I’ve been using a pair of Canon 5D3 DSLR’s since they were launched way back in 2011. They have served me very well and there is nothing wrong with them except they are getting old and technology has moved on at lot. I’ve found the 22mp sensor more than adequate and the AF to be generally excellent. However, the live view AF is very slow but a lot more accurate.
When Canon anounced the new RF mirrorless mount I was very curious. I tried the EOS R and frankly, it felt like a very immature product compared to the 5D3’s. I liked where Canon was going with it, I just felt that it needed a few generations to get there. Thankfully, camera tech develops very fast and this hasn’t taken very long. I tried the R5 and liked it a lot, but it’s not quite the right camera for me. Some 5 years later after the Eos R and RP, comes the R6ii and R8. The original R6 was very tempting, but it had less resolution than my elderly 5D3’s! So I waited until the R6ii and R8 came along. I wanted to trial the R8 as my introduction into mirrorless and see if I needed to run with both DSLR and Mirrorless for a few years.
I have to say that the technology in the R8 is very advanced. The 24mp sensor easily out resolves my old 5D3’s. It had better dynamic range, a deeper bit depth and better iso handling. I has a similar FPS in 1st curtain shutter mode and a mind bloggling 40fps in fullt electronic shutter mode. It has a reversable rear LCD screen, which is excellent and it’s touch screen too! But it’s real technological improvement is the AF system. It’s the first time I’ve really been able to use Servo with all of the AF points enabled. With the %D series, I generally used the one shot, single point and re-compose method. If I needed servo, I would choose a single zone and hope that it could track my target. The R8 is in a different league entirely. With it’s eye detect systems…it tracks and locks impressively well. The only problem is getting the AI to understand what i want to focus on if it’s not an eye. I guess that’s something where the vast AF / button customisation comes in handy. It’ll take me some time to figure out how I can best leverage the controls to offer me the most versatile working routines.
All of my glass is EF mount, so I’ve invested in a pair of Meike EF to RF adapters. One wiht a control ring (for use with my big wild life lenses) and the other is a very sweet drop in filter system. More about that later, once I’ve got a few more filters for it.
The big question is whether I can adapt to the new Electronic View finder instead of my 30+ years of using an Optical Viewfinder.
Gareth x
