Introduction

Ease of Use

Intended to be the spiritual successor to the popular EOS 7D Mark II DSLR, the new Canon R7 is specifically targeted at sports and wildlife photographers and videographers who prioritise speed of shooting and operation.

Along with the R10 model that was announced at the same time, the EOS R7 is the first ever Canon APS-C sensor mirrorless camera to use the same RF lens mount as the company's full frame cameras.

This is the main differentiator between these two new R-series models and the existing EOS M-series, which use a different EF-M lens mount.

Consequently, you can either use Canon's equally new range of RF-S lenses which are designed specifically for the R7 and R10 (and all future Canon R-series APS-C cameras), or you can use the more established full-frame RF lenses, with an accompanying change in the focal length due to the 1.6x crop factor involved with mounting full-frame lenses on an APS-C sensor.

In addition, Canon's huge number of EF and EF-S DSLR lenses can be used with the R7 and R10 by attaching the optional EF-EOS R Mount Adapter, which is very handy if you already have a large collection of legacy lenses.

What you can't do, sadly, is use the EF-M lenses that were designed for the EOS-M system on the R7/R10, which means that there's no clear upgrade path for users of Canon's first APS-C sensor mirrorless system other than to start over again.

It also means that there aren't very many lens options for the R7 and R10 from day one - Canon only released two rather uninspiring lenses alongside the new bodies, the super-compact RF-S 18-45mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM standard zoom which has a collapsible design and the more versatile RF-S 18-150mm F3.5-6.3 IS STM zoom.

Both lenses commendably have built-in optical stabilisation and don't cost the earth, but the maximum apertures are very slow and neither are particularly wide. They're fine if you're just starting out and don't already own any compatible Canon lenses, but we'd hope to see some more inspiring RF-S lenses launched as soon as possible in order to compete on a more level playing field with the likes of Sony and especially Fuji film.

The 32.5 megapixel, high-resolution sensor in the Canon EOS R7 is great news for those who want to get the most detail possible from their shots.

If you’re somebody who likes to shoot macro images, for example, you’ll be able to reproduce more detail than was previously available before from most Canon APS-C cameras.

There are two exceptions - the 3-year-old EOS 90D DSLR and EOS M6 Mark II mirrorless models both used exactly the same 32 megapixel sensor as the new R7, although they only featured the Digic 8 processor rather than the latest and greatest Digic X processor that the R7 benefits from.

JPEGs directly from the R7 are very pleasing, with excellent vibrant colours which are just the right side of realistic. On the whole, automatic white balance does a good job of keeping colours in check in a variety of lighting conditions, while the all-purpose evaluative metering system works well to produce balanced exposures.

As Canon’s metering system weights exposure towards the active AF point, you might find in certain high-contrast situations, you need to switch to spot metering for best results, but for most everyday situations it’s a great performer.

The ISO range runs from 100-32,000, which can be further expanded up to ISO 51,200.

The EOS R7 is the latest Canon camera to support Dual Pixel RAW. This allows correction of the focus and contrast in the background using the Background Clarity mode and changing the lighting in portraits via the Portrait Relighting mode after capture, just using your finger/thumb on the EOS R7's touchscreen LCD.

The Canon R7 features exactly the next generation Dual Pixel CMOS AF II focusing system as used by the flagship R3 and R5 full-frame cameras.

It has 651 automatic focus points and 5,915 manually selectable AF points, which is slightly less than the EOS R3, R6 and R5, with similar 100% frame coverage in Auto selection mode and 90% vertical and 100% horizontal in manual selection.

Impressively the EOS R7 can focus in light levels as low as -5EV (when used with an F1.2 lens) or with maximum apertures as small as f/22, which enables autofocus even when using ultra telephoto lenses with teleconverters.

Shutter speeds as fast as 1/8000s are supported using the mechanical shutter and up to 1/16000s using the electronic shutter.

Thanks to its Digic X processor, the EOS R7 offers exactly the same deep-learning artificial intelligence based automatic face, eye and animal AF tracking modes as the R3, R5 and R6 models.

Therefore Canon R7 can recognise and track eyes from much further away than previous models, and it works even if the person is wearing a mask, helmet or sunglasses. Subject tracking works for humans and also dogs, cats and birds, the latter even in flight.

The EOS R3 also has the ability to track vehicles, including cars and motorbikes. What's more, if the driver is wearing a helmet, the AF system will lock on to that, ensuring that the most important subject is in focus.

Turning to R7's the headline-grabbing continuous shooting speeds, the camera can shoot at a blistering 30fps when taking advantage of the silent electronic shutter, complete with full AF and AE tracking,, exactly the same rate as the flagship EOS R3 camera.

What's more, the new R7 actually betters the R3 if you prefer to use the mechanical shutter, offering a burst rate of 15fps versus the R3's slower 12fps.

The buffer "only" allows bursts of up to 224 JPEG or 51 RAW images when using the mechanical shutter or 126 JPEG or 42 RAW images when using the electronic shutter, though, neither of which match up to the R3's much larger 540 JPEG or 150 RAW frame buffer.

Still, being able to continuously shoot 42 x 32 megapixel RAW files at 30fps or over 4 seconds of full-sized JPEG files at the same rate using a completely silent shutter should certainly please all but the pickiest of customers.

To cope with all of that data and to provide more recording flexibility, the camera has dual UHS-II SD card slots.

While that greatly expands the choice of memory cards that can be used with this camera, we would have preferred at least one CFexpress slot instead of the exclusively SD card approach, as burst shooting speeds are much slower when recording to SD cards than to CFexpress.

In-body stabilisation is one of the key benefits of mirrorless versus DSLRs in general and also one of the key technological advances that the R7 has made since the launch of the EOS 7D Mark II way back in 2014.

It has been designed to work collaboratively with the IS system that's built into many RF- and RF-S-mount lenses, with the lens and the sensor working together to correct pitch and yaw and the sensor correcting the X-Y and roll movements. The IBIS system also supports automatic horizon correction for the first time on a Canon camera.

This intelligent stabilisation system provides 7-stops based on the CIPA standard with the RF-S 18-150mm F3.5-6.3 IS STM at a focal length of 150mm, and a frankly incredible 8-stops of stabilisation with some lenses, allowing you to hand-hold the camera for up to 4 seconds and still get critically sharp results.

The EOS R7 can also stabilise older, non-IS lenses including any EF lens that is mounted on it via the Canon EF-EOS R mount adapter.

The stabilisation system will also work with lenses from other manufacturers – you just need to input the focal length into the camera's menu system.

In practice, the EOS R7's stabilisation system is excellent, making it possible to hand-hold the camera at previously impossibly slow shutter speeds and still maintain critical sharpness.

File format wise, the R7 is Canon's latest EOS camera to support the ‘next generation' HEIF (High Efficiency Image File) file format, enabling images with 10-bits of data to be saved in a file the equivalent size of a JPEG, while suffering less compression.

Of course Raw files can be shot in tandem with JPEGs (or indeed HEIF files) as per usual - here with Canon's own .CR3 (Canon Raw) file extension, which requires the likes of Photoshop or Lightroom to access and open.

The Canon R7 offers the ability to record uncropped 4K UHD / 60p / 10-bit footage internally with dual-pixel auto-focus and auto-exposure for up to 60 minutes.

There's also a special 4K/30p Fine mode which oversamples from 7K for the ultimate image quality, and also a dedicated 4K/60p UHD crop mode for extra telephoto reach (55% of the horizontal area).

Full 1080 slow-motion recording at up to 120p with autofocus is also available (but no sound), which is actually something that the flagship EOS R5 doesn't offer.

The intentionally flat Canon Log 3 colour profile is available to provide extra flexibility for colour grading in post-production.

Both live streaming and vertical video capture are supported, the latter being ideal for reels and stories.

Canon have also included zebra display during movie shooting, which can be used as a guide to exposure adjustment, especially for highlights.

The EOS R7 utilises a similar polycarbonate shell to the one found on the EOS R6 rather than a magnesium-alloy body as used by the more expensive R7.

Canon say that it offers similar levels of weather-proofing to 2019's EOS 90D DSLR, which means that it'll be fine in a light rain shower but will need protecting in a heavier downpour. Note that the two new RF-S zoom lenses are not similarly weather-proof.

It measures 138.5 x 97.5 x 88mm, making it quite a lot smaller than the Canon R5 and R6, and it's significantly lighter too, weighing in at 530g body-only or 612g with both a battery and memory card fitted.

Despite its smaller stature, the Canon R7 benefits from having a deep handgrip that just about accommodates four fingers, something that can't be said of many of its main rivals.

The minimalist front plate houses two controls. There's an unmarked Function button that can be customised, including controlling the auto-focus. By default it activates the classic Depth of Field preview function, which helps you determine what your photos will look like before the image is taken.

This button is encircled by the MF/AF mode switch, which is especially welcome as the two new RF-S lenses both lack this handy switch. There's also a porthole for the AF assist light and a lozenge shaped button for releasing the lens.

The new Canon EOS R7 has a very similar top plate layout to the EOS R6 full-frame model.

There is a conventional shooting mode dial on the right-hand side to change the shooting mode, with the usual P, Tv, Av and M options, Bulb mode, three Custom modes, 10 different Creative Filters, and three options for less experienced users - a selection of Scene modes, the set-everything Scene Intelligent Auto mode, and Flexible-Priority AE mode, which bridges the gap between full auto and the PASM modes.

Both a shooting mode dial and a top-plate LCD screen would be ideal, but EOS R-series camera bodies are simply too small to accommodate them together, with the R7 being no exception.

There's a small Movie/On/Off switch over on the far-right, with the camera leaping into life almost instantly. The camera remembers separate settings for each of the Movie and On/Stills settings.

Providing quick access to the video settings via this is a good idea, although I did inadvertently push it too far quite a few times when trying just to select On / stills mode and ended up in the movie mode instead.

There's a small but responsive shutter release button at the top of the handgrip, with the tiny M-Fn behind it. This provides quick access to some of the camera's key controls, including ISO, continuous shooting, AF, white balance and exposure compensation.

Behind that is the front control dial for principally setting the aperture or shutter speed, and behind that a small, red one-touch movie record button and an equally small ISO button sitting proud of the camera body.

The final control is the Lock button which as its name suggests locks the two control dials on top of the camera and the rear control wheel so that you can't accidentally change the camera's key settings.

Rather than also having a second control dial on the top-plate that's ideally placed for thumb operation, as on the EOS R6 and other R-series models, the R7 sees the debut of the combined AF point selector and rear control wheel at the top-rear of the camera body.

This amalgamates the popular scrolling control wheel from both many Canon DSLRs and the R5/6, which usually encircled the Set button, with the AF joystick in a kind of hybrid control that's operated with your right thumb.

We like the fact that the new scroll wheel reduces redundancy by being used for both setting the aperture and shutter speed and also for quickly scrolling through the menu system and during image playback (the one on the EOS R6 actually serves less purpose than the one on the EOS R7 because there are already two control dials on top of that camera for setting the aperture and shutter speed).

While the inclusion of the joystick is very welcome, we were struck by just how high the joystick is positioned. It's inline with the centre of the viewfinder, rather than where the Magnification button is, which at least initially seems rather too high to find easily, especially compared with most other cameras that have this key control. We eventually got used to it higher position, but still can't help wishing that it was lower down.

Also, its location within the middle of the scroll wheel makes it harder to locate in a hurry, especially if you have larger hands, and on a few occasions I also inadvertently activated the scroll wheel whilst only trying to operate the AF joystick, which unfortunately affected the exposure settings. It's definitely a rather marmite control that some will love and others may well hate.

The Menu bottom on the far left is the only control found on this side of the back-plate.

The new Multi-Function Shoe provides data communication and power for accessories such as the ST-E10 Speedlite Transmitter, DM-E1D Stereo Microphone, and AD-P1 Smartphone Link Adapter, as well as acting as a traditional hotshoe for existing Speedlites and triggers via the AD-E1 Multi-Function Shoe Adapter.

The 0.39 inch, 2.36 million dot EVF on the EOS R7 isn't the most cutting-edge technology wise, but it's still fairly impressive to look through, working up to 120fps for minimal lag when shooting fast-moving subjects and offering a large magnification of 1.15x.

The EOS R7 has the same 3-inch, 1.62 million dot, vari-angle LCD screen as the R6, which tilts out to the side and faces forwards for more convenient vlogging and selfies. It's fine but beginning to show its age now.

It can be usefully folded flat against the back of the camera to protect it when in transit in a camera bag.

A proximity sensor is located directly beneath the viewfinder, which automatically switches between the EVF and LCD screen. When the LCD screen is swung outwards, the EVF is cleverly turned off automatically.

A tilting LCD screen always helps to encourage shooting from creative angles and it also helps make the EOS R7 ideally suited to movie-shooting.

The LCD screen is touch-sensitive, allowing you to control everything from setting the AF point and firing the shutter, navigating the menu systems and browsing your images during playback. It's a very precise, responsive system that's a veritable joy to use.

Alongside the rear joystick are three classic Canon controls - the AF-On button for people who prefer back-button focusing, the Auto-exposure Lock button (denoted by a star) and the AF area selection button which makes it easier to switch the autofocus point when holding the camera to your eye. The latter doubles up as the Magnification button during playback.

Underneath are the Info Button and then the shared Quick/Set button, which opens the Quick Control screen and provides instant access to 10 key camera controls.

Four navigation arrow buttons surround the Quick/Set button, which rather strangely just duplicate a lot of the things that you can do with the re-positioned scroll wheel, which perhaps would have been better left where it always was.

Completing the rear of the EOS R7 are the self-explanatory Playback and Delete buttons located underneath the navigation pad.

On the right hand-side of the camera is the memory card compartment. The EOS R7 supports two SD UHS-II cards via dual slots, which instantly promotes it above the EOS R10 which only has a single slot, and you can choose to record to both cards simultaneously.

On the left hand-side of the camera are four rubber flaps housing five different connections.

The Canon EOS R7 has a microphone port, headphone jack, remote control port, USB-C port and a mini-HDMI connection - all the things that any enthusiast photographer or videographer would need from an accessory point of view.

The Canon R7 benefits from using the LP-E6NH, a recently introduced longer life battery that is also supplied with both the EOS R6 and EOS R5 cameras.

The LP-E6NH effectively replaces the existing LP-E6N, reaching 2130mAh and offering an increased capacity of 14%. In reality this translates into 500 shots when using the EVF and 770 when using the LCD screen.

Thankfully it's also backwards compatible with all existing cameras that use the LP-E6 series batteries,so you can use an older LP-E6N in the EOS R7, and the new LP-E6NH in an older EOS camera that uses the LP-E6N. All of the various chargers are cross-compatible too.

Unfortunately and somewhat bizarrely for such a speed-oriented camera, Canon have chosen not to make a battery grip available for the EOS R7, or even provide the grip positioning holes in the base for any future release.

As well as making the camera easier to use in portrait mode and/or for users with larger hands, it would also have greatly extended the battery life, all things that this camera's target audience would have benefited from.

With built-in Bluetooth Low Energy and both 2.4Ghz and faster 5Ghz Wi-Fi support, the EOS R7 can be easily connected to a smartphone and networks allowing high-speed file sharing and FTP/FTPS transfer.

The R7 can also be remotely controlled and even updated using Canon's Camera Connect and EOS Utility apps and tethered to to an Apple iPhone via its Lightning port or a PC or Mac via Wi-Fi or high-speed USB-C 3.2. Live streaming to YouTube is also supported via wi-fi and Canon's image.canon service.

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this review were taken using the 32.5 megapixel Fine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 8Mb.

The Canon EOS R7 produced still images of excellent quality during the review period.

This camera produces noise-free JPEG images from ISO 100 all the way up to ISO 3200, with noise first appearing at ISO 6400. The faster settings of 12800 and especailly ISO 25600 display progressively more noise, but are still suitable for small prints and web images. We wouldn't advise using the expanded setting of ISO 51200 though.

The RAW files were also excellent, exhibiting more noise than their JPEG counterparts but still producing very usable images from ISO 100-3200.

The night photograph was very good, with the maximum shutter speed of 30 seconds and the Bulb mode allowing you to capture enough light in all situations, while the HDR mode works well in the right situations.

The various different Picture Styles and the ability to create your own are a real benefit, as are the extensive range of Creative Effects, all of which can be previewed before you take the shot.

Noise

ISO sensitivity can be set between ISO 100 and ISO 51200 in full-stop increments. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting, with JPEG on the left and the RAW equivalent on the right.

JPEG	RAW
ISO 100	ISO 100
ISO 200	ISO 200
ISO 400	ISO 400
ISO 800	ISO 800
ISO 1600	ISO 1600
ISO 3200	ISO 3200
ISO 6400	ISO 6400
ISO 12800	ISO 12800
ISO 25600	ISO 25600
ISO 51200	ISO 51200

File Quality

The Canon EOS R7 has 2 different JPEG file quality settings available, with Fine being the highest quality option, and it also supports Raw and HEIF file formats. Here are some 100% crops which show the quality of the various options, with the file size shown in brackets.

Fine (8.4Mb) (100% Crop)	Normal (4.3Mb) (100% Crop)
Raw (36Mb) (100% Crop)

Night

The Canon EOS R7's maximum shutter speed is 30 seconds and there's a Bulb mode for even longer exposures, which is excellent news if you're seriously interested in night photography.

HDR

The Canon EOS R7 has a High Dynamic Range mode with four different settings - AUTO, +-1 EV, +-2 EV and +-3 EV. The camera takes three shots with different exposures, changing the shutter speed for each one, and then combining them in-camera.

Off

+1EV

+2EV

+3EV

Multi Exposure

The Canon EOS R7's Multiple Exposure mode combines up to 9 different images together in-camera to create one composite image, with four different ways of combining them - Additive, Average, Bright, Dark.

Picture Styles

Canon's Picture Styles are preset combinations of different sharpness, contrast, saturation and colour tone settings which can be applied to both JPEGs and RAW files. The seven available options are shown below in the following series, which demonstrates the differences. There are also three User Defined styes so that you can create your own look.

Standard

Portrait

Landscape

Fine Detail

Neutral

Faithful

Monochrome

Creative Filters

The Creative Filters shooting mode offers 10 different options to help spice up your JPEG images.

Grainy B/W

Soft Focus

Fish-eye

Water Painting

Toy Camera

Miniature

HDR Art Standard

HDR Art Vivid

HDR Art Bold

HDR Art Embossed

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Canon EOS R7 camera, which were all taken using the 32.5 megapixel Fine setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample RAW Images

The Canon EOS R7 enables users to capture RAW and JPEG format files. We've provided some Canon RAW (CR3) samples for you to download (thumbnail images shown below are not 100% representative).

Sample Movies & Video

Product Images

Conclusion

Canon have always been somewhat half-hearted about their long-running but little-supported EOS-M series, so it's great to see them finally showing the APS-C format some love with the launch of the excellent EOS R7, even if it will probably come at the literal cost of the former system.

Having concentrated almost exclusively on delivering full-frame mirrorless for the last few years, now the Japanese giant has turned its attention to the more affordable end of the market with the launch of the R7 and cheaper R10.

Which isn't to say that the EOS R7 is a budget option - indeed, it competes directly against some high-end rivals from other manufacturers, most notably the Fujifilm X-T4, although that particular model has itself been recently surpassed by the X-H2 and X-H2S.

The R7 combines a more affordable APS-C sensor with lots of technologies and ideas that have trickled down from higher up the full-frame food chain, most notably the superlative Dual Pixel CMOS AF II autofocus system and fast burst rates, both of which make the R7 a great wildlife and sports camera.

Add in 4K/60p video with no crop, up to 8-stops of image stabilisation and a 32.5 megapixel, high-resolution sensor, and you have a very capable all-rounder that out-performs all previous Canon APS-C cameras, either DSLRs or mirrorless, and is also a very worthy alternative to the full-frame EOS R and RP models.

Our main bugbear is not with the R7 and R10 cameras themselves, but rather the lens support, or lack of it. OK, so the EOS RF-S mount is still very much in its infancy, but it would have been nice to see Canon offering something more interesting than two slow zoom lenses from day one, even if they are very affordable.

You can use Canon's adapter to mount their vast range of full-frame EF DSLR and RF mirrorless lenses on the R7, but that perhaps rather negates the point of buying a smaller sensor, physically smaller and financially smaller camera. Although if you've already heavily invested in some quality RF glass and want the extra reach that mounting those lenses on an APS-C sensor camera offers, the R7 will prove to be a very welcome addition to the R-series family.

It also seems that Canon's engineers can't help but tinker with a user interface that has been finely honed over the years, in this case with the debut of the combined AF point selector and rear control wheel. Just like the EOS R's quirky M-Fn selector that people loved to hate, we can't help but feel that this new control is trying to solve a problem that didn't really exist, to the detriment of the overall handling of the camera.

The specs of the LCD screen and EVF are nothing to write home about and the low level of weather-proofing is disappointing on a camera that begs to be used in more inclement conditions, not helped by the two RF-S lenses complete lack of sealing. Otherwise, thankfully, the new R7 gets most other things right.

Fujifilm have long been the kings of the prosumer APS-C segment, and with over 40 generally excellent lenses currently available for the X-system, it's hard to see past the likes of the cheaper X-T3 or more expensive X-T4 or X-H2 in preference to Canon's new offering simply because of the lens support. Having said that, the R7 does out-perform the cheaper X-T3 whilst significantly undercutting the X-T4 and X-H2 in price.

Ultimately, the Canon EOS R7 proved to be a very capable and well-balanced all-rounder that's especially well-suited to action photography. Fingers crossed that Canon quickly release some interesting, high-quality lenses to go with it...

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4.5
Features	4.5
Ease-of-use	4.5
Image quality	4.5
Value for money	4.5

Main Rivals

Listed below are some of the rivals of the Canon EOS R7.

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Canon EOS R7 from around the web.

Specifications

Your Comments