Canon EOS R7 review: Now we just need some lenses

The R7 is Canon's flagship APS-C camera, it launched slantingly it's cheaper sibling the R10, and the two persons are the first APS-C cameras to utilise the brand's RF mount - previously reserved for full-frame cameras.

The R7 is powerfully the successor to the long-standing Canon 7D series of DSLR cameras. But, since it's 2022, it's now a mirrorless body. This ways it gets an electronic viewfinder and a slightly sleeker body, withal with some speedy splash shooting capabilities and superior autofocus.

The 7D was unchangingly a unconfined pick for wildlife and sports shooters, and on paper, this sounds like it should weightier it on all fronts. So, how does the Canon EOS R7 pearly in the real world? We've been putting it to the test.

Design

• Body: 132.0 x 90.4 x 91.7 mm
• Weight: 560g (612g with vellum and battery)
• Weather sealed body
• New AF point selector and rear tenancy wheel

Aesthetically, the Canon R7 matches the rest of the Canon lineup with its smooth sweeping curves and hardy plastic construction. If you've used any Canon bodies, plane DSLRs dating when decades, you'll no doubt find the sawed-off layout familiar and intuitive.

One thing that's new, though, is the placement of the rear wheel. It now encircles the AF selector joystick and is placed upper up to the right of the EVF. We're not sure what the logic is overdue this positioning, but we aren't particularly taken with it.

We found it harder to use when looking through the EVF and often found ourselves unwittingly nudging the wrong tenancy when aiming for the joystick or the wheel. For the most part, it works as intended, but we much prefer the traditional layout found on cameras like the R6.

The on/off switch now has a movie mode function added, which makes it very user-friendly to switch to video shooting. It remembers your settings when you switch between modes, too. We're big fans of this addition.

Around the front, there's an AF/MF switch that's positioned near your ring finger when the camera is in use. We found this fairly easy to operate and could imagine it coming in expressly handy if you're using the camera to mucosa yourself.

Elsewhere, the buttons and their layout are fairly familiar. We were pleased to find that scrutinizingly everything is within reach of your right hand, making one-handed shooting nice and easy.

When the camera is turned off, the shutter closes to protect the sensor during lens swaps. We love this full-length and would like to see other manufacturers raising it, too, it makes waffly lenses in less-than-ideal conditions a much less stressful affair.

Overall, it's a very ergonomic diamond and feels very well-appointed in the hand. It doesn't quite have the same premium finger as a soul like the Fujifilm X-H2, but it feels robust unbearable and is weather resistant for widow peace of mind.

Connectivity and displays

• Dual SD vellum slots
• Micro HDMI, 3.5mm headphone and mic sockets, USB-C
• Flip out 2.95-inch 1.62 million dot LCD
• 2.63 million dot OLED EVF

The Canon R7 features dual SD vellum slots, there are no fancy video codecs in use here and so no need for expensive CFexpress cards. We're glad to see two slots included, as this allows you to either perpetuate your storage space or, increasingly likely, when up your files on the fly.

Port selection is crucial for any hybrid shooter, and Canon has washed-up a good job here. A full-size HDMI would have been nice, but Micro HDMI gets the job done, it's just a little less sturdy. If you want to record externally, the HDMI can output YCbCr 4:2:2 10bit when HDR PQ is enabled, at other settings it's 8bit 4:2:0.

We praised the Fuji X-H2S for its port layout, which unliable you to wangle the HDMI and microphone ports with the screen flipped out, but actually, what Canon has washed-up here is plane better. In this case, you can't wangle the HDMI, but you can wangle both the headphone and microphone sockets. Since the HDMI would most likely be feeding an on-camera monitor, it's less likely to be needed, so this is probably preferable for most users.

The LCD is a 2.95-inch touchscreen with a 1.62 million dot resolution, the same one found on the Canon R6. It gets the job washed-up handily and is well-spoken and responsive, but it's nothing to write home about.

The same can be said of the EVF. It works well and is pleasant to use, but it's significantly smaller and lower resolution than that of the Fuji X-T5. It is, at least, 120Hz, which makes motion very smooth when looking through the eyepiece.

Photos and videos

• APS-C CMOS sensor - 32.5MP stills
• Sensor shift IBIS: up to 8-stops
• Up to 30fps splash shooting / 15fps with mechanical shutter
• Up to 4K 60fps / 1080p 120fps video
• 4:2:2 10bit colour when CLOG3 or HDR PQ is active

Photo performance is strong, with speedy splash rates misogynist and a quick and constructive auto-focus system. There's plenty of resolution and some of Canon's colour magic that provides saturated and lifelike tones.

We found that ISO speeds up to virtually 6400 provided nice wipe JPEGs without muddying the image too much. At 12800 and vastitude there's too much noise reduction to be used for any serious work.

There is a range of subject detection options that work wideness both video and photo modes, this includes tracking for people, animals and vehicles. All do an worshipped job, but, as usual, it's most reliable with human subjects. In any case, we were very pleased with the upper success rate.

Overall, we were impressed with the images that we were worldly-wise to capture with the R7 and, really, only noticed one significant downside. The sensor has a relatively slow readout speed, this ways that when shooting bursts with the electronic shutter it's fairly easy to introduce rolling shutter effects that manifest as wobbly lines that should be straight.

If you stick to the mechanical shutter, this effect disappears entirely, but you'll be stuck at a maximum of 15fps and lose the luxury of silent shooting. For us, this wasn't a major issue, but it may be off-putting for sports and wildlife photographers.

When it comes to video, performance is pretty great, too. The oversampled 4K, or 4K Fine as it's tabbed in camera, looks particularly nice, but you are limited to a maximum of 30fps. Meanwhile, the subsampled 4K mode allows for up to 60fps, at the forfeit of a slightly less detailed image.

You get 10bit colour when shooting in CLOG3, which is unconfined for colour correction, but there are no professional-grade codecs onboard. You could, of course, use an external recorder if you need something like ProRes.

We found the lack of slow-motion options to be a bit disappointing, you can record at up to 120fps in 1080p, which is nice to have, but lags overdue competitors. Many similarly specced cameras will indulge for 240fps at 1080p, and in an platonic world, we'd have some high-speed options for 4K, too.