The Camera Conundrum: A Review of the Canon EOS R and My Personal Experience with it

I recently had the opportunity to try out the Canon EOS R, a camera that was touted as a great option for content creators who want a versatile tool for both video and photo production. However, my experience with this camera has been nothing short of underwhelming, and I'm eager to share my thoughts on why.

One of the main reasons I purchased the EOS R was its crop factor, which would make it ideal for shooting video. However, I soon realized that the crop factor is a double-edged sword. The camera's 1.6x crop factor means that footage shot with this lens will appear to be taken on a full-frame sensor, even though it's not. This can result in some unintended consequences, such as distortion and a shallower depth of field. While I appreciate the creative options available when working with a cropped frame, I found myself struggling to adjust to the camera's limitations.

I also had to deal with issues related to lighting, particularly when shooting at higher frame rates like 60fps. The EOS R requires more light than I was expecting, which can be a problem if you're not prepared. I've been using this camera for a lot of my home video production work, and I found that it wasn't well-suited for the task. I had to pump extra light into the scene to get the desired level of brightness, which can add an extra layer of complexity to your workflow.

Another issue I encountered was with the lens itself. The camera comes equipped with a 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, but I opted to use a different lens that I had purchased separately. However, the combination of the lens and sensor proved to be problematic, resulting in an inconsistent exposure and focus. This led me to realize that I needed a more robust setup for my video production needs.

In contrast to what Canon marketed as their "sweet spot" between photo and video capabilities, this camera does not meet those expectations and instead falls short of both categories. Its value is also questionable when compared to other cameras in the same price range.

Despite these limitations, I have found that there are certain situations where the EOS R shines. For example, if you're looking for a camera that can handle everyday video work without too much fuss, it's not bad. It has a decent autofocus system and is easy to use, making it accessible to those who aren't too familiar with advanced camera settings.

However, for content creators like myself, who are used to working on more complex sets and require a level of precision and control that this camera doesn't offer, it falls short. I've had to make the difficult decision not to use it as much as I would have liked, and instead opt for my other camera, which better meets my needs.

One thing that I did enjoy about using the EOS R was the creative freedom it offered me. The crop factor is actually a blessing in disguise when you learn to work with it. However, this camera's limitations make it difficult for me to fully appreciate its potential.

I've had some questions from viewers about my use of the camera, and I wanted to clarify that while it doesn't see as much use on videos these days due to deliberate choices made regarding usage and workflow but it still gets used when needed.

In conclusion, the Canon EOS R is a solid option for those who want a versatile tool for both video and photo production. However, its limitations make it less than ideal for content creators like myself, who require more precision and control in their work. I'll continue to use this camera for everyday video work, but my photography camera will remain the primary choice for when I'm shooting on set.

I'd love to hear from you guys if you enjoyed this article and have any questions or comments please let me know down below. I've been thinking of doing more content related to cameras and lenses in general, so your feedback would be greatly appreciated.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enPlex is the media streaming app that beautifully organizes your media collections and lets you securely access them on all your screens now with live TV viewing and DVR click the link in the video description to learn more I've had kind of a weird relationship with my canon 6d mark - which is what I'm using to film this video right now and I will say that it is way too heavy to try to use as a vlogging camera holy cow the camera itself it's pretty rock-solid I bought it as a photography camera as a picture taking camera I wanted to try something full-frame and to have something nice again to take pictures with because I was very unhappy with the photography experience on Micro Four Thirds cameras like my Panasonic g7 and I still stand by that and it's still pretty freakin great for a photography camera I don't deny that the pictures I get from it are wonderful I have a lot of fun using it it's pretty solid the problem comes in the mass of T's that it gave me for video production I specifically bought it again to be a stills camera I said I'm gonna buy something that I don't need to use for video yada yada but then I got it and it had a couple very special features that made it very appealing for video those being the dual pixel autofocus which allows me to sit here and take it through all sorts of different angles and for the most part it's going to keep my face in frame and then the fact that it's full-frame which means that this is a 24 millimeter focal length on my lens right now and I have the camera you know only a couple feet from my body held out by my arm and I'm still in frame I still have a really nice wide frame and even if i zoom in this is like what 55 millimeters this is 100 millimeters I'm holding this at hands distance this is insane it may not seem like anything too crazy but when you keep in mind that I was shooting primarily at the time on micro four-thirds which a 24 millimeter on micro four-thirds would be about like this right now and I need wide angles for everything it was super revealing I'm like man this thing has amazing autofocus I can just set it up and always have myself in focus not have to worry about crazy manual focus and I can use really cool focal links get some nice more blurred out background without having to have my camera across the room which seemed really ideal the problem is the video from it is not all that great man this thing is heavy the video from it is 1080p only it is not all I all intra-frame it is more losses more loss a compressed it has a decent bit rate it's about 60 megabits per second it can do 60 FPS although the quality really degrades at that point in my opinion and then there's no clean hdmi out i it's one of those things where it has a few features that are specifically really freakin fantastic for video that kept having me come back to it i used it for a couple of arrow shoots i used it for when i was doing real quick vlog ii stuff like this and computer build videos and the problem is the videos kept coming out very dark and i got a few complaints about it and i didn't realise it while i was shooting it because the screen the brightness on the screen just really doesn't convey the actual exposure levels of the video very well and that's a big annoyance i've run into where everything what's constantly underexposed for what I thought would be right and it got to the point where I'm gonna show you a clip right now that I shot of just my wife playing with my cat and that video looked completely overexposed most the time in the actual preview monitor and the actual on-camera monitor that thing look Oh looked overexposed and it's not camera brightness like the UI and everything the brightness is fine it is how it actually displays the exposure of the video the video of the cats looked way more overexposed than it turned out and a lot of those computer building videos looked like they would be the right kind of exposure so I thought I thought it was set up right and it turns out that it wasn't and I've ended up with a lot of videos that are underexposed significantly and there are nowhere near enough data in these recordings to actually recover any of that the video has no log mode no raw mode nothing like that it has a neutral profile which I've all were always used I just turned down the contrast on it before filming this video so hopefully that helps a little bit but like you do not have much runway with the video at all and I've seen you know you can buy profiles that you can inject into the camera that emulate log or whatever but I messed around with that on my t3i and the results were very subpar they were never great because the footage itself does not give you that much leeway so then you're fooled into thinking I can push colors or D or whatever how much I want and you end up not actually being able to and it's really frustrating another issue I had discovered with this camera is with regards to how it actually records video because it doesn't record the entire whole framed video Canon notoriously doesn't do that in their DSLRs instead it has both line skipping a name or a filter which results in in certain circumstances some seriously jagged lines and some like anti aliasing or deinterlacing looking artifacts as a result which I ran into when testing some wide-angle lenses with my neon sign in the background the B corners of it just looked like they were pixelated up to all hell and back and it's just weird little things like that that drive someone like me nuts but some random person using it for just casual YouTube use will probably never care about so I've gone back and forth between hating this camera and loving it when it comes to video because you know I'll be like yeah it's great full-frame it's freaking awesome I shoot in tiny spaces full frame is the best stuff ever it is that hot stuff I love it having the microphone input is helpful even though you only get manual control over audio levels which I hope are okay here I don't get an audio preview at all you only a manual control over those in manual mode if you're in auto mode it just screws up the audio altogether the dual pixel autofocus is freakin phenomenal I'm in love with it and the lens that comes with is fairly sharp and competent I'm pretty happy with that and when I do go manual mode for shooting some b-roll I can strap on you know my Helios 44 to swirly boquete lens and since it's full-frame I can actually get swirly bokeh in my apartment here without having to have like football fields worth a distance like on other cameras I can do a lot of really cool stuff with it and so I pick it up and I'll be like yeah this is great and then I realize I'm underexposing or I'm running into other issues or it's just too heavy to move certain places for the limitations that it presents and then I hate it again and I'm back to somewhat kind of appreciating it again understanding its limitations to me which is pretty much the intention these aren't cameras built for video although I do feel like clean HDMI out which Canon specifically nerfs on these cameras to sell they're more expense once I feel like Kleenex Jia Maya would have made up a lot of the difference but I really feel like the video on these cameras are just meant to accompany your photography it's supposed to be hey I'm taking pictures I want to get a quick clip of this here I can not it's meant to be your studio production video camera or even to be an a roll you know camera in the first place it's not meant to replace any of that kind of functionality and when everyone's complaining about the video features in the latest cos are or this camera or whatever they seem to be missing that because these cameras aren't entirely meant for vloggers or anything like that that being said Canon does try to leverage that in their marketing for it and so any sort of like backlash they have as a result it's totally their fault and i 100% understand that moving to the EF mount lens system just / canon glass and things like that in general has been freaking phenomenal for my photography and videography work I've since my other main video camera is now EF mount as well I've been able to get some really awesome lenses and do some really cool video as a result and that lens system is just like is that it's phenomenal I've gotten a lot more leeway out of it and that change has been good for me and overall using this camera for video from time to time like if I'm gonna pick up a camera again when my - my wife - is playing with her cats or I just need to record something randomly or were you know going to a park whatever where I might want to take pictures and video the camera I'm gonna grab is this one the 6d mark - it does all of those things decently well but if I'm going to put a camera on a tripod and actually record a video talking into it and trying to showcase a product or anything like that where I don't have the space or the room to really utilize my my Ursa mini Pro it's not going to be this one it's gonna be my Panasonic g7 the g7 doesn't have any stabilization it doesn't have autofocus that I can use it doesn't have a whole lot of things this camera has and it has a crop factor that would make this video look like this which I'm sure you guys really don't want to watch it makes me look sickly it's so close I don't look that sickly in real life but that would be the camera I picked up but I don't want to keep shooting on just a 12 millimeter lens for everything that's so that's so creative creatively lit it's so much I can't even speak words it's so creatively limiting that I'm just I'm really tired of it which is why I picked up a bigger cinema camera because it more accurately meets my actual needs and requirements for production and that's not to say that for making YouTube videos it's not even a great camera if you are looking to upgrade from a basic webcam or your phone camera or even a cheaper end Canon DSLR and you're already used to how they work a sixty mark - or the EOS R or you know what have you are pretty solid choices you just have to really learn to use the camera and understand its limitations and work within them but you also have to make decisions about how you produce content based around the camera whereas I had a specific set desired studio shooting environment and setup and workflow that this camera doesn't meet if you're just looking for something quick and easy that you can put a mic on top of and record some stuff from time to time and you really don't care about the little details that much it's probably worth it to you the problem is when people like me who are complete video nerds and control freaks pick it up it doesn't fully suit those needs if that makes any sense so I've had this camera for about six to eight months now I got it in July of 2018 and admittedly it doesn't see anywhere near as much use these days as it did when I first got it but that's been a deliberate decision because I was using it for everything and plays am i g7 whatever I need it's some quick camera work I was picking this up instead of the g7 and then regretting it whenever I got to editing or whenever I got certain comments about how dark certain videos were without me pumping light into the scene and things like that especially in the 60fps mode the thing requires so much more light than I was expecting and part of its due to the camera lens itself because I'm using here a f 3.5 to F five point six lens and on this sensor that means that when I'm zoomed in a little bit it starts jumping to f5 here which with my current lighting on my face that's mostly fine but shooting a black PC case in a kind of less lit up corner that means I need to pump it with a lot more light and I wasn't doing so and yada yada and so this is mostly specifically my random like at home home video camera if I do video on it otherwise my photography camera but boy it's been a roller coaster getting used to it I have the battery gear up for it I have a couple other accessories for it and I I really enjoy it for when for when it's playing to its strengths like it is the camera I would recommend for that thing but that doesn't make it worth two thousand dollars and that's the issue is especially comparatively compared to other cameras for two thousand dollars you can get a heck of a lot more for your money in terms of value for both video and sort of the photo work because this isn't even you know it doesn't even beat out all other two thousand dollar photo cameras so it's one of those things camera keeps trying to play your camera Canon keeps trying to play the middle line here and doesn't do either of those things amazingly well and releases weird oddball releases like this one versus the 5d Mark 4 and some of us are just left questioning why so I don't think I'm gonna sell it any time soon I'd love to just straight-up swap it for a 5d 4 but that's not gonna happen any time soon but I just wanted to update you guys as to how it's been going cuz I complained about it a lot of firsts and kitty-kitty just wanted to update I've had some questions about my use of it because it has become apparent that I don't use it a ton anymore in videos and yada yada so just wanted to let you know if you enjoyed this video let me know in the comment section down below I'm trying to cover more comment or camera and lens stuff on the channel as it's a big part of content creation and I think it's important to cover yeah so subscribe for more tech education and content creation education that's a lot of Asians my arms are about to fall off carrying this thing so I'll talk to you next timePlex is the media streaming app that beautifully organizes your media collections and lets you securely access them on all your screens now with live TV viewing and DVR click the link in the video description to learn more I've had kind of a weird relationship with my canon 6d mark - which is what I'm using to film this video right now and I will say that it is way too heavy to try to use as a vlogging camera holy cow the camera itself it's pretty rock-solid I bought it as a photography camera as a picture taking camera I wanted to try something full-frame and to have something nice again to take pictures with because I was very unhappy with the photography experience on Micro Four Thirds cameras like my Panasonic g7 and I still stand by that and it's still pretty freakin great for a photography camera I don't deny that the pictures I get from it are wonderful I have a lot of fun using it it's pretty solid the problem comes in the mass of T's that it gave me for video production I specifically bought it again to be a stills camera I said I'm gonna buy something that I don't need to use for video yada yada but then I got it and it had a couple very special features that made it very appealing for video those being the dual pixel autofocus which allows me to sit here and take it through all sorts of different angles and for the most part it's going to keep my face in frame and then the fact that it's full-frame which means that this is a 24 millimeter focal length on my lens right now and I have the camera you know only a couple feet from my body held out by my arm and I'm still in frame I still have a really nice wide frame and even if i zoom in this is like what 55 millimeters this is 100 millimeters I'm holding this at hands distance this is insane it may not seem like anything too crazy but when you keep in mind that I was shooting primarily at the time on micro four-thirds which a 24 millimeter on micro four-thirds would be about like this right now and I need wide angles for everything it was super revealing I'm like man this thing has amazing autofocus I can just set it up and always have myself in focus not have to worry about crazy manual focus and I can use really cool focal links get some nice more blurred out background without having to have my camera across the room which seemed really ideal the problem is the video from it is not all that great man this thing is heavy the video from it is 1080p only it is not all I all intra-frame it is more losses more loss a compressed it has a decent bit rate it's about 60 megabits per second it can do 60 FPS although the quality really degrades at that point in my opinion and then there's no clean hdmi out i it's one of those things where it has a few features that are specifically really freakin fantastic for video that kept having me come back to it i used it for a couple of arrow shoots i used it for when i was doing real quick vlog ii stuff like this and computer build videos and the problem is the videos kept coming out very dark and i got a few complaints about it and i didn't realise it while i was shooting it because the screen the brightness on the screen just really doesn't convey the actual exposure levels of the video very well and that's a big annoyance i've run into where everything what's constantly underexposed for what I thought would be right and it got to the point where I'm gonna show you a clip right now that I shot of just my wife playing with my cat and that video looked completely overexposed most the time in the actual preview monitor and the actual on-camera monitor that thing look Oh looked overexposed and it's not camera brightness like the UI and everything the brightness is fine it is how it actually displays the exposure of the video the video of the cats looked way more overexposed than it turned out and a lot of those computer building videos looked like they would be the right kind of exposure so I thought I thought it was set up right and it turns out that it wasn't and I've ended up with a lot of videos that are underexposed significantly and there are nowhere near enough data in these recordings to actually recover any of that the video has no log mode no raw mode nothing like that it has a neutral profile which I've all were always used I just turned down the contrast on it before filming this video so hopefully that helps a little bit but like you do not have much runway with the video at all and I've seen you know you can buy profiles that you can inject into the camera that emulate log or whatever but I messed around with that on my t3i and the results were very subpar they were never great because the footage itself does not give you that much leeway so then you're fooled into thinking I can push colors or D or whatever how much I want and you end up not actually being able to and it's really frustrating another issue I had discovered with this camera is with regards to how it actually records video because it doesn't record the entire whole framed video Canon notoriously doesn't do that in their DSLRs instead it has both line skipping a name or a filter which results in in certain circumstances some seriously jagged lines and some like anti aliasing or deinterlacing looking artifacts as a result which I ran into when testing some wide-angle lenses with my neon sign in the background the B corners of it just looked like they were pixelated up to all hell and back and it's just weird little things like that that drive someone like me nuts but some random person using it for just casual YouTube use will probably never care about so I've gone back and forth between hating this camera and loving it when it comes to video because you know I'll be like yeah it's great full-frame it's freaking awesome I shoot in tiny spaces full frame is the best stuff ever it is that hot stuff I love it having the microphone input is helpful even though you only get manual control over audio levels which I hope are okay here I don't get an audio preview at all you only a manual control over those in manual mode if you're in auto mode it just screws up the audio altogether the dual pixel autofocus is freakin phenomenal I'm in love with it and the lens that comes with is fairly sharp and competent I'm pretty happy with that and when I do go manual mode for shooting some b-roll I can strap on you know my Helios 44 to swirly boquete lens and since it's full-frame I can actually get swirly bokeh in my apartment here without having to have like football fields worth a distance like on other cameras I can do a lot of really cool stuff with it and so I pick it up and I'll be like yeah this is great and then I realize I'm underexposing or I'm running into other issues or it's just too heavy to move certain places for the limitations that it presents and then I hate it again and I'm back to somewhat kind of appreciating it again understanding its limitations to me which is pretty much the intention these aren't cameras built for video although I do feel like clean HDMI out which Canon specifically nerfs on these cameras to sell they're more expense once I feel like Kleenex Jia Maya would have made up a lot of the difference but I really feel like the video on these cameras are just meant to accompany your photography it's supposed to be hey I'm taking pictures I want to get a quick clip of this here I can not it's meant to be your studio production video camera or even to be an a roll you know camera in the first place it's not meant to replace any of that kind of functionality and when everyone's complaining about the video features in the latest cos are or this camera or whatever they seem to be missing that because these cameras aren't entirely meant for vloggers or anything like that that being said Canon does try to leverage that in their marketing for it and so any sort of like backlash they have as a result it's totally their fault and i 100% understand that moving to the EF mount lens system just / canon glass and things like that in general has been freaking phenomenal for my photography and videography work I've since my other main video camera is now EF mount as well I've been able to get some really awesome lenses and do some really cool video as a result and that lens system is just like is that it's phenomenal I've gotten a lot more leeway out of it and that change has been good for me and overall using this camera for video from time to time like if I'm gonna pick up a camera again when my - my wife - is playing with her cats or I just need to record something randomly or were you know going to a park whatever where I might want to take pictures and video the camera I'm gonna grab is this one the 6d mark - it does all of those things decently well but if I'm going to put a camera on a tripod and actually record a video talking into it and trying to showcase a product or anything like that where I don't have the space or the room to really utilize my my Ursa mini Pro it's not going to be this one it's gonna be my Panasonic g7 the g7 doesn't have any stabilization it doesn't have autofocus that I can use it doesn't have a whole lot of things this camera has and it has a crop factor that would make this video look like this which I'm sure you guys really don't want to watch it makes me look sickly it's so close I don't look that sickly in real life but that would be the camera I picked up but I don't want to keep shooting on just a 12 millimeter lens for everything that's so that's so creative creatively lit it's so much I can't even speak words it's so creatively limiting that I'm just I'm really tired of it which is why I picked up a bigger cinema camera because it more accurately meets my actual needs and requirements for production and that's not to say that for making YouTube videos it's not even a great camera if you are looking to upgrade from a basic webcam or your phone camera or even a cheaper end Canon DSLR and you're already used to how they work a sixty mark - or the EOS R or you know what have you are pretty solid choices you just have to really learn to use the camera and understand its limitations and work within them but you also have to make decisions about how you produce content based around the camera whereas I had a specific set desired studio shooting environment and setup and workflow that this camera doesn't meet if you're just looking for something quick and easy that you can put a mic on top of and record some stuff from time to time and you really don't care about the little details that much it's probably worth it to you the problem is when people like me who are complete video nerds and control freaks pick it up it doesn't fully suit those needs if that makes any sense so I've had this camera for about six to eight months now I got it in July of 2018 and admittedly it doesn't see anywhere near as much use these days as it did when I first got it but that's been a deliberate decision because I was using it for everything and plays am i g7 whatever I need it's some quick camera work I was picking this up instead of the g7 and then regretting it whenever I got to editing or whenever I got certain comments about how dark certain videos were without me pumping light into the scene and things like that especially in the 60fps mode the thing requires so much more light than I was expecting and part of its due to the camera lens itself because I'm using here a f 3.5 to F five point six lens and on this sensor that means that when I'm zoomed in a little bit it starts jumping to f5 here which with my current lighting on my face that's mostly fine but shooting a black PC case in a kind of less lit up corner that means I need to pump it with a lot more light and I wasn't doing so and yada yada and so this is mostly specifically my random like at home home video camera if I do video on it otherwise my photography camera but boy it's been a roller coaster getting used to it I have the battery gear up for it I have a couple other accessories for it and I I really enjoy it for when for when it's playing to its strengths like it is the camera I would recommend for that thing but that doesn't make it worth two thousand dollars and that's the issue is especially comparatively compared to other cameras for two thousand dollars you can get a heck of a lot more for your money in terms of value for both video and sort of the photo work because this isn't even you know it doesn't even beat out all other two thousand dollar photo cameras so it's one of those things camera keeps trying to play your camera Canon keeps trying to play the middle line here and doesn't do either of those things amazingly well and releases weird oddball releases like this one versus the 5d Mark 4 and some of us are just left questioning why so I don't think I'm gonna sell it any time soon I'd love to just straight-up swap it for a 5d 4 but that's not gonna happen any time soon but I just wanted to update you guys as to how it's been going cuz I complained about it a lot of firsts and kitty-kitty just wanted to update I've had some questions about my use of it because it has become apparent that I don't use it a ton anymore in videos and yada yada so just wanted to let you know if you enjoyed this video let me know in the comment section down below I'm trying to cover more comment or camera and lens stuff on the channel as it's a big part of content creation and I think it's important to cover yeah so subscribe for more tech education and content creation education that's a lot of Asians my arms are about to fall off carrying this thing so I'll talk to you next time\n"