Review Canon EOS R100 – affordable starter

The EOS R100 is Canon’s cheapest R-camera.

Introduction Canon EOS R100

The Canon EOS R100 is a camera that continues the tradition of Canon’s affordable APS-C single lens reflex cameras. That series started with the EOS 300D, at that time the first digital camera under a thousand euros. The EOS R100 is even cheaper and obviously has quite a bit more to offer. Of course, a camera like the EOS R100 does not have the latest features. The viewfinder, sensor and processor are all several years old and there’s nothing wrong with that. The sensor has 24 megapixels and the DIGIC-8 processor comes from the EOS M50 Mark II. Together, these make for decent performance. Image quality from the sensor is good and the camera can film in 4K. Speed is limited to 6.5 frames per second in One-Shot AF and about 3.5 frames per second with continuous autofocus. In fact, the only thing we miss is image stabilisation. But competitor models in this price range have virtually none of that either.

Build and operation

The Canon EOS R100 is both compact and lightweight. That low weight comes from the use of a lot of plastic in the body and the somewhat spartan design of the camera. For instance, the camera has not been made extra weatherproof, there is no image stabilisation and the number of buttons is limited. The viewfinder has 2.36 million pixels and a frequency of 60 Hz, the screen is 7.5 cm in size and has 1.04 million pixels.

The EOS R100 also features a built-in flash with a guide number of 6 at ISO 100 at 1 metre. Recordings are written to a single UHS 1 SD card (SDHC, SDXC). For video, there is a microphone input, but no headphone output.

Image quality

The 24-megapixel sensor of the Canon EOS R100 delivers familiar, tried-and-tested image quality, with good colours and sharpness at the lowest sensitivity of 100 ISO and a highest sensitivity of 12,800. This is still expandable by a stop, but for decent quality we wouldn’t go higher than 3200 or 6400 anytime soon ourselves. The camera has a shutter without a first shutter curtain. That means you have a semi-electronic shutter with a mechanical shutter as a second curtain. When using very bright lenses at full aperture, this can sometimes cause some harsh background blur or uneven exposure at fast shutter speeds. However, we don’t expect users of an EOS R100 to use an F1.2 lens very often. So with the usual RF-S lenses, this is not a problem in practice. The EOS R100 can shoot in raw and jpeg, but not in HEIF, which is possible with some more expensive Canons.

Video

The EOS R100 can film in MP4 in 4K at 24 or 25 frames per second and in Full HD at up to 60 frames per second. There is also an option to film without sound at 100 frames per second in plain HD (1280×720 pixels). The camera can also shoot 4K timelapse movies in 30 or 25 frames per second. The maximum recording time is just under 30 minutes.

Autofocus

The EOS R100 has a hybrid AF system with 143 autofocus zones. The system has face and eye recognition. The autofocus system is thus much more advanced than that of Canon’s cheaper APS-C SLRs, which mostly still had to make do with just 9 AF points. For video, the camera switches to contrast detection.

Special functions

Of course, the EOS R100 is not a camera on which you expect very special features. It’s just a good basic model. Perhaps its most special feature is the large RF bayonet, which fits not only all RF lenses, but also all Canon EF and EF-S lenses with an adapter. This gives you a lot of choice of focal lengths and you can also shoot with the EOS R-100 just as easily with a fisheye lens as with the relatively affordable Canon RF 800mm F11, which gives you a 1200mm equivalent lens on this APS-C camera. Try that with a phone.

Relative to competitors

The Canon EOS R100 is Canon’s cheapest system camera, but it does have competition from entry-level cameras from other brands. The Nikon Z30 is in the same price range. However, this camera does not have a viewfinder. That seems a no big deal if your previous camera was a phone, but the screens of these cameras don’t really compare to those of phones in the same price range. In sunlight, a viewfinder is really a big plus anyway, unless you mainly want to vlog. Sony has the A6000/A6100 for this price. The technology in the EOS R100 is already a few years old, but the Sony A6000 is still a few years older. The Canon then seems a better choice with, above all, a more modern menu system than the Sony. The only model in this price range that does have image stabilisation is the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark III. That has a slightly smaller Micro Four Thirds sensor and only contrast-detection autofocus. The Olympus does have a true mechanical shutter and good control options, although some find the menu confusing due to the huge choice of options and the body a bit too small. The choice of lenses for the Olympus is very large.

Conclusion test Canon EOS R100