Canon EOS R10 Review

Let’s compare the R10 to its bigger brother the R6 and its smaller brother the R50, which I already reviewed. The only reason for going for a smaller camera is to save weight. And then the question is what you lose in return for saving weight.

The R6 weighs 680g, so there is no way a person of normal physique could shoulder it and not know it is there. And on holiday when you are lugging around a water bottle and a guide book etc, that weight becomes even more important..

The R10 weighs 429g and the R50 just 375g.

Things I notice immediately is that compared to the EVF of the R6, which is big and clean, the EVFs on the R10 and the R50 are smaller. The refresh rate in the EVF on the R10 is slower in power saving mode, with a slight wobble as you move the camera while looking in the EVF. Change it by going to the Shooting menu (the red camera icon) and then screen 9 and Display Performance and changing from power saving to smooth.

So why the R10 over the R50? The grip on the R50 is too small to be much use. And because of its lack of a good grip and its small size the camera feels like a little heavy lump. The R10 is just 6mm longer but it has a good grip and so it is easier to hold.

And the R10 has a front dial as well as a rear dial so it is quicker to change aperture and shutter speed. Actually in aperture priority the rear dial is changing exposure compensation. I didn’t set that up, so perhaps that is its default function. Can it be changed? Do I want to change it? Not at the moment – ISO seems like a good use of the dial.

The R50 is better in one respect – the LCD is 1.62 million dots whereas on the R10 is 1.04 million dots. I can’t say I felt the loss of resolution.

The R6 has in-body image stabilisation and neither the R10 nor the R50 has it. Hold that thought.

The Canon RF-S 18-45mm f4.5-6.3 IS STM kit lens has a maximum aperture at the short (18mm) end of f4.5 and f6.3 at the narrow (45mm) end. Compare that to a standard lens with a maximum aperture of f1.8 and in round terms – f4.5 lets in less than half the light and f6.3 lets in less than one third the light.

I didn’t imagine it would win any prizes for sharpness but I felt I had to judge for myself how good the lens is despite the constraints of the maximum aperture and because the lens has a four-stop Optical Image Stabiliser.

So now let’s look at what ‘good’ lenses with optical image stabilisation are available for the R10.

They must not be heavy or we are back to square one. For weight, or lack of it, the Canon RF-S 18-45mm f4.5-6.3 IS STM lens is hard to beat at 130g. The Canon RF 24-50mm f4.5-6.3 IS STM Lens at 210g is heavier with no better maximum aperture.

Two lenses that kind of stand out as possibilities are the Canon RF 24mm f1.8 Macro IS STM Lens (270g) and the Canon RF 35mm f1.8 Macro IS STM Lens (305g).

Or forget image stabilisation and go for the 16mm lens at 165g or the 28mm lens at 120g or the 50mm lens at 160g. I think the 28mm lens, which is a 45mm ‘normal’ lens in full frame equivalent is probably about right – lightweight and tighter than a 35 on full frame.

Michelangelo – and Kristian in the background. – on a photowalk.

Tasha Tarusova

My wife is tickled by the fact that I have a new friend whose name is Michelangelo. But it is and we went on a photowalk. 

Outside the Tate Modern, this woman – Tasha Tarusova – was singing. I thought she had a voice that could carry the 4 Non Blondes song ‘What’s Up’ and she offered to sing it and I photographed her.

Charlie

He is one of the Covent Garden street performers and from what I heard from his fellow performers, he is from Iran and has been in the UK for years.

He told me it was getting more difficult to connect with audiences because a twenty-five year old doesn’t know who Charlie Chaplin is. In the 1980s and 90s Charlie Chaplin films were on TV, and they knew the character he was playing, but now they think he is Hitler, he said.

Steph the ventriloquist was performing in the Square, extricating herself from a straitjacket while joking with the large crowd. Charlie said how much easier it was for a performer to get a large audience when they talk to the audience. Charlie mimes instructions in character to the volunteers he co-opts into his act.

When I showed him the photos in the viewfinder he said he had to watch his skin because it is dark and he had to keep out of the sun.

Perspective Compression In Photography

Perspective compression or lens compression is a visual effect where distant and close objects appear closer together and more flattened in depth. So what compresses them?

Photograph a person’s face close up and the face will appear big compared to distant objects behind them. Those distant objects will appear small and far away. They may be so small that they are hidden behind the face.

Not only that but the outer parts of the face further from the lens than the nose will appear further away than is ‘natural’. The overall effect is to make the face look narrow and the nose big.

In other words, there is very little or no perspective compression or lens compression because the lens is very near the subject.

Lack of compression is not flattering in people but we don’t mind it is animals because we don’t have a strict idea of what the relative size of nose and ears and the curve of the face should be.

Front view of theace of a sheep close up

Lens Focal Length

So how, if at all, is perspective compression or lens compression affected by the focal length of a lens?

Long focal lengths create the appearance of compression. That is, subjects in the background appear larger and closer to the foreground, and depth seems flattened. This is not because of the focal length in itself.

It’s because to frame the subject the lens is going to be further away from the subject than a short focal length lens would be.

Short focal lengths create exaggerated perspective, background elements appear smaller and farther away, and depth is exaggerated. This is because the camera has to be nearer to the subject to frame the subject than would be the case with a long focal length lens.

What we get from this is that compression is a function of the distance between the camera and the subject, not directly because of the focal length. But focal length influences how far back you need to stand to frame the subject, which in turn affects compression.

Sensor Size

Sensor size doesn’t directly cause compression, but it affects the field of view for a given focal length. A crop sensor has a narrow field of view than a full-frame sensor used with a lens of the same focal length. Therefore we can use a shorter focal length with a smaller sensor to get the same field of view as a full-frame sensor.

Using Perspective Compression

Perspective compression in use means taking advantage of distance. To make a face look more attractive, shoot from a longer distance, which means using a longer focal length lens.

Typically, a full frame lens with a focal length in the region 135mm to 200mm will flatter a face.

With an APS-C sensor you would get the equivalent compression by using a lens of between 90mm and 135mm.

Cropping

What about cropping the image after you have taken it? For example, a camera with a full-frame equivalent 35mm lens can be cropped to the field of view equivalent of a longer focal length lens.

So what are the limits? The answer is that it the only limit is how many pixels are left. Too few and the image will be poor quality and useless as a photo even if it could be cropped to the equivalence of a longer focal length.

Starting with a 20MP sensor doesn’t leave many pixels left after cropping heavily. But a high megapixel sensor allows more cropping.

For example, the Fujifilm X100VI has a 35mm full-frame equivalent lens and a 40MP sensor, so it will take heavy cropping. Still, a camera that actually has a longer focal length doesn’t need cropping and doesn’t sacrifice any pixels, which is better.

A Practical Example

At some focal length the 17MP micro-four-thirds sensor on the Leica D-Lux 8 that has a zoom range of 24-75mm is going to overtake the pixel count of the cropped image of the 40MP sensor on the 35mm focal length of the Fujifilm X100VI. What is that point?

Short answer: it is at any focal length beyond 53.6mm.

Longer answer: The equivalence of the two sensors is about 1.53:1. Cropping the X100VI to simulate a focal length longer than 53.6mm (full-frame equivalent) results in fewer than 17 megapixels. That of course means that the Leica D-Lux 8 will produce a higher-resolution image beyond this point.

Acuity Is A Function Of Liner Distance

To calculate the megapixel relationship when cropping compares the areas of the sensors. But perceived sharpness or acuity is a function of linear distance, not of area.

Megapixels measure the total number of pixels. which is a measure of area resolution. When cropping, this drops off by the square of the crop factor.

Acuity relates to perceived sharpness or clarity. It is a function of linear resolution, which is the number of pixels per line or per millimetre across width or height that can be perceived.

After all, if you cannot see something as being sharper then for all intents and purposes it is not.

When comparing file sizes or printing then you care about megapixels because it defines the total detail across the image and sets limits on enlargement, cropping, etc.

When comparing sharpness at a specific display size or print size you care about linear resolution or acuity because your eye can only resolve so many lines per inch at a given distance.

While megapixels drop off quadratically, acuity or detail across an image dimension drops linearly with the crop. So we need to do a different calculation.

So looking at the linear distance across the sensor, the X100VI is 7728 pixels wide and the Leica is 4496 pixels wide at its maximum 4:3 aspect.

So the linear relationship is 1.72:1 and that equates to a focal length of 60mm before a photo from the Leica will look sharper, or out-resolves the fuji.