Canon RP vs Sony A7III: Which Mirrorless Camera Should You Buy in 2019?
Morgan
We are comparing the Canon RP, the cheapest new full-frame mirrorless camera on the market with the Sony A7III, the best full-frame camera on the market! Let’s run through the specs to see which camera is more worth it for the price!
Special Thanks to our talent Jaden LeBel for helping us with this shoot.
Picture Quality Test
Both of these cameras have extremely sharp picture due to the quality lenses we used as well. I like the tonality of both images. The Sony was a bit dark as usual so we had to lift the exposure by about a 1/3 of a stop. Canon is a bit warmer, but besides that they both look pretty good.
Dynamic Range Test
-1EVSo we are really looking for when noise is going to start appearing in the shadows. So far both of them are holding up nicely as expected.
-2EV You can already see some grain building on Canon in the darker tones. This indicates that you probably shouldn’t take the Canon out when it’s super bright out.
-3 EVDefinitely, see heavy grain building in the Canon image.
-4 EV The Canon just fell apart, while the Sony still looks pretty good in comparison.
We see close to a 2 stop difference in the cameras in the shadows. +1 +1 EVThe Canon is clipping a lot more than the Sony already. You can see where the floor in front of the doors in the background are already blowing out.
+2 EVThe Canon is definitely blowing out on the brick wall and shifting to a yellow tone. The Sony is still blowing out, but not to the extent of the Canon.
+3 EV The Canon is starting to become grey as a result of being too bright. If you are looking to shoot in bright light, I would recommend shooting with Sony.
There is a bit of moray pattern on the Sony.
ISO TEST
ISO 200
We started a bit lower this time, because I don’t like being over ISO100 if I have to. At 200 these sensors are pretty clean.
ISO 1600
The Canon definitely has grain in the eye area and the whites of her eyes it looks a bit muddy.
ISO 3200
Canon is really gritty on the skin and the grain is building.
ISO 6400
The grain is pretty rough on both of them, but they have seemed to even out a bit.
I would say if you are shooting in low light that the Sony is still the way to go.
Autofocus Test
Canon’s Dual Pixel Autofocus is usually legendary. It’s great for both stills and video. Almost all of these images are perfectly sharp, but it does have a slower drive. The buffer is a lot faster than the Sony so you can shoot for forever.
Sony also has really good autofocus because of the eye focus detect. Both of the cameras falter in keeping focus in the shots between full body and close up. The drive speed on the Sony is much faster, but the buffer is slower. To keep it fair, we did the medium speed on the Sony and Canon was on high speed.
Video Autofocus Test
Using the autofocus features on cameras if becoming a lot more popular now, so we decided to test it out on each of the cameras.
Canon
The Canon really struggled with this test, it had a really hard time focusing on the subject. When I tried focusing it, it would lose focus a lot of the time and I would have to constantly refocus it. It wouldn’t just pick up the focus, I would have to force it to find the subject.
Sony A7III
The Sony, on the other hand, performed flawlessly. It’s not searching or jumping at all.
4K Video Test
The Sony has a clear, crisp looking 4k video.
The Canon has a crop on the 4k video, which is fine, but the quality isn’t as sharp as the Sony.
Conclusion
Canon really fell flat on its face with the video portion. It can’t shoot in 1080p at 24FPS, and you have a crop factor when you shoot in 4K at 24FPS, so you really can’t win.
The Sony, on the other hand, has amazing video capabilities because you have so many different frame rate options and it doesn’t have any crop with 4K. It’s made to be a 4k camera.
Personally, I would rather get a cheaper or used body on the market than spend money getting the full-frame Canon RP with a lens that doesn’t really meet all my needs.
