Introduction
The Canon EOS RP is the entry-level body in Canon’s full frame range of mirrorless cameras. Its launch price of $ 1299 is the lowest of any digital full frame camera, a whole $ 400 below the initial cost of the first Sony a7.
It’s overtly aimed at upgraders from smaller-sensor cameras and first-time buyers of ILCs. To this end, the camera has the approachable user interface from Canon’s recent Rebel and EOS M models, but also offers two well-placed control dials for quick operation as you grow into the camera.
Body
The EOS RP is essentially a smaller, more conventional-looking variant of the EOS R. It has a polycarbonate shell on a magnesium alloy chassis, rather than the more durable-feeling magnesium alloy outer body of its bigger brother. It still fits well in the hand but there’s an optional add-on riser that bolts onto the base of the camera if you find your little finger extending beyond the bottom of the grip. This riser also helps the camera sit more stably on flat surfaces if you’ve got one of the system’s larger lenses mounted.
The two dials are well positioned if you have your hand in the shooting position, with the rear dial sitting under the top of your thumb and the front dial placed just above and behind the shutter button. The rear shoulder dial might be unfamiliar for anyone coming from high-end Canons but it’ll be familiar to anyone arriving from other systems, and will be a welcome addition for most Rebel users, who’re used to a single dial.
In addition, all of Canon’s RF lenses have a customizable control dial around them, meaning you can easily access up to three exposure parameters, if you wish.
Ports/Battery
The EOS RP has both headphone and mic sockets, along with a mini HDMI connector. It also has a USB-C socket which can be used for both data transfer and charging. Disappointingly, it’s only a USB type 2.0 interface, so don’t expect blazing data transfer rates.
The battery is the same LP-E17 unit used on Canon’s smaller mirrorless and Rebel models. It holds a relatively modest 6.3Wh of energy which yields a similarly modest 250 shots per charge (210 through the viewfinder). This isn’t good, but also isn’t quite as bad as it might sound: most users are likely to get more shots than this and maybe even a multiple of this number, depending on how they use the camera.
For a camera aimed primarily at casual shooters, it should last a decent amount of time, but if they do find themselves getting more into photography and shooting more intensively or use the Wi-Fi a lot, it’ll definitely be worth having a USB lead or spare battery to-hand lest it becomes frustrating.
Sensor
The EOS RP is based around a 26MP full frame sensor that uses Canon’s Dual Pixel design. This uses split pixels to give the camera’s focusing system an understanding of depth. We’ll discuss the autofocus performance later, but it helps ensure the RP can focus well with both its own, native lenses and adapted EF lenses.
We’re told the chip in the EOS RP is similar to the one in the EOS 6D II, which means its performance is likely to be a little off the pace. We’d expect it to be excellent at high ISOs but to have comparatively limited dynamic range at low ISO settings. So don’t expect to be able to shoot wide dynamic range scenes where you’d need to pull shadow information into the image: the tones not already included in the JPEG images will be noisier and less usable than contemporary rivals.
That said, this camera seems primarily targeted at users who’ll be mainly shooting JPEGs or those not trying to squeeze every last drop out of their Raws.
Viewfinder/screen
The EOS RP has a 2.36M dot OLED viewfinder. As you’d expect, this isn’t as detailed as the 3.69M dot finders used in the EOS R and more expensive models but it’s very useable. So don’t expect a near-optical-viewfinder experience, but it’s detailed and fast enough to refresh that it’s more than good enough for framing and assessing exposure (which an optical finder won’t help you with).
The rear monitor is a fully-articulated touchscreen. This lets you pull the screen all the way out alongside the camera, which can be a nice for shooting on a tripod, for waist-level shooting or for video capture. It also has the convenience that you can flip and fold the screen to face inwards, to protect it if you’re slinging it in a bag or glove-compartment.
The touchscreen operates as a touchpad for positioning the AF point, which is by far the most convenient way of doing so on the RP. You can choose whether the response is relative (so a left-swipe moves the point left from its current position) or absolute (swiping to the mid-point of the screen places the AF point at the middle of the image). If you find your nose risks touching the screen or blocking your access to the screen, you can limit the active area to a half or quadrant of the panel. The four-way controller can also be set to move the AF area – it’s slow, but a good way to do so with precision.
User Interface
The EOS RP includes the ‘Feature Assist’ mode from Canon’s recent Rebel DSLRs and EOS M mirrorless cameras. This indicates when to use each of the camera’s exposure modes. There’s also the ‘Creative Assist’ mode that gives a touchscreen interface for adjusting brightness, contrast and saturation.
The RP gains a comparable interface for results-orientated processing of its Raw files, if you decide you want to warm or cool the image, relative to the way the JPEG first came out, or if you want to convert to black and white, for instance. Again, the more technically-inclined users can still access all the underlying settings (for batch-processing multiple images, if they want).
Connectivity
As you’d expect, the EOS RP features Bluetooth-mediated Wi-Fi, meaning that it will near-instantly recognize a smartphone that’s been Bluetooth paired and fire-up a Wi-Fi connection between them when you hit a button in Canon’s ‘Camera Connect’ app (on Android, at least – iOS can be awkward about such things).
The Wi-Fi connection itself takes a little longer but the app does a good job of showing you that it’s making the connection, rather than just leaving you wondering whether anything’s happening.
It’s pretty clear that Canon expects RP users to be sharing a lot of their images, either on social media or over email, so the ability to send the camera’s attractive JPEGs straight to a phone is important.
There will also be an iOS version of Canon’s Digital Photo Professional Raw-processing software available for the latest iPads. This is designed specifically to convert and adjust the CR3 files produced by recent Canon models.
Autofocus
For the most part, the EOS RP’s autofocus is a match for that of the EOS R, which is to say that it’s pretty quick, especially with those RF lenses build around Nano USM focus motors. We found subject tracking to be fairly effective, though not to the degree that we’d use it all the time (picking a subject then recomposing). The touchscreen makes it easy to choose your AF point or subject to track, so it’s all pretty friendly.
The big news on the RP is that the pupil-detection aspect of the ‘Face + Tracking’ mode now works in both continuous (Servo) AF mode, as well as single shot. Admittedly, a slight labeling glitch and tiny on-screen icons can make it a little tricky to tell when you’ve turned it on. Once engaged it finds eyes fairly well and lets you press the left and right directions on the four-way controller to pick which eye the camera should focus on.
Focus stacking
The EOS RP gains a focus bracketing function, which is especially useful for close-up and macro photography. This lets you shoot between 1 and 999 images and specify a focus increment that will be applied between each shot. The camera can even conduct exposure smoothing if the light is at all variable between shots.
The images themselves have to be merged using Canon’s DPP software, where you’re given the choice of which regions you want to be kept in sharp focus (including the whole image, if you want).
Video
Video is one of the areas we don’t expect the EOS RP to shine. Unlike the EOS 6D Mark II, it can shoot 4K/24p video, though it reverts to contrast detection AF. Thie footage is taken from the central 1.7x crop region of the sensor, which means the footage will likely be noisier than if it were taken from the whole sensor. The crop will also make it more difficult to find a lens that can offer a wide-angle field of view.
Other than 4K, the camera can shoot 1080 at up to 60p, and can conduct Eye-AF while shooting video (there’s no 24p option, though). We’ve not been that struck by the 1080 quality from recent Canons but, if nothing else, the digital IS (which comes at the cost of a crop) is good enough to allow hand-held shooting. As mentioned, you get a mic input and headphone out. This, combined with Dual Pixel AF, ensures the EOS RP should be a solid-enough camera for basic video shooting and maybe a bit of vlogging (though it wouldn’t be our first choice).
Lenses
Perhaps the main limitation for the EOS RP is its introduction into such a new system. It pairs quite nicely with the RF 24-105mm F4L IS zoom, creating a large-ish combination but one that covers a really useful zoom range. The only problem is that the ‘L’ designation ends up denoting a lens that’s almost as expensive as the RP itself.
The RF 35mm F1.8 is a comparatively good match, with its small size and $ 500 price tag, but beyond that, the current RF lens lineup (and much of that just revealed) end up being rather large or pro-orientated for a $ 1300 camera body. Though, frankly, the compact size of the 70-200mm F2.8 makes it pretty tempting, whatever you choose to mount it on, almost irrespective of how much Canon chooses to charge for it.
It’s presumably this dearth of affordable lenses that has prompted Canon to bundle the EOS RP with the more affordable EF 24-105mm F3.5-5.6 IS STM. The affordability is somewhat undermined by the need to include an adapter in the bundle, but this may increase its appeal for those users planning to use other Canon DSLR lenses.
It’ll be interesting to see how Canon prices its forthcoming 24-240mm travel lens [Pictured in mock-up form]. Mounted on the EOS RP it’ll make a handy do-anything pairing, though unless it’s significantly less expensive, we’d be tempted to stick with the 24-105mm F4L, since it works really nicely.
Conclusion
The Canon RP is based around a sensor we weren’t that impressed by, and we’re expecting plenty of ‘no IS, no purchase’ comments below our coverage, but we think it gets quite a lot right.
It’s less ambitious than the EOS R but by combining twin command dials with the excellent Feature Assist interface and a really keen price tag, it ends up looking rather charming.
There are lots of specs that enthusiasts will turn their noses up at (“2.5fps shooting in ‘Tracking Priority,’ LOL”), but there’s also a lot the EOS RP gets right. Not least the images it produces.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
