I’m a Professional Photojournalist and cover a lot of sports and action events. I Recently sold my older Canon 5D MK III and bought this as a replacement. What a great camera this is. I cannot complain at all. It has most of the bells and whistles as the R6 Mk II, and it suits my needs. (I am looking to get an R6 Mk II as a primary camera soon. Mostly for the weather sealing) The focusing and tracking are outstanding. It grabs a person, object, animal and hangs on like glue. Meanwhile I am firing away on the shutter. My keeper rate is around 8 out of 10 images. Wicked fast in my opinion. It also has a lot of other features suited more for video, blogging, etc. So people looking for an all-around tool to create, this is it!

TLDR: This camera is an absolute POWERHOUSE and I plan to use it as my main camera for many years and I personally recommend this to absolutely anyone that is looking for a camera in this price range.

I started this hobby in 2020 with the EOS RP and absolutely adored it for taking pictures, however, once I started to get more into Videography I began to notice its downsides. Photos on the camera were basically perfect, but the Rolling Shutter and overall lack of video features really hurt my enjoyment of that camera.

The EOS R8 completely fixes these issues.

Although the RP was great for shooting portraits and slow-moving subjects it definitely started to fall apart as soon as you needed to take any kind of “Action Photos” such as Kids or Animals running around or fast-paced sports due to the extremely slow FPS when Continuous Auto-focus engaged (roughly 3FPS and up to 6 without Continuous AF). On the R8 you can get up to 40FPS In Electronic Shutter with FULL AF capabilities, which is absolutely insane when coming from the RP and even when comparing it to other cameras at much higher price points. The Electronic Shutter does exhibit a bit of rolling shutter, but I wouldn’t worry too much about it unless you primarily take photos of extremely quick-moving subjects such as Tennis players swinging their rackets, Golfers Swinging their clubs, or anything else that would be moving at extreme speeds. But even in these scenarios, you will likely be fine simply due to the sensor having an incredibly quick read-out.

The video quality is also MASSIVELY improved on the R8. The video on the RP was usable at 1080p but the rolling shutter and complete lack of Dual-pixel AF made 4k completely useless and made it feel more like a feature that was “tacked on” rather than properly implemented. The other issues such as the rather low bitrate, complete lack of any LOG profiles, and the 1.76x crop factor in 4K made me actively avoid using the camera for Video in many situations.

On the other hand, the R8 has an incredible amount of recording modes compared to the RP, offering uncropped full-frame 4K60 video, 180fps 1080p Slo-mo, C-LOG3, and HDR PQ, as well as a “Movie Crop” mode that crops into the sensor essentially giving you the FOV of a Canon APS-C Camera. Using this mode you will not lose any video quality since the camera is binning the cropped 4K image from the 6K resolution of said sensor. I personally find myself using this mode a ton as the extra reach I get from my lenses is extremely useful and helps when I’m trying to record the action from a rather far distance.
I should also note that Rolling Shutter in video mode is still present, but it is so minor that I would not personally consider it as a reason to not buy the camera.

The main cons that people seem to have with the R8 are the lack of IBS (In-body Image Stabilization), relatively low Frame Rate when taking photos using the Electronic First-Curtain Shutter (6FPS), and the poor battery life from the Canon LP-E17 Battery which the EOS RP also used.
My personal opinions and experiences with these cons are as follows

Lack of IBS: It definitely would have been nice to have, but since I’ve never owned a camera with IBS I’m not too sure what I’m missing out on. I’ve also heard that Canon’s IBS implementation isn’t as good as some other companies and it allegedly exhibits a sort of “wobble effect” on the edges of the image when using a Wide Angle Lens. The R8 does offer Digital Stabilization for video which simply crops into the image to stabilize the footage. This feature is pretty decent, however, the stabilization causes the image to lock onto a moving subject and subtly moves the image around to keep the subject in the frame. It’s hard to explain but think of those popular TikToks where the person is dancing and the camera keeps them perfectly in frame. This anomaly goes away however once you turn this stabilization off.

Low FPS when in Electronic First-Curtain shutter mode: I almost always shoot in Electronic Shutter due to how fast the readout is and the more or less complete lack of Rolling Shutter. I would only consider this an issue if your primary shooting subjects are extremely fast-moving and you cannot risk any kind of rolling shutter but honestly, if you are in the market for truly professional features and selling points you just won’t find it in this price range. Not yet at least.

Finally, the Battery Capacity: It’s not great, but it’s far from being a deal breaker. I’ve taken upwards of 500 pictures in Electronic Shutter and still wasn’t required to change the battery. You should be able to get around an hour out of recording before the battery dies. You can also buy a dummy battery to increase the record time. Though, the camera CAN overheat if you are recording at 4K60 for an extended period of time (roughly 30 minutes straight).

Like I said in my TLDR, this camera is incredible and the only cons the community has with the camera should most definitely not deter you from buying it.

I decided to get a little more serious with my picture taking and upgrade my set up from asp-c dsl camera to full frame mirrorless.
I love that it has the capabilities of canons newest more expensive cameras but for $1000 less.
Smaller battery, only 1 memory card slot, and no in body stabilization. Was worth saving 1000 for me.
If I was more professional and made a living off of photography, I wouldn’t use this as a main camera one memory slot would just give me so much anxiety worrying about corrupting the memory card. As a secondary camera I would.

That being said I have never had a corrupted file with this camera. Just don’t go cheap on memory cards.
As for the smaller battery I just have 3 for outdoor sessions. For indoor I can just plug it in.