Canon announced two new APS-C cameras to their line-up - the Canon R7 & Canon R10 with the most interesting feature being that it has their latest mount - the RF mount, rather than a dedicated crop sensor mount that they had previously.
This is exciting for those about to take their first steps into their new journey in becoming a creator because it allows you to grab your first mirrorless camera and lenses, knowing that you can carry these lenses throughout your whole camera owning experience from one of these cameras all the way up to cinema camera if you so desire.
What are the Canon R7 & R10 Cameras About?
This is your first step moving from a phone to a mirrorless camera. The specs are perfect for a starter because it has the headroom and features that you can utilise later on as you get more experienced. We are not going to go through each specific spec here because you can see plenty of reviews and Canon's own spec sheets for that, so we will just highlight what is important here:
- 4K video - both these cameras shoot 4K video at normal frame rates and 60fps which will allow you to slow down your footage by at least 50%. There is a crop when you shoot slo-mo, but that shouldn't matter too much - you can either pick a wider lens or take some steps back to get the shot you need. If you don't feel the need to shoot 4K, you can find countless YouTube videos that show really good 1080 footage, and most people would not be able to tell the difference.
- Flippy screen - both cameras also give you the screen you can flip to film yourself with the R7 even having a touchscreen which will be super useful.
- Good quality still photos - both sensors for still photography will be perfect for family, holidays and street photography. If you planning on shooting sports or action it might be the tiny bit slow for you in mechanical shutter, but it could get closer if you switch to electronic.
- Autofocus - Probably the most important feature for beginners is that you have Canon's very good autofocus system that will give you the confidence to trust it whilst you practice your framing and composition. Once you get more confident you can switch to manual focus and perfect those focus pulls that the pros do.
The Biggest Benefit - RF Mount Lenses
Even after all of this, this camera benefits from a professional mount on a beginner camera. If you don't already have any other mirrorless or SLR cameras, this is your chance to pick a system with the potential to grow with yourself.
What we mean is that you can choose from either the Canon R7 or R10 (we will leave that up to you), but then you can grab some nice lenses that are fast (eg. the nifty fifty Canon RF f1.8) and relatively cheap that will mount perfectly with your camera.
Sure it will crop in a bit and some people might be questioning why you are putting full frame lenses on a crop sensor camera, but you can simply answer them that you plan to sell the camera after a while and get yourself a Canon R5 or Canon R6 or Canon R3 or any other full-frame Canon camera and have no need to change lenses.
Then a few years after that, assuming you don't drop or break the lens, when you out grow those cameras, you could upgrade to a Canon R5C or even a Red Komodo and take the lens you bought all those years ago and twist it right on there and not even skip a beat.
So whilst it may not be the cheapest camera, or the best camera at the price point, from a long-term perspective, it could quite possibly be the best.