My opinion is that of an amateur point of view. I am a casual user who has been with Canon since the early 80’s SLRs. I have no photography business skills. Most important DSLR usage has been on trips near and far. I did well on a low-budget wedding.
Let me assume that you have looked at many utoob reviews, and now you want to hear what an owner has to say. Any content you may have researched has to be evaluated with a bit of wisdom. Separate the good points from the bad.
Six months ago, I bought the EOS R with the RF24-105 lens, and I also got the lens adaptor with control ring. The transition from 5D3 to R took less than 2 months of reading, trial and error, and practice, practice, practice. Weight wise, both body and lens seem to feel just about the same weight as the 5D3 with 24-70 F2.8 lens that I previously had. Smaller body and lens, but the weight is about the same.
I did a lot of reading before pulling the trigger. It was said that the learning curve was steep. Well, it was, but again, someone always posts something that eases the pain and makes things clearer. I have not been frequenting my other forums, but it looks to me like the dust has settled on the EOS R. Now the new kid on the block, the RP, is getting all the attention. I am not interested in that new kid as I regard this camera to be my last camera. At least, until I get full use out of it.
Picture quality, I think, is superb. Lens image stabilization has a lot to do with that. As Canon states, with mirrorless, there is no need to calibrate your lenses for sharp images. Something like that. High ISO images have little for me to object about, but keep in mind I am an amateur. I am not looking to sell prints, but to put them on my wall, in some forums, or in social media. I too focus to get the sharpest photos I can get. With either LCD or viewfinder, you get to immediately see what your image will look like. WYSIWYG.
Touch screen focusing took little time to adapt to. No more moving a joystick to get the focus point where I want it. I can see the focus point moving faster to where I want it to be than it did with the joystick. Really works well when doing video. Couldn’t do that with the 5D3. The touch screen can have many other functions, but they can be turned off or adjusted to your liking. Something that sometimes bugs me is when the screen goes blank when anything passes before the sensor beneath the viewfinder. At first, I could not figure out why that was happening. Now I know why. Read the manual.
In my next DSLR, a flip-screen display was what I was wanting. There were so many times I wished the 5D3 had one. It seems much bigger, and a lot more info can be fit into it. You can select what you want to see in it. Needless to say, you gotta think about protecting it. That part might cost a bundle to have it repaired/replaced. I don’t normally buy service plans, but I did on this baby. I have done sensor cleanings, but I will hold off on this mirrorless.
Yes, reaching with the thumb to do this or that was at first difficult, but it has become routine now. I think I have medium hands that fit large work gloves. I am getting better at reaching for the correct area on the lower right corner of the screen. Humans get used to the hardest of tasks with a lot of repetition.
For video, I use a Shure VP83F microphone. The 5D3 sound was horrible, and so far, I have gotten good sound out of the R. Maybe all DSLR sound is the same. With the Shure shotgun mike, I get good sound without all the tinny-ness to it. That was another learning experience. My only complaint is that the RF 24-105’s focusing ring is stiff to turn. Very frustrating to see movement in my video when turning the ring. I am thinking about getting the RF 35mm prime and use my feet to zoom.
The body has a good feel to it. The hand grip area sticks out further than my previous camera. Buttons might be fewer, but they are adequate. Fitting non-RF lenses to it will require either of the two available adaptors. The one with the control ring allows for assigning it a function. From reading reviews, tips and hints, I assigned it the ISO function.
The sensor. When turning off the camera, a pop-up warning recommends putting the front lens cover back on. And to not leave it facing the sun with the lens cover off. Makes sense to me as it is exposed to light sources. I don’t need that service charge billed to me so soon.
Product images show that the viewfinder sticks out further. Sure helps, a bit, to keep my nose oils off the LCD. I am a left eye person. It has a tiny, square-shaped sensor beneath the viewfinder to sense presence of objects that pass before it. In fact, once in a while I find myself using the LCD screen much like I do with the cell phone. Shame on me. I can see and talk to my subjects without looking ominous to them. That is, my face is not covered by the big, black camera when taking photos of people.
As for the single SD card. Knock on wood, since the Rebel DSLR, I have not ever had a problem with SanDisk cards. I have yet to wish for dual-card slots with the EOS R. In first (professional) reviews of the R, this was a big issue. And, I don’t disagree with those opinions as I understand money and reputation are at stake. Maybe there is or will be some device that can be hooked up to the EOS R that immediately transfers RAW only, or RAW and JPG to a waiting folder. The RAW images hold the most value, don’t they?
I hope other people chime in. Please spend about a few weeks or a month learning about it before taking the plunge. Canon has some very good products. I will say that I love my EOS R and that it accompanies me almost every time I drive somewhere. It does what I want it to do, and it does it well. Thankfully, I can still carry it for several hours on walking, hiking and family events without tiring too soon. I recommend getting a better neck strap and the best-preforming card you can get. An extra battery is good too. Good luck.
