The Canon EOS R3 is high-end mirrorless Camera aimed at pro sports and news photographers who demand the fastest speed and toughest body. Teased in April 2021, and officially launched six months later, it’s Canon’s most powerful mirrorless camera to date, and while it outperforms the 1Dx Mark III in most respects, it’s officially positioned between it and the EOS R5, implying a 1-series mirrorless may come in the future.
The R3 features Canon’s first stacked backside-illuminated full-frame sensor, and I confirmed it’s designed and manufactured by Canon. To balance resolution speed and noise, Canon’s opted for 24.1 Megapixels, coincidentally the same Sony chose for their first stacked full frame sensor in the A9, three years previously. But Canon’s sensor shoots 50% faster than the A9, supporting Electronic bursts up to 30fps with autofocus and auto exposure. So the R3 matches the top speed of the Sony Alpha 1 albeit capturing half the total pixels per frame.
I’ve so much to show you I’m splitting my R3 review into two videos below. In the first one, I’ll show you around the camera and controls, including the genuinely impressive eye-control autofocus system, while in the second video I’ll take a deep dive into the photo and movie quality. If you prefer to read a written version of the highlights, keep scrolling!
When shooting at 30fps, the R3’s buffer can record up to 540 JPEG or 140 RAW files, and unlike the R5 and R6 which demanded sufficient battery charge to unlock their top speeds, the R3’s big battery eliminates that limitation. No need for a green H+ icon here, and as you’ll see later, there’s minimal skewing due to rolling shutter. Switch to the electronic first-curtain or fully mechanical shutters and the top speed falls to 12fps, but means you can now essentially keep shooting JPEGs or RAWs until you run out of memory.
Above: Like the R5 and R6, the sensor’s stabilised within the body and can work alongside lenses with optical IS to deliver up to 8 stops of compensation. This varies with the lens and I show some examples in my second review video.
In terms of exposures, the R3 offers shutter speeds from 30 seconds to 1/8000 with the mechanical shutter or an industry-leading 1/64000 if you switch to the electronic shutter. At the other end of the scale, the Bulb timer allows you to dial-in easy long exposures from one second to 100 hours, while a built-in interval timer can capture shots at one second to 100 hour intervals. Meanwhile the flash sync speed is 1/250 with the electronic first-curtain, 1/200 with the fully mechanical shutter, and in a first for Canon, the R3 will now also sync with the electronic shutter at 1/180. Sony also now supports an electronic flash sync on the Alpha 1 at 1/200.
Above: Like the 1 series, the EOS R3 features a built-in portrait grip with duplicate controls, making it comfortable to hold and use whether shooting in the landscape or portrait orientation, although interestingly it does lack the third strap lug of the 1Dx that allows it to hang around your neck when turned for portraits. Amazingly the R3 only becomes the third mirrorless camera with a built-in portrait grip, following the Olympus EM1X and Fujifilm GFX-100, although Nikon’s upcoming Z-9 also sports one, leaving Sony and Panasonic as the odd ones out.
Above: At first glance the R3 unsurprisingly looks a lot like the EOS 1Dx Mark III, but in-person it’s more compact, roughly 1cm narrower, 2cm shorter and almost a quarter of a kilogram lighter. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a substantial camera, but to me felt a lot more manageable than the 1Dx III and something I’d be happier to carry for long periods, especially coupled with one of the lighter RF lens designs. It also feels as solid as a 1 series with Canon claiming the same degree of dust and weather resistance, making it their toughest mirrorless camera to date.
Above: Meanwhile beneath a long sliding cover on the top you’ll find the new accessory shoe which in addition to the standard five pins now includes an additional 21 under the front lip. This was first seen on the recently-launched XF605 camcorder and provides communications and power to upcoming accessories. These include a new DM-E1D microphone that doesn’t need an audio cable or its own battery, or the ST-E10 Speedlite transmitter that’s smaller because it can now use the camera controls and menus; Teac has also already announced the first third party accessory for the shoe with an XLR audio adapter.
There is one small catch though: removing the hotshoe cover compromises the R3’s full weather-proofing, but Canon’s thought of that and also offers the AD-E1 adapter that allows you to mount a Speedlite flash to the R3 while maintaining a weather-proof seal. It would also be remiss of me not to mention that Sony thought of a multi-interface accessory shoe a long time ago, but it’s still nice to have one here.
Above: Unlike most new cameras, the R3 also includes a hardware GPS receiver, doing away with the need to pair the camera with your phone just to record your location. You can set it to periodically check its position, or only when the camera is fully-on. Here’s the coordinates displayed during playback.
Above: From the rear you’ll see the R3 inherits some of the 1Dx III controls, including a similar power switch and the Smart Controller that made its debut on the flagship DSLR – I’ll show you how that works in a moment. I’m also pleased to find the collar control by the viewfinder to switch between stills and video, less fiddly than toggling with the Mode and Info buttons on the R5. The shorter height of the R3 means there’s no room for the secondary LCD status screen which sat below the main monitor on the 1Dx III, and sadly none of the buttons are backlit either which feels like a missed opportunity.
Above: In terms of power, the R3 uses the same LP-E19 battery pack as the 1Dx Mark III, allowing owners of the DSLR to swap or share batteries. It’s rated at 2700mAh, so roughly one third more than the LP-E6NH for the EOS R5 and R6, and higher voltage too, allowing it to drive the recent RF super-telephoto’s autofocus systems faster. Canon quotes up to 620 shots with the viewfinder or 860 with the screen. If you mostly shoot bursts with the electronic shutter you could get way more though: I managed almost 2000 frames with several minutes of slow motion video on a charge
Above: In terms of video alone, I could record two hours and 12 minutes of 4k 25p on a single charge, and in a single clip – yes, no more 30 minute limit – and with no overheating either. I’ll talk more about that later.
Above: Behind a door on the grip side are the same dual card slots as the R5, supporting SD UHS-II and CF Express Type-B, and as you’d hope the R3 allows simultaneous recording to both cards from day-one. There are a couple of high bit-rate exceptions though: 4k in All-i at 50 to 120p is too much for SD at Canon’s generous bit rates, as are all of the RAW video options, but otherwise you can record anything to the SD card or to both cards simultaneously. And if you do opt for RAW, you can record it to the CF Express card and an MP4 proxy to the SD.
Above: On the left side you’ll find the ports: 3.5mm microphone and headphone jacks, USB C and HDMI, flash sync and a Gigabit ethernet port for wired networking. There’s also 5GHz Wifi and Bluetooth. The USB C port runs at 3.2 Gen 2 speeds, can charge the battery internally – I successfully used my MacBook Pro and Galaxy S20 chargers – and can now support Apple MFI-certified connections to iphones or ipads for 3rd party apps. Annoyingly despite the size of the body, Canon has doggedly stuck with a Micro HDMI port. It’ll output 10 bit 4:2:2 video, and while there’s no confirmation on RAW output yet, I’d be surprised if the R3 isn’t squirting RAW video in 6k to a Ninja V+ at some point in the future.
Above: Composition is with either an electronic viewfinder or a screen. I’ve filmed the EVF here which shares the same 5.76 million dot panel as the R5, so that’s 1600×1200 pixels with 0.76x magnification. This makes it less detailed than the Alpha 1 viewfinder, but it still looks great in use and runs at either 60fps in a power saving mode or 120fps in a smooth mode. Like all EVFs you can display a wealth of information, preview exposures and effects, navigate menus and playback images. When shooting fast bursts, there’s no blackout or perceptible lag. The R3 also offers an optical viewfinder simulation which doesn’t preview exposure if you prefer that look.
Above: Turning to the screen, the R3 employs a 3.2in panel with a higher than average 4.15 million dots for a more detailed image. Unlike the fixed screen on the 1Dx III, the R3’s is fully-articulated, flipping out to the side and twisting to almost any angle. It’s an interesting decision and only time will tell if it impacts the overall robustness, but as a fan of this type of screen I’m not complaining.
Above: Moving onto autofocus, the R3 lets you choose between a wealth of areas from the full frame to three zones, single area with various expansions and spot for precision, and the Dual Pixel CMOS system is as fast, confident and accurate as you’d expect for a camera aimed at pro sports. But what makes the R3 stand out are the options for positioning the AF area. First of all there’s the AF joystick which allows the usual eight-directions and for me works best for small nudges rather than attempting to scroll across the frame.
Secondly you can simply tap on the desired subject using the touch screen. For me this can be very quick but depending on your steadiness it may lack the precision of the joystick. Still great for pulling focus in movies though.
Third is the Smart Controller, inherited from the 1Dx III. This allows the AF-ON button to double as a means to quickly adjust the AF area position. It employs optical technology, working a bit like an upside-down computer mouse, but providing fast and surprisingly precise positioning of the AF area, especially when composing through the viewfinder. All three techniques also work in playback and here I’m using the Smart controller to quickly scroll around an enlarged image. Like the 1Dx III, the joystick and Smart Controllers are also duplicated on the portrait grip.
But the R3 goes above and beyond other cameras by offering a fourth means to adjust the AF area, and that’s with the new Eye Control. This takes the original concept of the eye control which made its debut on the EOS 5 film SLR in the Nineties, but completely revamps it to become both technically impressive and genuinely useful.
Canon’s deployed technology developed from its medical division on the R3, employing eight low power LEDs around the viewfinder – four at the top and four at the bottom – to accurately track the position of your eye. Not for tracking a subject but to initially place an AF area or select between subjects.
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