After a long wait I finally got my Canon R3. I’ve used the Canon R5 and R6 for the past two years. Use the “search” feature here to read my reviews of those cameras.
The Canon R3 was advertised as a mirrorless equivalent to the Canon D1X. The D1 line and particularly the D1X have been my preferred camera for over 15 years.
This first review of the Canon R3 is with minimal set-up. I took the camera out of the box and set the following menu items: (1) date and time, (2) copyright, (3) Raw, (4) animal eye focus, (5) AF Servo AF Case 2, and (5) High speed release. That’s it! The bare minimum for this first test run.
Bald eagle is a nest shooting through trees in the foreground. Handheld Canon 100-500mm lens with a 1.4x extender. One point focusing on the eagle.100% enlargement showing the Canon R3 focused through all the mess on the eagle’s head and produced a sharp photos.I walked closer to the eagle’s nest. R3 focus does not get distracted by the brush.100% crop.Animal eye focus continues to stay with the eagle as it moves around the tree.100% of that image.Viewfinder Simulation allows me to under exposure to maintain the white feathers.100% enlargementThere’s a northern mockingbird in this bush. The Canon R3 locked onto the eye and held focus despite all the tangle of brush in front of the bird. No coaxing on my part. The camera did all the work.Ruby-crowned kinglet is a hyper-active little bird that never sits still. The Canon R3 found the eye and stayed with the bird as long as I could keep the bird in the frame.Uncropped image of a white-throated sparrow in the brush. The Canon R3 found the eye and stayed with the bird. This is an easy one because the sparrow wasn’t very active. The Canon R3 didn’t get distracted by any of the round leaves nearby as we’ve seen with the R5 or R6.There weren’t a lot of flying birds during my test run. The wind was blowing hard and erratic. A few black vultures flew across, though. I raised the Canon R3 and the camera immediately found the bird. No hunting or hesitation. The Canon R3 stayed with the bird as long as I could keep it in the frame.
The Canon R3 works like the Canon D1X! I feel that I finally have a D1X back in my hands but with all the bells-and-whistles of a mirrorless camera.
The Canon R3 is a big camera so it has a different feel in the hand. I’ll write about that in an upcoming post. Stay tuned.
I’ve been asked to compare noise between the R5 and R3. I’ll do that comparison in another post. Keep watch for that one.
The Canon R3 has Eye Control. This is a new feature where the camera uses my eye to determine where to focus in the frame. Can’t wait to explore that feature!
INITIAL IMPRESSION:
The Canon R3 looks and feels like a D1X
Minimal set-up is needed to get this camera up and running. Yea!!
Precise auto focus that allows us to photograph birds deep in the brush with Animal Eye activated.
Birds in flight are tracked on par with the D1X.
Exposure Simulation allows us to over or under exposure to get the picture right in the camera. This is expected in today’s mirrorless cameras.
Stay tuned as I work with the Canon R3.
Ask questions below or suggest items that you’d like to see tested. Thanks for reading!
I had the pleasure in September of leading a photo tour to the Lofoten Islands of Norway for Strabo Photo Tour Collection.
Norway was amazing. It’s a pretty easy flight over to Oslo. Then you have to overnight in Oslo and take two flights up to Leknes. It’s above the Arctic Circle so takes some time to get there. Luckily, the Norwegians run a super-efficient air travel system and all the flights were right on time.
The Oslo airport, by the way, is quiet. There are large halls typical of any airport. People are quiet with their voices in low tones. Conveyor belts and people movers are quiet. Overhead announcements are quiet. It was so amazing.
The Lofoten Islands form a peninsula that goes out into the Norwegian Sea. There’s a road system connecting the larger islands so travel is quick and efficient. Our hotels were near Hamnoy, Leknes, and Svolvaer. All the hotels were rorbuer-style or styled like a fishing cottage community. Little red houses clustered around the rocky shoreline. Made for great photos. The little fishing cottages had two bedrooms, a shared bathroom, with a living room and kitchen. Very cozy as long as you don’t mind sharing a bathroom. One hotel had two bedrooms in one house and each bedroom had a private bathroom. That was my favorite arrangement because we had private bath but still shared a living room and kitchen.
During the day we tooled around the area photographing towering mountains over crystal clear water. The little villages were usually filled with real fishing cottages with boats, nets, buoys, etc. That meant we always had something to photograph from a grand landscape to tiny details. We went to an old whaling village that’s now a UNESCO site. Lots of neat stuff from the late 1800’s and early 1900s plus museums all in a tiny village setting. I went nuts photographing the general store with all the old tins, advertisements, and cash register.
At night we shot based on the aurora activity. Our first night out was pretty good. It was especially nice since we didn’t have to leave the rorbuer to shoot. We just walked across the parking lot and stood on the rocky shoreline. Everyone got great photos of the aurora that night and worked on their skills. We had a visible aurora in the middle of the trip but activity wasn’t predicted until after 11:00pm. Several people decided to stay back at the rorbuer but the rest of us loaded in the van and headed off to a wide, sandy beach. We had great aurora activity and got to play with reflection of the lights in the ocean. Our third chance at the aurora was our best night. Predictions were for spectacular lights and they began right about twilight. I saw them on my way to dinner and had ants in my pants the whole time we were eating. After dinner we drove to a nearby beach and stayed for several hours. It’s amazing how you don’t get tired when green lights are waving across the sky. Our guides said it was one of the best nights they’ve seen. We quit shooting about 2:00am and that was because batteries were dead and cards were full.
Temperature the entire trip were in the 30-degree to 70-degree range. We had rain on our last day as we drove to the airport. I wore my down coat as an outer layer almost all the time. Longjohns as a base layer and then pants and a long-sleeved shirt as a middle layer. I only wore gloves at night when we were shooting the aurora.
Food was amazing. I thought it would be gross things or super bland stuff. The fish wasn’t fishy tasting. The meat, pork, and lamp the others had looked really nice and tender. We had plenty of root vegetables with familiar carrots and potatoes. Breakfast was the basic European buffet of sliced meats, cheese, fruit, eggs, and breads. The breads were all hardy, whole-grain that I added fresh butter and jam to. The coffee was weak but we learned to make strong coffee in our rooms.
A little bit of explanation before you read this story by my husband Gary Clark. Gary’s a well-respected writer and he sometimes sends stories to me while I’m traveling. He wrote this story earlier this month while I was in Romania leading a photo tour. Gary refers to “the woman-who-makes-the-coffee” in the story. That’s Gary’s pet name for me when I travel. He frequently complains that “the woman-who-makes-the-coffee failed to do her job so I had to make my own coffee.”
Encounter in Romania with Dr. Vladislav by Gary Clark
The woman-who-makes-the-coffee watched a crimson sunset over the Carpathian Mountains as an old building creaked in the distance and wolves howled from a darkening forest. Suddenly a bat flying on fast-flapping wings swept past her, and she, being a renowned nature photographer, berated herself for not having her camera ready to take its picture. For how many bats of the Arizona desert had she photographed sucking nectar out of fruiting plants to now miss shooting a picture of a Transylvanian bat sucking nourishment from fruits or eating insects….she knew not what it ate. For Romania had more species of bats than any other.
Nectar-feeding bat in Arizona photographed by the woman-who-makes-the-coffee
Vampire bat photographed by the woman-who-makes-the-coffee
Not being deterred, the woman-who-makes-the-coffee dashed into the hostel where she was staying. She grabbed her camera and rigged her flash equipment to photograph nighttime bats. What if she photographed a rare or endangered Transylvanian bat like the elusive Horseshoe Bat? Ah, she would then cement her place in the annals of legendary photographers.
As she started out of the door, a female cook in the hostelry said, “Woe to one in these parts who dares to snap a picture of a bat.”
The woman-who-makes-the-coffee chuckled to herself and thought, “Well, I guess the old timers still hold onto folk tales.”
Out in the dank night she waited. A cold breeze cut through her jacket like icicles. She shivered when a feeling like a cool breath wafted against her neck, but forgot about it when a bat suddenly appeared zigzagging in flight only a few yards away. She lifted the camera and took aim, making sure her settings were correct and that the shutter would trigger her flash.
Snap! Snap! And snap scores of times as the bat flew back and forth in front of her.
“I got it!” she cried, “I got it!”
Back in her room, the woman-who-makes-the-coffee was wholly bewildered. “What did I do wrong?” she said to herself.
No image had appeared in her camera. She downloaded the card onto her laptop. Still no image. She could not explain the anomaly, but rather than staying up all night to try again for a photograph, she went to bed. She snuggled under the warm blankets of her bed and wished her husband were with her.
Tapping noises on the window sounded like pellets of ice. “Must be snowing,” she thought.
But she could have sworn a shadow of that flying bat was silhouetted against the window.
Next evening she sat at dinner with the group she was leading on a photo tour. The dining room was large with a high ceiling and, despite the lights, the room was gloomy. Sitting at a nearby table was a tall man in a smart black suit, a starched white shirt, and a red cravat around his neck. His jet black hair set off a pearly white face, uncommon for a man, and his eyes though sunken glistened like obsidian.
He walked over the photography group’s table and addressed the woman-who-makes-the-coffee.
“Excuse me, dear madam, but are you per chance the famous woman-who-makes-the-coffee? I have so admired your photographs. They bring life to me like rays of sunshine, a beauty that in my line of work I don’t get to see.”
Whereupon the woman-who-makes-the-coffee said, “Won’t you join us? I’ll take a group picture with you in it.”
“No, but thank you for the offer. By the way, I thought I saw you trying to photograph a bat last evening. Any luck?”
“No, darn it!” said the woman-who-makes-the-coffee. “Something went wrong with my camera.”
“Perhaps I may be of assistance,” said the black-suited man in a mellifluous voice. “You see, I’m an expert on European bats, especially those of Transylvania.”
“That’d be great!” said the woman-who-makes-the-coffee. “I’ll be trying again after dinner.”
One of the male photographers in the group looked up at the black-suited man and said, “What kind of work do you do?”
“Night surgeon, of sorts, in an urgent care center. Such services in our country are offered without charge, unlike in your country,” said the black-suited man.
“Oh, so you must be a doctor,” said the male photographer. “What’s your name?”
“Dr. Vladislav.”
The male photographer chuckled and said, “It’s kind of funny, but you look like Dracula. No offense. Just the movies, you know.”
Russian-built fake Dracula’s Castle in Romania.
“Tourists from your country always say that to any man in a dark suit,” said Dr. Vladislav. “Seems your country is obsessed with scary movies about…vampires. Even the castle built by the Russians to fool American tourists into thinking it’s the ancient home of Dracula draws thousands of American tourists. Russians are good at fooling Americans, eh?”
“Now just hold on!,” said the male photographer.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Dr. Vladislav. “Just kidding. We know Americans are fine people with, if I may say, fine, intelligent women like the woman-who-makes-the-coffee.”
“My husband read a book about Dracula,” said the woman-who-makes-the-coffee. “I think it was called The Historian, or something like that.”
“Ah, yes,” said Dr. Vladislav. “Written by Miss Elizabeth Kostova. We’re good friends. She now lives in Romania, you know. Runs a writing school, and like me, works at night.”
“My husband is a writer,” said the woman-who-makes-the-coffee. “He’s always wanted to see Dracula’s castle and is really aggravated about the Russian fake.”
“As am I,” said Dr. Vladislav. “I can sadly assure your husband that the once glorious castle of Dracula…he was an admired Count, you know…anyway, his castle has been obliterated from the earth. Fortunately, his memory lives.”
The group fell silent. The dining hall seemed to darken as a chilled air suffused the room.
“Shoot, I’ve got to go photograph bats,” said the woman-who-makes-the-coffee. “Since you know about the bats here,” she said to Dr. Vladislav, “would you mind helping me find one to photograph?”
“I’d be delighted,” said the doctor.
One of the female photographers in the group named Jane quickly rose from her chair and said, “Do you mind if I come along?”
“Sure, come on,” said the woman-who-makes-the-coffee. “Get your camera, and let’s go shoot bats. Put on that big coat of yours. It’s freezing out there.”
The others decided to go to their rooms.
Outside in the bleak icy night under a New Moon, Jane and the woman-who-makes-the-coffee stood staring into the dark hoping for a bat to fly within in shooting range. Suddenly, the woman-who-makes-the-coffee felt a quiver in her neck and scrunched up her shoulders as though trying to cover her throat.
“May I help you find a bat,” said Dr. Vladislav.
“That’d be wonderful,” said the woman-who-makes-the-coffee. “Thank you. But you’re not wearing a coat. Aren’t you cold?”
“My people are, so to speak, a cold blooded race,” said the doctor. “But shhhh… here come the bats!”
Then two, three, and eventually 20 bats flew within camera shot. The woman-who-makes-the-coffee fired her camera with flashes lighting up the darkness like quick bolts of lightning. Her companion Jane did likewise.
The two women were so excited that they didn’t notice the chorus of wolves howling as though in the crescendo of a requiem.
“I think I got some good shots,” said the woman-who-makes-the-coffee.
“Me, too,” said Jane. “But I’m tired. Think I’ll download my pictures when I get home. Can’t see much detail on my camera in this heavy darkness.”
“Well, I do see the bat photos on my camera,” said the woman-who-makes-the-coffee, “but you’re right, it’s too dim to see any details.”
Weeks laterone evening when the woman-who-makes-the-coffee was sitting on her living room couch and showing the bat pictures to her husband, Socks the cat, sitting in the husband’s lap, began glaring at the photographs while hairs on his back reared up and his tail flared like a bottlebrush. Socks uttered a guttural growl.
The phone rang.
It was Jane from the photography tour calling.
“You’re not going to believe this,” she said.
“What?” asked the woman-who-makes-the-coffee.
“Remember me taking a picture of you with Dr. Vladislav when we were photographing the bats? He was standing right beside you, and you were showing him the bat pictures on the back of your camera.”
“Yeah, of course, I remember,” said the woman-who-makes-the-coffee. “He was really helpful in getting us on the bats.”
“Right,” said Jane. “But just one problem that I can’t figure out.”
“Tell me,” said the woman-who-makes-the-coffee.
“I took lots of shots of the two of you standing next to each other. Ten shots in all.”
“Okay, so…”.
“Well, I remember taking pictures of you holding up your camera to Dr. Vladislav standing right beside you.”
“Yes, I remember,” said the woman-who-makes-the-coffee. “So how did your shots turn out?”
Silence on the other end of the line.
“Jane, are you still there?”
“Yes,” said Jane. “But my shots of you and Dr. Vladislav together….I mean, you look great standing there with a big smile.”
“And….”, said the woman-who-makes-the-coffee.
“In all those photos,” Jane whispered, “Vladislav IS NOT THERE!
Photo from Janes’s camera. Supposed to show woman-who-makes-the-coffee showing Dr. Vladislav a photo of bats in Romania
Another photo from Jane’s camera of Dr. Vladislav and the woman-who-makes-the-coffee
The woman-who-makes-the-coffee watched a crimson sunset over the Carpathian Mountains as an old building creaked in the distance and wolves howled from a darkening forest. Suddenly a bat flying on fast-flapping wings swept past her, and she, being a renowned nature photographer, berated herself for not having her camera ready to take its picture. For how many bats of the Arizona desert had she photographed sucking nectar out of fruiting plants to now miss shooting a picture of a Transylvanian bat sucking nourishment from fruits or eating insects….she knew not what it ate. For Romania had more species of bats than any other.
Next evening she sat at dinner with the group she was leading on a photo tour. The dining room was large with a high ceiling and, despite the lights, the room was gloomy. Sitting at a nearby table was a tall man in a smart black suit, a starched white shirt, and a red cravat around his neck. His jet black hair set off a pearly white face, uncommon for a man, and his eyes though sunken glistened like obsidian.
Kathy Adams Clark 