Videos

You’d be hard-pressed to come up with three digital cameras more different from one another than the Canon EOS M5, the Fujifilm GFX 50S, and the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. The first is an affordable, compact mirrorless camera, the second is a 50MP medium format mirrorless model, and the third is a big and powerful pro DSLR.

In the incongruous and extremely interesting video below, you’ll see the results of a real-world comparison between these three cameras that were designed for very different users and purposes. The idea is to see how the images stack up side-by-side on a computer screen, which is how the vast majority of photographs are viewed.

Thomas Heaton is a highly acclaimed landscape photographer, so this isn’t one of those shootouts made in a home studio, but rather a close look at an image he shot with each camera in the field. So here’s what we want you to do: Before watching the video, take a look at the three photos above, and write down which image you think was made with which camera.

Once you've made your choice, watch the video, listen to Heaton’s assessment, and see if you guessed correctly. This exercise would clearly be more meaningful if the images were larger or you were viewing high-resolution prints, but Heaton’s real point is that there’s a lot more that goes into making great photographs than the gear in your bag.

You can find more videos from Heaton on his YouTube channel. And be sure to look at another shootout we posted between full-frame and crop-sensor cameras.