Initial thoughts on moving to the R3 from Canon DSLRs

Hey folks, I thought I'd give my experience on the transition from DSLR to mirrorless.  I know there are a fair amount of these posts over the years, but now it's my turn. 😁

First, some quick background to give some context.  I'm a long-time Canon DSLR user since the film days (just recently sold my Elan 7E with eye control), but I was a hobbyist for most of those years, so all I cared about was my own satisfaction and enjoyment of the images.  All that to say, sharpness was important but I had never even heard the term "critical sharpness."

10-12 years ago I started doing some semi-professional work with corporate clients (events, headshots, the usual), as well as covering some small bands.  I bought into the DSLR ecosystem with the 40D, then the 7D, and finally the 5D3 and 7D2, which are my current cameras.  I also acquired quite a fair number of L glass and started to care more about critical sharpness.  I also got a 100-400L and started doing some birding - nothing fancy, just small local Ohio songbirds.  I always struggled with critical focus, even with good stabilization and posture, and with short shutter speeds.  My hit rates were not what I wanted, and I fully admit that skill may be a component of that, but I don't think it was 100% of that.

Recently, I had gotten so frustrated with dealing with AF microadjustments and focusing challenges (especially when I want to be in the shot and have my wife shoot) that I just stopped shooting, even for income.  So I did what every proper photographer should do - I decided to solve the problem by spending money on gear. (Only half kidding.)

Enjoy your R3!

On eye controlled focus: I have dark blue eyes and works perfectly. So my guess is that it doesn’t work for light eyes like for example a certain dpreview reviewer!

however, I don’t use it as I find AF so fast and easy without it.

I didn’t have your problems with DSLRs as I had 1dx.

but r3 is still in a different league. So much lighter, better AF, faster, more modern, fantastic evf, ES is awesome, faster shutter speeds etc etc.

expro wrote:

On eye controlled focus: I have dark blue eyes and works perfectly. So my guess is that it doesn’t work for light eyes like for example a certain dpreview reviewer!

however, I don’t use it as I find AF so fast and easy without it.

I didn’t have your problems with DSLRs as I had 1dx.

but r3 is still in a different league. So much lighter, better AF, faster, more modern, fantastic evf, ES is awesome, faster shutter speeds etc etc.

I'm still just getting my brain around it, to be fair.  I have only had it for a day or so, so there is much learning to do.  That said, it's certainly very useful without eye control active, for sure.  I have left it off probably 40% of my time with it, but since it has been so dead solid at tracking my eyes, I actually find it handy to quickly refocus with no other motion/button presses.

You're totally right that it's not strictly necessary, though.  But it does make it a lot of fun to use, and that was one of the big motivators for me to save up the cash for such an expensive purchase.

I didn't mean to overstate issues with AF in my original post, as I was still getting very nice shots with my other 2 cameras, but the hit rate (especially so on the 100-400) was just not great.  But with this, thing, golly gee!  I totally get why people say these R cameras give your EF glass a new lease on life.

I’m interested to know how accurate eye control is. Are you guiding a single point of focus or a zone or something inbetween?

Falxon wrote:

Hey folks, I thought I'd give my experience on the transition from DSLR to mirrorless. I know there are a fair amount of these posts over the years, but now it's my turn. 😁

First, some quick background to give some context. I'm a long-time Canon DSLR user since the film days (just recently sold my Elan 7E with eye control), but I was a hobbyist for most of those years, so all I cared about was my own satisfaction and enjoyment of the images. All that to say, sharpness was important but I had never even heard the term "critical sharpness."

10-12 years ago I started doing some semi-professional work with corporate clients (events, headshots, the usual), as well as covering some small bands. I bought into the DSLR ecosystem with the 40D, then the 7D, and finally the 5D3 and 7D2, which are my current cameras. I also acquired quite a fair number of L glass and started to care more about critical sharpness. I also got a 100-400L and started doing some birding

If this was the MK1 100-400 that lens was borderline on being sharp enough at best

a friend of mine had one and he never got good results with it unlike some other lenses he had

- nothing fancy, just small local Ohio songbirds. I always struggled with critical focus, even with good stabilization and posture, and with short shutter speeds. My hit rates were not what I wanted, and I fully admit that skill may be a component of that, but I don't think it was 100% of that.

Recently, I had gotten so frustrated with dealing with AF microadjustments and focusing challenges (especially when I want to be in the shot and have my wife shoot) that I just stopped shooting, even for income. So I did what every proper photographer should do - I decided to solve the problem by spending money on gear. (Only half kidding.)

Paul JN wrote:

I’m interested to know how accurate eye control is. Are you guiding a single point of focus or a zone or something inbetween?

I've tried both for a couple of hours each (roughly) and they both work really well. Essentially, eye control makes the location of the active point/zone irrelevant.

Basically, it works like this, as far as I can tell:

• Set a focus point size (spot, single, expanded, zone)
• Look somewhere and press AF On.
• The point or zone will jump to that area, try to lock on (and start tracking in Servo mode)
• So, if I want to place the AF point very intentionally, and not risk moving it, I just quickly toggle eye control off via the Set button in the middle of the back wheel, which is its default assignment. Then, the AF works like normal with no input from my eyeball.
• Since the toggle is so fast and easy, it makes it super simple to leave engaged 90% of the time, and just turn off as-needed for tricky use cases.  I do a fair amount of martial arts photography and with competitors constantly moving and rotating, I can see the eye control function being something I use almost always.

Does that make sense? Hopefully it comes across clearly.

davev8 wrote:

10-12 years ago I started doing some semi-professional work with corporate clients (events, headshots, the usual), as well as covering some small bands. I bought into the DSLR ecosystem with the 40D, then the 7D, and finally the 5D3 and 7D2, which are my current cameras. I also acquired quite a fair number of L glass and started to care more about critical sharpness. I also got a 100-400L and started doing some birding

If this was the MK1 100-400 that lens was borderline on being sharp enough at best

a friend of mine had one and he never got good results with it unlike some other lenses he had

Yeah, it's the mark I.  I have not had a chance to test it on my R3 yet, but I am really curious what the results will be.  They certainly won't be worse than my results on my previous bodies, but I know that lens is not ideal.

I'm holding off before committing any more money to lenses for a while yet, as my eyeballs are still bleeding after paying for the R3.  That said, I've been researching between the EF 100-400 II and the RF 100-500 quite a bit.

I have not owned a teleconverter in decades, but I know that they are a lot more convenient on the 100-400 II and with "only" 24MP will not have a huge impact on sharpness.  I have seen people saying that the 100-400 II is sharper with the 1.4 than the 100-400 I without it.  Plus the EF option is way cheaper and would work on my 7D2 which I'll likely keep around for some bird stuff.

Took me about 3 active weeks to work out the AF best. In the end I stick to Auto and have three different tracking options set up via the custom modes.

It’s worth saving for the 100-500 if you can.

davev8 wrote:

If this was the MK1 100-400 that lens was borderline on being sharp enough at best

a friend of mine had one and he never got good results with it unlike some other lenses he had

So I just did some quick and dirty tests. Below are some 100% center crops of a house around 100 yards away. ISO is 100 for the 100mm shot and 200 for the 400mm shot so noise should be a non-issue.  Since I'm technically working today, I'm stuck shooting through my window, which is very clean, but is going to add some softness. I'll do a proper outdoor test later.

I processed the raws via DXO Photolab with only default normal noise reduction (no DeepPrime magic) and lens sharpness/correction applied. I did not apply other sharpening or adjustments. So while this is not completely "out-of-camera," I would never use shots from this lens without lens correction applied.

All in all, it's not bad, and way better than what I was getting on my DSLRs. Definitely not as sharp as other lenses though. My 100m 2.8L Macro is surgically sharp.

This is a 100% center crop of a house at 100mm.

This is a 100% center crop of the same house at 400mm.

Falxon wrote:

Paul JN wrote:

I’m interested to know how accurate eye control is. Are you guiding a single point of focus or a zone or something inbetween?

I've tried both for a couple of hours each (roughly) and they both work really well. Essentially, eye control makes the location of the active point/zone irrelevant.

Basically, it works like this, as far as I can tell:

• Set a focus point size (spot, single, expanded, zone)
• Look somewhere and press AF On.
• The point or zone will jump to that area, try to lock on (and start tracking in Servo mode)
• So, if I want to place the AF point very intentionally, and not risk moving it, I just quickly toggle eye control off via the Set button in the middle of the back wheel, which is its default assignment. Then, the AF works like normal with no input from my eyeball.
• Since the toggle is so fast and easy, it makes it super simple to leave engaged 90% of the time, and just turn off as-needed for tricky use cases. I do a fair amount of martial arts photography and with competitors constantly moving and rotating, I can see the eye control function being something I use almost always.

Does that make sense? Hopefully it comes across clearly.

Thanks. Not quote the game changer I was hoping for.

Paul JN wrote:

Falxon wrote:

Paul JN wrote:

I’m interested to know how accurate eye control is. Are you guiding a single point of focus or a zone or something inbetween?

I've tried both for a couple of hours each (roughly) and they both work really well. Essentially, eye control makes the location of the active point/zone irrelevant.

Basically, it works like this, as far as I can tell:

• Set a focus point size (spot, single, expanded, zone)
• Look somewhere and press AF On.
• The point or zone will jump to that area, try to lock on (and start tracking in Servo mode)
• So, if I want to place the AF point very intentionally, and not risk moving it, I just quickly toggle eye control off via the Set button in the middle of the back wheel, which is its default assignment. Then, the AF works like normal with no input from my eyeball.
• Since the toggle is so fast and easy, it makes it super simple to leave engaged 90% of the time, and just turn off as-needed for tricky use cases. I do a fair amount of martial arts photography and with competitors constantly moving and rotating, I can see the eye control function being something I use almost always.

Does that make sense? Hopefully it comes across clearly.

Thanks. Not quote the game changer I was hoping for.

So, what were you hoping for? I’m not sure how much simpler to operate Eye Control AF could be.

That said, it doesn’t work for my poor, spectacled eyes, but I find the Smart Controller more than adequate for selecting where I want focus to be, whether using Subject Tracking / Eye AF or not.

Just a quick update with a few things I tried since the initial post...

1. When zoomed into an image in playback mode, you can pan the image around using the AF-ON smart controller.  I didn't realize that was an option, and it is so nice.  Less screen touching means less fingerprints and it keeps my hand in shooting position ready to take another shot.
2. The EF 70-200mm 2.8L II works really, really well adapted to RF. I'm not shocked by this, as this is one of the top-used lenses in the EF lineup, but I'm really looking forward to some more portraits with this setup. Since the version III is the same as the version II but with a different paint color and slight changes in coatings, I'd expect that would be the same.
3. I tried out the auto-merge HDR mode (I know, I know) just for a laugh, and I was quite pleasantly surprised.  The speed of the R3 means the shots are taken very quickly back-to-back and so there is little to no movement between shots.  The in-camera HDR merge works really well, and I could very well see this being a mode I turn on when handing the camera to my wife for some quick shots.  The shots also look very natural and not overprocessed.
4. Battery life is pretty damn good, but does take a noticeable hit with IS turned on, since you're effectively using IS constantly when looking thru the viewfinder.  It still easily exceeds what I would need from a day of shooting for photo work.  Video will remain to be seen.  There is a TON I need to learn on the video side which will be a big time investment just on its own.
5. And finally, to no one's surprise, goddamn are CF Express cards expensive....

cfieldgate wrote:

Paul JN wrote:

Falxon wrote:

Paul JN wrote:

I’m interested to know how accurate eye control is. Are you guiding a single point of focus or a zone or something inbetween?

I've tried both for a couple of hours each (roughly) and they both work really well. Essentially, eye control makes the location of the active point/zone irrelevant.

Basically, it works like this, as far as I can tell:

• Set a focus point size (spot, single, expanded, zone)
• Look somewhere and press AF On.
• The point or zone will jump to that area, try to lock on (and start tracking in Servo mode)
• So, if I want to place the AF point very intentionally, and not risk moving it, I just quickly toggle eye control off via the Set button in the middle of the back wheel, which is its default assignment. Then, the AF works like normal with no input from my eyeball.
• Since the toggle is so fast and easy, it makes it super simple to leave engaged 90% of the time, and just turn off as-needed for tricky use cases. I do a fair amount of martial arts photography and with competitors constantly moving and rotating, I can see the eye control function being something I use almost always.

Does that make sense? Hopefully it comes across clearly.

Thanks. Not quote the game changer I was hoping for.

So, what were you hoping for? I’m not sure how much simpler to operate Eye Control AF could be.

That said, it doesn’t work for my poor, spectacled eyes, but I find the Smart Controller more than adequate for selecting where I want focus to be, whether using Subject Tracking / Eye AF or not.

Maybe I'm expecting too much but I would like one method to tell the camera what I want and not need a backup method when that fails. With my R5/R6 I need to have two back buttons: one for face + tracking and one for ordinary AF that I need as a backup for when the face + tracking gets pulled away by a face the camera prefers.

Paul JN wrote:

cfieldgate wrote:

So, what were you hoping for? I’m not sure how much simpler to operate Eye Control AF could be.

Maybe I'm expecting too much but I would like one method to tell the camera what I want and not need a backup method when that fails. With my R5/R6 I need to have two back buttons: one for face + tracking and one for ordinary AF that I need as a backup for when the face + tracking gets pulled away by a face the camera prefers.

So I've spent another day doing some testing and have found that I am using the eye-control around 95% of the time now. The "hack" I never thought about was to set the AF point to spot AF (so the tiniest point possible). Since you're controlling where it goes by looking, there really hasn't been a point where it doesn't "just work." This also solves most of the edge cases such as working around a small obstruction, since the AF point is small enough to just place precisely.

To rephrase @cfieldgate above, I really don't see how you could ask for a simpler, more predictable setup. The only catch is your eye color - as long as you don't have very light eyes, you should be good.