The Canon EOS R8 in the hands of pros

From sun-kissed video montages to moody fashion shoots, street portraits to action-packed family travels, the Canon EOS R8 is a great all-rounder for a variety of photo and video shoots. It's an incredibly lightweight mirrorless camera (the lightest full-frame camera that Canon has produced at the time of its release), yet delivers impressive full-frame features.

Three photographers who tested the EOS R8 shortly before its release were French-Thai documentary photographer and Canon Ambassador Aline Deschamps, who shot video and still street scenes on the seafront in Tripoli, Lebanon; British fashion photographer Ian Hippolyte, who particularly pushed its fast burst speed and low-light capabilities in a gritty fashion shoot; and Portuguese documentary family photographer Marisa Martins, who used it in sessions where the camera's light weight and ease of operation enabled her to react quickly to capture children's playful movements and expressions. Here we reveal the stories of the shoots, and the camera features that brought them to life.

Documentary photographer Aline is passionate about challenging stereotypes and showing the different sides of a story, place or people in her work, so took the EOS R8 to the seafront in Tripoli, where she captured beautiful video and stills of everyday life and interactions, showing people gathering with friends, children enjoying fairground rides and street sellers amid classical architecture.

To capture the full story, Aline mixed still portraits packed with depth and vibrant colours with video footage of children playing, food sellers preparing delicious dishes and more. Often, she captured photos and video of the same subject, using the switch on top of the EOS R8 to change between the two modes even more quickly than on the EOS R5 she usually works with. "I think the strength of cameras like the EOS R5 and the EOS R8 is that they're really strong in both stills and video and it's easy to switch between the two," she says. "This makes them so versatile – you can capture one shot and then one second after you can shoot a three-minute video."

Ian, who is typically a Canon EOS R5 user, tested the EOS R8 on a fashion shoot in a location that he'd wanted to work in for a while – a ruined former chapel, with distressed stonework and stained glass windows, which made for a moody low-light aesthetic. He combined the gritty location with feminine dresses paired with chunky boots and accessories to mirror the edgier side of the backdrops, which then influenced the poses that he directed the models to make.

The feel of Ian's final shots was also led by the personalities of his two models, who he spent time getting to know and responding to during the shoot. "I could see that they had different styles, different vibes. We had the two dresses and I assigned each one a sort of character," he says. "For the model in the yellow dress we did some shots that had a bit more attitude to them, but then we decided to go with a lot more movement. So she was moving and spinning around the space, and we had smoke, and that was when the sun was coming through the window. Then with the second model, it was a lot more edgy. She had the gloves and the zebra boots and it was a bit more high fashion and had a bit more attitude to it."

Both parts of the shoot presented creative and technical challenges, which the EOS R8 helped to solve. To freeze movement and capture that perfect frame of the first model twirling, Ian took advantage of the EOS R8's fast burst speed, which can capture up to 40fps using the electronic shutter. This, in combination with the AI autofocus with eye detection, gave him an excellent hit rate of sharp shots from the full-frame sensor. "It meant that I could focus on directing the model and on seeing what the movement looked like, take a burst of shots and then check back to see if we got it," he says. "So that helped the flow of the shoot to keep going, to run smoothly."

Whereas Ian's shoots riff off his creative input and direction, Marisa's family documentary photography is very much led by its main protagonists – the children – and their activities. She has been able to capture several sessions with the EOS R8, including a day with one of her regular clients, close to home in Lisbon, then following the same family on holiday in Marrakech, and even taking it on her own family holiday to Italy. Her style of working sees her following families from morning until night, trying to make herself and her kit invisible in order to capture genuine moments of connection, rather than posed shots with "unrealistic" perfect hair and spotless clothing.

Echoing Aline and Ian, Marisa has found the camera's small size and light weight ideal for these purposes. She adds that it helps her to continue shooting everywhere that the family needs to go that day. "Imagine I go to a supermarket and I'm photographing the family shopping. I don't want people to come and say, 'Oh, you cannot take photos here because you are a professional'. The EOS R8 is smaller, and it's more discreet, but with the same quality that I'm used to from my EOS R6."

Marisa's documentary style means that she works exclusively with available light, whether that's overcast daylight, unflattering strip lights or dim lamplight at bedtime, "so I have to have a great tool to capture this," she says. "I have to feel comfortable whatever the light, whatever situation I'm in today, as I don't know what's going to happen." The EOS R8 has coped well with many low-light conditions, with Marisa shooting at higher ISOs but seeing no grain when she processes the images. The camera also delivers the colours that made her choose Canon cameras over other brands. "My heart truly melts with the Canon colours – I like real and natural photographs and that's the only way I can achieve the tones that match what my eye sees," she says.

For Marisa, authenticity is key, so capturing split-second, spontaneous moments is a big part of her brief. The EOS R8's intelligent autofocus with face detection helped her to capture more of those moments with ease. "Sometimes the moment is so fast that in the past I've failed to focus – it's been impossible, particularly in low light, even after 10 years as a family specialist. But now, the EOS R8 follows and tracks subjects wherever they go, so I always have the focus on them. It's amazing to me," she says. Marisa frequently prints her photographs for display, for clients and for entering contests, so high-resolution, sharp image files with high dynamic range and faithful skin tones and colours are crucial.


The EOS R8's light weight belies its versatility, with the camera proving it can succeed in a range of situations where once you may have needed a larger body. Paired with fast RF lenses, it's easy to have a feature-packed, high-quality tool in your bag at all times.