Lightweight Wonder!

The R 8 is Canon’s ‘budget’ full frame mirrorless camera. Although a late entrant to the mirrorless market, Canon has responded with a flurry of launches.

- Hoshang Billimoria

Canon EOS R8 (body only)

Launched in mid 2023, the R 8 boasts 24.2 megapixels and comes with 4 K video and Canon’s DIGIC X image processor. SP had the R 8 on our test bench. Set out below are our findings.

Design & Build Quality

First things first. The R 8 is Canon’s lightest full frame camera. The body weight with the card and battery is a mere 461 g. The dimensions of 132.5 x 86.1 X 70 mm indicate how diminutive the camera is. The camera body is weather sealed. The R 8 has been designed to operate between 0 – 40 degrees Celsius and less than 85% humidity. The body is a combination of aluminium alloy and polycarbonate resin with glass fibre. Build quality is good. The R 8 came to us with Canon’s 24 – 50 mm f 4.5 – 6.3 IS STM lens. The R 8 is built by Canon in Japan.

Key Features

The R 8 sports a 24 MP CMOS full frame sensor with a built-in low pass filter.

Canon has used their Dual Pixel CMOS AF II system in the R 8. In autofocus mode, the autofocus points cover 100% of the screen. Autofocus modes include

One Shot AF, Servo AF, AI Focus AF and AF Tracking. In AF Tracking mode, humans, animals and vehicles can be recognised. Picture styles include Auto, Standard, Portrait, Landscapes and Monochrome amongst others.

ISO speeds range from 100 – 102400 and can be extended to ISO 50 and ISO 204800. With video, this ranges up to 25600 and is extendable to 102400.

384 zones help the R 8 to meter images. Evaluative, partial (5.9%), spot (3%) and centre weighted average are the metering modes available.