The Canon EOS R: One Year Later, How Does It Compare?

It’s been just over a year since Canon finally stepped into the world of mirrorless full-frame cameras. In this short video, Jared Polin offers some interesting thoughts on what Canon has achieved, where it has fallen short, and what the future holds for the Japanese manufacturer.

After a quick overview of everything that's been released by Canon in the last year or so, Polin offers some fairly forthright opinions on where Canon stands, split between three mounts and with global sales of cameras continuing to fall off a cliff. Perhaps one of the boldest thoughts that he offers is that Canon needs to kill off the EOS-M mount and release an APS-C camera that uses some as-yet-unreleased affordable RF glass. This would help to reassert Canon’s historic dominance over the consumer market.

As many buyers seem to acknowledge, the EOS R is not cutting edge, though there is a major firmware update slated to arrive on September 26. Among other improvements to autofocus and subject tracking more broadly, tweaks are thought to include significant enhancements to eye autofocus, probably improving the range at which it functions. Sony has led the way with this technology, and it will certainly be interesting to see whether Canon has caught up.

Did you buy the EOS R when it was released? Have you been pleased with its performance over the last year? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Andy Day's picture

Andy Day is a British photographer and writer living in France. He began photographing parkour in 2003 and has been doing weird things in the city and elsewhere ever since. He's addicted to climbing and owns a fairly useless dog. He has an MA in Sociology & Photography which often makes him ponder what all of this really means.

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21 Comments

Good Luck Canon .. you will need it if you pursue mirrorless with your lack luster sales and market share. In fact you need to improve on DSLR also. The answer you need in cameras is not new lenses for new inferior cameras but significant new sensors with Backside improved DR in a pro body.
That is why you are losing the market to more advanced Sony Sensors. The same that customers screamed for in your DSLR for years and you did nothing but fart. Can the Mega Pixel Crap !! Get Smart with your market share on DSLR. Develop Sensors !
But then you did sell a lot to photographers who immortalize your empty weasel words like Deep Well Pixels ..
Perhaps you should continue shit weasel word advertising .. your EOS R is 38th in sales. LMAO!!

You realize the dynamic range (or Bad exposure plus jacked LR sliders, really) of the EOS R is very good and better since firmware 1.2, no banding or whatever internet photographers do to make a file break down at the extreme.

The DR of the EOS R and 5D IV matches that of current Sony APS-C sensors. That's not "very good." For the price you pay for FF, you'd expect the image quality to be a step above entry level camerss.

The image quality is perfectly fine for many of the best photographers in the world. The image quality is awesome. But you are somehow better than they are, so it's not good enough for you?

It's not good enough for my wallet. I can get the same image quality out of ANY of Sony's current APS-C cameras. Even the beginner model, A6100, which is LESS THAN 1/3 the cost of the R's launch price. Why would you spend that much extra when the output looks the same. Not to mention the huge AF and fps performance increase you get from ANY of Sony's current APS-Cs?

Ok then, go where your wallet tells you. But don't tell me that the best photographers in the world are not getting very good image quality from Canon, because they most certainly are. And you are totally confusing DR with image quality. DR is just a part of image quality. And low-ISO DR is just a part of DR. I use Canon and Sony and image quality is about equal, sometimes one is a little better, sometimes the other. Neither is perfect, but not much to complain about with either. But if you're a Sony fanboy, you're gonna latch onto that low-ISO DR like a watchdog who caught a burglar.

Another Sony person ... so tiresome and predictable.

Really who sells more cameras than Canon?

Sony is far ahead in mirrorless and the EOS R is a whopping # 38.
DSLR is Canon Main Squeeze .. LMAO ..

In most of the comparisons with Sony on top, there's an asterisk... *full frame models. Not big in the USA, Canon's EOS M put them up as the top mirrorless brand in Japan, for example, in 2018 and 2019 CIPA tallies. Sony could overtake them in 2020. Olympus was second in 2018 and third after Sony in 2019.

This does suggest Canon is worse off for professional mirrorless than Sony, but that was kind of a no-brainer. Canon won't have a complete mirrorless higher end system for few years yet. M43 and Fujifilm are larger than any FF system, but if you need FF today, it's Sony unless you're already shooting Canon or Nikon. And in fact, L-Mount is currently in second place in terms of the breadth of the system.

Do photographers actually track camera sales rankings, as if that's important to their photography? Do you tell your clients how well your camera is selling? Do your pictures improve when your camera's sales improve?

I don’t get it. It’s not quite a year after launch as promoted and the biggest firmware update to ever come to a canon body is days away. I guess he can do another video now lol.

Actually I like Canon R, it does not shine spec-wise but it's a solid workhorse. I agree that Canon should drop EOS-M mount (a wasteful distraction) and focus on RF mount in APS-C and full frame implementations with a range of affordable budget lenses.

Would I buy Canon R today? The answer is no. Canon R falls short in megapixel count against high resolution models of Sony, Nikon, L-mount alliance while being in the same price range. I'd like to have an option of using EF-S lens on RF-mount body with adapter and still getting at least 24-26 MP resolution. Sony 's approach of one mount fitting both APS-c and FF lenses is the winner. https://www.photostudio.org/?p=110850

I'm making money with it. I wouldn't have been making any more money with anything else, since it does what I do without problems. It's really only an issue for the GASsed.

Maybe Canon is the New Pentax. Certainly in mirrorless market share behind Sony and Nikon. Post #1 as stated above says it all.

For the past 5+ years, all we've been hearing is:

- Wait for Canon's next big thing. Just wait!

and

- Sony's leaving the camera market in a year.

Well, Sony's been making most of the next big things, and become one of the market leaders by doing so, and Canon's sales make them look like they're leaving the market next year.

I do a lot of multiple exposures with blend modes in camera. It may not be the perfect camera, but for my needs it is outstanding. EVF is critical for my art. Right tool for the right job. It has always been this way.