Should Sony Worry About The Canon EOS R or Nikon Z7?

Friday was the Día De Los Muertos (The Day of The Dead) and I got to go hands-on with the new Canon EOS R and Nikon Z7 for the first time at the event, so I wanted to share my impressions. To begin with, I would like to state that I am not a fanboy of any one camera company, but at the moment Sony and Fujifilm impress me the most.

I am open to Canon and Nikon surprising me and in some ways, the Canon EOS R did surprise me in good ways, while the Nikon Z7 surprised me in bad ways. I have used mirrorless cameras since m43 launched and while the Nikon Z7 has nice punchy rendering and a very solid build the camera failed miserably at EVF performance. The Nikon was a very responsive camera, but if I looked around a scene with the EVF there was very distracting screen tearing that took a moment to go away, which I haven’t seen this bad since the introduction of m43. It’s very disappointing to see such bad EVF performance on a 2018 camera, but you can get used to it if you want.

On the other hand, the Canon EOS R, felt very light and responsive with an adapted Canon lens. It didn’t have the same quality feel to it that the Nikon Z7 had, but it handled better than the Z7. It also had a modern EVF that compared well to Sony’s offerings, but having the EOS R, Z7, and X-T3 side by side with the Sony a7RIII made the Sony feel very slow. To me, Sony has always had a slight edge in responsiveness, but this seems to have gone away.

For now, Sony offers a more mature mirrorless camera system than Nikon or Canon, but either could leapfrog Sony if they decide to take mirrorless seriously, while Fujifilm already matches Sony in just about every way, with a different size sensor. If I had to pick one to add to my collection permanently it would be the Canon EOS R since it has lenses that will be useful for years to come, while Nikon released lenses that will likely be exchanged later for better/faster glass later. If I had to pick from the 4 today it would be hard to pick between the Sony a7RIII and Fujifilm X-T3.

I do not think that Sony will have to worry about Canon/Nikon for a while, but they should accelerate their technology some to make a clear distinction between their cameras and Canon/Nikon cameras. Canon/Nikon’s freshman efforts are good, but not when compared to currently available mature mirrorless cameras. If their next models have custom sensors with dual card slots they will likely get some to switch back from Sony, especially if the photographers still have large expensive glass collections, but I doubt this will happen since Sony largely controls the sensor market at this time.

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