Canon EOS R Review: Canon’s first full-frame mirrorless is good, but is it good enough?
posted Saturday, December 22, 2018 at 9:44 AM EST
Click here to read our Canon EOS R Review Conclusion
Long-time DSLR powerhouse Canon finally announced their first full-frame mirrorless camera earlier this fall. The new 30-megapixel Canon EOS R shares a somewhat similiar imaging pipeline to the popular 5D Mark IV, but wraps it up with a svelte, modern and more compact body design. Yet despite the new shape and trimmed body weight, the EOS R maintains classic Canon styling and features, such as an extremely durable, solid and weather-sealed construction and an excellent contoured handgrip. Plus, the EVF is fantastic, and the articulated LCD touchscreen is sharp and responsive.
The smaller size, however, does impact usability to some degree, with less space on the camera for all the buttons and controls we're used to seeing on full-frame Canon DSLRs, which often forces you to utilize on-screen menus. Also, new control designs, like the inset Mode button and, in particular, the Touch Bar control, seem a bit over-thought and unnecesary and wound up feeling particularly akward to use out in the field.
On the image quality front, the Canon EOS R does a very good job. It's 30MP sensor is similar to that of the 5D Mark IV's and as such, the camera produces sharp, detail-rich photos and performs really well at higher ISOs. The new image processor of the EOS R yields improved JPEG quality compared to the 5D IV, as well, which is nice. The downside here is that, while the EOS R has fantastic image quality, the sensor and its overall image quaity performance lags behind that of its competitors, particularly in terms of dynamic range and high ISO performance.
By itself the Canon EOS R is a very nice camera. It feels great, looks nice and captures excellent images and pleasng 4K video. However, competition is fierce, especially in the full-frame market, and we can't help but feel that the EOS R seems out-gunned and out-paced right from the start.
For all our testing results, analysis and field tests on Canon's all-new full-frame mirrorless camera, check out our in-depth Canon EOS R Review. And if you'd like to jump straight to our final verdict, click here to read our detailed EOS R Review Conclusion.
