Is the CANON R7 Good enough for PRO Photographers? 

I have R7 and use it a lot for pro sports. I also use R3, R5 and R6. R7 is a lot smaller, and with 70-200 f4 I have the smallest setup but still get 110-300 equilent. The battery life is better then R5/R6 and low light is a lot better then I expected. AF not as good as R3 but still really good. The price is so good also great. The drawbacks, buffer is very slow and rolling shutter is very bad so I hardly use the electronic shutter. 15 fps is fine even if I prefer 30.

I have an R7 and shoot football (soccer) and professional indoor lacrosse. I use it with my older EF lenses with converter. I have no real issues with iso and and speed. Love the tracking and gets the eyes 99% of the time

I continue to be amazed that I listen to videos by a sports photographer since I have absolutely zero interest in sports but you continue to provide information that translates into things I do find interesting. I guess I should not be surprised that you don't consider the lack of an RF-S super wide angle to be important. My answer is to have a FF body with my old 16-35 (overweight and not cheap) but I would like something on the order of a compact 12mm prime with decent corners for the R7. I really do not think Canon ever intended the R7 to be the only camera in our bag but as a partner with something like the R6 which has somewhat opposite strengths and faults. My main use for the R7 has been birds and macro. Canon has bird pretty well covered but there could be macro beyond 1:1 that does not weigh a ton. Laowa has a line of compact manual focus lenses that even cover full frame but Canon neither makes nor allows others to make something similar in AF which is needed to make use of the Focus Bracketing feature (which I assume means nothing to a sports photographer). I do look forward to seeing your promised upcoming videos.

Enjoy the R7 and use it for sports photography. Two drawbacks are performance in low-light situations - grain very noticeable at 5000 iso, and lack of battery grip makes for awkward handling when shooting vertical. A fun camera, though.

Have the R6 and R7, and still working on managing my controls on them. I am sure my muscle memory will kick in, but kind of pissed at Canon for switching up the wheels, buttons and on/off switch......oh, and thank you for your exceptional content. Keep up the great work!

I own the R7, 90D and 7D mk1. While I do not shoot professionally, I am but a humble hobbyist, I shoot high school marching band for my kids school. The 90D and 7D work great but the R7 blows them out of the water. I use the canon 70-200 mk3 lens with the official canon EF-RF and Viltrox speed booster adapters and the lens works flawlessly. Night time performance wasn't to bad, I did have an issue with LED flood lights. I forgot to enable the anit-flicker mode and to be honest it was the first time I had ever encountered them at a high school field here in the US, it may be different overseas where you are. As always, another great video. I can't wait to see how the R7 works (or doesn't) work for you. Looking forward to your thoughts.

I have the r6 and r7. For wildlife and b.I.f. Photography there’s no comparison. I always go with my R7 because the extra reach and the 33mp give me far superior photos. I rarely use my R6 anymore except for the occasional landscape photo.

I want you to try Canon R7 with Sigma 18-35mm Lens and Sigma 50-100mm Lens

Thanks for the video. I found in my review, the R7 is a video powerhouse - but the photo side less so. Having said that. It's good enough for stock photography, but I wouldn't rely on it for night games and weddings.

I still prefer my 1DX II over any of my gear. The R7 is a great choice, light and compact. It pairs very well with the 300 f/2.8L IS II USM and adapter ring. Looks silly on my 600 f/4, but gives you a lot of reach! The R7 is too compact for my hand size and I am still getting use to the controls and layout. The rolling shutter is terrible, but 15fps is plenty in mechanical. I photographed some wildlife the other day at ISO-6400 and that looked worse than my 1DX II at ISO-20k. I know, crop vs ff, but overall a great camera. It definitely has its place in the bag for a reason though. I pre-ordered and have had mine since late June of '22. Hope you enjoy it and look forward to your comparisons. Cheers!

What i would consider to look at.... a working EF-S 17-55 2.8 or a Sigma 18-35 1.8, they are one of the best lenses you can get for Canon APS-C, especially the EF-S 17-55 works flawless on the R7. I use also a Meike Filter Adapter and bought a C-PL to it, thats a pretty potent setup i barely have usage for since im not a landscaper or so and have no real need for a ND, just rarely the polarizer and mostly the clear insert as sensor protection.

FYI - When you get it... check out DXO raw processing for the R7. You'll be shocked at how much better the high ISO images will look compared to the typical Adobe raw/LR processing. Night and Day difference.

Look forward to the 7d mk2 comparison with the R7

The R7 works lovely with my 300f2.8. Finally no more extender needed for football. But I kept my 1DX Mark 1 for night games or indoor sports. So the R7 is a great addition, but does not replace my 1DX Mark 1&2 completely. I push those up to 51200 ISO. Also I’m missing a horizontal grip and hope the aftermarket provides this soon. And something else: Buffering… I had to get faster SD cards and also changed to compressed RAW for not running into buffer issues. Other than that it’s a great little sports camera and also will be my first choice for travel photos, filming and vlogging.

Depends on what sports you take photos of. If you have to crop a full frame photo, you may lose the full frame advantage and therefore also the low light advantage. In that scenario the R7 may even have an advantage with it 32.5 megapixels. It will allow you to crop even more. The buffer of the R7 could be much better though. As a sports photographer you do not want to wait a few seconds for the buffer to be cleared.

Lots of reviews saying that there is significant shutter shock with the R7 when using mechanical or EFCS with very soft images. Did you find this? Problem is the full electronic shutter suffers from very bad rolling shutter which makes ES unusable for anything that moves.

I photograph wildlife so I look for a lot of the same things as a sports photographer in a camera. I have an R7 as a second body which I use with a zoom lens while my 600mm prime is on my full frame body. This gives me a lot of flexibility. It's a very nice little camera and I enjoy using it a lot. It's more than capable of producing "professional" quality images. The AF system is very good, noise is less of an issue than I thought it would be and the frame rates are fast. That said, there are some things that I don't like so much, but I knew about them before buying the camera and I accept that at this price point there are going to be compromises. First of these is rolling shutter - the R7 can display some really bad rolling shutter with fast moving subjects such as birds. I don't think any picture of a bird with its wings bent at an impossible angle is going to sell! Second is the buffer size - the buffer fills up in not much more than a second in H+ electronic, which can be frustrating. I feather the shutter to try and keep the buffer going, but even that has its limits and I'm still missing opportunities. I tend to use the camera in mechanical or electronic first curtain shutter to get around the rolling shutter and small buffer - but that also brings its own problem... mechanical shutter is very loud on this camera. Probably not an issue for sport but for wildlife, it can be a big problem. A final niggle is the lack of a third control wheel - but I get around this by using FV mode, which has really grown on me since getting the R7! Anyway, yes the R7 is a very capable camera at a fantastic price point and I'm very happy to own one. It is a camera with several compromises though, so I don't think I'd ever have one as a main body. It's a very nice crop sensor second body for wildlife work.

Hi Rob, Mainly test the low light conditions. I have the R7 and know it work great during day light. Have not been able to use it indoors too much. Thank you for you videos have been a follower since 7 years ago "Sports Photography - Useful accessories/equipment" Sept. 2014

By chance I took the same image with my 5D3 and my 7D2, the crop sensor image was softer because the increased pixel density was too high a resolution and outperformed the lens. In theory the R7 will exaggerate this problem, as effective MP rises from 50 odd to 80 odd, .unfortunately I haven't managed to get a 90D or R7 to confirm this. It may be fantastic with a 400mm f2.8, but what about a 70-300 DO?

I would like to see Portrait photography with R7 and with R6 Mark 2 compared. Maybe both with RF 24-105 mm and Canon EF 100-400mm 4.5-5.6 L IS USM II. I will buy R7 if it is roughly comparable.

Great video, Rob. I hope that one day you can move up to the R3 for sports. I hear it’s just amazing

It would be good to see the 1dx and 7dii comparisons, but also I feel the 1dxii, M50ii and R10 would also be great comparisons. Although I'm more interested in stills, the original M50 was great for video and the new M50ii even better for a lesser price than the two new Rs.

I shoot pro football and have recently switched over from 2 x1dx to an R6 on my 70-200 2.8mkii and an R7 on my 300mm 2.8mkii. The R7 i particularly wanted as i wanted further reach on the 300. Above all it has made my peli case alot lighter. Seriously though the R7 is not great in low light but i use DXO when needed and that does a fantastic job on the noise. The rolling shutter is a big problem so i only use the mechanical shutter. Compared to the R6 the shutter on the R7 is very clunky, so much so that i honesty thought there was a fault with it and took it to Canon to get it checked out. I look forward to your review video and your own conclusions..

I am a wedding photographer between R and R7 wich one better for me ?? Photo sessions and trailer videos

1dx/1dxii/r6 shooter here too, and also picked up an R7 I shoot a lot of Australian Football (big grounds!) with a 400mm and often a 1.4x TC the R7 will give me the option of the 400 bare, with more cropping ability should i need it. My R6 also only gets 7.8fps with my old 400/600 on mechanical shutter, so if i can get 15 with the R7 its a benefit there too. Do wish they had of offered a vertical grip though

It will be interesting to see when you get your new R7 how long the the battery will last when attending a footy match or racing car venue bearing in mind that the R7 has no battery grip and would you miss any shots whilst changing battery also once the single battery gets below a certain level then the fps drops so looking forward to the comparisons.

Do you know if the Canon R7 has electronic shutter distortion - rolling shutter, when shooting sports? Thanks

EOS R8 vs ROS R7 please once R8 is available.

I would love to see the R7 perform with 400f2.8 for evening and night games under the stadium light....very curious. Also, since most of my friend who shoot sports do it in JPG, how is the buffer in a real world work flow in JPG. I look forward to future reaction(s) the performance and output of an R7, thank you.

As an emergency camera, YES. I will being using an R3/R6 combo, but am open to an A7 as a backup for catastrophic scenarios.

I use a nikon d810 for PRO

hey, Rob! I just want to ask what you would recommend for me to get now, Canon 1DX Mark II or Canon R7? thanks!

I own it but had I known it didn’t support a vertical grip, I wouldn’t have purchased it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great camera but I miss the ergonomically of having a vertical grip

I just can’t use a camera to shoot sports with out a vertical grip. I think the vertical grip for the R6 sucks. The controller to choose focus points is to low but with AF system it’s not critical but I wish it had better ergonomics.

i shoot with m6 mark ii for wedding professionally, the r7 is morreeee than enuf with great lens

How much is it

The camera is potent, what makes the R7 (and any APS-C canon camera) bad are the lens options. For good glass you have to rely on full frame glass 99% of the time, denying a big advantage of APS-C.... smaller and lighter lenses, using a Speedbooster on a daily base is also not "the yellow from the egg".

I have ef 50 1.8, ef 24-7-0 L4 and ef 70-200 L4. Which RF lense should I consider buying first?

I shoot equestrian sports and have been using Canon gear for 20 years. Because I am hand holding, walking a lot with my cameras and some days run pretty long... 6, 8 or 10 hours isn't unusual... I prefer an APS-C crop camera to lighten my load. The camera itself isn't any lighter, but the lenses are. I can use a 135mm instead of a 200mm, or a 200mm instead of a 300mm, or a 300mm instead of a 500mm, etc. Most recently I've been shooting with a pair of 7D Mark II and I used a pair of the original 7D for five years prior to that. Those are my "work horse" cameras, though I also have a full frame Canon and a compact Canon mirrorless (M series) for certain purposes. I have been seriously tempted by the R7, but have not bought them. First, I agree with everything you said in the video. Image quality, resolution, frame rates and especially the auto focus in the R7 all easily meet the highest demands. I am not concerned about low light/high ISO either, since I rarely have any problem with the cameras I use now and am sure R7 would be at least as good, and I can always fall back to a full frame camera for low light work, if needed. Plus the nature of my work allows me to shoot RAW much of the time, and some post-processing tools such as DXO Pure Raw do a really brilliant job dealing with image noise. My concerns about the R7 include the battery life and lack of a battery grip for the camera. While I expect with care the actual shots per battery charge can surpass Canon's rating for the R7, I still worry that I will need to carry a lot more batteries and have to pause to change them far more often. It is not uncommon for me to shoot 3000 or more images in a day with a pair of cameras that can do 10 frames/sec... My shot count would probably increase using a camera that's able to rattle off 15 frames/sec! As it stands, I carry four batteries per camera with my DSLRs. I have never run out on a shoot, but have used all of them at some events. The lack of a battery grip makes matters worse (though I prefer a removable one, like 7DII's, so I can further lighten my load on the days I need to hike some distance). I also utilize the vertical controls of my battery grips frequently, probably close to half my shots are done in portrait orientation. Other things that concern me about the R7 are the buffer that can only handle a couple seconds worth of raw files, the unique control layout and the build quality/weather resistance. Now, I try to limit my bursts at high frame rates simply because I don't want to spend any more time sitting at a computer editing than necessary, but there are often times when I shoot a quick succession of short bursts and I really would hate to miss shots waiting for a buffer to clear. This is something I need to test and see if it's going to be an issue. I know I could become accustomed to the R7 controls. The problem is that I often shoot with multiple cameras, switching between them rapidly. Right now my three Canon DSLRs have nearly identical control layouts, which facilitates quick swaps and helps me avoid fumbling with the camera. There is no full frame R series camera with the same control layout as the R7. So while I would be fine working with a pair of R7 and I don't need the third camera a lot, I would prefer if they all handled essentially the same. As best I can tell, the R7 appears to be reasonably well built... I would guess it's on par with the 90D. That's pretty good, but not at the same level as the 7DII. And I'm not worried about the R7 internally... I believe Canon rated its shutter to do 200,000 actuations, which is up from the 7DII's 150,000 click rating and the 90D's 120,000. The lack of a built-in flash probably helps with the dust/weather resistance (and I can't recall the last time I used a built in flash, so wouldn't miss it). But besides that, I have to shoot in dusty conditions a lot and occasionally get caught in the rain. While I take reasonable care with them, it's not a concern with 7DII. I'm just not sure if the same can be said for the R7. Finally, what you said is true... Canon has quickly built a reasonably healthy system of RF mount lenses. And the EF mount can be adapted (though that negates some size and weight savings). But I'm still a little miffed that Canon has taken such a tough stance against 3rd party lenses. While they are well within their rights to enforce their patents, I'm not sure that was the smartest thing to do... Especially since they have so few RF-S lenses to complement the R7 and R10. Yeah, the crop sensor cameras can use full frame lenses. And, yeah there are some very good EF-S lenses that can be adapted. But part of Sony's success, and to some extent Fuji's, has been their welcoming 3rd party lens support. Even Nikon is welcoming it these days. They even appear to be outsourcing and relabelling some of their recent lenses, to more quickly build their Z mount system.

3:35 That's not 100% true. I've adapted to R7 EF16-35 2.8, EF135 2 and EF70-200 2.8 non IS. All of them were just soft wide open on R7 and have huge chromatic abberation. Also AF wasn't so good as in new lenses (RF 70-200 F4, RF 50 1.8). So I have to sell them and get RF lenses, only one of mine EF lenses which is sharp enough on that sensor is EF 16-35 F4 (sharpest wide angle in whole EF system :P ), so sorry - but for that sensor great (and pricey) lenses is must have

Short answer. Yes.

I’m thinking about getting a canon rebel T5 for sports photography/videography is it worth it?

Would love to see the 1dx against the r7.

When you buy it and use it in real life than Ill see what you have to say.

U do not need a professional camera to be a professional photographer. It's all about the photographer mostly , not the camera!

How can you review something you haven’t even used?

I have the r7 and the r6. r6 is better.

If you cannot get Pro photos out of the R7 then you're not a Pro photographer...

Name a true working FT pro who works for National Geographic or any other known Publication that uses the R7 .