?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but to be honest, now you make me more curious to see the video. Likely you are just creating some free advertisements for him?

I wonder why your profile avatar displays the annoying insect that I just experienced in the country side. May be you have to hide some of your own ugliness?

What did this review proved? I looked at Canon jpegs (I couldn't open Canon raw files) and Sony raw samples. Both cameras produce very good IQ portraits. So what? Anybody expected anything less from top of line cameras?

I hate video reviews. Anyone want to summarize?

He made my day .. with his IBIS tests => with no one photo of a model sharp under 1/400 at 70mm !!! (as usual)
A pure demonstration of an overrated function on the web !!!
Imagine the same with Children or Animals !!! ibis is not efficient for vidéo (far fless than Video stab on cropped 4K) and also for photo, as it will never stabilize a living/moving subject... just usefull for flower pots.

The fact that he's got TWO R5's and I'm still waiting on mine make me hate on him even more! LOL!

"trying to ignore all of the chat about overheating" ... if you're shooting and reviewing stills, overheating has zero relevance. You don't need to "try" to ignore it. It doesn't affect you.

Unfortunately this is not true. As the camera gets warmer during taking stills, if you are into long exposure photography or night photography where you need longer exposures, heat becomes a problem -> you get more hot pixels. I did comparisons to Nikon Z7, Sony a7RIII, 5Dsr, Canon RP and the R5 is significantly worse than all tested cameras when it comes to hot pixels.

So if you are a landscape photographer, it is relevant. I am, have the R5 and I am currently concerned and hope for a firmware that improves the energy consumption of the R5. For example the card slots should not get hot when you just turn on the camera and don't take photos... and so on

Michael are you planning on keeping the R5? I'm waiting on delivery, and I love shooting long exposure, but hot pixels is the devil. How unhappy would I be? Maybe I should dump all my canon glass and switch. I'm just a very enthusiastic amateur and happy to stay that way.

I will keep mine. I will need long exposure NR more often, but at least it works. I was hoping that the R5 would be at least as good as the 5DsR (5 year old) and I wouldn't need Long Exposure NR for 2 or 4 minute exposures already. But it seems this is what I will have to do. But there are also many positive things. If you want, check my Youtube channel. Lifting the Shadows for example now works so much better than with previous canon cameras.

Sony had overheating problems with the video side. I don't believe those overheating problems were a part of the Sony stills shooter.

I'm a stills shooter, but might explore video I found this interesting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnG00Fhu5pI&t=989s

I can't take photos with an atomos ninja though ;-) Especially not with cards out. But I hope there's a way to improve the power consumption, expecially for the card slots in passive mode

Wow I just watched your video. I have been sitting on my 6D for a long time waiting for a canon camera I can get excited about. The 6D has been great for me, after I tape it all up for the light leaks and then post clean up the 5-15 or so hot pixels in a 1-2 minute. I can't imagine going worse, I'm going to have to do some serious testing when I finally get the camera. Since I'm just a very enthusiastic enthusiast this is a huge expenditure. I imagine the R6 does the same. thanks for the video post.

Aside from that hot pixel issue, the R5 is actually a very capable camera. I've written a summary here: https://www.mibreit-photo.com/blog/canon-eos-r5-image-quality/

Mr.Granger is very good at playing around with scantly dressed south-east asian women and thats about it :)

was reviewing stills ( taking cue from Gordon probably ) and then started flip_flopping bout video features

All these body-shaming comments, and they don't even have the guts to use their real names.

For anyone who hasn't wasted their time with this video yet, know that there's not much too it. Matt does zero comparisons of image quality between the two cameras. No analysis at all. Perhaps he doesn't have a RAW converter (beyond Canon's own) to open the ones from the R5. I don't know. What you'll get out of the video is a discussion of the overheating—another data point but nothing you haven't already heard—and an ad hoc focus test that examines how each camera body deals with focusing through obstructions (tall grass). Spoiler: the Sony seems to do slightly better but both cameras perform well.

Exactly why i can't take Matt seriously. Adobe Raw DNG converter beta is available and converts these files flawlessly. He didn't think to check that? It's free software.
He's a personality, but i find his reviews pretty useless.

Watched the video. What part of this is a comparison of the 2 camera's stills IQ? I have no interest in video and that's why I watched this. But he never actually compared the stills performance other than some comments about AF when shooting his model through tall grass. He spent time complaining about overheating, which he said at the beginning wasn't the point of his comparison, but that seemed to be his primary point. What a waste.

"Complaining about overheating"? "Seemed to be his primary point"? What are you, CNN? He spent about 1.5 mins on the overheat subject, and most of it were flashback clips back in Feb and March where he predicted this would happen.