I recently attended the Rio Grande Birding Festival in Harlingen, TX and decided that the only camera I would bring would be the EOS R10 and thought I’d share my thoughts after the experience.
Green Jay
Most of my time spent at the event was either manning a booth at the festival or preparing to man the booth so photography wasn’t the primary purpose of the event for me though I was able to get out for bird photography almost every morning.
Plain Chachalaca
The only lens I used was my trusty old EF 500mm f/4L IS USM on a Meike RF to EF adapter. This lens is a rather old unit, manufactured back in 1999. I’ve seen several similar lenses for sale recently for under $2000. It’s been a while since Canon produced this model and even a while since they stopped servicing them. What this means is that if it breaks, you’ll have to find a third party repair person to work on it and even if you do, the supply of parts for it is likely dwindling. That said, if you don’t mind the weight it’s actually a great wildlife/birding lens and in my experience so far pairs quite nicely with the R10.
Cassin’s Sparrow
The reason that I mention this much detail about the lens is that it does have some impact on how the R10 performs. For starters, you don’t get the full viewfinder AF like you do with many of the native RF lenses. You do still get a pretty generous AF area though, I think it’s about 80%. You also don’t get the fastest frame rate. With my EF 500mm f/4L IS USM I’m maxing out at approximate 10fps with the electronic shutter and I am getting the full 15fps with the mechanical shutter.
Tricolored Heron
So far I’ve exclusively used a Meike RF to EF adapter when using EF lenses on the R10. It runs around $50 and so far I’ve not noticed any issues.
Northern Pintail
Overall I’m pretty happy with the overall layout of the R10; it feels good in my hands and I can pretty well get to any controls I need in a fairly efficient manner. I do prefer the user interface of the R5/R6 but obviously this is an area that is used to differentiate product lines and overall I don’t feel too hampered when using the R10. I’m actually pleasantly surprised at how good the camera feels with such a big and heavy lens attached.
Verdin
The most obvious place I’m noticing cost cutting when it comes to the R10 is in the viewfinder. The refresh rate is fine and the picture is still nice and clear but compared to higher end R cameras like the R7 it feels like I’m looking down a tunnel and I feel more removed from the scene.
Great Kiskadee
So far I’m very happy with the buffer performance. I’m a jpeg only shooter so the bar is relatively low for me but even with my modest v30 microSD card I’ve yet to experience a full buffer/slow down during burst shooting, even during bursts of several seconds. This is the way I think cameras should be, I basically never have to think about buffer.
Black-bellied Whistling Duck
I’ve also been pleasantly surprised with battery performance. I’ve been using the electronic shutter the majority of the time and found that a single battery easily has gotten me through a half-day of photography. I initially bought two spare batteries and so far haven’t had to use them. Battery life most likely won’t be as good using mechanical shutter but so far battery life isn’t at all an issue.
Groove-billed Ani
Initially I was a little frustrated with the way Canon implemented the auto focus on the R10. With the R6 and R7 I always programmed the AF-On button to use the center AF point and the shutter release button for eye-detect AF. This way I can use the center AF point to get the focus close to where I wanted it and then let the eye detect AF take over. This has worked quite well for me and I was frustrated when I learned that it is not possible with the R10. However, there is an easy “work around.”
Brown Pelican
With the R10 (and R3 & R7) you can set up the AF to use animal eye AF in all of the AF modes including single point AF. Basically if you have animal eye AF activated and you select a single AF point the camera uses the focus point to lock on then the eye AF takes over. It’s pretty much what I had been doing all along but doesn’t require using a second button for AF. Once I started using this feature I quickly became very pleased with the AF on the R10. I’m still very impressed that Canon put such a powerful AF system into a sub $1000 camera.
Cactus Wren
When it comes to image quality I’m pleased with the R10. It’s 24 megapixels in a 1.6x crop so offers quite a bit more “reach” than my R6 and even a little more than the R5. I’m finding that I’m very happy with the results up to about ISO 1600 with just the in-camera NR. I’ve also gotten pleasing results at ISO 2500 and 3200 with the use of Topaz Denoise.
Northern Pintail
The sensor readout speed is definitely an area that could use some improvement. For the majority of the photos that I’ve taken with the R10 rolling shutter hasn’t been an issue but there have been some panning shots with some severely slanted utility poles/buildings/people…. Even panning with relatively slow movers like pelicans can show pretty serious rolling shutter effects when using the electronic shutter. Of course this can easily be cured by simply switching to EFCS shutter so I don’t really feel limited by the R10 in this area.
Caspian Tern
The R10 doesn’t have IBIS and I have to say I haven’t really missed it. This is largely because I’m mostly using very long focal lengths where IBIS isn’t as effective and I’m also typically using adapted EF IS lenses, and older ones at that so they don’t really coordinate with the IBIS.
Mangrove Warbler
My conclusion at this point is that the R10 really is a fantastic value. My main use of it so far has been as a body to carry alongside my R7/EF 500mm f/4. I have been using the R10 mainly with the RF 100-400 for times when the 500mm prime was too much focal length and it’s been fantastic for that use. This time I spent a whole trip exclusively using the R10 and I’ve got to say, I really didn’t feel limited by it. I could easily see using the R10 as a primary wildlife camera and think it’s an excellent choice for someone who’s just getting into wildlife photography or someone who’s on a tighter budget. When paired with a lens like the RF 100-400 it’s a great wildlife setup for someone who wants a compact and lightweight setup.
Plain Chachalaca
