Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsProbably the last professional DSLR from Canon
Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2020
Update 5! Ownership of this camera has thrust me into a strange dream world. An unpopulated dream world. The streets are empty, no one is in the hallways at work, and both pollution and toilet paper have disappeared. It still takes nice pictures, but of an empty world.
Update 4! The underexposed pictures seem to be user error on my part. The new camera is a little different than the old one, and I didn't have the settings set the same was as my mark II, so I wasn't getting the pictures I expected.
Update 3! Still five stars, and yesterday's rugby game was canceled, so no new updates there. There was 900 pictures of anime cosplay today, and I feel like the camera underexposes in general, at least compared to previous iterations of the camera. The autofocus is still amazing. The frames per second puts this into Warthog territory (Brrrt). I never bent a pin on the nine previous cameras with CF cards I owned, but the new CFExpress cards seem much more robust then the CF cards, which is reassuring.
Update 2! Still five stars. I haven't had another sporting event, so no progress on getting the autofocus to feel as good as my 1D-X mark II during sporting events. Regular usage I can tell that this is a much better camera. I called 1-800-GO-CANON about the lack of a manual. I'm told that Canon will sell me a manual, and I was given a number to call. I'll be doing that, because I need a manual for this. It really should have come with it.
Update! I photographed a rugby game today. I now realize the manual isn't just "less well developed", it's not even really a manual. It's sort of an overview or outline of what might be in a real manual. It was absolutely useless out on the rugby field trying to figure something out. This is a complicated camera not to come with a real manual!
The autofocus on live view mode is very good. Not good enough to do sports photography with, but I'm sure Canon will figure that out eventually. The live view autofocus with a 600mm lens, and two 2x extenders was pretty good. When it lost focus, it really lost focus, and had to be manually brought back into line.
The new autofocus is very different in how it reacts and feels. At the start of the rugby game it felt much worse than my 1D X mark II autofocus. By the end of the game, I was getting closer to being happy with it, but with no real manual it was a difficult process to try and work my way through the various menus.
Original: I've only had it since yesterday. I have minor complaints. The bundled card reader only had a usb-c style connector on both ends. Most of my computers only have the older ("normal") usb connector. The only usb-c I have available is my laptop, which uses wireless, so it isn't very fast to download. The manual seems less well developed that what I'm used to from previous bodies.
Beyond that, the look and feel is what I expect, simply amazing. The menu system is improved, with numbers to indicate which menu I'm on, which is helpful when Canon support calls out menus by number but they aren't numbered and you have to hand count them. I tried some pictures in near total darkness and the highest ISO setting is simply appalling, but the camera took recognizable pictures of things I couldn't see, so I'm quite happy.
It is nice having two cards slots that use the same card. I sort of which I had an option for an SD card. One of my previous cameras had that, and when someone wanted me to take a picture with their camera I would, but I'd also swap their card in and take one with my camera too, onto their card.
Mirrorless is the future, and this camera is reportedly a testbed for pro-level mirrorless, so I expect this will be the last DSLR of this type made by Canon.