We report on x-ray magnetic circular dichroism experiments in pulsed fields up to 30 T to follow the rotations of individual magnetic moments through the field-induced phase transition in the ferrimagnet HoFe5Al7. Near the ground state, we observe simultaneous stepwise rotations of the Ho and Fe moments and explain them using a two-sublattice model for an anisotropic ferrimagnet with weak intersublattice exchange interactions. Near the compensation point, we find two phase transitions. The additional magnetization jump reflects the fact that the Ho moment is no longer rigid as the applied field acts against the intersublattice exchange field.