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Cameras

Review: Canon EOS R (The Mirrorless Camera That Truly Surprised Me)

Chris Gampat
11 Comments
10/16/2018
13 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Canon 50mm f1.2 L USM RF Canon EOS R review product images 1

Last Updated on 04/20/2023 by Chris Gampat

If you had told me a year ago that Canon would come out with a camera like the Canon EOS R, and that I’d actually purchase one, I would’ve laughed in your face. But Canon has genuinely surprised me. The Canon EOS R camera is targeted at the semi-professional and high-end enthusiast and can be looked at as a bit of a fusion between the Canon 5D Mk IV and the Canon 6D Mk II stuffed into a mirrorless camera body and given a few new adjustments that make it a unique Canon product vs being another Sony copycat. The camera houses a more-than-sufficient, full-frame 30.3MP sensor that is a happy medium between many of the 24MP sensors and the 42MP+ sensors out there in full-frame cameras. To that end, one could argue that it is sort of positioning itself to be a jack of all trades and a master of none.

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In real life and extended use with the camera, I can say with all confidence that it’s doing a pretty darn good job.

Editor’s Note: This review was updated in March 2023.

Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Build quality
  • Weather sealed like crazy
  • Autofocus is good
  • Protects the sensor when off
  • Canon’s menu system is still simple
  • Ergonomics feel nice
  • With a lightweight lens, it feels just as nice as a Sony camera
  • These are some of Canon’s best RAW files in years
  • Good battery life
  • Fast Wifi transfers, though not as simple as Sony’s

Cons

  • Needs Dual SD cards
  • Needs a joystick
  • The magic touch bar is odd and could use refinement
  • Optimizing the way the ISO, aperture, and shutter speed dials work, such as the automatic remetering for ISO, not cool
  • Canon needs to improve or change their face and eye detection
  • Bigger than Sony, but the L lenses are about on par with their G Master glass

Gear Used

We tested the Canon EOS R with the RF 50mm f1.2 L USM, RF 24-105mm f4 L IS USM, and a number of Canon and Sigma lenses in addition to Canon radio flashes.

Tech Specs

Specs taken from the Adorama listing

  • RF Mount Compatible with RF Lenses and EF/EF-S Lenses (with optional Adapter)
  • 30.3 Megapixel Full-frame CMOS Sensor and DIGIC 8 Image Processor.
  • Dual Pixel CMOS AF with 5,655 Manually Selectable AF Points
  • 4K 30p with Canon Log and 10 bit 4:2:2 HDMI Output
  • Built-in EVF with 3.69 Million Dots, Vari-angle Touchscreen LCD and Dot-matrix LCD Panel
  • USB Charge Compatible.
  • Silent Shutter
  • Mobile Workflow.
  • Sensor Size: Full Frame Camera
  • Max Video Quality: 4K 30fps
  • Viewfinder: Built-In Viewfinder
  • Wifi: Wi-Fi: Yes
  • Special Features: Bluetooth
  • Configuration: Body Only

Ergonomics

Taken from our first impressions post

The Canon EOS R is pretty unique in that when you turn the camera off and remove the lens the shutter comes down. That protects the sensor. As simple as this sounds, no one else does this. Innovative? In this case, yes. No one else does it and I’m not sure why.

As you can tell from this image, the front of the Canon EOS R is pretty plain Jane. Not a whole lot to look at here.

Turn to the top of the Canon EOS R and what you’ll spot are a number of controls. It’s much like their DSLRs. On the left side of the camera, you’ll spot the on/off switch. I really wish this controlled the ISO instead.

On one side you’ve got two exposure control dials, a video record button, a shutter release, and a top LCD screen that we weren’t able to make glow despite the glowy function button. Instead, it switched up what information we saw. This made looking at said information difficult in the dark.

Again, I didn’t get much time with the camera thus far.

Now here is the biggest let down about the Canon EOS R; the single card slot. At least it’s an SD card slot and not XQD like Nikon did.

The back of the Canon EOS R includes a number of options like the LCD screen, playback, autofocus point selection on the right side near the thumb tab, and the new multifunction bar. Then there is the directional pad.

Canon’s viewfinder for the Canon EOS R looks really nice. And more than anything, I’m perhaps most excited to look through this and use it over and over again once it is properly calibrated for my eyes.

Build Quality

Canon EOS R

Look at this: would you let your Sony, Nikon, or Fujifilm camera do this? If you’re absolutely intimidated by this image or think I’m crazy, you’d be shocked at how resilient those cameras are. While I’d say without a doubt that Sony has the most weaknesses when it comes to build quality, their cameras are still very weather sealed. The Canon EOS R, in this case with a native lens, was able to survive quite the rainstorm in Astoria, Queens. It continued to work and the only problem I had was that the EVF sometimes thought my eye was there due to water droplets. But to be fair, the entire industry has this problem and I doubt there is a single engineer that would say otherwise.

But look at how exposed the hot shoe is; despite this it kept clicking and functioning. Major props are given to the Canon EOS R for that.

Also check out our list of the best weather sealed prime lenses to adapt to the Canon EOS R.

Ease of Use

Straightforward shooting photos is pretty simple, but I think the best customization of the Canon EOS R comes when you start to unlock what the dials and buttons can do. I’ve experimented with the exposure controls in two different ways;

  1. Shutter speed on the front dial, aperture on the back dial, and ISO control on the back magic touch bar
  2. Shutter speed on the front, aperture on the lens dial, and ISO control on the back dial

In my tests, I’ve found that every time you meter a scene and then re-meter, the Canon EOS R will try to change the ISO no matter what. This happens even if you’re in manual and not auto ISO. It’s incredibly annoying especially if you’re shooting a scene with a flash. In fact, if this worked perfectly, I’d be fine with it. But, it’s frustrating–and that’s something that Canon will need to fix with a firmware update.

Editor’s Note: This has been fixed with firmware updates.

But besides this, you’ll rather enjoy the touch menu controls and cool additions like the magic touch bar. If you wire the ISO control to this button, you’ll want to ensure that it allows you to lock it. Otherwise the touch bar can be a tad too sensitive and also annoying. What’s also annoying though is the fact that you’ll need to press and hold the left side to unlock and lock it. A dedicated switch around it would have make this much easier.

Then there is the big other thing that annoys me: why the heck did Canon remove the joystick? This is an essential item on any camera that is meant to be serious in any way. Lastly, what also annoys me is that you need to hold down the illumination button to wake up the LCD screen on top unless you set it up to do otherwise. While I’ve done a lot of complaining here, I should talk about what the Canon EOS R does really right.

  • When you turn the camera off, the shutter comes down and protects the sensor.
  • The battery life is pretty great.
  • The variety of what you can get with the autofocus options is helpful.
  • The Wifi connection is quick and reliable.
  • The ability to be specifically locked into a mode and not really move out of there is nice–and that goes for both photo and video. If I’m shooting in manual mode, I’m most likely not coming out of it.
  • The use of the touchscreen to navigate the menu quickly. You can get to whatever you want within two or three taps.

When it comes to ease of use, there are surely innovations here, but I genuinely don’t think they’re enough to say that this is a revolutionary camera. They’re good, and they’re very distinctly Canon in the DNA. The only thing that I’d perhaps comment on a bit more is the face and eye detection. With Sony’s system, I feel like your needing to take extra steps every time sort of takes your mind out of shooting portraits. But with Canon, the eye AF is wired in. Unfortunately for Canon, it’s pretty awful in comparison to how accurate Sony’s autofocus is.

We’ve talked a lot more about what Canon needs to do via firmware updates right here.

Update: In December 2021, Capture One 22 gave the Canon EOS R wireless tethering. To do this, you just need to update to the latest firmware and have Capture One 22. Then, using more or less the same process presented in this video, you can tether with Capture One 22.

With this update, the Canon EOS R becomes incredibly powerful. You’ve got a solidly built, weather-resistant camera that can use great lenses like the Canon RF 50mm f1.2 L. You’ll get fantastic image quality when shooting portraits or anything else. And if you find that you can’t afford the Canon EOS R5 but you just want to shoot portraits, you’ve got most of the Canon EOS R5’s functionality right here. When you shoot a photo, it takes a couple of seconds to beam a RAW photo to a computer. For the record, I have Verizon FiOS in NYC with 1GB up and down. I’m shooting to a 2019 iMac fully spec’d out. If you’re one of those newer photographers that machine gun shoots their portraits, you may be disappointed. But if you shoot old-school and shoot a single photo, have a model change the pose, and then shoot and other photo; you’ll be all set.

The Canon EOS R is probably nearly at the end of its life. But realistically, Canon gave us a brand new camera towards the end. We can’t really complain.

Metering

In our Sunny 16 tests, we found the Canon EOS R to nail the metering pretty darned well. I feel like the results from the Canon EOS R look and feel a bit like medium format slide film and to that end, you should expose it as such. I tended to underexpose in bright situations and overexpose in darker situations. Then in post, I’d make the best balance of the difference or I’d simply be happy with my exposure. The Canon EOS R, like every other mirrorless camera out there, has exposure preview built in. But for what it’s worth I barely ever use it.

Either way, know that if you’re shooting a landscape or street photography then Sunny 16 works just fine.

Autofocus

In most situations the Canon EOS R is fast and accurate. In fact, in my entire time using the camera, it probably only missed focus a few time in low lit situations where I was using face detection and one time when I was using the wide horizontal autofocus area and trying to track a moving dancer at f1.2 or stopped down a bit. But even so, that’s difficult to do. However, I have to admit that the Canon EOS R was still able to deliver enough usable images in every situation.

I’ve already spoken about the Canon EOS R’s eye detection above and I also do so here. It’s great for portrait shooters for sure.

Update: In the long run, Canon did a pretty good job with the Canon EOS R. With firmware 1.4, it sped up quite considerably to be much more on par with cameras from Sony. And overall, it’s hard to not like the camera. If you’re shooting portraits or landscapes, you’ll be all set. The lack of a direct joystick is a bit annoying, but if you’re shooting portraits then you won’t need it. You can just set it to face and eye-detection and it will just perform well. In fact, it will perform as well as the Canon EOS R5 when it comes to human detection.

Update March 2023

Firmware 1.8.0 has been out for over a year. And so this review update was long overdue but we simply forgot to do it. Here’s what it added to the Canon EOS R.

Firmware Version 1.8.0 incorporates the following enhancements:

1. Improves color balance when the RF50mm F1.8 STM lens is attached to the EOS R camera.
2. Support has been added for the following lenses*:
- RF70-200mm F2.8 L IS USM
- RF100-500mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM
*With Firmware Version 1.7.0 and later.

We tested this new update with the Canon RF 100-500mm f4.5-7.1 L IS USM in the summer of 2022 and even into the autumn. You can find a lot of references within our head-to-head against the Canon EOS R5 and the Canon EOS R7.

In the long term, the Canon EOS R didn’t get the machine learning features that the Canon EOS R5 and Canon EOs R7 have. But it still has very good human detection features. And if you’re photographing people, then it still holds its own with those other cameras very well. Here’s what we said in our head-to-head:

The EOS R still kept up with moving subjects during a sports shoot with little to no problems. Any errors that happened are due to the electronic shutter function. But in mechanical shutter mode, this test confirmed that my purchase of the Canon EOS R was one of the best I’d made.

To clarify further, this test was done with the Canon RF 100-500mm lens. And I was pleasantly surprised at just how good the camera continued to perform. Truly, if you’re one of those photographers that just shoots headshots or that only photographs people, the Canon EOS R is still a great camera for the most part. Where it and the rest of Canon’s lineup falls apart is with focusing on POCs in low light that have more melanin than folks in Japan, where the cameras are made. You can talk about there not being much contrast all you want, but we should be way beyond that at this point. If cameras can find a subject to focus on in very low light at -7 EV due to the exposure preview, then they should be able to find a person in that too. They also shouldn’t necessarily rely on contrast as small sonar units are readily available these days. And years ago, Polaroid used to focus on people using sonar.

W

Image Quality

Overall, the image quality of the Canon EOS R is more than acceptable. I’d honestly call it some of the best image quality that Canon has delivered thus far in that it again is a jack of all trades. It helps deliver lots of detail, but not so much that you’re seeing crazy pores from your subjects in many situations. It has good high ISO output, and you’ll see image noise, but the noise looks film-like. It isn’t as clean as Sony’s offerings, but it’s still more than adequate. On top of that, the RAW file versatility in Adobe Lightroom is pretty decent.

RAW File Versatility

Edit

Using Adobe Lightroom with the Canon EOS R RAW files, I was able to deliver images that look really nice. The details that one can get from the shadows are greater, but the details from the highlights still aren’t too bad either. Again, I feel like part of this still dictates that you be a smart shooter. As you can see below with the original file though, I wasn’t such a smart shooter and instead I embraced that pastel look of Fujifilm Pro 400H. Then I was able to edit the RAW to get lots from it.

Original

Overall, I can’t really complain here. If you’re going for a camera like this, you ideally will know what you’re doing.

In Capture One 12

Original
Edit

Like I’ve seen with many other camera systems out there, Capture One 12 gives the photographer all the tools they need to make the right amount of edits and yet still have the image look like a photo. One can go ahead and make an HDR using gradients if they wish or they can go ahead and just create an image that looks natural yet great at the same time.

Original
Edit

Even at ISO 1600, the Canon EOS R can get a lot of details out of blown out highlights yet still make an image look natural.

Original
Edit

For what it’s worth, I’m going to thoroughly enjoy editing files from the Canon EOS R in Capture One 12

High ISO Output

ISO 1600

Considering the results that I’m getting at higher ISOs, I can’t really complain here. The image noise is clean enough for me in most situations. If you’re pushing more than one stop, then you’re going to start to introduce noise that you don’t really want. Part of this is why I say that you should shoot as close to your creative vision in-camera as possible with the Canon EOS R.

ISO 1600

Even at a higher ISO and a shallow depth of field you’re getting a ton of details.

ISO 6400
ISO 3200

This is some of the cleanest ISO 3200 I’ve seen from Canon. There’s a lot of detail in the chicken.

Extra Image Samples

What you’re seeing here are images I’ve shot and shown already, except that all of these were RAW files that I edited.

Conclusions

Likes

  • Lots of the little things
  • Ergonomics are nice
  • Battery life
  • The lenses are what will make this system.

Dislikes

  • Needs a joystick
  • Dual card slots would be really nice.
  • I personally wanted an updated version of the 5Ds’s sensor.

I like the Canon EOS R. In fact, I bought one. But I’ll be honest, I bought it partially because I need to review more gear in Canon mount, and while I’ve used metabones adapters, they’re not always the best choices vs Canon’s own option. However, I believe in this lens system. They’re doing a lot of things other folks aren’t doing. And while the sensor isn’t image stabilized, I have no problems here because the image stabilization of the lenses is really great. I never found it to be a problem in real-life use.

To that end, I need to give the Canon EOS R an Editor’s Choice award. Want one? Check Amazon.

autofocus camera Canon EOS R eye detection high iso image quality image stabilization nikon Portrait Mode raw file versatility sensor sony weather sealing
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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.
11 Comments

  1. Guest

    05/01/2019 6:05 am
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    i imagine you are shooting still life …as a modal sitting still at 1/6 will have movement most of the time at 30MP i find someone talking you wont get many sharp photos at 1/15 evan with 12MP FF ”” landscape if their is a hint of wind as well

  2. Guest

    05/01/2019 6:05 am
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    What are you shooting at 1/6 sec?

  3. Guest

    05/01/2019 6:05 am
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    Steak house, pitch dark venues

  4. Guest

    05/01/2019 6:05 am
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    What about lacking ibis? I usually shoot at 1/6 sec speed and I need ibis!

  5. Guest

    05/01/2019 6:05 am
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    Unrelated but a feedback to your webpage.. viewing it on iPad or phone is horrible, ads cover almost half the article instead of being able to utilise whole screen. Maybe switch your ads to bottom or full size but in between paragraphs instead?

  6. Guest

    05/01/2019 6:05 am
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    I’m deciding to buy the EOS R, to replace my 6D, which is the second body paired to 5D Mark IV.
    I’m really curious to try the method of choosing the focus point, because my biggest fear is the lack of the joystick.
    My main type of job is wedding and I’m a bit worried about losing the ability to switch easily and fast the focus point, because usually at weddings the action if very fast and you have to act in few seconds to not lose the shot.
    I guess it’s a matter of getting used to the new way of choosing the focus point.

  7. Guest

    05/01/2019 6:05 am
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    Hello AndreaM.

    The touch screen is hard to describe in writing for me.

    One issue you might have with using the touch screen for focus (this is an item you have to change in menu… not sure why it isn’t a default) is… imagine your camera up to your face. The touchscreen can be extremely close to your face, so your thumb has to slide and glide around pretty close to your face.

    That being said, I have found it pretty easy to adjust to. I am not a professional photographer but an advanced hobbyist though, so your experience may be different.

    The way I use it and maybe this will help, is to set the screen for tap to focus. When your thumb first hits the screen, it selects the point that is under your finger. Simply slide up, left, down, or in any angle/direction to move the focus box. I find it doesn’t track at 100% speed but is “good enough.”

    If you don’t want to lay down the money without feeling confident it is the right choice, it might make sense to rent the EOS-R for a weekend (assuming you have a free weekend… weddings tend to happen then…). Setup a faux wedding, maybe get some friends as stand ins. And then just try it out. I love mine. I wish it had the speed of the 1Dx but honestly, I never really used that function of the 1Dx that often so I don’t miss it that much.

    Hope that helps!

  8. Guest

    05/01/2019 6:05 am
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    Set the touchscreen up to allow you to choose the focus point. I don’t miss the joystick at all and this is faster in many cases as you can set it up to just move to where you touch as soon as you touch the screen, then slide to refine the actual point.

    With 5665 or whatever focus points, imagine using the joystick with that. If you didn’t restrict the amount of points you’d likely be annoyed about how long it takes to get the box where you want it.

    I have an EOS R. I had a 1Dx. I missed the joystick. Then I found the menu setting to allow me to move around with the touchscreen. All I miss from the 1Dx now is the raw speed (not RAW) and the satisfying shutter click.

  9. Guest

    05/01/2019 6:05 am
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    Thanks for this review that narrows down to what really matters, especially so by a photographer who particularly likes to meter-to-taste. Agree with the joystick, got used to it so much that now it has become necessary. Not so for the eye detection (really, do we need this on cameras?). As for lenses, the 24-105 looks good while the 50/1.2 looks darn tempting. Time to see what’s left in the piggy bank

  10. Guest

    05/01/2019 6:05 am
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    Transferring every raw shot via WIFI it’s battery and time consuming.
    Plus it isn’t a reliable way to transfer data.
    If you have to shoot a wedding your battery will last 3-4 hours doing continuous wifi transfers.
    Of course if the connection is reliable.
    Transferring 40+Mb RAW to a mobile phone? I usually fill 2x 32GB cards with full resolution RAW in every wedding (and that’s just one body of two).
    I think the best way to avoid any issue with memory is replacing it every 1-2 year if you shoot a lot and avoid filling it till it’s nominal capacity and doing backups during the day.
    Usually at the reception you have the time to do that.
    And of course buying quality SD cards. Usually it’s better to buy bigger cards because the total life of a flash memory it’s longer on bigger sized flash cards.
    It’s also a good habit to split the work between multiple cards, so if one breaks you will not lose the whole shooting.
    Despite that I’m going to replace my 6D with the EOS R, paired with the 5D Mark IV I already own it would be a perfect duo, I think.
    Plus I’ve spotted an aftermarket RF-Canon FD adapter so it would be very interesting using that lenses again on a digital Canon body!

  11. Guest

    05/01/2019 6:05 am
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    Hi Chris,
    I own the EOS R too. And I am so surprised about, that Canon has made a great MILC!
    Why complain the joystick! You can use the LCD Monitor for that, even, when you looking through the EVF!!! And one slot SD-Card! You can set WIFI and each shot will transmitt to smartphone/iPad or computer!!!
    I am a little bit disappointed about all people who compare the EOS R to other MILC!!!! Why? Each brand has some good and some unlike!
    The 30 MP-Sensor is enough and awesome!
    I am shure Canon will give an firmware-update in the next month!
    Now – let’s rock the EOS R! And great job Canon! Big compliment…..

Comments are closed.

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