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Features

The Best Full Frame Cameras for Landscape Photography

Chris Gampat
No Comments
07/05/2022
5 Mins read
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When photographers shoot landscape photography, they often want full-frame or medium format. The reason for this is often because they want to edit their photos in post-production. Full-frame cameras give a whole lot of versatility throughout the workflow. With that said, we’ve reviewed the best full-frame cameras for landscape photography. And to help you figure out what to get, we’re rounding them up right here for you.

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How We Chose the Best Full Frame Cameras for Landscape Photography

For some insight into how we chose the best full frame cameras for landscape photography, check this out below:

  • Our ethics don’t allow us to talk about products we haven’t reviewed within these roundups. Lucky for you, we’ve tested every camera on the market. Every single photo in this roundup was shot by our staff during our review process. And each section has a hyperlink to our reviews so you can make an informed purchasing decision for yourself.
  • The Sony a7r IV is one of the best full frame cameras for landscape photography due to its massive amount of resolution. You’ll be able to make huge prints with it.
  • The Canon EOS R5 is one of the best full frame cameras for landscape photography because of its resolution and stellar colors.
  • The Nikon z7 II is one of the best full frame cameras for landscape photography because of its beautiful lens selection. We think you’re really going to like these.
  • The Leica SL2 is one of the best full frame cameras for landscape photography because of its insane durability and highly detailed images. 

Sony a7r IV

Pros

  • Improved ergonomics
  • Blazing fast autofocus
  • Excellent weather sealing
  • Anti-flicker shooting
  • Dual UHS-II SD card slots
  • More resolution than most photographers will need

Cons

  • Limited touchscreen functionality: You still can’t navigate the menus or interact with the display.
  • Large file sizes (to be expected)

How’s the Image Quality?

In our review, we state:

“The combination of 61 megapixels with 15 stops of dynamic range means that the RAW files produced by the Sony A7R IV will provide a lot of information to work with during post-processing. Obviously, these files are quite large, with uncompressed RAW files averaging 120 MB in size. They will likely bring slower computers to their knees, but if your computer has the horsepower there are lots of details you can bring out of the highlight and shadow areas. For most photographers, that’s more information than they’ll ever need. If you happen to be in a situation where your only recourse is to recover details during post-production (see the included examples above and below), there’s thankfully plenty of it.”

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Canon EOS R5

Pros

  • Well built
  • Excellent battery life
  • So intuitive for a Canon shooter
  • Feels very good in the hand
  • Image stabilization is pretty much second to none.
  • Wonderful menu systems
  • Excellent details
  • Weather sealed
  • Reliable
  • Canon’s Mobile App connection setup is as simple as ever.
  • Doesn’t overheat with short clips
  • Wifi sending of full HD video is pretty fast
  • High ISO RAW files hold a fair amount of data. There’s great dynamic range and colors, but the noise is a bit painful.
  • Wireless RAW file transmission with Capture One 22

Cons

  • The joystick is in an odd spot.
  • In some ways feels like an old 60D, but it’s totally not.
  • I personally feel the magnification button is in an odd spot.
  • Can’t transfer 8K video via Wifi
  • 4K movie clips shorter than 30 seconds take a while to send, and then ultimately don’t end up on your phone.
  • High ISO Raw files above 12,800 tend to get a bit messy.
  • The price is a bit high at $3,899.

How’s the Image Quality?

In our review, we state:

“It was only when editing these RAW files that I started to remember how beautiful Canon’s colors can be. With my Canon EOS R, I don’t edit all that much. But the RAW files from the Canon EOS R5 remind me of the Canon 5D Mk II in some ways. If you make the white balance nice and warm, human skin looks radiant. Editing the color channels lets you create even more vivid colors. It’s why I fell in love with Canon many years ago. And with this, I feel like I’ve got a true successor to what I used to own.”

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Nikon z7 II

Pros

  • A much-improved autofocus system
  • Durable magnesium alloy build with weather-sealing
  • Image quality is great, especially with native Z lenses
  • In-body image stabilization
  • Dual card slots with XQD/CF Express and SD

Cons

  • While improved, the autofocus isn’t as good as Canon’s R series.
  • Eyepiece rubber sometimes blocks the eye sensor
  • Viewfinder blacks out

How’s the Image Quality?

In our review, we state:

“Like the first generation, I was impressed by the images coming from the 45.7-megapixel full-frame sensor. The dynamic range is good, with lots of wiggle room in the RAW files. With the high megapixel count, photos are incredibly detailed. The dual processors manage high ISOs pretty well.”

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Leica SL2

Pros

  • It’s built like a tank.
  • Once you get the philosophy behind its creation, you start to understand the things that set it apart.
  • You can hammer nails in with it. Well, not really.
  • Very well weather sealed
  • Fantastic image quality
  • Pretty good battery life
  • Access to a lot of great lenses
  • Image stabilization is very good.
  • The most finely detailed high ISO files that we’ve seen when printing

Cons

  • Nearly $6,000
  • Autofocus isn’t that of a nearly $6,000 camera, but it’s better than Panasonic’s.
  • The menu system and interface are things you need to wrap your head around.
  • No multiple exposure mode
  • I wish I could constantly see the information displayed in Menu 1.
  • The sensor is bound to get dirty.
  • It’s big and heavy.
  • I don’t want to carry it around for a long period of time.
  • The big size makes it a pain on trips.
  • No flip or tilt screen

How’s the Image Quality?

In our review, we state:

“The Leica SL2 is a camera that landscape photographers, cityscape shooters, portrait photographers and documentary photographers who slow down will truly appreciate. Every RAW file sings with information in it. Lots of highlight and shadow details can be recovered from them. Additionally, it handles noise very well. However, it’s not the best at handling noise. Sony still does a better job. But when I look at the image files, I get more details from images at ISO 3200 and beyond. And while there is surely more image noise vs Panasonic’s options, it’s not awful.”

Buy Now

The Phoblographer’s various product round-up features are done in-house. Our philosophy is simple: you wouldn’t get a Wagyu beef steak review from a lifelong vegetarian. And you wouldn’t get photography advice from someone who doesn’t touch the product. We only recommend gear we’ve fully reviewed. If you’re wondering why your favorite product didn’t make the cut, there’s a chance it’s on another list. If we haven’t reviewed it, we won’t recommend it. This method keeps our lists packed with industry-leading knowledge. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

canon Canon EOS R5 dynamic range full frame full frame cameras full frame cameras for landscape photography landscape photography leica Leica SL2s nikon nikon z7 II review sony sony a7r IV
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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