Someone recently asked me to test the Canon R3 in low light. Little did I know I’d find myself in overcast, dreary, drizzly, windy, and cold conditions all weekend. What a test!
All of the following photos were taken with the Canon R3 in Case 2 Auto Focus, High-Speed burst, and Whole Area Auto Focus. The camera is still set-up as it came out of the box otherwise.
Camera Settings: Shutter Priority, 1/6400th second, ISO Auto, f10, over-exposed by +1 because it was so overcast. (The exposure compensation was based on a test shot using the histogram and the exposure simulation in the viewfinder.)
All photos have been processed in Adobe Camera Raw. Settings: Texture +20, Vibrance +20, Saturation +20, Shadows +35-40, Noise Reduction 16. No other hocus-pocus or magic.
Merlin in Flight From a Boat
Notice that the R3 acquired focus on the merlin in flight and then held the focus until the bird was out of my sight. That’s exactly what I expect of a camera at this level. No hesitating and no delay.
All of the above are are ISO 16,000 with Adobe Camera Raw’s Noise Reduction at 16.
Northern Shoveler’s in Flight
Back on land but in the same weather conditions. Cold, overcast, drizzly, and windy. I wasn’t dressed for the weather so only stayed at this location for 10 minutes. Ducks were taking flight in front of me and flying to the right. I took 219 photos in that 10 minutes. Same settings and processing as above.
I realized at this point that the Canon R3 was going to acquire focus and not let go even on these flying ducks. For the next 10-minutes, I photographed any duck that flew by. Reminder that I am pivoting to the right on each duck that flies by.
ISO 8000 on this series. I captured 22 frames of this female as she flew by.
The Canon R3 found the northern shoveler.
I am totally impressed with the auto focus on the Canon R3. The camera never lost focus on a flying bird. I shot for a total of three hours on this day and never was I disappointed in the performance of the Canon R3.
For users of the Canon EOS 1-D x — The R3 is equal to and better. Canon has given us an amazing camera.
Questions or comments? What me to test something else on the R3? Post below.
Kathy Adams Clark 
The detail on the Shoveler is amazing. Thanks for testing the noise handling Kathy!
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You are welcome, Patti. I’m surprised at the noise handling in the R3. It’s pretty amazing.
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When you say “whole area auto focus”, what exactly does that mean? Is that face detect plus tracking like on my R6?
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Mark, “whole area auto focus” is the last auto-focus choice on the far right. Large Zone on the R5. Animal Eye is set in the AF menus. Hope that helps.
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The large focus area is a sort of long rectangle in the middle of the screen, I’m surprised there is no real full screen choice. So for birds in flight you would use the large rectangle focus area, animal tracking but not eye tracking? I was using the face/eye+tracking and sometimes it worked good and other times I could not grab onto the bird. I’m assuming the R3 works better from what you say. What is best set-up for BIF’s in the R5/R6 cameras?
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I keep the “Animal Eye” set in all the time. That’s in AF 1 menu. “Subject to Detect — Animals” and “Eye Detection — Enabled”. Same on the R3 and the R5/6. Those settings don’t really help with this super fast birds in flight photography. It’s the Large Zone that helps. I found it was pretty good on the R5 and R6. It’s very good to very darn good on the R3.
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Mark, I just noticed your first sentence of your post. Large Focus Area is the last focus at the right of the row. Not the one in the middle. The large focus area covers most of the screen.
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Looks like you were shooing at Anahauc. Very nice set
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Anahuac probably had the same rotten light, Jim. I shot all of these in Port Aransas, Texas. A bit south on the Texas coast. Thanks for posting and reading!
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Kathy – thank you for providing the examples of actual shots. I have started taking video for YouTube and have eliminated the R5&6 due to the overheating issues even though I don’t shoot in 8K -60 frames a second, currently. Have been strongly considering the R5C. Can you test the video capability of the R3 and provide your opinion of its capability?
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I’ll give it a test this weekend, Jeff. Thanks for asking.
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One other question. With a 24 MP sensor, do you anticipate “extra grain” if you were going to blow up a picture for a large print?
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Thanks for the question, Jeff. I don’t make prints. I’m an editorial photographer. So far, the noise looks equal to if not better than the R5 or R6.
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