Canon EOS RP Hands-On Review

Our colleagues Chris Niccolls and Jordan Drake from DPR recently had a chance to play with the new Canon EOS RP and came up with some eye-opening conclusions.

The newly released Canon EOS RP got some very mixed early impressions after it was announced. On the one hand, this is the lowest priced full frame mirrorless full frame camera to date (if you are considering launch prices), it has a pretty impressive specs sheet at first glance, however looking more closely at its limitations this camera might not be as impressive as it might look at first glance.

As we mentioned on our original Canon EOS RP article when it was released, on paper it uses the EOS 6D MKII 26MP sensor, has a super small body (more in line with an APS-C DSLR than a FF camera), a 3 inch articulated touch display and dials and buttons which are similar to what many Canon APS-C users might be accustomed to (including two dials but no top screen – unlike the EOS-R).

However, it has a very small and underpowered battery (270 images official per charge), a single SD card slot, and while it can shoot 4K video at 24p it has an APS-C crop and possibly the biggest drawback for video shooters – it doesn’t have dual pixel AF when shooting 4K so the AF in this mode is not going to be very good in some situations and for some reason, it doesn’t have 24p in 1080p) it also has no IBIS just like the EOS-R so it is hard to recommend it as a video camera when there are so many better options on the market at similar or even lower prices.

Niccolls also mentions another big drawback – the dynamic range of this camera isn’t very good so this is not an ideal camera for landscape etc., the image quality at higher ISOs is not that bad but, for good to average lighting – there are much better options.

Even if you don’t care about dynamic range or video – you might want to know that the shooting speed of the EOS RP is slow – around 5 FPS in single drive and only 4 FPS in Servo AF – so this is certainly not a camera for sports and maybe not even for shooting those kids running.

Finally, if you really consider the price – unless you are going to buy an adaptor and use EF lenses, currently most of the RF lenses that exist and are planned for the near future are pretty expensive making this camera around $2K or more – so its not clear exactly how much you are going to save at the end of the day.

Here is a reminder of the Canon EOS RP specs:

Sensor: 26.2 Megapixel CMOS.
DIGIC 8 processor.
Dual Pixel CMOS AF technology (limited to 1080p shooting).
4,779 Manually Selectable AF Points
Single SD card slot
Built-in 0.39 inch, 2.36 million OLED EVF (with Touch-and-Drag AF).
LCD: 3.0-inch touch articulated screen.
video: 4K @24p/1080p@60p.
Battery Pack LP-E17 (up to 270 images per charge).
Extension Grip (in 3 different colors: black, red, blue).
Connectivity: WIFI & Bluetooth.
Price: $1300 body only ($2200 with the RF 24-105mm f/4 lens).

You can find many more previews and reviews on our Photography review section here on LensVid. You can find many of Chris Niccolls and Jordan Drake’s videos – here on LensVid.

Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.