Canon RF 24-50mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM Review

Dustin Abbott

April 23rd, 2024

The most common lenses on the market tend to be those we call “kit” lenses for the simple reason that these are the lenses sold in bundle with certain cameras. Canon has a few of these type lenses for different classes of cameras. That might be an L-series lens like the RF 24-70mm F2.8L IS (my review here) or the RF 24-105mm F4L IS (my review here) as a premium upgrade, the 24-105mm F4-7.1 IS as a cheaper option, or, if you go for the least expensive option, this lens, the Canon RF 24-50mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM. It’s not just about price, however, as Canon released the RF 24-50mm alongside the EOS R8 in 2023 to be a smaller, lighter kit lens for what was Canon’s smallest and lightest full frame mirrorless camera. The retail price of the RF 24-50mm is $299 USD, but the price when bundled with the R8 drops to $200. This review is designed to help you decide whether it is worth the money. You can get my findings in the video review here, or keep reading.

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Thanks to Camera Canada for sending me a review copy of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. All opinions and conclusions are my own. *I have done the majority of these tests on the Canon EOS R8, as this is the camera it is sold with for the moment.

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Kit lenses need to be jack-of-all-trades, as they will sometimes be the only lens that a person owns. They will typically cover moderately wide (24mm here) to some kind of telephoto (a rather short 50mm, here). The 24-50mm has lens based stabilization (IS), which is important considering that the EOS R8 (or the EOS RP or EOS R) don’t have camera based stabilization. That helps considerably when shooting handheld video and moderately helps to make up for the very slow maximum aperture values available here.

24mm = F4.5
25-31mm = F5
32-38mm = F5.6
39-50mm = F6.3

In fact, the camera reported that the lens was still on 24mm when the maximum aperture closed to F5, so it isn’t even a full millimeter of zoom before you lose that maximum aperture of F4.5! Canon just BARELY avoided the aperture starting at F5. If you don’t understand what all of this aperture talk means, just know that this is a lens that is going to do best when there is plenty of light. Fortunately the EOS R8 has great high ISO performance, as you’ll often need to raise the ISO value in lower light situations when using this lens.

But frankly, this is a lens better suited to better light and brighter days. Get yourself one of Canon’s inexpensive prime lenses (like the 28mm F2.8 STM or the 50mm F1.8 STM) for those situations, and enjoy this lens for the areas where it works better.

Build and Handling

This isn’t a very large zoom range (slightly over 2x), but it does cover some important focal lengths (24, 28, 35, and 50mm). You can go from this at 24mm:

to this at 50mm:

That’s undoubtedly useful, though the question should be asked: would the Canon RF 24-105mm F4 IS STM be a better choice? It costs only $100 more and has a much bigger zoom range. The biggest reason to choose the RF 24-50mm seems to be size and weight. The RF 24-50mm is just 68.6mm in diameter (2.7″) and is 58.4mm (2.3″) in length. It weighs 210g (7.4oz). The RF 24-105mm IS STM is 76.6mm (3.0″) in diameter and 88.8mm (3.5″) in length, and weighs in at 395g (13.9oz). That’s far from being unusually large, obviously, but it is nearly twice as heavy and considerably larger.

The premium option here (pictured above) is the 24-105mm F4L IS, and it obviously dwarfs the much smaller 24-50mm. The 24-105L is a much better match to Canon’s larger bodies (like my EOS R5), while the 24-50mm is unquestionably a better balancing lens on the much smaller EOS R8.

Here’s a breakdown of the specs overall for the two cheaper kit lenses:

The RF 24-50mm achieves its smaller size in part by being a retractable zoom. It is less than 60mm for storage, but is unusable in that form.

On screen will be a warning to “Set the lens to the shooting position”, as the lens is incapable of proper focus in the retracted position.

The inner barrel will extend a significant amount (almost 30mm) to achieve the 24mm shooting position. Once extended, this is a “rocker” style zoom that is longest at 24mm, shortest near 35mm, then extends back out at 50mm, though not as far as at 24mm.

The build quality here isn’t bad. Everything is plastic, but feels reasonably tough. I own the RF 28mm F2.8 STM and 50mm F1.8 STM, and the build quality feels roughly similar to those lenses. Canon remains rigidly fixed to their design philosophy for their two “classes” of lenses (non L and L-series lenses), which means that no non-L lens receives weather sealing of any kind. Canon is also the only company I know of that still utilizes plastic mounts in some of its lenses. It just feels cheap.

Also standard for Canon is the fact that the lens hood is not included, despite the proliferation of sub $200 (and even sub $100) lenses on the market that do come with the lens hood included. The Canon spec EW-63C is a $25 accessory, though here’s a link to a Vello branded hood for $10. This policy seems remarkably petty in today’s marketplace, but I’ve also been saying that for years and obviously Canon doesn’t care!

There are two rings on the lens. The larger is the zoom ring. It moves smoothly once extended, but the action to either retract the lens or extend it from retraction feels clunky. The second ring is the control ring, which we’ll explore in a moment.

The lens does have two switches on the side. One is an ON | OFF for the stabilizer, while the other is a unique three position switch that allows you to choose between AF | CONTROL | MF. Essentially this is about the control of the second ring. Choose AF, and the ring does nothing. Choose Control, and this becomes a control point whose function can be assigned from within the camera. It could be an aperture ring, Exposure Compensation, or any number of other things. Choose MF, and, as you would expect, the control ring functions as a manual focus ring. The manual focus action is fairly good, actually, with nice weight and precision.

The two rings are close together, but the unique diamond texture of Canon’s control rings helps set it apart by feel. It’s a consistent touch on Canon’s lenses that I enjoy.

The lens has a matte finish with a few platinum colored accent rings that marry nicely to the similar color on the lens mount of the camera.

The aperture iris has 7 blades, and, as you can see from the photo below, these are not particularly rounded blades, so maintaining a circular aperture shape is not a strength.

Perhaps not a big deal, as there will be few opportunities to stop this lens down and get much out of focus anyway!

Up front we have a common 58mm front filter thread.

The highest magnification here comes on the telephoto end where it can focus as closely as 30cm (11.8″) and produces a useful 0.19x magnification.

This is useful, but not nearly as useful as the 0.50x figure achievable by the 24-105mm IS STM lens.

The IS (Image Stabilization) system here is rated for 4.5 stops of assistance and up to 7 stops when used in conjunction with a camera equipped with IBIS. I primarily tested it on the Canon EOS R8 (no IBIS), and found that I was able to get stable handheld video footage along with some assistance with handholding lower shutter speeds for stills, though I find there’s always a practical limit to how long you can go before you get some shake.

The build and handling here are largely what I would expect. Nothing feels premium, but everything feels reasonably tough and functional. Canon’s typical cost cutting measures with their non-L lenses are annoying, but nothing that is unique to this particular lens.

Autofocus and Video

Canon utilizes a lead-screw type STM (stepping motor) here, and it is a pretty solid implementation. Autofocus speed is quick and (mostly) quiet, with some light clicks and whirs during major focus changes. I found that my focus speed was snappy both indoors and outdoors, though you’ll see some minor slowdowns in extreme low light conditions.

Focus accuracy was good. Though this is hardly a top portrait lens choice, I did snap a few shots with it during a portrait session and got good looking, well focused results.

Depth of field is rarely very shallow when your maximum focal length is 50mm and your maximum aperture F6.3, but I could get well focused results on this rare moments when some things were out of focus.

I really liked the focus motor’s performance during my focus pulls. There was a high degree of confidence, and rather than snapping back and forth the focus pulls are smooth and well damped. I would say that this lens is perhaps more useful for video than it is for stills in many ways.

This is a lens that would work well as a gimbal lens. It’s small, lightweight, focuses well, and could work for gimbals or vlogging.

My hand test (where I alternately block the lens’ view of my face with my hand and then remove it) also went well so long as I gave the lens time to make its more sedate transitions. There is some moderate focus breathing, though some of Canon’s cameras will compensate for that in camera.

All in all, focus is solid here. That’s a definite strength for the lens.

Image Quality Breakdown

The RF 24-50mm sports an optical formula of 8 elements in 8 groups, and this includes two aspherical elements. Canon has shown a tendency to rely more on electronic rather than optical corrections in a number of their wide angle lenses, and we’ll see that unfortunate trend continue here.

At its best, the RF 24-50mm is capable of producing perfectly nice photos, but it is also true that there are a lot of deep optical flaws here. This is no “hidden gem” that dramatically exceeds its premise.

Starting with vignette and distortion. If you look at a corrected JPEG or RAW file, things don’t look too bad at 24mm.

But, as I mentioned, this is almost exclusively electronic correction. Here is what the uncorrected image looks like:

I’ve seen this far too often from Canon in the RF era. There is so much distortion that Canon is having to designed their lenses much wider than the stated focal length so that the electronic correction can try to bring it back to a semblance of normal. If I try to manually correct that, I have to max out the correction slider in Lightroom, which I’ve NEVER had to do before. There is still some barrel distortion after a 100% correction. I then would have to crop even further to get to the framing that I had on screen (I framed with the outside lines of the test chart up against the edges of the frame on the LCD).

That’s ridiculous.

I then also had to max out of the vignette correction slider (100%) to get to this end result, which is roughly similar to what the profile correction provided…which still doesn’t look all that great.

Frankly I’m a little offended by this. Canon has repeatedly told us that their new RF mount offers up so many new design advantages and opportunities, and yet so many of their RF wide angle lenses are worse in some of these areas than anything I ever saw on EF. I test lenses from at least a dozen different brands, and these are the worst results I am seeing from anyone.

Things improve as you zoom towards the 50mm end of things, and by 50mm there is still barrel distortion, but I could correct it with a more manageable +12 while dialing in a +52 (about two stops) of vignette correction.

In camera or in Canon DPP software you don’t even have the option of disabling the corrections…and you can see why. Software is doing a LOT of the heavy lifting here, which will have an impact on corner performance on the wide end as we’ll see in a moment.

Longitudinal chromatic aberrations (LoCA) are less common on a lens with such a small maximum aperture (the depth of field is almost never incredibly small), so while there is some fringing when I torture test for it, there will be very few situations where you’ll see it in normal shooting.

Likewise there is some lateral chromatic aberrations (LaCA) near the edge of the frame, but nothing that can’t be easily fixed by corrections.

So how about resolution and contrast? I’ll primarily be testing this lens on the platform it is sold for (the EOS R8) with a quick peak on how it holds up on a higher resolution camera like the Canon EOS R5. Here’s the test chart:

You will note that the test chart looks a little “dingy” despite profile corrections. That’s a LOT of vignette to correct for.

Here are the roughly 200% crops from across the frame at 24mm, F4.5. This is on the 24MP Canon EOS R8:

At this resolution point the lens looks pretty decent. The sharpness profile is pretty consistent across the frame, with the mid frame standing out as looking the best. The copy I tested showed good centering and consistent results on both sides.

Stopping down to F5.6 does show some improved contrast and slightly better resolution. The lifting of the some of the vignette makes for a more consistent image. Better still is F8, as while resolution isn’t dramatically improved, the improved contrast and reduced vignette makes for the best looking image to this point.

Real world landscape images at F5.6 and F8 look fine, though the details don’t necessarily “pop” anywhere. Most owners of the lens would probably be happy with this, though.

F11 looks largely the same, but after F11 the image will slightly soften due to the effects of diffraction. Expect this impact to be much higher if you use a higher resolution camera.

Things are slightly improved at 28mm. The distortion and vignette aren’t as extreme, so the electronic corrections aren’t having to work quite as hard!

There’s a slight bit more total improvement as you stop the lens down, though again you can’t expect this lens to achieve L series levels of sharpness.

35mm is fairly similar, though just a few percentage points behind the performance at 28mm. When stopped down the results are acceptably sharp on the EOS R8:

Results are largely the same at 50mm. The slow maximum aperture of F6.3 means that F8 arrives only 2/3rds of a stop later, so there isn’t a lot of stopping down options. There is a slight improvement by F8:

I did a comparison test on the EOS R5 (45MP) and found, to my surprise, that the RF 24-50mm did okay in that transition. Rather than looking softer, the high resolution sensor exposed more detail and I actually preferred the higher resolution result.

Resolution is not really the problem here. This lens is fairly sharp and consistent throughout the zoom range.

Flare resistance was a bit of mixed bag. Shooting directly into the sun wasn’t bad. There’s a few ghosting blobs, but nothing too bad. You’ll notice that the wide open sunstar (on the left) is rather weird, but the stopped down, F11 result on the right is pretty decent.

I noticed more of an issue with veiling (loss of contrast) when the sun was right out of the frame.

This is the kind of situation where a lens hood might help…now if only Canon included one!

I had fairly low expectations for bokeh with a lens like this. It has little capacity for producing much subject separation, as the maximum aperture is small, the minimum focus distance is fairly long, and the maximum focal length is only 50mm. That leaves quite a bit in focus at all times, and you can see here that the bokeh isn’t terrible, but it is busy and there is some definite distortion of specular highlights into lemon shapes along the edges of the frame.

This snowy image works a little better largely because the specular highlights aren’t very, ahem, highlighted in the overcast conditions.

If producing bokeh is your priority, then skip this lens and buy the inexpensive RF 50mm F1.8.

Reasonable sharpness is the best optical quality here, but the distortion and vignette at 24mm is amongst the worst I’ve ever seen. The RF 24-50mm is a hard sell from a purely optical standpoint. You can see more images in the gallery here.

Conclusion

The Canon RF 24-50mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM serves a specific purpose, namely to provide a small, lightweight, inexpensive lens for people to add to their Canon EOS R8 (and future cameras) so that they have a lens to actually take pictures with. I remember my first Canon DSLR purchase (the Rebel T1i) and it came with an EF-S 18-55mm IS lens. I didn’t love the lens (sold it fairly quickly), but it gave me something to use in the first couple of months so that I could use my new camera. There are places where Canon has improved things (autofocus is definitely better), but there are also some really frustrating areas of regression. Canon’s maximum aperture range on these type lenses has become decidedly worse, as Canon clearly banks on the improved ISO performance in modern cameras covering for the slower maximum apertures. They’ve also become increasingly reliant on software to cover for the hardware shortcomings, with massive amounts of optical correction needed to make the image usable.

I find it hard to recommend the RF 24-50mm to someone lens shopping for an existing camera, so the question is whether it is worth purchasing in kit with the EOS R8 or future bodies. One pro is that the lens adds image stabilization, and that will be particularly beneficial if you want to shoot some handheld video. It also has very solid autofocus for both stills and video, so at the least you should get reliably focused results. Best case scenario might be as a light, inexpensive gimbal lens.

But during my time with the EOS R8 I found that I preferred to just use the even smaller, much higher performing Canon RF 28mm F2.8 STM that is similarly priced and just zoom with my feet. Your mileage may vary, obviously, and there are applications where the RF 24-50mm will do just fine. If you value versatility, you might want to consider the RF 24-105mm F4-7.1 IS STM instead. It’s only $100 more expensive and offers up a much larger zoom range and has a faster maximum aperture over the shared focal lengths.

Pros:

Has IS
Compact and lightweight
Good autofocus performance
Reasonably sharp throughout the zoom range
Has Canon’s useful control ring option with a decent implementation

Cons:

Obscene amounts of vignette and distortion at 24mm
Some flare issues and no included lens hood
Retractable zoom is a pain, and the mechanical process is not refined
Extremely slow maximum apertures

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GEAR USED:

Purchase the Canon RF 24-50mm IS @ Camera Canada | B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

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Purchase the Canon EOS R8 @ Camera Canada | B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

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Purchase the Canon RF 28mm F2.8 @ Camera Canada | B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

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Keywords: Canon, Canon RF 24-50mm, 24-50mm, F4.5-6.3, IS, STM, Canon EOS R8, EOS, R, R5, Review, R8, RF, mirrorless, Canon EOS R7 Review, Sports, Tracking, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Handling, Focus, Portraits, Resolution, High ISO, Image Quality, Sample Images, Photography, 45MP, 24MP, Canon, #letthelightin, #DA, #EOSR8, #Canon

DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Canon RF 24-50mm F4.5-6.3 IS Gallery

Dustin Abbott

April 23rd, 2024

The most common lenses on the market tend to be those we call “kit” lenses for the simple reason that these are the lenses sold in bundle with certain cameras. Canon has a few of these type lenses for different classes of cameras. That might be an L-series lens like the RF 24-70mm F2.8L IS (my review here) or the RF 24-105mm F4L IS (my review here) as a premium upgrade, the 24-105mm F4-7.1 IS as a cheaper option, or, if you go for the least expensive option, this lens, the Canon RF 24-50mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM. It’s not just about price, however, as Canon released the RF 24-50mm alongside the EOS R8 in 2023 to be a smaller, lighter kit lens for what was Canon’s smallest and lightest full frame mirrorless camera. The retail price of the RF 24-50mm is $299 USD, but the price when bundled with the R8 drops to $200. This review is designed to help you decide whether it is worth the money. You can get my findings in the video review below or by reading my text review by clicking this link.

Canon RF 24-50mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM Review | Worth 200 Bucks?

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Thanks to Camera Canada for sending me a review copy of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. All opinions and conclusions are my own. *I have done the majority of these tests on the Canon EOS R8, as this is the camera it is sold with for the moment.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Kit lenses need to be jack-of-all-trades, as they will sometimes be the only lens that a person owns. They will typically cover moderately wide (24mm here) to some kind of telephoto (a rather short 50mm, here). The 24-50mm has lens based stabilization (IS), which is important considering that the EOS R8 (or the EOS RP or EOS R) don’t have camera based stabilization. That helps considerably when shooting handheld video and moderately helps to make up for the very slow maximum aperture values available here.

24mm = F4.5
25-31mm = F5
32-38mm = F5.6
39-50mm = F6.3

In fact, the camera reported that the lens was still on 24mm when the maximum aperture closed to F5, so it isn’t even a full millimeter of zoom before you lose that maximum aperture of F4.5! Canon just BARELY avoided the aperture starting at F5. If you don’t understand what all of this aperture talk means, just know that this is a lens that is going to do best when there is plenty of light. Fortunately the EOS R8 has great high ISO performance, as you’ll often need to raise the ISO value in lower light situations when using this lens.

But frankly, this is a lens better suited to better light and brighter days. Get yourself one of Canon’s inexpensive prime lenses (like the 28mm F2.8 STM or the 50mm F1.8 STM) for those situations, and enjoy this lens for the areas where it works better.

Photos of the Canon RF 24-50mm IS

Photos taken with the RF 24-50mm IS

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GEAR USED:

Purchase the Canon RF 24-50mm IS @ Camera Canada | B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

_______________________________________________________________

Purchase the Canon EOS R8 @ Camera Canada | B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

___________________________________________________________________

Purchase the Canon RF 28mm F2.8 @ Camera Canada | B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

_________________________________________________________________

Want to support this channel? Use these affiliate links to shop at: B&H Photo | Amazon | Adorama | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Ebay | Make a donation via Paypal

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Keywords: Canon, Canon RF 24-50mm, 24-50mm, F4.5-6.3, IS, STM, Canon EOS R8, EOS, R, R5, Review, R8, RF, mirrorless, Canon EOS R7 Review, Sports, Tracking, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Handling, Focus, Portraits, Resolution, High ISO, Image Quality, Sample Images, Photography, 45MP, 24MP, Canon, #letthelightin, #DA, #EOSR8, #Canon

DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Canon EOS R8 Review

Dustin Abbott

April 15th, 2024

About a year ago I reviewed what in many ways is the progenitor of this camera – the Canon EOS R6 MK II. The Canon EOS R8 inherits the sensor and autofocus system of that model, though the Canon EOS R8 is in many ways the second generation of the Canon EOS RP, Canon’s first entry level full frame mirrorless camera. The RP had its strengths, though it was also severely compromised in many ways. There are certainly places where I can see the cost cutting here, too, but despite those intentional places where features are chiseled away to allow for both market separation and cost cutting to allow Canon to sell this camera for $1500 USD ($1300 at the moment of this review due to a discount), the EOS R8 has a clear advantage that the RP did not. The EOS RP came very early in Canon’s mirrorless development, and, as a byproduct, it borrowed Canon’s DSLR technology. It’s sensor was the rather disappointing one from the Canon EOS 6D MK II, whereas the EOS R8 has inherited the vastly superior sensor and autofocus system of the Canon EOS R6 MK II. The R6MK II was the “poor man’s” EOS R3, which I guess makes the EOS R8 the poor man’s EOS R6 MK II.

But the EOS R8 benefits from inheriting from a very good camera, and the end result is a camera I had a lot of fun using despite its limitations. You can find my full thoughts by watching my video review here…or reading on.

Canon EOS R8 Full Frame Budget Camera Review With the Fun Left In

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Thanks to Camera Canada for sending me a review loaner of this camera. They have become my go-to retailer for my own purchases here in Canada. As always, this is a completely independent review, and the thoughts and opinions expressed here are my own.

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A quick summary of strengths and weaknesses before we dive into the details. Strengths include an excellent sensor, excellent autofocus, a nicely executed compact body that retains good ergonomics, a vari-angle touchscreen with good responsiveness, and fairly good video specs including 4K60. This is a compact, lightweight camera that doesn’t skimp on performance or usability. Major weaknesses include a lack of IBIS (In-Body-Image-Stabilization), a smaller battery, no navigational joystick, a single SD card (and correspondingly shallow buffers), and a shutter speed limit of 1/4000th second.

Unfortunately the EOS R8 suffers from a blight shared by all Canon RF cameras: the Canon RF mount remains closed to third party autofocusing lens development. I still own two very early Samyang RF mount lenses (14mm F2.8 and 85mm F1.4) that fortunately still work fine on the EOS R8 but were quickly shut down by Canon. Samyang no longer sells them, and there have been no new lenses from Samyang, Sigma, Tamron, or Viltrox. It’s very unfortunate, as there are now hundreds of lenses for Sony E-mount available from a wide variety of lens makers that aren’t available to Canon RF. It is a significant disadvantage, as while there are some excellent RF mount lenses, there are far fewer choices available. I continue to love using the Samyang RF 85mm F1.4 on my own EOS R5 (and on this EOS R8), and it is pretty irritating that this reasonably priced fantastic portrait lens existed but doesn’t now other than the rare second hand copy out there.

That rant aside, I had a lot of fun with the EOS R8. Here’s why…

Spec List

24.2MP Full-Frame CMOS Sensor
4K60p 10-Bit Internal Video, Canon Log 3
2.36m-Dot OLED Electronic Viewfinder
3.0″ 1.62m-Dot Vari-Angle Touchscreen
Dual Pixel CMOS AF II
40 fps Electronic Shutter
Movie Digital IS
Vertical Movie Mode
Microphone Input, Headphone Output
Multi-Function Shoe, Wi-Fi & Bluetooth

Build and Features

Canon is one of the absolute best in the business at making ergonomically pleasing cameras. I was incredibly impressed at how the EOS R8 manages to be both extremely compact and lightweight while also being very comfortable to hold and use. I typically prefer a larger camera, as my hands are a bit bigger, but the EOS R8 felt better in my grip than my high end Sony cameras (a7RV and Alpha 1). I had my wife hold the camera, and she loved the way it felt in her smaller hands. Part of that is that Canon does a much better job of creating space between the grip and the lens mount, whereas Sony has stubbornly refused to widen their cameras and that problem remains. The EOS R8 is 5.22 [W] x 3.39 [H] x 2.76″ [D] (132.59 x 86.11 x 70.1 mm) and weighs only one pound (461g) even with the battery and memory card installed.

The EOS R8 feels excellent in the hand, and the grip is substantial enough that it doesn’t feel like any of my fingers have no place to rest.

The primary controls come via two wheels and a D-pad. The first control wheel is located right behind the shutter button with the second at the back of the top plate that is connected to the On/LOCK/Off lever. Rather than traditional third around the SET button on the back of the camera we have the directional pad that Canon puts on its less expensive cameras instead. The movement of the two wheels feels good (familiar and substantial), but I also miss having that third wheel. Also missed here is a navigational joystick. You’ll have to make due with either the D-pad or by using the touchscreen to navigate.

On the left side of the viewfinder is the Stills/Video switch. I like having this type of control as it does allow you to have a completely different setup for your video controls, including a separate customization set for buttons and wheels. I devoted some digital ink in my R6 II review complaining about how this switch is the exact same spot as the ON/OFF switch on my EOS R5, so I ended up switching between stills and video rather than turning the camera on and off many times. That’s still true, but at least Canon is showing some consistency. The ON/OFF button is also on the right side on the EOS R50 I’m reviewing as well, so this seems to be their new position.

On the right side of the top plate there is a mode dial along with the record button and an M-Fn button that can be customized to a variety of functions. Canon’s higher end cameras have a secondary LCD on top, but I actually find that the old-fashioned mode dial is still the fastest way to get to different functions. There are a wide variety of options on the mode dial, including two different custom configurations.

The front of the camera just has the lens release. There are no custom buttons there. Unlike their more expensive models, there is no option to have the shutter blades come down when the camera is powered off to protect the sensor from dust. What is there is a very aggressive sensor cleaning cycle that doesn’t just come on when you power the camera off but also whenever a lens is released or attached. This is a new one for me, and at first it didn’t register what the clicking noise was whenever I attached/released a lens.

There is a Canon-standard set of buttons present on the back of the camera, most all of which can be customized to different functions. Everything is pretty much in the place I’ve come to expect on a Canon camera, with the menu button to the left of the viewfinder, a cluster of three buttons near the grip, and another above and under the directional pad. There are no dedicated custom buttons, however, so you’ll have to reassign a value to an existing button if you want to add a quick access function. The back of the camera looks very similar to the EOS RP.

You’ll also find a 3” articulating LCD touchscreen with a 1.62 million dot resolution. This is nothing special, these days, but Canon’s LCD screens remain the best in terms of touch performance, with very quick reaction times and good sensitivity. Canon’s menu design is the friendliest of the brands I test to navigate by touch.

The viewfinder is an OLED electronic viewfinder with a 2.36 million dot resolution. It’s only 0.39″ in size, so not overly engaging, and has a magnification level of 0.70x. Pretty unimpressive, really, though on par with something like Sony’s a7C series.

The left size port organization is highly similar to many of Canon’s cameras and unfortunately continues the trend of having flaps (hard to keep out of the way) instead of doors that can be smoothly opened (and left open when desired). There is a USB Type-C port for communication along with a micro-HDMI video out. That latter is a Canon standard and is rarely anyone’s favorite for the simple reason that micro-HDMI is more flimsy than larger HDMI ports. The EOS R8 has some decent video specs, but no serious videographer wants to deal with a micro-HDMI. You can charge the camera via the USB-C port, though you’ll need a power bank with the appropriate power delivery (PD) standard. Another flap covers a 3.5mm microphone jack along with a similar headphone monitoring jack, while the final smaller flaps covers a remote release cable port. The hot-shoe on top allows you to connect certain microphones and get digital audio through it.

There is nothing on the right side of the camera, as the lone memory card slot is unfortunately in the undesirable position of being down in the battery compartment. We have a single SD/SDHC/SDXC slot that is UHS-II compatible for increased speed. This isn’t surprising, per se, but certainly not welcome, either. I hate this position, myself, as it leaves you with two unpalatable choices with the memory card out. One is put the camera on it’s side to leave the battery door open. The other is to close it so that you can put the camera down normally, but then you run the risk of forgetting that the memory card is not inserted back in the camera, which can be disastrous if you are arrive on site to shoot only to realize there is no card in the camera.

The EOS R8 is saddled with the smaller LP-E17 battery pack rather than the more common Canon LP-E6NH used in most of the other full frame Canon cameras. This smaller battery has a capacity of just 1040mAh, which is less than 50% of the rating of the LP-E6NH. The rating is just 150 shots, though it isn’t hard to exceed that. The bigger issue will be long format video recording, as that burns through batteries pretty quickly. The camera is capable of recording up to 120 minutes of 4K, according to Canon, but don’t expect the battery to last that long. I would definite buying a spare or two…

The shutter is interesting, as there isn’t a fully mechanical shutter option, but rather an electronic first curtain mechanical option along with a fully electronic shutter option. The former has a shutter speed limit of 1/4000th second (and also a pretty pedestrian 6FPS burst rate) while the latter gives an upper limit of 1/8000th of a second and unlocks a MUCH faster burst rate of up to 40FPS, though that will be constrained by the shallow buffer depth available here. The electronic shutter will just make a very quiet electronic click without a typical shutter sound. The EOS R8 will not have the ultrafast readout of a camera designed purely around an electronic shutter (like the EOS R3, for example), so there are some penalties for using the electronic shutter here. You can’t use it with a flash (no sync is available), can’t engage anti-flicker mode, and sometimes fast moving action might be distorted a bit (rolling shutter). Canon also uses 12bit A/D conversion with the electronic shutter rather than 14bit with the EFC shutter, but you probably won’t notice the difference.

Bottom line – the EFC option is more flexible and produces slightly better image quality, but it is much slower and has maximum shutter speed of 1/4000th. The electronic option unlocks much faster burst rates and a higher shutter speed limit, but has other limitations. Choose appropriately to your situation.

The EOS R8 does have some decent communication options including wireless LAN and Bluetooth 4.2. Interestingly, you can plug it directly into a phone with a MiFI-certified cable (USB-C port).

Canon uses a few more plastics in this body than their more premium models, but everything feels very good here. The camera feels tough and durable, and I’ve used a lot of Canon cameras for the long haul and they’ve held up fine. There is some measure of weather sealing in the camera body, though Canon reports that the sealing is less than what is found on the EOS R6/R6II.

Perhaps the biggest missing feature in the EOS R8 is the lack of IBIS (in body image stabilization). That has become increasingly rare, and competing models like the Sony a7C/II or the Nikon Z5 are equipped with IBIS. Early in the mirrorless cycle Canon was adamant that lens based stabilization was superior (neither the EOS R or RP had IBIS), but market pressure eventually pushed them into including this incredibly useful feature in the next generation of camera bodies. It is an unfortunate omission, as I personally will not buy a camera without IBIS at this stage. While there are a number of Canon lenses that do have lens based stabilization, about a third of them do not, and that number includes a number of the small, light primes that suit this camera so well (RF 16mm F2.8, 28mm F2.8, and 50mm F1.8).

There is a “Digital IS” available (for movie mode only), though this is a digital correction and will come at the cost of a crop of your video and won’t be as effective as an actual optical stabilizer.

The “kit lens” for the Canon EOS R8 is the Canon RF 24-50mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM, and while it is nothing special, it is inexpensive (an additional $200 in kit) and does give you an image stabilizer.

Every company makes a series of choices about what compromises to make in their lower-priced options. They have to include enough to keep the cameras competitive and marketable, but not so much as to rob sales from more premium cameras. There will always be areas where you or I will disagree with some of those decisions, and that’s true here. What’s also true is that the EOS R8 is a very usable camera that handles well overall.

Autofocus Performance

There were areas where Canon has cut features from the EOS R8, but autofocus is not one of them. The EOS R8 utilizes Canon’s Dual Pixel CMOS AF II focus system just like the EOS R6 MK II, which inherited a similar system from the high end EOS R3. This is a robust focus system that covers approximately 100% x 100% of the picture area, with up to 1,053 automatically-selected AF zones utilized during Whole Area AF. Bottom line is that you can compose your shot basically anywhere with impunity, and the camera will also track all across the frame, making it easy to stop action.

Canon offers an “auto” mode for subject tracking that I really appreciate, as I have sometimes gotten less than excellent results on Sony or Fuji if I don’t have the right subject selected. I also really enjoy how engaging Canon’s tracking is. It is very clear on the screen what is being tracked.

Eye AF worked very well whether it was animal, bird, or human subjects. The wide range of focus points means that you really don’t have to worry about where in the frame the subject is. It wasn’t that long ago that I was using a Canon EOS 6D pretty much exclusively with the center focus point – focus and recompose. The fact that a budget camera has an autofocus system that even a 1D level camera would have loved to have is a testament to how much better autofocus is on mirrorless. This camera was a delight to use in a portrait session, nailing focus every time.

Focus sensitivity is excellent, as the focus system can focus down to a -6.5 EV (which is VERY dark), though that figure will vary depending on the maximum aperture available on the lens mounted. A lens with a very bright aperture (like the F1.2 lenses) gives the autofocus system the potential of much more light to work with than a lens with a dimmer aperture. I found that I could still quickly lock onto a subject even in a nearly dark room. This shot was taken at ISO 51,200.

I also noted when doing some video work that Canon’s intelligent tracking works very well. If you click on a subject and select it you can easily move around the scene while keeping focus on the desired location.

For tracking purposes this is the same AF system as the R6 MK II, which is largely the same focus system as in the top tier EOS R3 sports camera. Tracking works very well, and you have the option of firing off a ridiculous amount of frames with the electronic shutter. I took about 100 photos in less than 3 seconds during a burst of Nala dashing towards me through the rain. At 40FPS you can afford to be very selective about what moment of action you choose. Here’s a few examples.

What’s amazing is that every shot at 40FPS is perfectly in focus despite the rapid movement (this burst shot with the Canon RF 24-105mm F4L IS). I’ve found that there are camera/lens combination that can’t keep up with a cat walking towards the camera much less running full tilt. This is a very impressively focusing camera.

As is typical with lesser cameras that inherit the focus systems of more sports oriented cameras, the weak link is the buffer depth. If you use the Electronic First Curtain shutter and its slow 6FPS burst rate, you’ll have no problems. Throw a fast card in there and you can capture 1000+ RAW images. But with the faster 40FPS burst rate of the Electronic shutter, the amount of information that must be processed is vastly different. A high speed card (UHS-II) is rated for up to 56 uncompressed RAW images, but if you shoot in CRAW (and you definitely should in those situations!) the buffer depth climbs to 100 images, which is enough to be useful. I got that many in the burst above (actually CRAW + JPEG) without any hint of slowdown, though I was using a very good Sony Tough UHS-II SD card (my cards of choice).

Throttle back to a still very fast 20FPS in electronic mode, and I think you could capture most of the action that you need even if you need to hold the shutter longer than a few seconds. I find this performance fairly impressive for this level of camera. And, for a little perspective, the Canon EOS 5D MKIV (a camera that cost more than 2.5x as much) had a maximum buffer depth of 17 RAW images and a maximum burst rate of 7FPs…and that was considered pretty good for the time. We’ve come a LONG way!

The EOS R8 also has another trick up its sleeve to help you get that crucial shot. There is a new option called RAW Burst Mode, and it functions by starting shooting slightly before (about 0.5 seconds earlier) the shutter button is fully pressed at a 30FPS burst rate to make sure you don’t miss the shot.

All told, this is an amazingly good focus system that is a real joy to use. Getting well focused results in just about any setting is pretty much effortless. To get an AF system this good in a budget camera is, well, impressive.

Video Performance

The Canon EOS RP was a fun camera for stills in many ways, but I found it utterly frustrating for video work. The autofocus for video reverted to a very primitive contrast AF system (it was terrible!) and 4K was only achievable at a very big 1.7x crop factor. Fortunately the EOS R8 is a completely different kettle of fish, utilizing the same fantastic AF system for video and offering very useful video specs.

The highlight spec here is that the EOS R8 can record 4K60 video with 6K oversampling. There is no crop factor, either – that is full sensor width. That 60FPS produces highly detailed footage that is further benefitted from the great autofocus in the camera. Here’s a look at the various video formats available on the EOS R8 (from Canon’s “white paper” on the camera).

You do have the option for shooting with an APS-C crop at 60FPS as well, which could be useful if you have some APS-C lenses kicking around or want to tighten your framing (Canon’s APS-C crop is 1.6x).

We have thankfully passed the era where video recordings were artificially limited at the 29:59 minute mark, so recording will (in theory) continue until the memory card is filled, as shown by this chart.

At higher bitrates where more heat is generated, you might see an earlier shutdown due to heat (if you have a large memory card). The shortest estimated recording time is 30 minutes at 4K60, but that jumps to 2 hours if you shoot 4K30 instead, so that shouldn’t be a major issue for many people. There is a Heat Control submenu that gives you options on how you want the camera to handle heat related issues.

As noted, 4K recording is limited to 60FPS, but up to 180FPS is available at Full HD (1080P) for serious slow-motion work. We would all love to have 4K120, of course, but these video specs are well in line with the competition in the market. The EOS R8 also includes Canon Log 3 (enables a consistent standard for grading) and HDR PQ for higher dynamic range footage. Here’s a single frame from a 4K60 recording in the middle of that spring snowstorm…and you can see lovely detail everywhere along with nice dynamic range (a bit further I’ll show a RAW photo I took during the same sequence).

The only real feature missing here relative to the EOS R6 MK II is that model’s ability to output 6K ProRes footage via HDMI. The EOS R8 does have UVC/UAC compatibility which allows the camera to be used as a web camera to stream live video in Full HD without additional software. You have an option to shoot in vertical mode as well if so desired.

The vari-angle LCD is great for video, allowing you to shoot at waist height for more stability, down low on a gimbal, or front monitoring if you are in front of the camera.

As noted previously, the EOS R8 has the option to set up completely different menu and button options for video that can be accessed by switching the lever to the left of the viewfinder.

Sensor Performance

The Canon EOS R8 utilizes the same sensor found in the R6 MK II, and while on paper it might look like a regression from the sensor found in the EOS RP, this couldn’t be further from the proof. While on paper the RP’s sensor is a superior one in resolution (26MP) compared to the 24MP of the EOS R8, the new sensor is a thoroughly modern one with much better real world performance. The native resolution of this CMOS sensor is 6000 x 4000 pixels, and while that isn’t high resolution by modern standards, it is still suitable for most people in most situations. It’s also worth noting that not all sensors are created equally, and Canon claims that this sensor can deliver resolution and detail that exceeds that of the higher resolution 30MP sensor found in the EOS R. I can attest to the fact that this sensor does produce beautifully detailed images. (This one courtesy of a freak spring snowstorm that briefly reset us to winter).

File options include RAW, CRAW, JPEG, and HEIF formats. Here’s a breakdown of the various aspect ratios and dimensions available along with the average file size for each.

Canon used to offer Medium and Small RAW options but in more recent years has elected utilize their extremely efficient CRAW (Compressed RAW) option, which is a lossless compressed file that delivers both great efficiency in terms of file size but also very high quality. It is my go-to option in my cameras, as a lot of tests over the years have demonstrated that it is near impossible to spot any differences from the full size uncompressed RAW options. So, while offering near equal quality, CRAW delivers files that are only about 54% of the size of the uncompressed RAW options. At ISO 100, for example, an uncompressed RAW file will be around 26MB, while the CRAW file is a relatively diminutive 13.2MP. Canon .CR3 “wrapper” is extremely efficient as well, delivering smaller file sizes in general relative to competitor’s RAW files. The EOS R8’s images generally look great – good detail and color.

This sensor is kinder to lenses like the RF 24-50mm F4.5-6.3 kit lens than my EOS R5 (45MP), which tends to really reveal the flaws and shortcomings of “lesser” lenses. I found while I could tell that the detail and contrast wasn’t as good if I compared it side by side with, say, the RF 28mm F2.8 STM (a surprisingly strong little lens), I still found images acceptably good.

Typically high resolution sensors come with some baggage like increased noise at higher ISO levels, while a lower resolution sensor like this allows for more robust low light work. I’m used to working with higher resolution levels, so I do miss the extra pixels, but this is a sensor that will allow for good resolution, good dynamic range, and also a strong performance at higher ISO settings.

We’ll break those things down in a little more detail here.

Dynamic Range

I’ve taken to referring to the charts over at Photons to Photos as a quick reference to supplement my own tests. According to them, the dynamic range performance of the EOS R8 is essentially identical to that of the EOS R6 MKII (which stands to reason, as this is the same basic sensor). That is very competitive among Canon’s recent sensors, besting the original R6 and falling only slightly behind the R3 and R5 sensors. They rate the R8 at a maximum of 11.58 stops of dynamic range. The RP’s sensor? Only 9.1 stops – more than 2 1/2 stops less! The EOS R8 produces more dynamic range at basically every ISO setting, but particularly at lower ISO settings.

This is competitive with the sensor in the Sony a7C/2 and bests the one found in the Z5. Bottom line is that this new Canon sensor is, by the numbers, a very good sensor for dynamic range performance. We’ll see how that bears out in real world testing.

For my tests, I establish a base exposure (neutral or correct) and then subsequently under and overexpose the image by progressive stops. I typically go as high as 4 stops of overexposure and 5 stops of underexposure as modern cameras tend to be better at recovering shadows than they do highlights. I then add or remove the appropriate stops of light in post to see how the sensor does in recovering the lost information. Here’s a look at the properly exposed image for reference:

We will examine how the colors are retained, the purity of the shadows and highlights, and how noise impacts the image.

Modern cameras are typically very good at recovering shadows. At four stops of underexposure the unrecovered photo shows deeply crushed shadows and very little of the subject visible, but the shadows are easily and cleanly recovered by adding those four stops of light back into the photo. The end result is a photo that looks largely like the original (correct) exposure.

We find the limit between 4 and 5 stops, however, where I start to see the familiar signs of things falling apart. I don’t see a lot of additional noise, but I do see more evidence of “smoothing” by the sensor to try to defeat the noise. There’s a little less detail, and I also see color shift along with some blotchy color banding scattered throughout the image. You can see how clean the 4-stop recovery on the left is relative to the 5-stop recovery on the right.

So, shadow recovery is good, but there is a limit to how far you can go without penalty.

How about highlights? We will now reverse the process. I’ve gradually overexposed a series of images, one stop at a time, and then attempted to recover the highlights in post. Typically you will start to see the image fall apart after a few stops in a couple of ways: 1) certain colors are lost and are not recoverable, and 2) information will be lost in blown highlights that isn’t recoverable.

At two stops the recovery (on the right) is near perfect. The color swatches all look correct and I don’t see lost information in the highlights. The color in the timer face on the left has been thoroughly recovered and looks even.

At three stops, however, the limits are slightly exceeded. You can see that in comparison to the 2 stop recovery (on the left) that the 3 stop recovery (on the right) on the right has missing color information on the timer face and some of the color swatches. The brightness on the spine of the Heisler book on the bottom hasn’t been regained, and that’s true of the Pentax camera as well.

The image is useless at four stops of overexposure, so don’t attempt that. I found that there was sufficient real world dynamic range to allow me to recover both shadows and highlights enough to make real world results more pleasing. I’ve taken this broad dynamic range shot on the left and recovered information in both the shadows and highlights to make for a much nicer, brighter end result.

This is a competitive performance that I found entirely useful for real world use.

ISO Performance

In a perfect world we could all shoot in perfectly lit scenes, but reality dictates that sometimes we have to shoot in lower light situations. The EOS R8 has amazing low light autofocus (with sensitivity down to EV -6.5, though that requires having an F1.2 lens attached), but raising the ISO always comes with some penalty. Improving technologies help to mitigate some of that, and we will find out how much in our tests. We saw from the chart above that while the dynamic range at ISO 100 is about 11.5 stops, by ISO 25,600 that DR has dropped to just 4.3 stops. Raising the ISO also results in increased noise, potential color banding and color shift, and loss of contrast.

I compared each stop of ISO in the standard range to the base ISO of 100. Through ISO 3200 the results remain extremely clean, with an almost imperceptible amount of noise.

At ISO 6400 things look fine on a global level with no real apparent difference between base ISO and ISO 6400:

At a pixel level you can see how clean the image the still is, with a bit of noise in the color swatches and timer face, but good color consistency and contrast in the grip of the camera.

Through ISO 12,800 results continue to be very clean. There’s a bit more noise, but the pixels are still quite even in the black levels which allow contrast and color saturation to remain quite consistent:

By ISO 25,600 the image is still usable in some situations. The image when viewed globally looks largely the same as at ISO 12,800, but when you look closer you can see slightly reduced black levels and contrast due to some “hot” pixel noise. The noise pattern is more obviously rough at a pixel level, though I would say the end result is still as good or better as some cameras at ISO 12,800, making this one of the better low light sensors.

ISO 51,200 might be usable in a pinch, though with the cost of reduced contrast and more visible noise, but ISO 102,400 crosses the threshold into the unusable, with a bit of a green shift, some honeycombing in the shadows, and very rough noise levels.

Real world results at high ISO varied according to the backgrounds and textures, and I always prefer high ISO shots in monochrome, like this shot at ISO 51,200 of some knickknacks on a shelf.

Another shot in a near dark bathroom shows some pattern in the areas that should be even along with a few color blotches, but it isn’t terrible, either.

This is a camera where you could easily use the F4 zooms rather than the F2.8 zooms for event work as the low light performance is so solid. Shooting at ISOs like 3200 or 6400 is effortless. You could definitely get away with some of the “weird” RF lenses like the 600mm/800mm F11 primes or the RF 100-400mm (which is F8 on the telephoto end) because you can jack the ISO up with less consequence.

Image Quality Summary

While I am more accustomed to have more resolution on tap, I generally found the EOS R8’s sensor to be a joy to use. In some ways I’m reminded of my Sony a9 that I used for years, as it had a similar resolution and there was something about the images I took with it that I always liked. Canon’s color science remains excellent, and I was happy with the look and color of images in a wide variety of settings.

The dynamic range and high ISO performance is excellent, which allows you to focus on just taking images that make you happy…in all seasons!

If you own an EOS RP, it this sensor that will be one of the top reasons to upgrade.

Conclusion

At $1500 USD (currently $1300 USD) the EOS R8 is destined to be one of Canon’s best selling cameras. Most of the time the camera options near this price point have a smaller APS-C sensor, so this will almost certainly entice some people to take the plunge to the larger full frame sensor and the resulting image quality that comes with it.

If you like the form factor of the EOS RP but are ready for an upgrade, the EOS R8 is a great option. It has a much better sensor, a much better focus system, and far better video specs (this was a real weakness in the EOS RP). There are still some limitations, but this camera does a lot of things really well and can make beautiful images…and be a lot of fun doing it.

My single greatest regret here is the lack of in-body-image-stabilization, as this has become a fairly ubiquitous feature on competing cameras and some of Canon’s best lens matches for this camera don’t have lens stabilization. But other than that I definitely prefer the Canon EOS R8’s ergonomics to, say, Sony’s a7C series of cameras, and the Canon costs less, too. But Canon also has a severe liability compared to the Sony options – there are only a fraction of the lens options available on Canon relative to what is available on Sony. I have a list of 25+ compact, relatively inexpensive lenses on Sony E-mount listed in my a7C series of reviews…and that’s only the primes that I could think of at the moment. I couldn’t put together a similar list with even seven options on Canon RF at the time of this review. That’s not a problem if you tend to get a few favorite lenses and use them exclusively, but if you like options, Canon’s “closed door” policies aren’t doing them any favors. It’s a shame, as the EOS R8 is a lot of fun.

Pros:

Great blend of compactness and usability
Great grip
Responsive touchscreen with good resolution
Up to 40FPS with electronic shutter
Autofocus system is top notch
Tracking is impressively good for a budget camera
Love the “auto” mode for subject detection
Great sensor
Good dynamic range
Excellent ISO performance
Good color science
Great price for a full frame camera

Cons:

No IBIS
Smaller battery
Lens options limited by no third party lenses

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GEAR USED:

Purchase the Canon EOS R8 @ Camera Canada | B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

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Some Compact Lenses to Consider:

Purchase a Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | eBay

Purchase the Canon RF 24mm F1.8 Macro IS @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Canon RF 35mm F1.8 IS STM @ B&H | Amazon | Camera Canada Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon RF 50mm F1.8 STM @ B&H Photo | Camera Canada | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon RF 85mm F2 Macro IS STM @ B&H Photo | Camera Canada | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

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Keywords: Canon EOS R8, EOS, R, R8, Review, Canon EOS R6 MK II, Canon EOS R6 II, EOS R6 II Review, RF, mirrorless, Canon EOS R7 Review, Sports, Tracking, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Handling, Focus, Portraits, Resolution, High ISO, Image Quality, Sample Images, Photography, 45MP, 24MP, Canon, #letthelightin, #DA, #EOSR8

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Canon EOS R6 MK II Review

Dustin Abbott

April 10th, 2023

It was less than three years ago that Canon released its two first truly impressive full frame mirrorless cameras – the 45MP Canon EOS R5 (my review here) and the lower resolution (20MP) but still high performing EOS R6 (my review here). The latter camera offering similar tracking capabilities and burst speeds to the impressive EOS R5 but at a lower cost point. Since that point Canon released the sports powerhouse Canon EOS R3 (my review here), and their newest camera – the Canon EOS R6 MK II – is the recipient of a lot of that advanced focus technology, though at a much lower price point of about $2500 USD. This is the first of Canon’s full frame mirrorless cameras to get a “Mark II” version, and the R6 MKII shows all the signs of being a more polished, mature second generation product. The headline specs here are a new 24.2MP full frame C-MOS sensor and an electronic shutter that will deliver up to 40FPS, but it is the all-round performance and fantastic autofocus capabilities of the R6 MKII that make it a real joy to use.

We’ll detail more in the autofocus section, but my favorite thing about the autofocus system here is a really robust “Auto” mode for selecting a subject to track. I love the Eye AF and tracking capabilities of my Sony cameras, but you have to be very careful to select the correct subject (human, animal, bird, etc…) as you can otherwise get really inconsistent results as the camera searches for a subject that might not be in the frame. The ability to select “Auto Subject Detection” on the R6 MK II allows me to seamlessly move from human to animal subjects with excellent detection.

Canon has (for the most part) nailed the ergonomics of their R cameras. The grip feels great in the hands, the dials and buttons are typically well placed, but they also can’t seem to quite settle on where to put certain things. In this case, I have a major frustration with how they’ve moved the ON | LOCK | OFF switch to the opposite side of the camera but replaced the traditional location switch on typical Canon cameras with a STILLS/VIDEO switch. Canon says, “An updated top plate design repositions the On/Off dial and Photo/Video mode dial for more intuitive handling.”, but to me there is nothing intuitive about this change as it is in the exact same position as the ON/AFF switch for my EOS R5 and the switch has the exact same feel. I’ve got years of muscle memory to reach for that switch (which feels the same) and so I’ve have gone to turn the R6 MKII off dozens of times and switched into video mode instead. I’ll pick the camera up out of my bag to shoot again and discover it is already on because its in standby mode to take videos instead of being switched off. If you own only one camera, you will get used to the change, but if you own multiple Canon cameras, it will be almost certain that you will do a lot of the same thing I’ve done. Fortunately that is my only ergonomic frustration with an otherwise great-handling camera.

I actually love what Canon is doing with many of their R series cameras. They are powerful, well executed, and have well defined niches. I started off as a Canon shooter and for many years exclusively reviewed on the Canon platform. It is with real regret that I often steer potential buyers away Canon on the mirrorless front because of their decision to aggressively limit third party lens options on the Canon RF platform, with first Samyang AF lenses being discontinued because of Canon shutting them down and now a more recent Viltrox option (the 85mm F1.8 STM lens that I reviewed here) being pulled after Canon allegedly threatened them with litigation if they didn’t stop designing and selling RF mount lenses. We’ve seen no Sigma or Tamron lenses on Canon RF, but we are seeing Sigma, Tamron, Samyang, Viltrox, and more designing excellent lenses for Sony, Fuji, and now even Nikon. We are left with only native Canon options, and Canon RF lenses thus far have mostly fallen into one of two baskets: extremely expensive (L series lenses) or extremely compromised (most non-L lenses) with limited feature sets and lackluster AF systems. That middle space typically filled by Sigma and Tamron is largely lacking…and I think the system as a whole suffers for it. That’s not the fault of this excellent camera, but it is a real world consideration when considering the Canon system. This picture was taken with the Samyang AF 85mm F1.4 in an Canon RF mount…which you can no longer buy but I got back when Samyang was starting to develop for RF.

Big picture concerns aside, let’s zoom into the performance of this excellent camera which comes to market at a price point of $2499 USD for the camera alone or $2799 in kit with the 24-105mm F4-7.1 IS STM. Should you consider purchasing the Canon EOS R6 MKII? You can either watch my video review or read on to find the conclusions to my various tests.

Thanks to Camera Canada for getting me a loaner of the EOS R6 MK II. If you’re in Canada, check them out for a reliable online retailer.

Canon EOS R6 MKII Build and Features

Some of the key features of the new EOS R6 MKII are broken down here:

24.2MP Full-Frame CMOS Sensor
4K60 10-Bit Internal Video, C-Log 3
External 6K ProRes RAW Recording
Dual Pixel CMOS AF II
12 fps Mech. Shutter, 40 fps E. Shutter
Sensor-Shift 5-Axis Image Stabilization
3.69m-Dot OLED EVF
3″ 1.62m-Dot Vari-Angle Touchscreen LCD
Dual UHS-II Memory Card Slots
Multi-Function Shoe, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth

This list of specs positions the EOS R6 MKII well against the competitors. It isn’t as high of resolution as some competing cameras, but this is a newly designed sensor that is competitive in many other areas. As per usual, this Canon body feels more comfortable in my hand than any of the main competitors. Most noticeable is the depth of the grip (88.4mm/3.5”) which fits into my hand very nicely and makes it far more likely that I could easily support a heavier lens attached to the body. Unlike Sony cameras, there is sufficient width between the mount and the grip that allows me to use a variety of lenses without them pressing against my knuckles. The width and height of the R6 MKII is 138.4 x 98.4mm, or 5.4 x 3.9″.

Functionally this feels almost just like my EOS R5, so the camera felt instantly familiar or “right” in my hands. The R6 MKII weighs in at 588 (1.3lb) with battery and memory cards inserted.

The primary controls come via three wheels and a joystick. The first control wheel is located right behind the shutter button, the second at the back of the top plate (connected to the aforementioned On/Off level), while the third is Canon’s traditional wheel around the SET button on the back of the camera. The movement on all three of these wheels feels good (familiar and substantial).

The little joystick has a slightly different feel, as the surface curves out rather than curving in. I’m not sure what motivated that change, as I actually found the previous texture easier to find by feel. The joystick action moves fine, and it can be clicked in to serve as another button.

On the left side of the viewfinder is the Stills/Video switch. I like having this type of control as it does allow you to have a completely different setup for your video controls, including a separate customization set for buttons and wheels. I just wish it wasn’t in the place I always reach for to turn the camera on and off!

On the right side of the top plate there is a mode dial along with the record button and an M-Fn button that can be customized to a variety of functions. Canon’s higher end cameras have a secondary LCD on top, but I actually find that the old-fashioned mode dial is still the fastest way to get to different functions. There are a wide variety of options on the mode dial, including three different custom configurations.

The front of the camera has just two “buttons”: the lens release button to the left side of the lens mount and what used to be the “depth of field preview” button on the right side. The latter is now a custom button that you can assign whatever value you like to. Unfortunately we don’t see the new AF/MF dial there that Canon debuted on the EOS R7. I really wish Canon would standardize things like that, as it leaves you reaching for something that isn’t there or forgetting it is there because it isn’t on your other cameras.

Like other recent Canon cameras, the shutter blades will come down when the camera is powered off to protect the sensor from dust. Between that, the coatings, and the automatic cleaning cycle on the camera, I find that I almost never have to worry about sensor dust on my Canon cameras that are so equipped.

There is the standard set of buttons present on the back of the camera as well, most all of which can be customized to different functions. Everything is pretty much in the place I’ve come to expect on a Canon camera. You’ll also find a 3” articulating LCD touchscreen with a 1.62 million dot resolution. This is nothing special, these days, but Canon’s LCD screens remain the best in terms of touch performance, with very quick reaction times and good sensitivity. Canon’s menu design is also perhaps the friendliest to navigate by touch.

The viewfinder is an OLED electronic viewfinder with a 3.69 million dot resolution. That is essentially the standard for this class of camera and not exceptional in any particular way. Magnification is about 0.76x.

The left size port organization is highly similar to many of Canon’s cameras and unfortunately continues the trend of having flaps (hard to keep out of the way) instead of doors that can be smoothly opened (and left open when desired). There is a USB Type-C port for communication along with a micro-HDMI video out. That latter is Canon standard and is rarely anyone’s favorite for the simple reason that micro-HDMI is more flimsy than larger HDMI ports. The EOS R6 MKII has solid video specs (including the ability to do external 6K ProRes RAW Recording), but no serious videographer wants to deal with a micro-HDMI. Also disappointing is that in camera battery charging now requires an adapter (PD-E1) rather than just charging straight through the USB-C port. That seems odd to me, as charging within camera via USB-C has become pretty much ubiquitous in essentially every other camera I review. Another flap covers a 3.5mm microphone jack along with a similar headphone monitoring jack, while the final smaller flaps covers a remote release cable port. The hot-shoe on top allows you to connect certain microphones and get digital audio through it.

On the right side of the camera lies the memory card slots, which are covered by an actually door that opens and closes with precision by sliding it towards the rear of the camera where it then releases and opens wide. Inside there are two SD/SDHC/SDXC slots that are UHS-II compatible for increased speed. It is always debatable when a camera company elects to exclusively stay with a slower media, as that does limit the buffer depth (as we’ll see in a moment).

As noted in the intro, there is both a manual and electronic shutter option. The manual shutter is rated for whopping 400,000 actuations. The shutter sound is much nicer than what I recently heard on the EOS R7. You can hear it in action in my video review. The electronic shutter is completely silent (a white square on the viewfinder or LCD pops up showing that an image is being taken). There are a few limitations to electronic shutters that are better mitigated in higher end cameras than what we see here. A slower readout can result in a bit of rolling shutter effect (some slight bending of straight lines when panning), and features like anti-flicker technology and flash photography are not available when the electronic shutter is engaged. I recommend using the mechanical shutter most of the time and using the electronic shutter when you either need the quiet or the additional burst rate speed. One positive is that the electronic shutter gives an upper limit of 1/16,000^th second rather than 1/8000^th.

The EOS R6 MK II uses the familiar Canon LP-E6NH battery pack shared in many cameras. This has a capacity of 2130mAh and is rated for 760 shots for the LCD, though it isn’t difficult to exceed that rating. Older LP-E6 battery packs can also be used, which is nice. The R6 MKII is also compactible with the BG-R10 Battery Grip if you want to increase battery capacity along with adding vertical controls.

The EOS R6 MKII does have some decent communication options including wireless LAN and Bluetooth 4.2. Interestingly, you can plug it directly into a phone with a MiFI-certified cable (USB-C port).

The weather sealing is of the mostly magnesium alloy body is said to be comparable to that found on the R6.

The EOS R6 MK II is equipped with Canon’s excellent IBIS (In-Body-Image-Stabilization). This provides a lot of camera shake correction in body and will offer even more when paired with a lens equipped with IS. I used the RF 24-105mm F4L IS, for example, and Canon says that combination is good for up to 8 stops of correction at the telephoto end. I worked my way down to a full one second exposure at 105mm, and got an acceptably sharp even there, which I have not been able to achieve very often. That’s six stops.

I got easily repeatable results at 105mm and 1/5th of a second, which is also better than usual. The 8 stops suggested by Canon is 5a bit optimistic, in my experience, but I do find that Canon’s IBIS works very, very well for both stills and video. Handheld results for photos and videos show a degree of stabilization that I think trumps what I see from other systems. I definitely love IBIS, and Canon does it as well or better than anyone.

I did find the new ON/OFF switch a major inconvenience, but outside of that I generally loved the ergonomics of the EOS R6 MKII. Canon typically does ergonomics very well, and I think that’s definitely true here.

Canon EOS R6 MKII Autofocus Performance

As noted in the intro, the EOS R6 MKII inherits a lot of the excellent R3’s focus DNA. That’s not to say that the systems are identical (the imaging system and processing speed isn’t the same even if the raw specs are). This is a Dual Pixel CMOS AF system with an AF system that covers essentially 100% of the sensor area (though that can slightly vary depending on the lens attached). There are 1053 focus zones for either stills or movies, meaning that tracking is effortless and not limited by keeping your subject in a certain position in the frame. It utilizes Deep Learning for superior recognition and tracking of subjects…and it works very, very well!

I used the R6 MKII with several lenses in an event setting and was consistently impressed with exceptionally good (and intuitive) focus results, with excellent tracking of the eye regardless of the positioning of a person’s face.

I also really enjoy how engaging Canon’s tracking is. It is very clear on the screen what is being tracked, and you have an on-screen option that makes it easy to switch eyes (just click over with the joystick).

Eye AF worked very well whether it was animal, bird, or human subjects. The wide range of focus points means that you really don’t have to worry about where in the frame the subject is. It wasn’t that long ago that I was using a Canon EOS 6D pretty much exclusively with the center focus point – focus and recompose. That was this level of camera, so it is almost absurd how far autofocus has come in a relatively brief period of time.

Focus sensitivity is excellent, as the focus system can focus down to a -6.5 EV (which is VERY dark), though that figure will vary depending on the maximum aperture available on the lens mounted. A lens with a very bright aperture (like the F1.2 lenses) gives the autofocus system the potential of much more light to work with than a lens with a dimmer aperture. Autofocus was still snappy and accurate when taking this shot of books in a dark room (only 1/25th of a second, F1.4, ISO 12,800).

Also very impressive: when I tested shooting stars at night, the AF system actually locked onto a star and autofocused. I almost always have to manually focus for astrophotography work.

I noted in my intro that I’ve been very disappointed with Canon’s approach to third party lenses, but I will happily report that my Samyang AF 14mm F2.8 and 85mm F1.4 in RF mounts worked perfectly on the R6 MKII. These are still very nice lenses if you can get your hands on them secondhand.

I also noted when doing some video work that Canon’s intelligent tracking works very well. If you click on a subject and select it you can easily move around the scene while keeping focus on the desired location.

I did find a tracking limit, however, and that was in a new application (for me). I went to a butterfly conservatory and attempted to track the very erratic action of butterflies without a lot of success. The small size and the erratic movement made it difficult for the focus system to locate and lock focus when in flight, and I didn’t really have great success in tracking even when locking focus on a still butterfly and trying to follow the action when they took off. I’m sure my skill level in this environment could improve, but I did expect a little better performance than what I saw.

But that was really my only disappointed moment. My autofocus accuracy in general was excellent, and this is an excellent camera for tracking action in more ordinary circumstances. I shot a few sequences of my son going to shoot a layup and tracking was effortless in that kind of situation.

As is typical with this mid-level cameras, the buffer depth can’t always keep up with the burst rate. The buffer depth for RAW images is actually down from the original R6, which is most likely due to having a higher resolution point but not a faster storage medium. While both cameras can record 1000+ JPEG images (which is very useful!), the maximum RAW images drops from 240 to 110…and that is with the 12FPS mechanical shutter. If you use the maximum electronic shutter burst rate of the R6 MKII (40FPS) that figure drops to about 75 RAW images, which means you are getting about 2 seconds before the buffer fills with RAW images. This buffer depth is pretty competitive among Canon cameras, but I will note that the Sony a7IV (a similarly priced camera) can record 1000+ RAW images (but only has a 10FPS mechanical shutter option). You can increase the buffer depth by shooting in Lossless Compressed RAW (my typical preferred format), which increases that figure dramatically (I shot 89 CRAW + JPEG frames in the basketball sequence above with no hint of being near the edge of the buffer), or obviously by shooting JPEGs if you need longer bursts to ensure that you get your shot. You can also choose to shoot at slower burst rates (there is a 20FPS electronic shutter option, or a 12FPS mechanical shutter option) to give you more time (and more buffer depth) to get the shot. Here’s a look at the chart from the Canon “white paper” on the camera that breaks down all the different options.

There are plenty of options here for making sure you can tailor the burst rate to your shooting needs (you can shoot over 1000 CRAW images at 12FPS), so I don’t see any major limitations here other than knowing that if you choose the maximum burst rate and uncompressed RAW you are going to have to be very selective about when you depress the shutter. These medium level cameras can often compete with the higher end sports cameras in the marketed burst rates, but when you dive into these numbers you realize why the dedicated sports cameras (with their stacked sensors and faster readouts) cost what they do.

That being said, this is still a remarkable tool for capturing fast action. And, for a little perspective, the Canon EOS 5D MKIV had a maximum buffer depth of 17 RAW images and a maximum burst rate of 7FPs…and that was considered pretty good for the time. We’ve come a LONG way!

The EOS R6 MKII also has another trick up its sleeve to help you get that crucial shot. There is a new option called RAW Burst Mode, and it functions by starting shooting slightly before (about 0.5 seconds earlier) the shutter button is fully pressed at a 30FPS burst rate.

All told, this is an amazingly good focus system that is a real joy to use. Getting well focused results in just about any setting is pretty much effortless.

Video Performance

It seems like no camera is complete these days without some degree of advanced video specs, and the EOS R6 MKII is no different. The highlight spec here is that the R6 MKII can record 4K60 video with 6K oversampling. There is no crop factor, either – that is full sensor width (a serious advantage over the Sony a7IV). That 60FPS produces highly detailed footage that is further benefitted from the great autofocus and IBIS system in the camera. Here’s a look at the various video formats available on the EOS R6 MKII (from Canon’s “white paper” on the camera).

You do have the option for shooting with an APS-C crop at 60FPS as well, which could be useful if you have some APS-C lenses kicking around or want to tighten your framing (Canon’s APS-C crop is 1.6x).

We have thankfully passed the era where video recordings were artificially limited at the 29:59 minute mark, so recording will (in theory) continue until the memory card is filled, as shown by this chart.

At higher bitrates where more heat is generated, you might see an earlier shutdown due to heat (if you have a large memory card). The shortest estimated recording time is at 40 minutes at 4K60, so that shouldn’t be a major issue for many people. There is a Heat Control submenu that gives you options on how you want the camera to handle heat related issues.

As noted, 4K recording is limited to 60FPS, but up to 180FPS is available at Full HD (1080P) for serious slow-motion work. We would all love to have 4K120, of course, but these video specs are well in line with the competition in the market. The EOS R6 MKII also includes Canon Log 3 (enables a consistent standard for grading) and HDR PQ for higher dynamic range footage. Here’s a frame from some 4K footage from the camera.

You can output 6K ProRes RAW to an Atmos Ninja recorder, though the limiting principle might be that flimsy micro-HDMI port. Still, it’s pretty impressive how much cine technology is packed into modern cameras. It wasn’t that long ago that I paid a separate fee of over $100 to add C LOG to my 5D Mark IV!

There is also an option to employ a focus breathing correction (with certain lenses) that helps to eliminate focus breathing (by utilizing a slight crop). Another neat feature is similar to the pre-burst stills recording, as you can enable an option to capture a 3- or 5-second prerecording so that action occurring before the movie start button is pressed isn’t missed.

As noted, the EOS R6 MKII is a full hybrid camera in the sense that you can select the video mode and have separate configurations for menus and custom buttons.

Canon EOS R6 MKII Sensor Performance

While the Canon EOS R3 sported a 24MP Canon sensor, the sensor found in the R6 MKII is an all new one. The R3 sensor was a stacked BSI sensor, while we have a more conventional CMOS sensor here that just happens to have the same resolution point. This is a 24MP sensor with a native resolution of 6000 x 4000 pixels, and while that isn’t high resolution by modern standards, it is still suitable for many people in many situations. It’s also worth noting that not all sensors are created equally, and Canon claims that this sensor can deliver resolution and detail that exceeds that of the higher resolution sensor found in the 5D Mark IV. I can’t verify that, but I can attest to the fact that this sensor does produce beautifully detailed images. File options include RAW, CRAW, JPEG, and HEIF formats. Here’s a breakdown of the various aspect ratios and dimensions available along with the average file size for each.

Canon used to offer Medium and Small RAW options but in more recent years has elected utilize their extremely efficient CRAW (Compressed RAW) option, which is a lossless compressed file that delivers both great efficiency in terms of file size but also very high quality. It is my go-to option in my cameras, as a lot of tests over the past few years have demonstrated that it is near impossible to spot any differences from the full size uncompressed RAW options. So, while offering near equal quality, CRAW delivers files that are only about 54% of the size of the uncompressed RAW options. At ISO 100, for example, an uncompressed RAW file will be around 26MB, while the CRAW file is a relatively diminutive 13.2MP. Canon .CR3 “wrapper” is extremely efficient as well, delivering smaller file sizes in general relative to competitor’s RAW files. The 6D MKII’s images generally look great – good detail and color.

Typically high resolution sensors come with some baggage like increased noise at higher ISO levels, while a lower resolution sensor like this allows for more robust low light work. I’m used to working with higher resolution levels, so I do miss the extra pixels, but this is a sensor that will allow for good resolution, good dynamic range, and also a strong performance at higher ISO settings.

We’ll break those things down in a little more detail here.

Dynamic Range

I’ve taken to referring to the charts over at Photons to Photos as a quick reference to supplement my own tests. According to them, the dynamic range performance of the EOS R6 MKII is very competitive among Canon’s recent sensors, besting the original R6 and falling only slightly behind the R3 and R5 sensors.

They rate the EOS R6 MKII at a maximum of 11.52 stops, while the original R6 was only rated 11.16. Canon’s top full frame sensor is the R3 (11.91 stops) with the R5 right behind at 11.85. For perspective outside the platform, the Sony a7IV is both a direct competitor along with one of Sony’s best, and it is rated at 11.71 stops. Bottom line is that this new Canon sensor is, by the numbers, a very sensor for dynamic range performance. We’ll see how that bears out in real world testing.

For my tests, I establish a base exposure (neutral or correct) and then subsequently under and overexpose the image by progressive stops. I typically go as high as 4 stops of overexposure and 5 stops of underexposure as modern cameras tend to be better at recovering shadows than they do highlights. I then add or remove the appropriate stops of light in post to see how the sensor does in recovering the lost information. Here’s a look at the properly exposed image for reference:

We will examine how the colors are retained, the purity of the shadows and highlights, and how noise impacts the image.

As noted, modern cameras are typically very good at recovering shadows. At four stops of underexposure the unrecovered photo shows deeply crushed shadows and very little of the subject visible, but the shadows are easily and cleanly recovered by adding those four stops of light back into the photo. The end result is a photo that looks largely like the original (correct) exposure.

If there is some additional noise, it is so fine that I scarcely notice it even at a pixel level. Color fidelity seems good, and I don’t see any patchiness or color casts.

We find the limit between 4 and 5 stops, however, where I start to see the familiar signs of things falling apart. I don’t see a lot of additional noise, but I do see more evidence of “smoothing” by the sensor to try to defeat the noise. I also see color shift along with some blotchy color banding scattered throughout the image. You can see how clean the 4-stop recovery on the left is relative to the 5-stop recovery on the right.

So, shadow recovery is good, but there is a limit to how far you can go without penalty.

How about highlights? We will now reverse the process. I’ve gradually overexposed a series of images, one stop at a time, and then attempted to recover the highlights in post. Typically you will start to see the image fall apart after a few stops in a couple of ways: 1) certain colors are lost and are not recoverable, and 2) information will be lost in blown highlights that isn’t recoverable.

At two stops the recovery (on the right) is near perfect. The color swatches all look correct and I don’t see lost information in the highlights.

At three stops, however, the limits are slightly exceeded. You can see that in comparison to the 2 stop recovery (on the left) that the 3 stop recovery on the right has missing color information on the timer face and some of the color swatches.

At four stops the image becomes unusable. The highlight recovery is a tiny bit better than average, and you can see the value when, say, an image like this has little interest because of a blown out sky. The dynamic range allowed me to recover the sky from a single image quickly and easily, and the latter result on the right is much more dynamic and interesting.

Here’s one final example that I like. This is a very moody scene of Niagara Falls taken on a day that frankly wasn’t very nice and was taken through a window. Between specks on the window and reflected light, the image isn’t technically perfect, but I was able to take a very wide angle of view (14mm) and capture a big range of detail in both the shadows and highlights. The end result is (in my opinion) wonderfully moody and interesting.

ISO Performance

In a perfect world we could all shoot in perfectly lit scenes, but reality dictates that sometimes we have to shoot in lower light situations. The EOS R6 MKII has amazing low light autofocus (with sensitivity down to EV -6.5), but raising the ISO also results in some costs to the image. Improving technologies help to mitigate some of that, and that is what we are evaluating here. We saw from the chart above that while the dynamic range at ISO 100 is about 11.5 stops, by ISO 25,600 that DR has dropped to just 4.3 stops. Raising the ISO also results in increased noise, potential color banding and color shift, and loss of contrast. On paper, the R6 MKII has some small advantages over competitors like the Sony a7IV, so let’s take a look at how that plays out.

I compared each stop of ISO in the standard range to the base ISO of 100. Through ISO 3200 the results remain extremely clean, with an almost imperceptible amount of noise.

At ISO 6400 things look fine on a global level with no real apparent difference between base ISO and ISO 6400:

At a pixel level you can see how clean the image the still is, with only the slightest bit of visible noise on the mirror in the SLR and on the checkerboard pattern on the table.

Through ISO 12,800 results continue to be very clean. There’s a bit more noise, but the pixels are still quite even in the black levels which allow contrast and color saturation to remain quite consistent:

By ISO 25,600 the image is still usable in some situations. The image when viewed globally looks largely the same as at ISO 12,800, but when you look closer you can see slightly reduced black levels due to some “hot” pixel noise. This results in slightly less contrast. The noise pattern is more obviously rough at a pixel level, though I would say the end result is still as good or better as some cameras at ISO 12,800. This worsening trend continues at ISO 51,200, though I wouldn’t say the image has completely fallen apart, either. The color balance is still pretty good and there is nothing “weird” going…just more noise and less contrast.

By the end of the native limit at ISO 102,400 the breakdown is visible at a pixel level, though I will say that I’ve very impressed by the color consistency even at this extreme. Often the whole image quality has really gone sour by the end of the ISO limit, but in this case I’ll say that the image help up until the end. I wouldn’t want to use ISO 102,400, but I would say there are situations where I would use ISO 51,200, though, which I don’t think I’ve often said in the past.

This is a camera where you could easily use the F4 zooms rather than the F2.8 zooms for event work as the low light performance is just so pristine. I shot a lot at ISO 3200 in an event setting with the RF 24-105mm F4L IS and the images were flawless.

Shooting into my dim lens cabinet at ISO 25,600 looks perfectly usable to my eye:

This is a fantastic low light performer. You could definitely get away with some of the “weird” RF lenses like the 600mm/800mm F11 primes or the RF 100-400mm (which is F8 on the telephoto end) because you can jack the ISO up with less consequence.

Image Quality Summary

I’m generally happy with the performance of the sensor on the EOS R6 MKII. I do miss having the higher resolution for cropping, but it’s true that the sensor does produce very strong detail for this resolution point, so when you do crop the detail still looks very good – like in this crop of me (taken by my assistant Craig) on the platform of the church that I pastor.

Images have good color (a typical Canon strength), good detail, and are pleasant to edit.

All told, this is a great new sensor and definitely gives you more to work with than the first generation R6 in detail, dynamic range, and even ISO performance.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Canon EOS R6 MKII is a great improvement on its predecessor. I liked the R6, but going back to 20MP felt like a serious step back. The R6 MKII is improved in a variety of ways and has a great new sensor. I wouldn’t have minded seeing that resolution point moving up nearer to 30MP, but that’s not what happened. In most other ways, however, the R6 MKII’s sensor is very competitive with competing cameras on the market and even bests them in areas like High ISO performance and color fidelity.

The focus system is largely borrowed from the EOS R3, which means that it is among Canon’s best, and this can serve as a pretty great sports camera without breaking the bank. The buffer depth isn’t as robust as the dedicated sports models, but it’s deep enough for many situations, and there are some easy workarounds (like using CRAW) that can help raise those limits.

When my biggest gripe is the position of the power switch you know that things are pretty good. The Canon EOS R6 MKII is a great camera that is destined to be very popular and makes me anticipate what Canon does in the next generation of my beloved EOS R5. At $2500 USD, it isn’t a cheap camera, but neither is it prohibitively expensive for such a fully featured full frame camera. I would not be surprised to see the R6 MKII quickly become one of Canon’s best selling full frame models.

Pros:

Great new sensor
(Mostly) Great ergonomics – easy to learn, easy to love
Canon’s IBIS system is excellent
Fabulous focus system that makes tracking or portraits effortless
Great eye tracking for humans, animals, birds, and cars
Auto tracking detection mode works extremely well
Impeccable focus on people during event settings
Articulating touchscreen has good resolution and is highly responsive
Blazing burst rates in either mechanical or electronic shutter mode
Great number of video options and resolutions
Excellent ISO performance and dynamic range

Cons:

Canon can’t make up its mind where to put ON/OFF switches
No autofocusing third party lenses diminishes the appeal of the Canon mirrorless ecosystem
Micro-HDMI port is too flimsy for serious video work
Charging the battery in camera requires a $135 dollar PD-E1 adapter

Gear Used:

Purchase a Canon EOS R6 MKII @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon EOS R7 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon EOS R5 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon EOS R6 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

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Keywords: Canon EOS R6 MK II, EOS, R6, MK II, R6 II, R6 2, EOS R6 II, Canon EOS R6 II, EOS R6 II Review, RF, mirrorless, Canon EOS R7 Review, Sports, Tracking, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Handling, Focus, Portraits, Resolution, High ISO, Image Quality, Sample Images, Photography, 24Mpx, 24MP, Canon, letthelightin, DA

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Canon RF-S 18-150mm F3.5-6.3 IS STM Review

Dustin Abbott

October 3rd, 2022

The Canon RF-S 18-150mm IS STM lens is one of two newly announced lenses that will serve as the “kit” lenses for Canon’s first APS-C cameras that utilize the RF mount. The 18-150mm is the more premium of the two, while the 18-45mm IS STM is the more compact. I tested the 18-150mm as a bundle with the new Canon EOS R7 sports-oriented camera, where it adds $400 to the price of the “body only” kit, but the lens will also be sold individually at a price point of $500 USD. Lenses using this mount but designed for APS-C will carry the RF-S designation.

The 18-150mm is not really an entirely new lens but is rather a redesign of a similar lens that has been available for Canon’s EF-M mount for about six years. I gave the EF-M lens a positive review in early 2017 as I was pleasantly surprised by its sharpness over the 8.3x zoom ratio. This being essentially the same lens, both the strengths and weaknesses of that lens persist, but there’s no question that being able to go from this framing at 18mm:

To this framing at 150mm:

…is always going to be useful.

Very often lenses with a broad zoom range like (this is a 29-240mm full frame equivalent focal range) do come with some compromises. I tested the RF-S 18-150mm on the new Canon EOS R7, which can be had $1499 USD for the camera alone or $1899 with the very useful 18-150mm IS lens (giving a $100 savings on the lens when buying in kit). My review of that camera is here. Should you consider purchasing the RF-S 18-150mm in kit (or separately in the future?) You can either watch my video review or read on to get more information to help inform your decision.

Thanks to Camera Canada for getting me a loaner of the EOS R7. If you’re in Canada, check them out for a reliable online retailer.

Canon RF-S 18-150mm Build and Features

The 18-150mm is a variable aperture zoom, starting at F3.5 at the widest and F6.3 at the smallest maximum aperture. It unfortunately hits the smaller end of the range very quickly, with F6.3 arriving by only 62mm.

18-18mm = f/3.5
18-27mm = f/4.0
28-34mm = f/4.5
35-44mm = f/5.0
45-61mm = f/5.6
62-150mm = f/6.3

This means that you will be shooting at higher ISO settings in poorer light, but this was the engineering sacrifice to keep the lens small and light…which it is. The 18-150mm is 69mm in diameter (2.7”) and is a modest 84.5mm in length (3.3”). It weighs in at a lightweight 310g (10.9oz). A large zoom ring moves smoothly and the inner barrel extends considerably when zoomed to 150mm.

There are no switches on the lens barrel, which does complicate the use of the second ring located at the front the lens. It is to serve as both the manual focus and control ring, but to switch between the functions you will have to rely on either the new front-mounted AF/MF lever on the EOS R7 and R10 or dive into the menus on older cameras. In theory the ring will function as a control ring when the lever is in the AF mode on the camera and as a manual focus ring when the lever is in the MF position. It’s a bit of a pain, frankly, and I would prefer having a switch on the lens.

The focus ring (when used as such) is quite small, but it moves smoothly. There isn’t much damping/weight to it, so manual focus has a fairly lifeless feel. You can control whether the ring operates in a linear or speed-oriented fashion from the camera body.

The physical shape is a little less elegant than the EF-M version due to needing to have a much wider flange at the base of the lens to accommodate the larger RF mount. The rest of the lens is much narrower – only a millimeter or two wider than the 55mm front filter threads.

The lens follows a trend seen on the EF-M lens with a plastic rather than metal mount. It’s a surprising touch for 2022, as I almost never see plastic lens mounts anymore. There is no weather sealing, and as is the unfortunate norm for Canon’s non-L lenses, no lens hood is included.

A strength for the lens is its ability to focus very closely (as close at 17cm or 6.7”) which results in a very high 0.44x magnification level at the 18mm wide end. The minimum focus distance at 150mm is 45cm, or 1.48ft.

At 18mm you will be almost on top of your subject at the minimum focus distance, making it hard to not shade it, but you can achieve a very high degree of magnification with nice detail, though with a bit of perspective distortion of being wide and close.

The plane of focus is flatter at 150mm, but the magnification (and sharpness) isn’t as high (I estimate 0.25x range). A good compromise between the two is shown in the third image here, taken at 50mm, where a very high level of magnification is possible while image quality remains better.

At 50mm you can still focus nearly as closely as at 18mm, but the longer focal length means that magnification is even higher (above 0.50x), and there is less perspective distortion.

That’s a fairly good impression of macro work (this is a tripod quick release plate), and this extends the versatility of the lens by allowing for close-up shots where the background will be nicely blurred away.

The RF-S 18-150mm does include Canon’s Image Stabilization in lens, which is rated for 4.5 stops of assistance. When paired with a camera with IBIS, or In Body Image Stabilization, that figure jumps to 6.5 stops of assistance. I found the stabilization to be effective though not magical – getting stable shots at 1/15^th of a second at 150mm was possible but not consistent, and that is about 4 stops of assistance.

I did not have success going beyond that threshold, so for me, at least, the promise of 6.5 stops (roughly 0.3 seconds) proved unattainable. I was more impressed when shooting video, where I found the R7 and 18-150mm to be a nicely stable platform for hand-held video capture.

Video footage in general looked excellent with that combination and I feel like this is a definite strength for the lens.

Autofocus Performance

The RF-S 18-150mm utilizes a Lead Screw-type stepping motor, or STM. Autofocus speed in good light was excellent, and I had no problem acquiring focus and tracking action during a softball game.

That small maximum aperture will play havoc with focus speeds in low light, however, so expect focus to be much slower in dim lighting conditions.

I found that Eye AF detection for humans and animals was excellent, with the lens locking on and maintaining proper focus.

Focus pulls for video were smooth, nicely damped, but with good speed and confidence. The on-board mic picked up no sound even in a silent environment. There was some minimal focus breathing, but nothing extreme (I did the test at roughly 50mm).

My general purpose focus accuracy was good in general, and, other than the slow low-light focusing, I felt positive about my focus experience with the RF-S 18-150mm on the EOS R7 camera I tested it on.

Canon RF-S 18-150mm Optical Performance

As noted, the RF-S 18-150mm has a very large 8.3x zoom range housed in a very compact body, which creates a large number of engineering challenges. I praised the EF-M version of the lens as I felt like Canon did a fairly good job of overcoming many of those challenges, and, at its best, the 18-150mm is capable of producing lovely, detailed images.

My son actually has a large canvas hanging on his bedroom wall of a scene from Arizona that I shot with the EF-M version of the lens, which shows that the lens is capable of producing wall-worthy images.

As a first-party lens the 18-150mm will enjoy excellent profile support both in-camera (JPEGs and Video) and in editing software. The profile does a clean job of correcting both distortion and vignette, though I always show a manual correction because it is more representative of the optical qualities of the lens itself…not just the software assisting it.

At 18mm there is some noticeable barrel distortion and vignette, though neither is extreme.

I utilized a manual correction of +8 for the distortion and was pleased to see that it was mostly linear and thus corrected fairly well (there’s only a very minor mustache pattern to the distortion). Vignette was corrected with a +60 (around 2.5 stops).

At 70mm the distortion pattern has inverted to a pincushion style distortion while vignette has decreased.

I used a -5 to correction the distortion and a +26 to correct the vignette, which is essentially a non-issue in the middle of the zoom range.

At 150mm the distortion was a slightly reduced but the vignette had increased again.

I corrected the distortion with a -4 and plugged in a +53 to correct the vignette, or just a little less than what we saw at 18mm.

None of these values are particularly extreme for such a large zoom ratio (check out the RF 24-240mm for some extreme distortion and vignette!!), so I give Canon solid marks for the engineering on the RF-S 18-150mm.

One optical flaw I did note while conducting these tests was some persistent Lateral Chromatic aberrations. Lateral chromatic aberrations (LaCA) show up as fringing on either side of contrast areas (like tree trunks, for example) along the edges of the frame. Unlike LoCA, they do not improve when stopping the aperture down, but are much easier to correct for (typically a one click “remove chromatic aberrations” box in editing software). You can see both green and purple fringing on the sides of the lens in my test chart:

I saw slightly less issues with LoCA. Longitudinal chromatic aberrations (LoCA) typically show up as purple/magenta fringing before the plane of focus and blue/green fringing beyond the plane of focus due to colors not being perfectly focused together. They typically diminish as the lens is stopped down to smaller apertures. You can see a bit of fringing in engraved numbers on the side of this lens, but they aren’t extreme.

Here’s a look at my test chart that I use for resolution tests. I used the 32.5MP APS-C sensor on the Canon EOS R7 for this test, which is currently the highest resolution available.

I look at test results at a 200% magnification, and even under these extremes the results at 18mm, F3.5, are quite impressive. Good detail and contrast in the center and mid-frame while the corners are still quite strong.

Stopping down to F5.6 and F8 makes little difference in the center of the frame, but the midframe and corners do improve a bit, though the corners never achieve excellent levels.

This real-world result at 18mm, F5.6 looks quite good.

At 24mm the center results are slightly poorer, but the corners are better. The same applies at 35mm, though everything is just a little softer by comparison. At 50mm the results look largely the same as 35mm. Everything is still quite good, but with 18mm achieving the highest levels of performance.

Starting at 70mm, however, there is a decline in sharpness. Textures just aren’t as crisp, and my mid-frame results at 70mm and 100mm show that decline (I’ve got a new bill from the Philippines on my test chart thanks to my daughter visiting there this summer!)

If we go back and compare that 100mm result to the wide-open 24mm result we can see a pretty significant difference in rendering power.

The general softening of image quality persists at 150mm, and even stopping down to F8 doesn’t really improve things much.

This sparked my interest, as I felt like real world results weren’t quite this bad (and I remember feeling more positive about the image quality from the EF-M version). These real world shots looks good, but the you can tell the results are relatively low contrast when you look at the crops.

So what’s changed if the optical design is the same?

The answer is “resolution”. I tested the EF-M version on a 24MP EOS M5, while the EOS R7 is 32.5MP. That’s a 35% increase in resolution, and higher resolution sensors expose a lens’ optical shortcomings.

I continue to find the focal range useful, and in most ways I still like the images from the lens, but it’s also true that this isn’t really a lens for pixel peepers out past 60mm.

Bokeh quality is rarely top notch in this type of superzoom, and that’s largely the case here. You can blur out backgrounds fairly well up close due to the close minimum focus distance, but the quality of the blur is only okay. This image shows the blur without the background being completely blown out, and the quality is decent but not exceptional.

At closer distances you can blur the background out more completely, and that always looks good.

Flare resistance is a bit of a mixed bag. At larger apertures the lenses did okay, and this shot into the morning sun looks fine.

Likewise this riverside shot looks beautiful.

But in intense situations you can get quite a bit of flare artifacts, particularly when the lens is stopped down.

The RF-S 18-150mm is capable of producing very nice images, but it excels more at versatility than it does at does at any one particular thing. I think what has left a positive impression in my mind in general is the simple fact that the portability and versatility has enabled me to get a lot of great images with the combination…even if it isn’t optically amazing.

Conclusion

Canon’s opening lineup of RF-S lenses is much more underwhelming than their first APS-C RF cameras, as both the 18-45mm IS STM and this lens, the RF-S 18-150mm F3.5-6.3 IS STM are “ported” EF-M lenses that have been around for a while and have simply been repackaged here around the RF-S mount. Canon is going to have to be diligent in demonstrating that they are serious about lens development for this new APS-C venture if they really want people to buy in. That being said, I’ve long recommended the 18-150mm lens on the EF-M mount because of its versatility, compact size, and reasonable image quality. It never felt like it was much behind the zoom lenses with a much smaller zoom range optically, while offering up the potential for capturing so many more different types of images. When I was choosing a camera for my daughter before she did some traveling, I chose the Canon EOS M5 along with the 18-150mm, and she’s been happy with that combination.

There’s no question that the RF-S version didn’t exactly ace my modern testing standards, particularly on the higher resolution sensor of the Canon EOS R7. This is a lens that is more valuable for its versatility than it’s optical performance in any particular area. At the same time, however, it does deliver great looking images that hold up well on any level but the pixel level. And, to be fair, because of the way that modern images are shared there will rarely be opportunities for those images to be seen on a pixel level. And don’t forget that high magnification that adds even more versatility.

While I would like to have seen Canon’s new APS-C mirrorless lineup launch with some genuinely new and unique lenses, I am glad that the RF-S 18-150mm is part of the opening lineup. It’s a genuinely useful lens that remains a far more intriguing “kit lens” to me because of great zoom range, compact size, and good enough performance in basically all areas.

Pros:

Extremely useful 8.3x zoom range
Compact size and weight
Zoom ring moves smoothly
Autofocus is quick and quiet (in decent light)
IS is effective and makes for very nice video performance
Tracking action was effective
Vignette and distortion not bad for such a large zoom range
Good sharpness at 60mm and under
Very high magnification – shines around 50mm

Cons:

No included lens hood
Image quality softens over 60mm
Arrives at smaller maximum apertures very quickly
Focus speed in low light suffers
Optically struggles with the higher resolution of the EOS R7

Gear Used:

Purchase a Canon RF-S 18-150mm @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon EOS R7 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon EOS R5 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon EOS R6 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

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Keywords: Canon RF-S 18-150mm, 18-150, 18-150mm, F3.5-6.3, IS, STM, Canon RF0S 18-150 Review, Canon 18-150mm Review, RF-S, Canon EOS R7, EOS, R7, R10, EOS R7, Canon EOS R7, EOS R7 Review, RF-S, mirrorless, APS-C, EOS R7 Review, Canon R7 Review, Canon EOS R7 Review, Canon EOS R10, EOS R10 Review, RF-S 18-150mm, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Handling, Focus, Portraits, Resolution, High ISO, Image Quality, Sample Images, Photography, 32Mpx, 32MP, Canon, letthelightin, DA

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Canon EOS R7 Review

Dustin Abbott

September 26th, 2022

The new Canon EOS R7 is an important addition to Canon’s mirrorless lineup for multiple reasons. First of all it (along with the simultaneously releases R10) help bring APS-C to the Canon RF mount, where lenses like the new 18-150mm F3.5-6.3 IS STM (which I simultaneously reviewed) will carry the designation RF-S. Secondly, the EOS R7 is a spiritual successor to the Canon EOS 7D series, the latest of which (the 7D Mark II was released all the way back in November 2014). The 7D series was prized by sports and wildlife photographers for its “blazing” 10 FPS (frames-per-second) burst and robust 65 AF point focus system. It sported a 20.2 MP APS-C sensor. In essence it brought some of the sporting goodness of the 1Dx series to APS-C at a much more affordable price.

The EOS R7 does the same, porting a lot of the same focus technology and the burst rate of the powerhouse Canon EOS R3 (my review here) into a much more compact, affordable APS-C sensor-driven body. But now instead of 10 FPS we have a 15FPS mechanical shutter but up to 30 FPS electronic shutter burst rate. Instead of 65 AF points, we have 651 focus zones spread across the entire frame. Instead of a 20MP sensor, we now have a 32.5MP sensor which is the highest resolution APS-C sensor that I’ve ever tested. Put simply, there are a lot of good things coming together in the R7 that will undoubtedly make it a very popular camera.

There are a few potential flies in the ointment, however. As with some other fast burst-rate APS-C cameras (like the Fujifilm XT-3 and XT-4), the relatively shallow buffer depth means that those bursts won’t last very long before the camera has to stop taking photos to write to the buffer. There are also relatively few lens options in a native RF-S mount, meaning that you are largely going to be dependent on either full frame RF lenses or adapting EF/EF-S lenses at least initially. I used an RF L series lens (RF 24-105mm F4L IS USM) for my tracking tests so that I could utilize a more robust AF system in the lens to give the camera a better test.

Canon seems like they are going to aggressively limit third party lens options on the Canon RF platform, with first Samyang AF lenses being pulled and now a more recent Viltrox option (the 85mm F1.8 STM lens that I reviewed here) has been pulled after Canon allegedly threatened them with litigation if they didn’t stop designing and selling RF mount lenses. We’ve seen no Sigma or Tamron lenses on Canon RF, and the fact that Tamron has recently announced a coming Nikon Z mount lens without an accompanying R-mount lens is a pretty strong indication that they’ve gotten the same word. That’s a potentially critical blow, as only two RF-S lenses have been announced alongside the R7 and R10, and both of them are kit-type variable aperture zoom lenses. Canon RF thus far have mostly fallen into one of two baskets: extremely expensive (L series lenses) or extremely compromised (most non-L lenses) with limited feature sets and lackluster AF systems.

Canon’s development for their first APS-C mirrorless platform (the EOS M system) isn’t overly inspiring. That system is ten years old and never reached 10 native lenses. Three of those were kit lenses, only 3 of them were primes, and only one prime lens (32mm F1.4) is considered optically exceptional. Canon could doom its exciting new camera bodies by another policy of underdevelopment of lenses, particularly if they maintain the policy of barring third party lensmakers from helping to fill the gaps. My general feeling about Canon over the past two years is that they are developing great camera bodies (I love my EOS R5!) but then crippling them with their lens policies.

I understand that this feels somewhat like a rant, but I do think the discussion is relevant when you are considering a new platform to adopt. If Canon wants the RF-S mount to flourish, they absolutely have to equip it with excellent lenses at a variety of price points…particularly if they continue to exclude third parties from helping fill that void.

Big picture concerns aside, let’s zoom into the performance of this excellent camera which comes to market at a price point of $1499 USD for the camera alone or $1899 with the very useful 18-150mm IS lens (giving a $100 savings on the lens when buying in kit). Should you consider purchasing the Canon EOS R7? You can either watch my video review or read on to find the conclusions to my various tests.

Thanks to Camera Canada for getting me a loaner of the EOS R7. If you’re in Canada, check them out for a reliable online retailer.

Canon EOS R7 Build and Features

Some of the key features of the new EOS R7 are broken down here:

32.5MP APS-C CMOS Sensor
Dual Pixel CMOS AF II
4K60 10-Bit Video, HDR-PQ & C-Log 3
30 fps E. Shutter, 15 fps Mech. Shutter
2.36m-Dot OLED EVF
1.66m-Dot Vari-Angle Touchscreen LCD
Sensor-Shift 5-Axis Image Stabilization
Dual UHS-II Memory Card Slots
Multi-Function Shoe, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth

That’s an impressive lineup of features in a camera that costs $1500 and certainly gives it some features to boast against the competition. It has a higher resolution sensor than the X-T4 and Sony a6600, faster burst rates than any current Sony APS-C bodies, and higher video specs than Sony bodies as well. The X-T4 is the closest match in terms of specs (though at a $200 price premium), but in practice the EOS R7 easily bests the tracking performance of the X-T4 and has a much more intuitive focus system in general. I’ve used all of the primary competitors to the EOS R7, and if we are simply talking about a camera in isolation, I would take the EOS R7 over any of the competitors. *I don’t refer to Nikon options in my review because I don’t test Nikon and simply am not familiar with their offerings. It’s not an intentional slight.

The EOS R7 ticks nearly all the boxes that I would reasonably expect to see on a camera like this and in a body that feels more comfortable in my hand than any of the main competitors. Most noticeable is the depth of the grip (91.7mm/3.6”) which fits into my hand very nicely and makes it far more likely that I could easily support a heavier lens attached to the body. This is a massive difference from either the Fuji X-T4 (63.8mm) or the Sony a6600 (69.3mm). In fact, the EOS R7 is most similar in body size to the Canon EOS RP full frame model, with an identical width of 132mm (5.2”) and with the EOS R7 being slightly taller at 90.4mm (3.6”) vs 85mm (3.3”) for the EOS RP. The RP has a grip depth more similar to the Fuji and Sony bodies, though, at 70mm (2.8”). The EOS R7 feels a little less substantial than my R5 (138 x 97.5 x 88mm), but more similar in ergonomics to the that camera than to the APS-C competition, which I consider a very good thing. The new EOS R10 is more similar in size to the Sony and Fuji APS-C bodies.

That means that we have an APS-C model that is closer in size to a full frame camera, and whether or not that is a good thing really depends on what your priorities are. If you want to travel every light, the EOS R10 is the lightest of these competitors at just 382g for the body only. Surprisingly, however, the EOS R7 is not much heavier than the Fuji and Sony bodies, with the R7 tipping the scales at 530g/1.2lb with the body only or 612g (1.3lb) with battery and memory cards inserted. The Fuji X-10 weights 526g for the body only and no one would be able to really detect that 4g difference. The Sony is a little lighter at 503g with the battery and memory card (singular) inserted. If your priority is a camera that feels good in the hands and has superior ergonomics, however, the Canon is an easy winner in my estimation.

Those good ergonomics carry on to the controls, which are a mix between the RP and the R6. At the back we have the D-Pad around the Q/Set button, and I always miss the Canon wheel that is there on bodies like the R5/R6 when it is missing. But Canon has also given us something more than what the RP had by adding a new control wheel around the joystick that lies in a similar position to that on the R5/R6.

That wheel is in place of the one typically found on the rear of the top plate, and that typical dial position is now occupied with a new On/OFF/Video switch. The place where the ON/OFF switch typically resides on the left side of the viewfinder is now empty. The ability to switch directly into video mode is a positive one, though you will have to learn to avoid going past “ON” into video mode.

Most of the other controls are similar to many other Canon models, though there is no dedicated magnification button. You magnify via clicking the joystick in (a redundant control on my R5). Most of the typical Canon buttons are there in roughly similar positions with mild reshuffling to suit the unique curves of the body.

Also present is a 3” articulating LCD touchscreen with a 1.62 million dot resolution. This matches what is found on the Fuji X-T4 and bests the resolution on either the a6600 or the R10. Canon’s LCD screens remain the best in terms of touch performance, with very quick reaction times and good sensitivity. Canon’s menu design is also perhaps the friendliest to navigate by touch.

The viewfinder is an OLED electronic viewfinder with a 2.36 million dot resolution. That is lower than the resolution found on the X-T4 and equal to the resolution of the other competitors. It is adequate but not special in terms of resolution, thought it does offer better magnification (1.15x) and good responsiveness. The position of the eyecup is much better than what is found on the a6600 and it is tops in comfort when pressing the eye against it.

The left size port organization is highly similar to many of Canon’s cameras and unfortunately continues the trend of having flaps (hard to keep out of the way) instead of doors that can be smoothly opened (and left open when desired). The selection of ports is superior to the competitors and includes both a headphone monitoring port along with a microphone out. There is a USB Type-C port for communication and charging (PD standard required in the power source, though fortunately that is becoming increasingly ubiquitous). We have a remote cable release port and a micro-HDMI video out. That latter is Canon standard and is rarely anyone’s favorite for the simple reason that micro-HDMI is more flimsy than larger HDMI ports. It’s worth noting that micro-HDMI is the standard in this class, however, which certainly isn’t true of competitors to bodies like R3 and R5.

On the right side of the camera lies the memory card slots, which are covered by an actually door that opens and closes with precision by sliding it towards the rear of the camera where it then releases and opens wide. Inside there are two SD/SDHC/SDXC slots that are UHS-II compatible for increased speed. That matches the X-T4 and beats the single slot found in either the a6600 or R10.

Up front we have a new feature that I hope rolls out into all of Canon’s future bodies, and that is a new dial flanking the programmable button that has traditionally been a depth-of-field preview button on Canon cameras of the past. That dial is an AF/MF switch which allows for a quick, direct way of controlling that function without going into the menus (assuming the lens doesn’t have an AF/MF switch). This could suggest that we won’t see an AF/MF switch on RF-S lenses (that’s true for the first two announced). There’s the standard lens release button, and, if there is no lens in place and the camera is powered off, you’ll see that it has the active sensor protection of the shutter staying down to keep dust off the sensor. This featured was pioneered by Canon on the original EOS R and has since spread to other camera makers.

The top plate is fairly simple. There is no LCD screen as seen on the higher end Canon bodies, but a functional mode dial sits next to the viewfinder. And frankly, between the new video selector switch and this mode dial I think you can actually select what you want to do quicker and more intuitively than on my Canon R5 and it’s more complicated system. The “hot-shoe” is now called a “multi-function shoe” as it is also compatible with recording digital audio through certain mics. There are four different buttons (customizable), the front dial above the shutter and then the nicely responsible shutter button.

As noted in the intro, there is both a manual and electronic shutter option. The manual shutter is rated for 200,000 actuations. I don’t love the sound/action of this shutter as it sounds less “definite” than the shutter on the R5 or R6. You can hear it in action in my video review. The electronic shutter is completely silent (a white square on the viewfinder or LCD pops up showing that an image is being taken). There are a few limitations to electronic shutters that are better mitigated in higher end cameras than what we see here. A slower readout can result in a bit of rolling shutter effect (some slight bending of straight lines when panning), and features like anti-flicker technology and flash photography are not available when the electronic shutter is engaged. I recommend using the mechanical shutter most of the time and using the electronic shutter when you either need the quiet or the additional burst rate speed. One positive is that the mechanical shutter gives an upper limit of 1/16,000^th second rather than 1/8000^th.

The EOS R7 uses the familiar Canon LP-E6N battery back that is also found in the R5 and R6. This has a capacity of 2130mAh and is rated for 770 shots for the LCD, though it isn’t difficult to exceed that rating. This is very competitive with the competing models we are considering.

The EOS R7 does have some decent communication options including wireless LAN and Bluetooth 4.2. Interestingly, you can plug it directly into a phone with a MiFI-certified cable (USB-C port).

The weather sealing is of the mostly magnesium alloy body is said to be comparable to that found on the 90D, which is to say good but not at the higher levels found on the R3/R5/R6.

The EOS R7 is equipped with Canon’s excellent IBIS (In-Body-Image-Stabilization). This provides a lot of camera shake correction in body and will offer even more when paired with a lens equipped with IS. I used the RF 24-105mm F4L IS, for example, and Canon says that combination is good for up to 8 stops of correction at the telephoto end. I don’t ever achieve that level of correction myself, but I can say that Canon’s system works extremely well. Canon gives a breakdown of how different lenses perform with the IBIS on the R7:

Handheld results for photos and videos show a degree of stabilization that I think trumps what I see from other systems. I definitely love IBIS, and Canon does it as well or better than anyone. Here’s a shot at 1/13th second and 135mm:

One final new feature worth touting is an Auto Level option. This is perfect for those of you who can never quite get the horizon straight in your photos, as the actual sensor will rotate to level when this setting is engaged, assuring that you can level horizons. There are limits to this, obviously, and those limits include extreme tilts (the sensor can only rotate so far) and things like electronic first curtain shutter and high-speed burst rates are disabled. I think most people would consider that an acceptable trade-off for this genuinely useful feature.

Overall I found that I enjoyed using the EOS R7. It feels very good (and familiar) in the hands, though I did have to do a bit of adjusting to the new wheel/joystick combination. It’s ergonomically sound if not familiar, so I think that muscle memory will easily come. Canon does a good job with ergonomics, and the EOS R7 is no exception.

Canon EOS R7 Autofocus Performance

As noted in the intro, the EOS R7 inherits much of its focus system from the EOS R3. That’s not to say that the systems are identical (the imaging system and processing speed isn’t the same even if the raw specs are). This is a Dual Pixel CMOS AF system with 651 AF areas (Canon claims 5915 manually selectable AF points, but that strikes me as more marketing than practical). More importantly the coverage is near 100% of the sensor, meaning that tracking is effortless and not limited by keeping your subject in a certain position in the frame.

Once again I turned to my friends at Jengar Goldens) to supply subjects for my tests as I like to do when testing telephotos and their tracking capabilities. I provide photos for the breeder, and they provide the subjects for my tests. It works out nicely for both of us. I used the Canon RF 24-105L for this session because it has a more robust focus motor than the 18-150mm that I used for most of the review. A better lens choice still would have been either the 70-200mm F2.8L or the 100-500L, but, put simply, those lenses have proven too expensive thus far to end up in my personal kit…so I used what I had! For this particular series of tests I shot 307 frames during the quick test (I was testing multiple pieces of gear during the session) at 105mm. I looked through each frame at 100% magnification and assess it a 1-5 star rating. 5 star being perfectly focused, 3-4 being acceptably focused, and 1-2 being out of focus. 188 of the shots received a 5 star rating, 83 of them received a 3-4 star rating, and 34 received a 1-2 star rating. The vast majority of the misses were when the subjects got close to the camera, which is pretty typical. I also saw several situations where focus got off (typically backfocused) and stayed stuck there without coming back to the fast moving subjects.

That performance wasn’t as strong as what I saw with either the R3, R5, or R6, but the lens could have been a factor. I do suspect that better results could easily be had with a more dedicated telephoto lens. Like the EOS R3, however, I was very pleased with the level of engagement represented in the viewfinder. There was always a clear indicator of where focus and what was being tracked. Eye AF is clearly shown, and I know from experience with these other cameras that this focus system is capable of extremely good tracking performance.

I also shot softball with the 18-150mm, and this slower moving sport proved to be easy for the tracking system to keep up with.

Eye AF worked very well whether it was animal, bird, or human subjects.

I also noted when doing some video work that Canon’s intelligent tracking works very well. If you click on a subject and select it you can easily move around the scene while keeping focus on the desired location.

My autofocus accuracy in general was very good, and while the tracking results were good (that’s a nearly 89% acceptably focused rate), I felt like the perfectly focused results could have been a little better. I would love to revisit the tracking of the camera with a great RF-S telephoto in the future, but right now no such lens exists.

My main negative to report from tracking in terms of my real world assessment was that the EOS R7 suffers from a similar shortcoming to its competitors, namely that the buffer depth isn’t really fast enough to keep up with the amazing burst rate. When shooting RAW files, for example, the rating is for 42 frames, which at 30FPS takes less than 1.5 seconds. You get a little more breathing room when shooting with the mechanical shutter, where you get up to 51 RAW images, and, because you are shooting at 15 FPS, you get over 3 seconds of burst before you hit a buffer limit. Shooting in CRAW (a lossless compressed format which is my go-to on Canon cameras) dramatically improves the buffer depth, with up to 93 shots in electronic (30FPS) mode and 187 when shooting the mechanical shutter. Shooting Fine JPEGs at 30FPS yields 126 shots and that figure jumps to 224 shots when shooting the mechanical shutter at 15FPS. Here’s an official chart from Canon that illustrates the various burst options.

In real world shooting, however, I did notice that buffer limit. The dog sequences often take more than three seconds to track from beginning to end, so I did run into situations where the camera stopped taking images before I was finished with my tracking sequence, and it can take a little time (10+ seconds) before the buffer is cleared and the camera is ready to capture more action. I would definitely recommend A) using a fast memory card (V90 rated) and B) shooting in CRAW or JPEG when capturing high speed action to assure that you capture everything you want. You’ll want to be a little selective on when you push the shutter button, as things do fill up fast. That’s one of the primary places where the higher end bodies (like the R3 and even the R6) definitely distinguish themselves. To be fair, however, the EOS R7 is at least as good as competitors like the X-T4 or a6600 in terms of buffer depth.

All told, this is an extremely good focus system that makes old systems like those found in the 7D Mark II seem very antiquated by comparison in tracking ease. If you can’t get your shot with the focus system in the Canon EOS R7, it’s far more likely to be a problem with the photographer than it is with the camera!

Video Performance

It seems like no camera is complete these days without some degree of advanced video specs, and the EOS R7 is no different. The highlight spec here is that the R7 can record 4K60 video with 7K oversampling due to the high resolution of the sensor. That produces highly detailed footage that is further benefitted from the great autofocus and IBIS system in the camera. Here’s a look at the various video formats available on the EOS R7 (from Canon’s “white paper” on the camera).

We have thankfully passed the era where video recordings were artificially limited at the 29:59 minute mark, so recording will (in theory) continue until the memory card is filled, as shown by this chart.

At higher bitrates where more heat is generated, you might see an earlier shutdown due to heat. It is estimated that this comes no sooner than around one hour, so it is unlikely to be a serious issue for anyone. Canon seems to have found a way to resolve the overheating issues that plagued the EOS R5 initially via firmware, so the EOS R7 almost certainly benefits from that same innovation. There is a Heat Control submenu that gives you options on how you want the camera to handle heat related issues.

As noted, 4K recording is limited to 60FPS, but 120FPS is available at Full HD (1080P) for serious slow-motion work. We would all love to have 4K120, of course, but these video specs are well in line with the competition in the market. The EOS R7 also includes Canon Log 3 (enables a consistent standard for grading) and HDR PQ for higher dynamic range footage. Here’s a frame from some 4K footage from the camera.

One final video positive is that the video position on the On/Off switch enables completely different menu settings and customized buttons from the standard photography position. All in all, the EOS R7 adds a robust suite of video functions to its equally robust stills performance.

Canon EOS R7 Sensor Performance

The Canon EOS 90D and M6 MK II debuted during a time when I didn’t have reliable access to Canon loaners, so I missed out on reviewing either of them, which means that I’ve never tested a Canon APS-C sensor with this high of resolution. I’ve never tested any APS-C camera of any brand with this high of resolution, actually. 32.5 Megapixels is extremely high resolution, and this results in more pixels packed onto a sensor area than any camera I’ve tested before (32.5MP on an APS-C sensor is denser than 100MP on a Fuji medium format camera or the 62MP of a Sony full frame sensor). 32.5MP works out to file dimensions of 6960 x 4640 pixels (3:2 Aspect Ratio). File options include RAW, CRAW, JPEG, and HEIF formats. Here’s a breakdown of the various aspect ratios and dimensions available.

Canon used to offer Medium and Small RAW options but in more recent years has elected utilize their extremely efficient CRAW (Compressed RAW) option, which is a lossless compressed file that delivers both great efficiency in terms of file size but also very high quality. It is my go-to option in my cameras, as a lot of tests over the past few years have demonstrated that it is near impossible to spot any differences from the full size uncompressed RAW options. So, while offering near equal quality, CRAW delivers files that are only about 54% of the size of the uncompressed RAW options. At ISO 100, for example, an uncompressed RAW file will be around 40MB, while the CRAW file is a relatively diminutive 21.5MP. Canon .CR3 “wrapper” is extremely efficient as well, delivering smaller file sizes in general relative to competitor’s RAW files. This certainly helps in mitigating one of the primary downsides of high resolution cameras.

Experience says that there are a few other negatives associated with high resolution, including the fact that flaws are more obvious due to them covering more pixels. This could include things like optical shortcomings in lenses (more obvious chromatic aberrations, image softness, etc…) or something like motion blur due to either movement of the subject or the shaking of hands. Good IBIS can help the latter but not the former, so sometimes you need to keep the shutter speed up a little higher with higher resolution cameras. The final main issue is that diffraction comes earlier on sensors with a lot of pixels packed on them. The antidote to this is to try to keep your aperture at larger rather than smaller sizes. I typically recommend that photographers avoid anything smaller than F11, as F16 and smaller typically delivers images that are obviously softer and lower contrast.

I don’t personally find that any of these potential negatives outweigh the extreme positives of higher resolution, however, and I personally choose to shoot with high resolution cameras almost exclusively. One huge factor on a sports and wildlife oriented camera like this is that larger files allow for deeper cropping while still retaining good resolution and the ability to print or showcase your work. These running puppies are cute, but they are even cuter when zoomed in closer.

How about this landscape shot, where a deep crop allows for a more intimate view of the early morning mist over the rocks while still allowing for about 11MP of resolution left:

There are many ways that having higher resolution is beneficial, and I think Canon made the right call with going with higher resolution on the EOS R7.

My early assumption was that this 32.5MP sensor was the same one in the 90D and M6II, but Canon states that this is a newly developed sensor for the EOS R7. I’m fairly confident that there is some shared architecture, but obviously Canon has made some tweaks to allow for strong performance here. This is a sensor that will allow for good resolution, good dynamic range, and also a fairly strong performance for higher ISO settings.

We’ll break those things down in a little more detail here.

Dynamic Range

I’ve taken to referring to the charts over at Photons to Photos as a quick reference to supplement my own tests. According to them, the dynamic range performance of the EOS R7 is very slightly less than either the Fuji X-Trans sensor (X-T4) and the Sony (a6600) at most ISO settings.

They rate the EOS R7 at a maximum of 10.49 stops, the X-T4 at a maximum of 10.45 stops (the Fuji has a maximum ISO setting of 200, which limits it a bit), and the Sony is rated the highest at 10.97 stops. So, at most, there is roughly a half stop between the EOS R7 and the Sony sensor. It is worth noting that they rate the similar resolution sensor in the 90D and M6 MK II at only 10.06 and 10.08 stops, so that does lend credence to Canon’s claim that this is a new and unique sensor.

For my tests, I establish a base exposure (neutral or correct) and then subsequently under and overexpose the image by progressive stops. I typically go as high as 4 stops of overexposure and 5 stops of underexposure as modern cameras tend to be better at recovering shadows than they do highlights. I then add or remove the appropriate stops of light in post to see how the sensor does in recovering the lost information. Here’s a look at the properly exposed image for reference:

We will examine how the colors are retained, the purity of the shadows and highlights, and how noise impacts the image.

As noted, modern cameras are typically very good at recovering shadows. At four stops of underexposure the unrecovered photo shows deeply crushed shadows and very little of the subject visible, but the shadows are easily and cleanly recovered by adding those four stops of light back into the photo. The end result is a photo that looks largely like the original (correct) exposure.

Essentially the only “damage” relative to the correct exposure is a bit of additional noise, but it is fine noise that I don’t find very destructive.

We find the limit between 4 and 5 stops, however, where I start to see the familiar signs of things falling apart. The noise pattern becomes much heavier, there’s a noticeable green color shift, and there is some blotchy color banding scattered throughout the image. You can see how clean the 4-stop recovery on the left is relative to the 5-stop recovery on the right.

So, shadow recovery is good, but there is a limit to how far you can go without penalty.

How about highlights? We will now reverse the process. I’ve gradually overexposed a series of images, one stop at a time, and then attempted to recover the highlights in post. Typically you will start to see the image fall apart after a few stops in a couple of ways: 1) certain colors are lost and are not recoverable, and 2) information will be lost in blown highlights that isn’t recoverable.

I was pleasantly surprised here and feel like this is where the strength of the sensor is. I’ve seen clean recovery of 5 stops of underexposure, so I wasn’t wowed there, but I felt like the three stops of overexposure recovery was really quite good. It isn’t perfect (there are a few blown highlights that didn’t retain all their texture), but most of the color swatches are still clean and the majority of the highlights have been recovered.

As before, there is a big difference between the result I’ve shown you and going one stop further. You can see in this crop that at 4 stops of highlight recovery colors have been lost, textures have lost, and the image has taken on a dull and faded look.

That’s a better-than-expected result in the highlights, however, and that can pay real dividends in photos. Take this casual shot of two girls at a picnic. It had both crushed shadows information because of the bright sky behind them, and also blown highlights that left the sky featureless. But all it took was moving the highlight and shadow recovery sliders a bit in Lightroom to return some features to the sky and to open up their clothes and faces. No fancy editing – just moving the sliders. The end result looks natural and improved.

I found in general that I was able to edit images to a look that I liked, so I’m satisfied with the dynamic range here even if it isn’t quite class-leading.

ISO Performance

In a perfect world we could all shoot in perfectly lit scenes, but reality dictates that sometimes we have to shoot in lower light situations. The EOS R7 has good low light autofocus (with sensitivity down to EV -5), but raising the ISO results in some damage to the image. We saw from the chart above that while the dynamic range at ISO 100 is nearly 10.5 stops, by ISO 25,600 that DR has dropped to just slightly over 3 stops. Raising the ISO also results in increased noise, potential color banding and color shift, and loss of contrast.

I compared each stop of ISO in the standard range to the base ISO of 100. Through ISO 3200 the results remain extremely clean, with only a very small amount of fine noise creeping in.

At ISO 6400 things look fine on a global level with no real apparent difference between base ISO and ISO 6400:

At a pixel level, however, you can see some obvious noise that is rougher than what you’ll see at ISO 3200:

There’s no color shift of banding anywhere, though, so I’d still consider this very usable. The same is largely true at ISO 12,800 as well, though rising noise levels and unevenly lit pixels result in the shadows not being as dark:

It’s still usable, however. That’s only true to much lesser extent at ISO 25,600, however, and by the native limit of ISO 32,000 the growing image destruction makes ISO 12,800 look downright clean.

I would call ISO 12,800 the practical limit in most situations, which is pretty typical. The Fuji X-T4 has a native limit of ISO 12,800, so at least the with the EOS R7 you have the option to go higher in the native range if absolutely necessary.

Image Quality Summary

I’m generally happy with the performance of the sensor on the EOS R7. I’m more of a full frame person for a variety of reasons, but I didn’t really feel like my images from the EOS R7 felt much different to edit and view than what I’m accustomed to. I enjoy the higher resolution point and felt like Canon has done a good job of keeping a high standard of dynamic range and ISO performance despite the massive amount of pixels squeezed onto that sensor.

Images have good color (a typical Canon strength), good detail, and are pleasant to edit.

All told, this is probably the best APS-C sensor from Canon that I’ve ever tested and is among the best APS-C sensors I’ve seen, period.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Canon EOS R7 is a lot of camera for a reasonable amount of money. It has a lot going for it, from the blistering burst rate in either mechanical (3FPS faster than the EOS R3) or electronic shutter mode to the excellent, high resolution 32.5MP sensor. This is a tool that makes it easy to capture images in a wide variety of situations.

The focus system is largely borrowed from the EOS R3, which means that it is among Canon’s best, and the great focus and blistering frame rate is held back only by buffers that fill a little too quickly.

Canon does ergonomics extremely well, and the EOS R7 feels great in the hand and is intuitive to operate.

At a price point of $1499 USD, this is the spiritual successor of the very popular 7D series. It is reborn in mirrorless form and is all the better for it. The EOS R7 does things the 7D could only dream of, and despite a decade of inflation since the last 7D model, the price remains the same. Canon has jumped into the RF APS-C space very ably, but now they need to fully commit with a wide range of RF-S lenses that will make the system – and not just the camera – competitive.

Pros:

The most feature-rich APS-C camera Canon has ever delivered
Great ergonomics – easy to learn, easy to love
Canon’s IBIS system is excellent
Fabulous focus system that makes tracking or portraits effortless
Great eye tracking for humans, animals, birds, and cars
Articulating touchscreen is high resolution and highly responsive
Great resolution
Blazing burst rates in either mechanical or electronic shutter mode
Great number of video options and resolutions
Good ISO performance and dynamic range

Cons:

Very few RF-S lens options at launch and no third party options
Buffer is quickly filled at fast burst speeds

Gear Used:

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Purchase a Canon EOS R5 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon EOS R6 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

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Keywords: Canon EOS R7, EOS, R7, EOS R7, Canon EOS R7, EOS R7 Review, RF-S, mirrorless, APS-C, EOS R7 Review, Canon R7 Review, Canon EOS R7 Review, Canon EOS R10, EOS R10 Review, RF-S 18-150mm, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Handling, Focus, Portraits, Resolution, High ISO, Image Quality, Sample Images, Photography, 32Mpx, 32MP, Canon, letthelightin, DA

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Canon RF 24-50mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM Review

Dustin Abbott

April 23rd, 2024

Build and Handling

Autofocus and Video

Image Quality Breakdown

Conclusion

Pros:

Cons:

_________________________________________________________________________

GEAR USED:

Purchase the Canon RF 24-50mm IS @ Camera Canada | B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Canon EOS R8 @ Camera Canada | B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Canon RF 28mm F2.8 @ Camera Canada | B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

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Canon RF 24-50mm F4.5-6.3 IS Gallery

Dustin Abbott

April 23rd, 2024

Photos of the Canon RF 24-50mm IS

Photos taken with the RF 24-50mm IS

_________________________________________________________________________

GEAR USED:

Purchase the Canon RF 24-50mm IS @ Camera Canada | B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Canon EOS R8 @ Camera Canada | B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Canon RF 28mm F2.8 @ Camera Canada | B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

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Canon EOS R8 Review

Dustin Abbott

April 15th, 2024

Spec List

Build and Features

Autofocus Performance

Video Performance

Sensor Performance

Dynamic Range

ISO Performance

Image Quality Summary

Conclusion

Pros:

Cons:

_________________________________________________________________________

GEAR USED:

Purchase the Canon EOS R8 @ Camera Canada | B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Some Compact Lenses to Consider:

Purchase a Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | eBay

Purchase the Canon RF 24mm F1.8 Macro IS @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Canon RF 35mm F1.8 IS STM @ B&H | Amazon | Camera Canada Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon RF 50mm F1.8 STM @ B&H Photo | Camera Canada | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon RF 85mm F2 Macro IS STM @ B&H Photo | Camera Canada | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

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Canon EOS R6 MK II Review

Dustin Abbott

April 10th, 2023

Canon EOS R6 MKII Build and Features

Canon EOS R6 MKII Autofocus Performance

Video Performance

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Dynamic Range

ISO Performance

Image Quality Summary

Conclusion

Pros:

Cons:

Purchase a Canon EOS R6 MKII @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon EOS R7 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon EOS R5 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon EOS R6 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Want to support this channel? Use these affiliate links to shop at: B&H Photo | Amazon | | Camera Canada | Ebay | Make a donation via Paypal

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Canon RF-S 18-150mm F3.5-6.3 IS STM Review

Dustin Abbott

October 3rd, 2022

Canon RF-S 18-150mm Build and Features

Autofocus Performance

Canon RF-S 18-150mm Optical Performance

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