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The Canon EOS R1 isn’t a camera – it’s a supercomputer that takes photographs
James Artaius
25 September 2025
A year on, the Canon EOS R1 is still the best pro camera on the market
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The Canon EOS R1 paired with the RF 100-500mm lens is a ferocious combo
(Image credit: James Artaius)
It’s easy to forget just how good the Canon EOS R1 is. Especially when you haven’t used it for a while – or if you’ve only ever read reviews on the internet.
It’s been well over a year since I first used the Canon EOS R1, when I flew out to Germany in July 2024 to test it ahead of its November launch. I was positively awestruck by what this camera can do – every bit of bleeding-edge tech that the company’s engineers could come up with, they put into this camera.
I recently took the Canon EOS R1 out with a handful of pro lenses (if you’ve never used it, the RF 100-500mm is an absolute beast) to shoot some client work, and it reminded me – this really is the best pro camera you can buy.
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If you haven’t read my proselytizing about Canon’s AI features in this camera, I’ll give you the crib notes. The Canon EOS R1 debuted the manufacturer’s Neural network Image Processing features, chief among them the ability to upscale images in-camera with no loss of quality.
This enables the 24.2MP sensor to produce 96MP images (currently JPEG and HEIF only, though this is appropriate for a pro sports camera).
Canon EOS R1 + RF 70-200mm f/2.8L: A scale comparison of the original 24.2MP / 4,000 x 6,000 / 7.29MB image (left) and the upscaled 96MP / 8,000 x 12,000 / 21.86MB image (right) (Image credit: James Artaius)
Now, let’s be clear: this doesn’t mean that the Canon EOS R1 fires off 96MP shots at the drop of a hat. The files need to be upscaled after the fact, and it takes a few seconds to process them. The idea isn’t for the R1 to be a high-resolution camera, because that’s not what it’s supposed to do.
Primarily, this is for those shots when your subject doesn’t quite fill the frame – perhaps a bird in flight, when your lens isn’t quite long enough, or when you want to isolate a single sprinter in a race – enabling you to crop into your shot and then upscale it back to a high-resolution image.
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And of course, if you’re on an assignment and then somebody wants to use one of your shots on a billboard or a poster or a magazine spread, you can upscale any shot just to give it as much detail as possible.
The Canon EOS R1’s other cool party trick when it comes to neural net processing is the ability to denoise images in-camera by two stops. Perfect for when you’re forced to shoot at high ISOs and need to clean your shots up – or even when you’ve had to push your sensitivity ever so slightly, and you just want the best results possible.
Want more reasons why the Canon EOS R1 is an epic tool for professionals? The autofocus. Now, I’ve used all the pro sports bodies – but as amazing as the AF is on the Sony A9 III and the Nikon Z9, nothing can touch Canon’s autofocus. This camera is so clever, it literally knows when two basketball players are performing an alley-oop and keeps the right one in focus:
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The Canon EOS R1’s Action Priority feature tracks the player with the ball, then the one catching the ball, during an alley oop play (Image credit: James Artaius)
It’s thanks to the addition of a dedicated autofocus processor, which works in tandem with the primary Digic X processor to power Canon’s Dual Pixel Intelligent AF – which possesses predictive autofocus for sports like basketball and soccer. Again, other companies have predictive AF, but Canon’s is the only one that has never predicted the wrong thing when I’ve used it.
Every camera has crazy burst speeds these days, so the 40fps continuous shooting on the Canon EOS R1 may not sound super exciting – especially when the A9 III rattles off 120fps. But hand on heart, that’s just overkill.
Every professional sports or wildlife photographer I’ve asked has scoffed at speeds like that, the consensus being that 120fps is actually for spray-and-pray amateurs; pros don’t need it, because they know what they’re doing. Even 40fps is excessive, but it’s probably the high end of the sweet spot.
Weather sealing, rugged build quality, crazy stabilization, fantastic ergonomics, super-long battery life, connectivity… the Canon EOS R1 ticks every box a professional could need. Though of course, it comes with a reassuringly high price tag – as pro cameras do.
Most people don’t need this camera – it’s not for the masses or the vloggers on YouTube. But if you make money with your camera photographing action, newsgathering or shooting for agencies, the Canon EOS R1 is for you. It’s fine-tuned for professionals, for professional use and professional workflows. And if I had to buy a new pro camera tomorrow, it would be this one.
(Image credit: James Artaius)
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Check out the best lenses for the Canon EOS R1 and see how it compares to the best cameras for sports photography and the best professional cameras from other brands.
James Artaius
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Editor in Chief
James has 25 years experience as a journalist, serving as the head of Digital Camera World for 7 of them. He started working in the photography industry in 2014, product testing and shooting ad campaigns for Olympus, as well as clients like Aston Martin Racing, Elinchrom and L’Oréal. An Olympus / OM System, Canon and Hasselblad shooter, he has a wealth of knowledge on cameras of all makes – and he loves instant cameras, too.
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