I made a seemingly unwise choice: switch from Sony a7R3 to Canon EOS R. I know many spec experts may say: “Are you crazy? Sony a7R3 has amazing eye-control focus, IBIS, higher resolution, better low-light performance, non-cropping 4K video recording, HLG support and so on. Why you switch to a system with such feeble camera body?”
Well, I do carefully deliberate before my decision. It’s not a whim. Here are my reasons.
- Canon’s EF lenses are very cheap. You can get a high-speed lenses in a descent price. I know many Sony lenses of the same specification have better image quality, but I’m really not an extremist about sharpness. As long as the distortion and chromatic aberration is acceptable, the price always outweighs.
- After several updates, many issues of EOS R had been resolved. The eye-tracking focus of EOS R become usable after the 1.4 version of according to DPReview’s test.
- I rarely shoot videos. Or to say the least, I’m not a pro video user, therefore I won’t spend much time on. So features like non-cropping 4K video recording, HLG support is redundant to me.
Wait, did you say IBIS? Does it really work in videography? - Sony’s menu arrangement and almost useless touch-screen drive me crazy. I can’t remember how many times I dig the whole menu more than one time to find the item I want. I do customize my camera but as you know it doesn’t help when you want set something you seldom set before.
- Sony’s screen is awful. I’m a hawk-eye about screens. Both color accuracy and the resolution (pixel-per-inch) of my a7R3’s screen doesn’t meet my standard of good screens. Besides, I wonder why don’t Sony offer touch interaction on menus. Because if I can navigate by touching, the previous point will be no longer a problem.
Nothing is perfect. To me, Canon’s system also has some unsatisfactory points. But unlike Sony, these points are totally bearable.
- Canon’s body doesn’t have IBIS (in-body image stabilization) and there’s neither announcements nor rumors indicating they will release it.
- Currently there’s no cheap lenses on RF lines, most lenses are of L lines. But I think Canon will release more RF lenses in 2020 because I’ve witnessed how fast Canon convert its patents to products. Besides, many rumors indicates they will release cheap RF lenses in 2020.
This is the end. I will post more review and thoughts in following days.