The Canon EOS R . . . Part One

Over the last few years, the mirrorless camera has rapidly moved in and taken over a large portion of the prosumer, and professional market.  If you are a Canon shooter like I am, you have watched and waited, and then waited some more for Canon to jump into the Full frame mirrorless game.  There have been rumors going around for over two years that Canon was ready to try and hold on to their first place spot by finally giving it’s customers what they’ve been asking for.   

In September they unveiled the EOS R. 

If you were one of the lucky ones, (I was not) Canon flew you to Hawaii to try out this new camera.  Since then there have been many well-done reviews of this camera.  I am not going to bore you with another review like that.   But, if you want to see all the specs on the EOS R, click here 

Instead, this is going to be part one of a two-part review.   I will, however, cover one aspect of this new mirrorless camera that has not been addressed in much detail.  

Before we discuss those things, let me take a minute and show you some images from the EOS R.  My normal color camera is a 5DMKIV and it is a great camera, so the EOS R has a lot to match up to.  Many people have described the EOS R as a Mirrorless 5D4 and they are correct.  The quality of the images is equal to that.   I received my camera on 10/10, which was one day after the nice weather ended where I live.  I wanted to get some images made to show you, so I went to the Missouri Botanical Gardens indoor area, and then convinced my favorite Model, Elissa to go out in the cold, windy weather long enough for me to try some images.  

So, let’s take a look. 

First,  whenever I test a new lens or camera, I shoot my sweet little puppy.  She is very photogenic, and always available.  

This was made at f8, ISO 400, 1 sec   The lens was the EF 50mm 1.8    In truth, she never knew I was there. 

Now let’s see something with a narrow DOF

Here’s  f1.8, ISO 160, 1/1600 sec Once again using the nifty-fifty.

And now a person, Elissa freezing at a park.

This was f2.8, ISO 400, 1/125 sec the lens was the 70-200, f2.8 L

In all, I shot a couple of hundred frames and the camera functions like I would expect a Canon to perform. 

I was not disappointed. 

Now, 

When the EOS R was introduced, people lined up to say how it was going to be horrible, which is nowadays the standard procedure for any new product.

So, here’s my opinions on those issues. 

• The EOS R only has one memory card slot.   That is not a problem for me as I use larger size cards, and if I need another memory card I have a thing called a “pocket”.  Seriously, many cameras have only one card slot.  
• The camera has issues with its Video capture  I shoot very little video, so this is not an issue for me.  I did test the video on the EOS R and the quality looked good.
• The EOS R has a new lens mount.  This is true and everyone knew that would be the case because of the distance change between the lens and sensor. 

This leads us to the first aspect of my review.  Nearly everyone who reviewed the EOS R  did so with the new “R” series lenses.  What if you are someone like myself though who has a fairly large quantity of Canon EF lenses, and doesn’t feel like spending money on new lenses?  Well, Canon also has a new converter ring that allows you to connect your EF and Ef-S lenses to the EOS-R 

They claim that there is no problem using your EF and EF-S lenses and that the auto-focus works smoothly.  

They did NOT lie. 

I connected all my Canon EF lenses to my EOS R and they worked just like they do on my 5DMKIV.  I also tested my Tamron lenses and they worked.  The converter ring functions perfectly; no lag or delay in the auto-focus.  Canon has also said that you can connect your EF-S lenses to the EOS R, so I gave it a try.  It does work, but here is the weird thing.  It only utilizes a portion of the sensor equivalent to a c-crop sensor, and then only at about 12 MP.  Not something I would suggest doing unless all you have available is an EF-S lens.  

UPDATE

When this review was posted last week, I was having challenges with manual focus lenses and contacted Canon Technical support for assistance.  It turns out there was no issue using manual focus lenses, the Canon Techs just didn’t know how to use the new EOS R and were giving out incorrect information. If you read the earlier review, please disregard the incorrect information I was given and then passed on to you.  

At the beginning of this piece, I said this is to be a two-part review, and here is why.  I got this camera strictly to convert to Infrared.  A mirrorless camera is perfect for Infrared.  There are NO focus issues with a mirrorless converted camera, and with a Mirrorless IR camera, you get to see what you are composing in Infrared. 

So, now the EOS R will be converted to Infrared, and then we will see how well it does as a converted camera.  

Stay tuned………