When it comes to shopping for a new camera, I generally look for a kit that hits most of my requirements and granted, I’m a difficult customer. Low-light, power zoom, macro, speed of operation, robust, quality images, ease of function, portability and of course, easy on the budget – it’s all in there.
My go-to has traditionally been the Canon Powershot series. Every one I’ve owned stretched beyond the manufacturer’s promise. Going from this digital all-in-one camera with interchangeable lenses like the Canon EOS R10 would be a stiff challenge – or so I thought. I believed I’d be giving up a lot, but the truth was…well, complicated. Bottomline: I found I lost some, but gained plenty.
This review isn’t a shoot-out between the two, but it helps to provide some history and context to my opinion.
The camera in question came with the own-brand lenses RF-S 55-210mm F5-7.1 and RF24-50mm f4.5-6.3– both built with performance-improving stepping motor tech. I tested it in a variety of conditions, from cities to ocean travel, safaris, and even bird-snapping in my backyard.
The bustling nightlife of the Shinjuku tourism district in Tokyo is popular with photographers for obvious reasons. This setting put the ISO capabilities of the R10 to the test.
Some Positives About the Cannon R10
At first glance, the R10 maintains that thread of familiarity that permeates the Canon range. Without glancing at the manual, someone who knows their way around a Canon camera will easily find their way around. But even for first-timers, the pop-up viewfinder instructionals are as simple enough to get you into whatever mode you need, asap.
Tricky lighting conditions were of little impediment to the R10 on a night-drive at Singita, even with a spotlight involved.
Given the variability that comes with this specific lens and camera combo, the R10 was great in the bush when the Big Cats or their frisky prey went on the trot. It hits 23 frames per second with continuous shooting.Being able to shoot in RAW dug into the memory, but also helped when a lens couldn’t get me a desired close-up on site. These occasions were in the minority however, and I ended up just shooting jpegs for the sake of efficiency.
Light management was a treat. It was on the nighttime streets of Tokyo that I really put this R10 and lensesthrough their paces. I tested images at a max of ISO 32 000that delivered a passable level of noise. The video option gets to ISO 12 800.
Moods in the veld at Singita, captured on the R10.
Exploring the camera functionsdid of course take its toll on juice in the tank.To me, it felt as if the battery had longer legs than the one in the Canon R8. In the pursuits of trying to be as much to as many people as possible (like me!), some sacrifices had to be made, and I found myself paying special attention to battery power as I went along with both.
I haven’t done a peer-reviewed study on my battery comparison above; gut-feel is all I can offer. As such, it’s not a reliable opinion at all. Batteries are affected by usage; ambient temperatures; settings and sometimes – thankfully in very rare occasions – by undetectable anomalies. I’m not good at removing batteries when the camera is not in use, either, so there’s that.
My cameras do a lot of travelling and I rarely take it to shoot close to home. It’s commonly in a backpack and hand-luggage. This is where the extra lenses and size of the camera had to be real considerations. In terms of weight, the camera and smaller lens weighed just 650g. But in a separate bag with charger cable and photographic bits and bobs, I found it getting on the bulky side. Having said that, however, it hasn’t been a deal-breaker and the benefits have outweighed my minor grudges.
Big or small, the R10 managed handsomely. This is a Hummingbird Clearwing Moth, snapped at the Hamarikyu Gardens in Tokyo.
Some Minor Cons for R10
“Don’t you just hate those things,” someone said to me when my lens cap popped off for the umpteenth time. It’s a real pain, and yes there are ways of getting around it, but not in the standard model. I found myself often scrambling around the bottom of a game vehicle or asking a guide to collect it from the gravel roadside.
Furthermore, if, like me, you’re gearing up to interchangeable lenses, you’ll need to pace yourself. It takes time to hit your stride in predicting what you’ll need in fast-changing situations. Once I’d grown accustomed to this, I was glad for the extra power packed into each component.
And that is perhaps the bottom line for me.
No camera is going to do everything you need it to do, but the Canon R10 does an admirable job as a good all-rounder that made my images look better than the next person’s – and I’m not talking about mobile phone photographers either.
I’ll let you know how well it ages, but going by how it feels now, my Canon experience up to now gives me plenty of confidence.
