Canon EOS R3 Mirrorless Digital Camera

After a long wait, the Canon EOS R3 is finally launched and the camera is a competition to EOS R5. EOS R3 is a powerful camera between Canon R5 and Canon 1dx Mark III designed for sports and wildlife photography.

So, in comparison to the Canon 1dx Mark III, EOS R3 is a lot lighter than the 1DX Mark III, the lack of mirrors in the EOS R3 just completely changes, and I was able to shoot longer in comparison to the EOS R5.

Body

When it comes to the design and button layout it has hand grips on the right side and bottom with buttons and ergonomic locations as it’s handheld all buttons are most accessible by your left hand on the top back side left of the screen or the left face of the camera.

the R3 is a substantial camera that feels great in your hands and is not as heavy as you think the R3 is made for the most demanding professional photographers.

The build quality is fantastic and the grip is large and comfortable many buttons and daws are replicated for the vertical orientation so you can switch between portrait and landscape mode and find the same buttons at your fingertip.

There is a small LCD screen on top to check settings on the fly and a small button that lets you toggle between two pages of information whereas a longer press will invert the contrast.

Menu

So, within the quick menu, you can change the frame rate for 4K recording between 24 30 and 60p and you can toggle the 1.6x super 35 crop however to switch to raw you need to go into the full menu and you also need the full menu to go into 4K 120p.

Screen

the touchscreen LCD monitor is large and more importantly, has a superb resolution and the menu button at the rear are back-illuminated to be more visible.

One unique feature of the R3’s screen is its Eye Control AF. This feature allows the photographer to select the focus point by simply looking at it through the viewfinder. This can be a faster and more intuitive way to select the focus point, and can be particularly helpful in fast-paced shooting scenarios.

Viewfinder

the electronic viewfinder doesn’t have the most impressive specs on the market but the quality of the oled panel is really good it is also very comfortable when wearing glasses.

Autofocus

• Contrast detect
• Phase detect
• Multi area
• Center
• Selective single point
• Tracking
• Single
• Continuous
• Touch
• Face detection
• Live View

Canon R3 Specs

• Custom White Balance
• Manual focus
• Aperture Priority
• Shutter Priority
• Manual Exposure Mode
• Video MPEG-4, H.264, H.265
• Microphone Stereo
• Speaker Mono
• USB 3.2 Gen 2
• USB Charging
• HDMI Port
• Microphone port
• Headphone port

Autofocus

the autofocus menu of the Canon R3 is kind of a very common setting that doesn’t really affect things much by far the most capable and flexible system it comes with a lot of different settings you can make.

So, to get the most out of the autofocus system you have to be able to go in and change up whether you’re going to use a straight zone that rolls over to tracking whether you go right to eye detect with tracking the size of the zones can be changed on this camera.

When it comes to birds in flight and wildlife you really have to be able to analyze the scenario that you’re shooting in and go in and make and tweak the settings to get the most out of what this camera can do.

the R3 comes with canon’s dual pixel CMOS AF2 system a technology shared with other cameras such as the EOS R5 and EOS R6 but the R3 has a faster version capable of 60 calculations per second like the Sony.

Tracking

the R3 has an advanced autofocus system that can detect vehicles including the driver’s helmet animals’ eyes head and bodies and humans’ eyes head.

So, a welcome update on the R3 is that subject detection works with any autofocus area and tracking can also be activated at any time you don’t need to select all the focus points mode like on the R5 and R6.

EOS R3 offers a few features that make this camera special first the eye control autofocus looks at your eye and sees your eye moving around.

The second EOS R3 has an insanely fast frame rate of about 30 fps in jpeg or raw this camera is so much more advanced than any other camera.

the performance of the R3 is excellent overall it can recognize animals at long distances which means when the subject is small in the frame and will choose a body head or eye automatically depending on how close the subject is.

Once you’ve activated the tracking mode the R3 is capable of detecting the animal right away and in all light conditions whether it is sunlight or backlight the camera can also recognize the subject even if it is not entirely visible.

So, if multiple subjects are detected you can quickly switch from one to the other with the AF joystick.

Image Stabilization

The R3 features 5-axis image stabilization on the sensor with a maximum compensation of 8 stops this is the same rating shared by the EOS R5 and EOS R6 and the EOS R3 performs, in the same way, this means that images taken handheld around one second are possible although you will get a better keeper rate from half a second or faster.

Low Light

the Autofocus in low light is also very good with a rating of minus 7.5 stops and the EOS R3 performs really well and never missed focus even when the contrast is really bad.

Shutter

the Canon R3 has mechanical and electronic shutter so an electronic shutter will do up to 1/64000 of a second if you’re in manual mode if you’re shooting any of the other modes like aperture or shutter priority the electronic shutter will only go through 2 and 8 000 of a second.

the rolling shutter performance is excellent and in terms of slow motion the camera will do up to 60p in 6k but again that’s only in raw here is 4k 60p which retains the camera audio for 120 fps.

the R3 can also raise the shutter speed to a maximum of 1/64000 of a second when using an electronic shutter which is a new standard.

When using the electronic shutter slow movements are basically distortion free and shooting birds in flight you will not find any problem all of this is possible thanks to the stacked sensor and the image processor.

While using the electronic shutter the R3 maintains a live view with no blackouts on the EVF or LCD screen like the Sony A1 and A9 series.

Frame Rate

So, what I realized is when you switch into high frame rate mode it loses the audio and the high frame rate mode also appears to drop the oversampling and is a bit softer than the regular frame rates.

Buffer

The buffer is about the same when you use a CFexpress card or SD card but once the buffer is full the speed remains higher if you use the cfexpress with slower frame rates.

Canon EOS R3 Sensor

the Canon R3 features a 24.1-megapixel BSI stacked CMOS sensor and has the support of Dual Pixel CMOS AF II. the first of its kind for canon in addition to the back illumination structure the stacked design allows the camera to process more data simultaneously which helps with the drive speed.

the R3 sensor is completely redesigned and now is back-illuminated stacked for improved light performance and faster readout in fact that it fires an impressive 30 fps with zero blackouts. The readout speed of the sensor is very good and distortions caused by fast camera movements.

Video Features

R3 is a much lighter camera compared to the Canon 1DX Mark III it continually improves over usage the camera features 6k DCI raw internal in full or light varieties 4K is automatically oversampled from the 6 and does a handsome 120p in high frame rate mode.

the Canon R3 is a great camera for video it can record 6K up to 60 frames per second in 12 bit raw and 4K 120p in 10 bit 4:2:2 there are hdr and log profiles no recording limitation and much more.

this camera does an astounding 6K with all the same autofocus capabilities as in photo mode except for eye control it can also do raw internal at 6K and there is no sensor crop.

If you shoot the oversample 4k as predicted the colors and video quality are amongst the best out there, and skin tones are absolutely magnificent as well right in line with what we expect from canon.

There is one downside though is that 6K DCI is only available in raw since there is no raw support at the time, all video modes are now time-limit-free and offer the new advanced autofocus features save for eye control.

EVF

Well, an interesting option for the EVF is called OVF simulation view assist it disables the exposure white balance and picture style preview and gives you a brighter image with a more dynamic range instead the brightness is adjusted automatically to give you the best picture possible in any situation.

It explodes the capabilities of a modern oled panel to give you a true HDR image whereas other cameras use a less linear curve.

ISO Performance

In terms of ISO if it’s bumped up to 10 000 the photos are very clean with no perceivable, noise showing the power of the new sensor design although losing a small amount of detail compared to lower ISO.

Storage

EOS R3 has a CFexpress A type slot which is good if you want to shoot regular photos and video stuff you could just put it in your SD card but if you no need that extra storage if you want to shoot raw which is the next type thing.

there is one slot for cfexpress type B and one for sd UHS-II cards cfx price cards are faster and needed when you want to record 4K 120p or 6K raw video.

Battery

The third feature is its big battery that allows you to get a thousand shots per charge. CFexpress cards help with the buffer on the battery because it is massive R3 uses the LP-E19 battery the same one used on the 1DX DSLR series.

The performance is very good you can capture more than 6000 images using the fastest burst speed continuous AF and high frame rate in EVF and still have 50% of battery left and it is certainly one of the best performances among mirrorless cameras.

Ports

In terms of ports, the camera is very generous it has a microphone input, headphone output, flash sync USB-C which works at 10 gigabits per second, HDMI, and an ethernet port, perhaps the only disappointment is that HDMI is the small micro type B rather than the full size.

Price

If you can not really consider this camera because of the $6,000 price I think for most people a Canon C70 is going to be a much better video camera than the R3 if you’re just doing video.

If your budget is really low and you can not go with the R3 you can go with X-H2s because R3 shoots raw 6K, the Fujifilm X-H2s shoots raw 6.2K, the R3 issues 30 fps and the Fujifilm X-H2s shoots 40 fps, R3 shoots 24million pixels in Stills the Fuji X-H2s shoot 26 million pixels in still.

So, why not buy an X-H2s which actually cost the price of a single lens and also the X-H2 with a 40 million pixels Stills and 8K video recording and all of that for the price of two lenses.

IS the Canon R3 the best Mirrorless Camera?

So the EOS R3 is one of the best mirrorless cameras for photos, sports weddings, and wildlife shooters competing with the Sony A1.

Why You Should Buy Canon R3?

the R3 is the most advanced camera ever it can record 6K up to 60fps in 12-bit raw and 4K 120p in 10-bit 4:2:2 there are HDR and log profiles no recording limitations and much more.

the image quality is fantastic probably the best Canon sensor ever the high ISO performance with very usable images at 25600 ISO, the dynamic range is also excellent, R3 offers a state-of-the-art autofocus system and it has a unique characteristic that resonates with innovative eye control which works surprisingly well.

the software is also very impressive and the capabilities to detect and follow animals are the best, it has great continuous shooting speed with live view and no blackouts, stunning performance for video excellent image stabilization, and tons of other things.

the Canon R3 has the best autofocus system camera out there in the world period right after you have the Nikon Z9 and the Sony A1 but the autofocus really performs much better than the R5, and you don’t have an overheating issue with the R3 you don’t have the record limit of 29 minutes.

Advantages

• Substantially Faster readout speed sensor
• First Back-Illuminated Stacket CMOS Sensor in EOS Series
• Prevent Dust & Water Droplets from Entering the Camera
• Enhanced AF Performance
• less rolling shutter distortion
• Autofocus follows movement of the eyes
• AF Frame Can be Controlled instantaneously by the Eye Direction
• Black Out Free EVF During Continuous Shootin
• Capable to Detect Motorcycles & Automobile
• Revamped Tracking System with Flexible AF Operativity
• Capture subject in a situation where the Face or Head Can Not be Detected
• Prevents dust and water droplest from entering the camera
• Reproduces the View of an SLR Optical Viewfinder Displays Highlights and Dark Gradations to look more natural
• Coordination Control with RF Lenses is Supported
• High definition vary angle LCD screen that ensures dust/water resistant
• LCD screen enables vertical still shooting
• Significantly enhanced communication capabilities + power supply functionality
• High Speed Continuous Shooting in Situations where the Sound of a Shutter Could be Obtrusive or Inappropriate
• HDR Image with the new CMOS Sensor
• First Eye Control AF in the EOS Series
• Reduces Shift between frames and adjusts them automatically to enable hand Held Shooting
• Vary Angle LCD that Ensures Dust water-resistant performance
• Significantly Enhanced Communication Capabilities and power Supply Functionality