DPReview: Canon EOS R vs Nikon Z 6 vs Sony a7 III, which is best?

Jul 21, 2010
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This is what canon deserves for not putting out anything that can compete with the existing market.
Please show us the data that support your claim that the EOS R can't, "...compete with the existing market." Note that 'I don't like it' or 'my uncle's second cousin twice removed bought a Sony' do not constitute data. Also note that in the absence of data, you're merely making ASSumptions.

So, let's look at the available data. They're only from Japan at this point, but that's still the largest MILC market.

Here are last month's sales rankings:
https://news.mapcamera.com/maptimes.php?itemid=31881
What camera tops the list? The EOS R.

Here's the overall FF ILC market in Japan from Oct2017 - Oct2018

BCN-Ranking-report-on-the-state-of-the-full-frame-market-in-Japan.jpg

In addition to Canon having the largest FF ILC market share for the full year (13 months, actually), note the uptick for Canon that coincides with the launch of the EOS R.

So evidently Canon has put out a FF MILC that can compete very well with the existing market, and is likely getting exactly what they deserve – success and profit.
 
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unfocused

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Nothing quite like a DPReview story to get the juices flowing on this forum. I've said it before and will continue to say it, I much prefer reviewers who point out what is wrong with Canon (I don't buy Sony or Nikon so I don't really care about reviews of those cameras). Even if I disagree with their assessment, I want to read their opinions and I consider whining that they are mean to Canon as just that: whining (or maybe whinging to some.)
 
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yes. That was in the past. Mirrorfree cameras can be made at lower cost and we should see *at least some* of that cost advantage reflected in prices. Sony and Nikon apparently both decided to do so (to an extent) with A7 III and Z6 pricing. Canon. Not. Stubbornly slapping another 300 bucks unto MSRP compared to previous generation (6D II). Of course they are free to do so. But we are free to point out that competition offers (somewhat) more bang for the buck. And we can hold off buying until price falls and/or new, more capable and competitively priced EOS R models appear. :)

Without knowing internal numbers and data, I am convinced it would have been smarter for Canon to launch current EOS R with a more attractive MSRP
and a higher-specced, "true 5D V" at around 3.5k. Similar like Nikon Z6 & Z7. Then follow up with hi-rez [5DR/S II] and flagship/speed R1 models. With dates on a published road map, so potential clients know what to expect and when.

Instead, Canon "went for the middle" with the R and now find it sitting between chairs a bit, getting some flak instead of much praise. Their fault, to launch a somewhat lower spec body at a price higher than competition along with mostly hi-end, expensive native glass ... better matched to higher-end cameras which have yet to come ... at an undisclosed future point in time. Not very smart in my book.
In Europe the price for the eos R in the internet is about 1800€ (inc adapter). the sony A7 iii 1750€
The eos r kit about 2500€
I think its a fair price ;)
 
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Neuro, don't tell Canon they could charge $300k/year for an aspirin as it might give them ideas. Or is that how they price the big whites anyway?

Canon's big whites are cheap compared to Sony's... and generally Nikon's comparable lenses as well. If you're going to pick on Canon for overpricing something, you should focus on the bodies.

Then again, if you're a pro that owns even 1 or 2 super telephoto lenses you probably still come ahead on the overall system price going with Canon, something the Sony fanbois seem to overlook when they tout the lower body prices.
 
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I doubt that, I expect Canon spent way more developing the new lens system than the other two combined, well we know they spent more than Sony because they spent zero on it as it’s a legacy holdover.
The first R is a better camera than dpr is giving credit for. Canon used the arguably best sensor in their line and good number of MPs. Cropping a 24 vs a 30 something image is major to me.

Sure it lacks a few high end checks, but if one were buying lenses for future compatibility, rather than bodies which come and go then the EF line is the choice with the most compatibility eg SONY AND CANON. Buy Sony lenses and it’s compatible with the current Sony,
 
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4fun

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EDIT: In fact I'm going to copy & paste this portion right at the top here so people definitely see it:

I mean, Canon flew reviewers to Hawaii to review the EOS R. Yes, Hawaii. The same place y'all are complaining about Sony sending reviewers to. The exact same place. Well, there is one difference: the people Sony sent to Hawaii are not the same people who wrote this 3-way article, but the people who Canon sent to Hawaii are. Allison Johnson is who Sony took to Hawaii, and she did not write the article we're talking about here. Richard Butler is who Canon took to Hawaii, and he is one of the two people who wrote this article.
In fact, not only did Canon pay for Richard to go to Hawaii to see the EOS R, but they also got the whole DPReview video team over there, too. (It should be pointed out that for the a7III, Sony sent the DPR video team to... well, nowhere. They did their videos of that camera in Canada, where they live.)

Rest of original post continues below, with that section in context.




Gee, it's almost as if different people have different tastes, preferences, and requirements, isn't it?

If someone is trying to do wildlife photography and they find the AF on the 100-400 isn't keeping up, you don't say "well it's perfectly okay for my studio product work, so you must be wrong" or "useless hack, I bet B&H paid you to say that so they can sell more 500mm f/4s instead". You don't tell a jazz musician to play something a little simpler because you like pop music and therefore jazz shouldn't be played and all jazz musicians are secretly working to push Gibson guitars.

Some people don't care about the innards of a camera body as long as they end up with the shots they want with minimal fuss. Other people don't care about all the little capacitors and transistors but they do want to know how far they can push the camera in the field. Another bunch of people want to open up every camera and inspect every single piece of wire with a microscope and measure everything in minute detail.
DPR happen to belong to the latter category. That does not make them wrong, or that they miss the point, or that you and your interests are any more righteous. It just means that they are one group of people writing for one type of audience and you happen to not be that audience.

If a camera site is going into more detail than you're interested in and picking apart things you don't care about, that's fine. There's room for both of you. Read a different site and ignore the sites which don't cover the things you want.



The critical aspects, which apparently everyone here has just chosen to turn a blind eye to, are:

1) Every company ships reviews off to swanky locations, special set-up test environments, gives them free demo units with fore immediate support than any regular customer would receive, etc. This is not exclusive to Sony. Canon do it, too. So do Nikon, Fuji, Olympus, you name it. It's so common, it's not even exclusive to luxury goods anymore. A friend of mine used to work for a video game website and she was flown out to Dubai to preview a video game which, at that point, wasn't even half complete. She ended up not even writing up the preview, but they still paid for her to fly back over a second time once the game was finished. And that's a common entertainment product which sold for about £45. Do you really think there is any company in the world which doesn't try to give previewers and reviewers the most impossibly perfect scenarios for adjudicating their premium products? If you can get a holiday to Dubai for a £45 game, you will get a holiday to look at a £2000 camera, too, and everything in-between.

I mean, Canon flew reviewers to Hawaii to review the EOS R. Yes, Hawaii. The same place y'all are complaining about Sony sending reviewers to. The exact same place. Well, there is one difference: the people Sony sent to Hawaii are not the same people who wrote this 3-way article, but the people who Canon sent to Hawaii are. Allison Johnson is who Sony took to Hawaii, and she did not write the article we're talking about here. Richard Butler is who Canon took to Hawaii, and he is one of the two people who wrote this article.
In fact, not only did Canon pay for Richard to go to Hawaii to see the EOS R, but they also got the whole DPReview video team over there, too. (It should be pointed out that for the a7III, Sony sent the DPR video team to... well, nowhere. They did their videos of that camera in Canada, where they live.)

So, you know. Y'all might want to actually pay attention to who has been sent where by who before you start throwing around aspersions. If anybody is going to accuse DPR of being sweetened up by Sony then you should also be saying they've been equally sweetened by Canon, if not more so.

2) There's a big difference between saying "these people accepted essentially a free holiday, so I don't trust that what they say is entirely impartial", and "this outlet has a brand bias". One is a harsh but not entirely unrealistic take; the other is straight-up libel. It may shock some people to learn this, but phrasing matters. There's a reason why even "opinion pieces" still have to be looked over by copy editors and have their wording chosen very carefully.
And before anybody repeats again the "oh it's just the internet, who cares/nothing will happen" schtick, bear in mind that this site itself can be held responsible for promoting libel if a company did wish to press the issue. In other words, regardless of whether an individual poster had legal action taken against them, this site could have action taken against it; you are putting CR itself in a dangerous position when someone makes these kinds of poorly-worded claims. And I'm sure the site owners will agree that they don't fancy taking those kinds of risks just so a few users can write "anti-Canon bias" on the forums.
So, again, choose words carefully is the point. It's okay to voice your distrust of an outlet, but it's a whole 'nother issue when you start using words like "bias".


No, there's no documented evidence of anybody at DPR working under an edict to intentionally slant reviews and copy. There is documented evidence that staff at DPR have accepted some pretty nice weekends from multiple companies—every company, in fact—but acknowledging that is not the same as throwing around claims that writers have been bought. Again, see point #2 above. Phrasing matters.

It's also not "accusing" someone of using a penname on a forum when registering for the site makes that mandatory. That's simply an objective fact. Nor is simply reminding someone that their username does not protect them an accusation of anything, either, which is what was actually said.
And no, of course I'm not really Mr Ace Flibble, nor did I ever claim to be. I'm not a Mr, for a start.
Apologies, Ms. Not-Ace-Flibble. Or maybe your implication was that it's actually Dr. Not-Ace-Flibble, in which case I'll withdraw my apology due to the pretentiousness of that implication.

That aside, I agree that there is no evidence of collusion (to choose a term from the currently popular vernacular) between DPR and Sony. But one has only to read their articles to see the evident bias against Canon. Things like stating Canon's automatic AF point selection was not performing properly, when in fact in their hands it was performing exactly as the manual states it will (they were merely unaware of the designed/intended behavior). Or bashing servo AF performance with the system set to spot AF (something the manual specifically recommends against). I suppose you could argue that's not bias, but in that case I guess you believe it's acceptable for reviewers to either be technically incompetent or too lazy to RTFM. Either way, it means DPR's reviews aren't worth the photons used to display them.

Why would DPR be biased? Well, retailers seem to think margin is important, and we all know that Jeff likes making money ( for anyone missing the reference, that's Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, which owns DPR). I've spoken with several retailers (owners) over the years, and have consistently been told that Canon shorts them on margins compared to other manufacturers, claiming that the volume of their very popular cameras should more than make up for it. Obviously, I can't say with certainty that is the reason for the bias, but it's a plausible explanation.
 
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I doubt that, I expect Canon spent way more developing the new lens system than the other two combined, well we know they spent more than Sony because they spent zero on it as it’s a legacy holdover.
No argument on the lenses but the review was of the bodies. DP Review has raved about the EF R lenses as has pretty much every reviewer. Canon's ability to make great lenses isn't really in question.

But, the EOS R body looks like a "parts bin special" and DPR called them on it when most reviewers can't or won't. In my opinion that is a good thing. Canon is the world's largest, most successful, camera company and they should be held to a higher not lower standard. At least Nikon, despite some significant flaws in their offering, seemed to be making an effort.
 
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AlanF

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Canon's big whites are cheap compared to Sony's... and generally Nikon's comparable lenses as well. If you're going to pick on Canon for overpricing something, you should focus on the bodies.

Then again, if you're a pro that owns even 1 or 2 super telephoto lenses you probably still come ahead on the overall system price going with Canon, something the Sony fanbois seem to overlook when they tout the lower body prices.
The price of the Nikon 500mm f/5.6 PF is close to 50% of that of the similarly sized Canon 400mm DO II. Canon can afford to have a long running £600 cashback on the £2000 100-400mm II to bring it down to the price of the Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6. And Sigma undercuts them all on its excellent 500mm f/4. The truth is that Sony and Canon charge what the market will bear.
 
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Nobody has an "agenda" or bias, other than that every single person who ever uses a camera—yourself included—will always have entirely subjective tastes and preferences.

Do try to remember that accusing a company or individual of being paid-off without disclosure is, in fact, illegal. Yes, even if you hide behind a forum username. If you're going to claim someone has been in some way paid-off or otherwise incentivised by one company to make negative remarks about another, you better have actual, presentable proof of your claims.

Y'all shouldn't be so precious about the Canon bodies, let alone be throwing out libellous comments. It's absolutely okay to acknowledge that Canon's bodies are very rarely the best bodies of their class/type. Where Canon has always lead is with the lenses, and if you really cared that much about photography you'd know that the lens matters more than the body.
So, yes, when comparing bodies, Sony's absolutely is the best. Nikon's Z6 is flawed but still a very good first try. The EOS R is even more flawed but for a first body for a brand new system it's still acceptably capable. Factor in the native lenses and the EOS R draws even with Sony, in my estimation, with the Z6 behind. Then throw in adapted lens performance and I'd put the EOS R in first, especially if anybody needs really specialist glass like tilt-shifts.

Different strokes for different folks, and no system starts and ends only with the camera bodies.

You had a bit of a point, and then you went off the deep end. You are horribly, pathetically, wrong about the comment that sent you off that deep end. Claiming someone "has an agenda" in no way, shape, or form comes anywhere close to libel. Claiming that "it appears that they were paid off" is much more specific, yet still does not rise to the level of libel. Anything that can be construed as an opinion falls under protection of the 1st amendment.

For public figures and public companies, the bar is even higher than for private individuals. That's why you see so many comments about politicians and various companies being crooks, and/or involved in various illegal activities, yet nothing is done. Even if a specific false claim of illegal wrongdoing (And FYI, promoting a product because you are paid on the sly or otherwise is not a crime.) is made, the mountain that must be climbed to prove the civil offense of libel is substantial.

Go poll some attorneys that do civil cases if you think I'm off base. I suggest you stick to camera analysis where it appears you have a much better argument.
 
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No argument on the lenses but the review was of the bodies. DP Review has raved about the EF R lenses as has pretty much every reviewer. Canon's ability to make great lenses isn't really in question.

But, the EOS R body looks like a "parts bin special" and DPR called them on it when most reviewers can't or won't. In my opinion that is a good thing. Canon is the world's largest, most successful, camera company and they should be held to a higher not lower standard. At least Nikon, despite some significant flaws in their offering, seemed to be making an effort.
But photography is about light and that is captured by lenses. I just don't get it, how can you review a body in isolation, and if you do what relevance does that one specific part of an image making system have?

My point is if you evaluate the images from the three systems then the Canon can take more unique images than the other two combined, I'm not saying the R is a particularly feature rich camera, what I'm saying is in a review I would look to resultant images more than anything else. If you do that and are a decent photographer that understands perspective and dof then the Canon offering is head and shoulders above the others.

If images are the object and intent then the Canon is far and away the best image making tool in large part because of the unique lens selection,
 
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addola

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I think the reason why you see this "disappointment" & "bad reviews" with Canon is that YouTubers are savvy videographers. They're focused on video because they're content creator. Ease of use, convenience & customer support doesn't usually get factored in that. According to the specs EOS R can focus at (-6 EV @ f/1.2) , which is 0.5 stop better than A7s II (-4EV @ f/2), but no one emphasizes that, not even Canon themselves. I was at CES2016, and the A7s II was in a very dark room to showcase its advantage in low-light.

EOS R is priced similarly to Panasonic GH5s, a MFT camera which is focused on video but lacks IBIS. I wonder why Panasonic abandoned IBIS in GH5s and whether it was for technical reasons. But, Panasonic charges $2200 for MFT-sized sensor camera & no IBIS just because it has great 4K video. If the EOS R had what people are complaining about: better 4K, IBIS, dual slots, etc, they won't offer it for just $2200.

Canon should introduce these in their future RF Cameras. RF mount has a tad longer flange distance than MFT, which I think may give room for a better optical IBIS design. Panasonic has superior IBIS to Sony. Sony's IBIS isn't all that impressive, look up examples on YouTube for yourself. Canon can & I believe will make a better IBIS than Sony.

I personally still shoot my Canon 6D, and haven't planned on moving to mirrorless yet. I could go with Canon RF (likely). I could go with Nikon, and I could even go with the L-Mount (Panasonic/Sigma/Leica), and I believe all have great advantages (and potential future advantages) to Sony's tiny E-Mount. I love the Sony brand, and respect how they pushed the competition in the industry, but I am not likely to go the Sony route.
 
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Jack Douglas

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But photography is about light and that is captured by lenses. I just don't get it, how can you review a body in isolation, and if you do what relevance does that one specific part of an image making system have?

My point is if you evaluate the images from the three systems then the Canon can take more unique images than the other two combined, I'm not saying the R is a particularly feature rich camera, what I'm saying is in a review I would look to resultant images more than anything else. If you do that and are a decent photographer that understands perspective and dof then the Canon offering is head and shoulders above the others.

If images are the object and intent then the Canon is far and away the best image making tool in large part because of the unique lens selection,

So how many bells and whistles are on a typical lens. They simply are relatively boring and little that's truly amazing comes with a new model - just good/better performance. Obviously, camera's are the more exciting part of the system and the part that can be used to milk the consumer more regularly.

IOW no matter how important lenses are, they will never be as "polarizing" or contentious as camera bodies.

A camera can take multiple lenses, so which one should be included in a camera body review? How do you include all possibilities or do you take the kit lens? So does a camera review become a system review such that great lenses in great numbers, biases all cameras of one manufacturer as being better? I don't see a practical solution to this from a review site perspsective but a given individual can perform this exercise for themselves based on their own particular needs pulling bits and pieces from the various reviewers.

Jack
 
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Oh, and to which comparable Sony DSLR are are you comparing the a7III?

Taking this a bit out of context, I find it interesting that Sony's A7 series isn't compared to their SLT line more often and criticized for things like having only a tilt screen and the poor adapter options for SLT users looking to go E-mount. Issues that were fine for the first generation, that should have been dealt with for the second generation and are just ridiculous for the third generation. It's usually just brushed over and disregarded. Meanwhile, the competition seems to actually have given these things some thought, offering an experience that at least seems to be relatively close to what their DSLRs offer.
 
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