My Thoughts on the Canon EOS R and RF Lenses - Canon's Foray into Full Frame Mirrorless

This is not a detailed review of the camera and lenses but rather my opinion having handled the camera briefly at a dealership and having poured through the specs and the numerous reviews and feedback from actual users that I have seen on the web.

The Camera

As a Loyal Canon DSLR user for about 20 Years now I have been eagerly waiting for Canon to release their full frame Mirrorless offerings. I have been watching the progress of companies such as Sony and Leica with their full frame and Fuji and Hasselblad with their Medium Format mirrorless offerings and felt that mirrorless has matured to the extent that it makes sense for serious amateurs and even professionals to move to mirrorless due to the unique features and advantages they provide such as Focus Peaking, lighter weight, more compact size, high res EVFs etc.

Given the backdrop of offerings from above mentioned companies and also the newly announced Z6 and Z7 cameras from Nikon and also having owned and used the Canon 5DS-R and 5D Mark iv for a few years now my expectations from Canon was reasonably high. I was looking for a capable upgrade to the 5DS-R and 5D Mark iv. Ideally a camera that combined the best of what both my cameras offered and some more in terms of the latest sensors and mirrorless technology. I was hoping for a camera that had had 50 Megapixels or more and a class leading dynamic range with low noise at high ISOs. I don’t shoot much video and am quite happy with HD Video so video features weren’t so important for me.

But the specs of the EOS R were definitely disappointing for me. After such a delayed entry into full frame Canon released a camera with specs inferior to even the 3 year old 5D Mark 4. So this seemed to be aimed at the 6D users. Why? The camera just isn’t interesting enough to look at as an upgrade from either of my current cameras. So now the wait and search continues for alternate camera systems.

You can view the full specs here

The Lenses

Canon seems to be on the right track with the new lens RF Lens range . The RF 24-105 f4 seems to be a great kit lens with all around abilities. The other lenses in the lineup also seems to be of very high quality albeit a little expensive. Now I just hope that Canon brings out higher resolving cameras with good dynamic range soon to match the new lenses.