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EOS R first impressions: videographer Nicolai Brix’s perspective
The Danish videographer and photojournalist Nicolai Brix was the first filmmaker to try shooting video with the Canon EOS R system. Here’s what he thinks.
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Building on over three decades of continuous Canon EOS innovation, Canon’s full-frame mirrorless EOS R system has arrived, bringing greater creative possibilities and redefining future frontiers of photography and filmmaking.
The EOS R body, four lenses and a trio of EF and EF-S adapters – the first lenses and accessories in the EOS R range – combine to bring you the ultimate shooting experience, with performance and quality at their core.
The Canon EOS R has a full-frame 36 x 24mm 30.3MP sensor with Dual Pixel Raw. It also features Canon’s Dual Pixel CMOS AF – technology that provides high-performance, fast and accurate autofocus, even in previously prohibitive low light, for photographers and filmmakers.
The EOS R lens mount is at the heart of the EOS R system. Three decades of EOS innovation has evolved into the creation of this mount with 12 contacts, providing more power to lenses and enabling the camera and lens to communicate 10 times faster. The result is the exceptionally fast AF for a full-frame mirrorless camera.
"For a long time I've been looking for a smaller, more innocuous camera for some of the more investigative stories that I do," says Canon Ambassador Brent Stirton, who spent five days travelling more than 700km across Namibia to document the lives of the Himba, Herero and San tribes with the EOS R system. Maintaining colour fidelity, battery life and a familiar menu system, but adding silence, accuracy and speed, Brent found he could shoot in more situations than ever before.
“This new system offered me some of the best low-light performance I've ever seen from a Canon camera," Brent says, and "the images seem sharper somehow, a little more three-dimensional."
With a breakthrough design, the mount features short back focus and the widest lens throat of any 35mm system, enabling advances in lens design and performance. Between them the Canon RF 50mm f/1.2L USM, Canon RF 24-105MM F/4L IS USM, Canon RF 28-70MM F/2L USM and Canon RF 35mm f/1.8 IS Macro STM lenses offer photographers and filmmakers smoother, faster, silent focusing, customisation with on-lens control rings and new levels of image stabilisation.
Photojournalist turned fine art photographer Guia Besana created a project titled A Rummage of Flowers, playing with themes of women's fragility, power and indecision. "I like my camera to be light," says Guia. "Photography can be very nerdy and I'm not a nerd, but I love this camera! It doesn't get in between me and what I'm trying to do: connect with my subject.”
The resulting files continued to impress her. “I've never had RAWs like this," Guia says, in reference to the expanded post-processing possibilities that come from the superior image quality.
As well as featuring a new range of lenses, the Canon EOS R is fully compatible with the complete range of Canon EF and EF-S lenses via adapters – the Canon Mount Adapter EF-EOS R, Canon Control Ring Mount Adapter EF-EOS R and Canon Drop-In Filter Mount Adapter EF-EOS R – giving access to Canon’s world-leading lenses with no loss in performance or image quality.
“It actually improves my old lenses,” says filmmaker Nicolai Brix on the EOS R lens adapters. He used the EOS R system to make a video capturing the creative process of Danish fabric designer Susanne Nielsen.
"Shooting with Canon Log, you get really beautiful 10-bit files," says Nicolai, who filmed in 4K with EOS R. "The skin tones are just phenomenal."
The Canon Dual Pixel CMOS AF technology provides high-performance focus tracking in still photos and movies and results in fast, accurate autofocus even in low-light conditions it was previously too dark to focus in.
The Canon EOS R’s 3.69 million dot Electronic Viewfinder (EVF) enables you to see in near darkness, with the Touch and Drag AF across a staggering 5,655 AF points (covering 88% of the frame vertically and 100% horizontally) allowing you to focus with freedom.
"As a wedding photographer, I look for a camera with superb autofocus, because the moment will never be repeated," says Katya. "The speed of the Canon EOS R's autofocus is amazing. I could also stand still and track the couple's movements with my finger on the screen using touch AF.”
"It's just amazing how you can pull the focus on the screen – it's so smooth and you can adjust the speeds,” says Nicolai. “I'd say Dual Pixel autofocus is one of the single most important things to have changed the way I work."
"Everything can be customised on the Canon EOS R," Nicolai adds, on the customisation options that extend to control rings on the lenses and adapters, "and the new multi-function bar enables you to work faster because you can assign different functions to it. It means I'm not held back by my camera."
"The combination of new features delivers a product that's on another level,” says Katya Mukhina. Welcome to a brighter, faster future with the Canon EOS R system.
Find out more about the Canon EOS R system at the Canon EOS R system product page.
Test and try the full-frame mirrorless Canon EOS R system at photokina in Cologne, Germany, from 26 to 29 September.
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The Danish videographer and photojournalist Nicolai Brix was the first filmmaker to try shooting video with the Canon EOS R system. Here’s what he thinks.
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