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Double Lightest: Canon launches its lightest-ever mirrorless camera and lightest-ever RF lens

By Trevor Tan - on 29 May 2023, 2:22pm

Double Lightest: Canon launches its lightest-ever mirrorless camera and lightest-ever RF lens

The Canon EOS R100 (Image source: Canon)

Japanese imaging giant Canon has unveiled its entry-level mirrorless camera, Eos R100. It is the smallest, lightest and most affordable EOS R mirrorless camera, according to Canon. 

Priced at only S$729 (body only) and weighing only 356g (body only with battery and memory card) or the weight of a can of Coke, the R100 has to shed some features to get to this humble price tag and low weight.

Canon does so arming the R100 with the 24.1-megapixel APS-C image sensor and DIGIC 8 image processor of Canon EOS M50 Mark II launched three years ago. By comparison, the popular mirrorless EOS R7 comes with a 32.5-megapixel APS-C CMOS image sensor and the Digic X image processor. 

The R100 also comes with a modest 2.36-million-dot electronic viewfinder with a slow refresh rate of only 60 frames per second (fps) as well as a fixed 3-inch non-touchscreen display. 

Furthermore, the R100 uses a lighter and cheaper single rear-curtain mechanical shutter. The compromise is a less-than-stellar maximum shooting speed of 6.5fps, compared to R7's 30fps. It also lacks in-body image stabilisation. 

In addition, from press photos, it looks like there is no rear joystick that helps with navigating through menus or changing autofocusing (AF) points intuitively. However, the R100 does support Face+ Tracking AF and Eye Detection, so you can get people’s faces in focus easily.

If everything sounds like a compromise, it actually is. But at least it will be gentle on your wallet – relatively speaking, of course. 

The Canon RF28mm f/2.8 STM (Image source: Canon)

Alongside the EOS R100, Canon also launched its lightest, thinnest and smallest RF lens with the RF 28mm f/2.8 STM. It is Canon's first "pancake" prime lens for RF mount. Pancake lenses are so-called due to their resemblance to a flat and round pancake. While it is undeniably compact and light, it's usually a fixed lens design – meaning it can't zoom.

Weighing only 120g and measuring less than 2.5cm long, it makes for the ideal companion lens to the R100 for street photography with its wide-angle fixed focal length of 28mm. Talk about pairing the lightest camera with the lightest lens.

 

Pricing and availability

The Canon EOS R100 is priced at S$729. You can pair it with the RF S18-45mm f/4.5-6.3 STM kit lens for just S$889. The EOS R 100 will go on sale on 20 June 2023. 

The Canon RF 28mm f/2.8 STM lens is S$459 and will go on sale on 4 July 2023.

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