Canon EOS R vs Sony A7 iii: Which One Should You Buy?!

Time to put both a Canon EOS R and a Sony A7 iii to the test! Which one will come out on top in this ultimate camera comparison?!

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Today on The Slanted Lens I’ve got Danielle Maddox with me. She’s going to help me look at these 2 cameras to decide which one is best for me. I think the R matching my C 200 really well, but it has some real limitations. I can’t stand the crop factor on it. I love the A7 iii, but the problem for me is I can’t get good autofocus when shooting stills.

Let’s put them to the test!

Image Quality Test

I’m a little baffled by this, as the Sony is looking warmer than the Canon, which surprised me because generally speaking the Canon color is a little more warm and Sony is more neutral. I still like what I’m seeing there though. Both are extremely sharp.

When I blow them up at 200% I still don’t see much of a difference.

Dynamic Range Test

We’ve got out Spyder Checkr in there and we’re going to go over and underexposed by 4 to 5 stops just to see which one is going to hang over that dynamic range the best.

0 EV

I feel like I’m losing the whites on the Canon vs the Sony

-1 EV

I’m shocked by how we can push these. I think that both of these might even look better at -1 EV.

-2 EV

The Sony is starting to have trouble holding those highlights.

-3 EV

The Sony looks nice in this comparison. Both are still very usable images this underexposed.

-4 EV

The Canon is starting to posturize just a bit and the color is shifting a bit and the Sony is staying pretty neutral.

-5 EV

The Canon I’m starting to lose and the color has shifted.

It’s miraculous that any camera can hold up so well at -5 EV but both of these cameras have done really well, but it looks to me like the Sony is done just a bit better.

+1 EV

This is where it really gets difficult for digital cameras, because digital cameras don’t like to be overexposed.

In the Canon I’m losing detail on that left wall, but the Sony is holding really well.

+2 EV

I’ve lost all my highlight detail on the Canon and the Sony is still holding onto that highlight detail.

+3 EV

Again, the Canon is about a full stop ahead of the Sony.

+4 EV

When I go to 4 stops, the Canon is completely blown out. There is a little bit more detail in the shadows in the Sony.

+5 EV

If I only do a +5 on the Sony, we see that it doesn’t look that different to the plus 4 on the Canon.

ISO Test

200 ISO

Starting with 200 ISO

400 ISO

They’re both still pretty clean.

800 ISO

I would say the Sony is ahead just a little bit.

1600 ISO

They’re both starting to get a lot of grain but the Sony definitely is starting to get more grain than the Canon. It’s a little more chunky!

3200 ISO

6400 ISO

We’ve got grain city now!

12800 IS0

You can see the grain is starting to show up in her teeth.

25600 ISO

You could shoot at this if you had to, but the reality is it’s just awful.

They’re very similar cameras, but I think the Canon edged out the Sony just slightly.

Autofocus Test

We’re going to go to medium drive setting and just see how it tracks as people walk in. Let’s take a look at it and see how they do.

Sony Alpha A7 III

Far away it does really well but then once you hit this transition period we start to lose a little bit.

Canon EOS R

The R was running a little slower and it only did 20 frames, and in that 20 frames but it didn’t lose any! They were all really sharp.

So I’ve got my Tamron 45mm lens here on the R and I just want to make sure that the adapter is going to give me the same autofocus response that I get with the Canon lens.

I got 34 frames on the Tamron as I turned up the speed and only lost 2 frames when she got really close. Sometimes it was switching from the right eye to the left eye.

I’d say the Canon is doing a bit better on autofocus, but certainly, the Sony is holding it’s own without any problem.

Video Test

This test is really important to me as we want to see what kind of video we get in 4K on this camera, because it’s gotta be in 4k, no one wants to shoot anything if it isn’t in 4k . The Canon has got a crop factor on a 45mm lens, so it really looks like an 85mm. But I want to look at the 4:2:2 10 bit vs the 4:2:2 8 bit on the Sony.

The Canon is really pretty. The image is clean and the quality is fabulous, but the comparison is difficult as the Sony is a lot further away. The Sony is a little more yellowish, we had a hard time getting rid of that. They both look very good.

As a B camera, I think I’m okay with that crop because you won’t really need a wide shot.

Conclusion.

So there you have it! There are things about each of these cameras that drive me crazy and things that I love. The Sony I really do love that it doesn’t crop at 4k and I can’t stand that the R crops.I like the output on the R, the 4:2:2 better than the 8 bit 4:2:2 on the Sony.