Canon EOS RP Mirrorless Camera Review

The Canon EOS RP is a camera built for the needs of the modern consumer. Highly portable and able to shoot both photo and video, it’s hypothetically a great choice for social media influencers of any type. But can it match its tantalizing promise? Let’s dig into what this Canon camera has to offer.

Build Design

Mirrorless cameras are known for being lighter and more compact than their DSLR competitors, but the EOS RP really takes advantage of that. It’s a small camera by any noticeable measure, and that makes it an ideal choice if you’re an outdoor photographer. Whether you prefer nature shots or urban photography, this is a camera that will accommodate well to your needs. And Canon knows how to make the most of that space too. There’s just the right amount of buttons so you aren’t fumbling over the tiny frame to reach the features you need. The ergonomic design should fit comfortably and firmly in the grip of any photographer regardless of how big or small their hands are.

Canon has smartly decided to abandon the option for a topside LCD in favor of one in the back. It’s a compromise but one that makes a lot of sense here. The rear articulating LCD can provide you with essentially any angle you could conceivably want. It’s a good looking model too. The black matte plastic is practically a company trademark at this point, and even casual photographers should be able to identify it as a Canon with a simple glance. 

Sensor

As a photographer, there are elements of your environment that you can control and elements of your environment that you can try to work around as best as possible. Unless you’re always going to be working in a carefully curated studio, light is always going to fall squarely into the latter category. That’s why it’s it’s important that the EOS RP makes use of a full frame lens. This CMOS sensor is developed in-house by Canon, and it delivers roughly 26.2 effective megapixels over its 35mm surface. But the biggest perk here is the inclusion of DIGIC 8, a really impressive image processor that can marry efficient performance to great image quality.

Getting into the specs, this mirrorless camera has an ISO sensitivity range of 100 – 40000 for stills. It performs admirably well in the range of 100 to 3200, but you start to see some noise when you approach 6400. It’s solid but not exceptional in this regard, but it shouldn’t be a big deal for everyone but the most serious and professional still photographers. If you’re using this as a camera for YouTube, of course, that limitation will be negligible. In terms of video, the ISO RP produces an ISO range of 100 – 25600, making it appropriate for everything up to 4K video. In any case, the in-camera Digital Lens Optimizer is an unexpected surprise that can reduce frustrations with image quality pretty well.

Connectivity

If you’re looking to use the EOS RP as a vlogging camera, chances are that connectivity options are going to be near the top of your list for fundamental features. If that’s the case, this Canon video camera will rise to your expectations. Both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are built right in, so uploading your video (or photos if you prefer) to the cloud is easy, and you can more or less ignore the internal storage space and shoot to your heart’s content.

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth services are both handled through the intuitive and streamlined Camera Connect app, and it’s a smartly designed piece of software that’s compatible with both iOS and Android devices. A robust interface allows you to manage where your videos and photos go and even upload them directly to a variety of different social media platforms. The transfer process can even be automated, and Camera Connect uses a clean interface that lets you track your wireless connections.

The EOS RP offers a couple of other clever wireless features as well. Live view shooting can transform your phone into a de facto and long distance viewfinder. Camera Connect also keeps tabs on your GPS coordinates and allows you to tag them into your photos or video. With Bluetooth, it can track your location in real time.

Autofocus

Canon boasts that their autofocus is f/11 compatible across all of the autofocus areas.There are 5,655 manually selectable points available, and they’re spread out across 143 autofocus areas. That allows it to cover 100% of the vertical space and nearly 90% of the horizontal space. If you find yourself relying on autofocus regularly when framing your shots, the EOS RP has you covered for everything you need. Those numbers shrink to 80% in horizontal and vertical if you decide to make use of a I/II type extender.

In terms of autofocus modes, the Canon EOS RP is fully stacked. The Face+ Tracking mode is a sophisticated approach to eye detection that defaults to choosing the subject’s closest eye, but that can be manually changed by the photographer. A number of other AF modes like Movie and Servo are also built in. A highlight here is the inclusion of Focus Peaking. It’s an especially quick and clear approach to AF that provides a colored outline of the area being put into focus. It can be highly customized to suit your needs as a photographer as well. 

Electronic Viewfinder

The EOS RP is a pretty professional camera, but it’s built to accommodate the needs of hobbyists and new users as well. That’s reflected in the quality of the viewfinder. This 0.39-inch OLED EVF employs a 22mm eye point and incorporates approximately 2.36 million dots into its surface. Then there’s the impressive LCD surface. It’s a touchscreen and an incredibly responsive one at that. A number of features are built in for both the pro and the aspiring photographer. A highlight is the touch and drag system that allows you to shift your focus point easily without having to move your line of sight from the viewfinder.

Final Thoughts

The Canon EOS RP isn’t the most expensive or the cheapest camera around, but it does what it sets out to do admirably. Everything from the shape to the size makes it a great choice for keeping by your side all the time, and the ability to shoot quality videos and stills is incredibly useful for bloggers and vloggers. While it stumbles a little on the lowest lighting settings, it should have more than enough muscle to meet the needs of hobbyists and most professionals.

Related Article: