The Canon EOS R5 Mark II is the camera you buy when you don’t want to choose. Landscapes, weddings, birds, sports, 8K video. It handles all of it, at a level that only stacked-sensor flagships could reach a few years ago.

The original R5 from 2020 was already a big hit. It also had a reputation problem: 8K video that overheated. The Mark II, released in mid-2024, fixes that and changes the sensor underneath. It’s a 45MP back-side illuminated stacked CMOS chip, so the camera reads out much faster. That one change ripples through everything else the camera does.

The Canon EOS R50 is the camera Canon built for people who’ve been shooting on a phone and want more. It’s tiny, it’s cheap, it focuses very well and it’s simple to use. Released in early 2023, it became one of the best-selling interchangeable-lens cameras in the world, and for good reason.

Canon has since released the R50 V, a viewfinder-less, vlogging-focused version. The original R50 is still the better pick for most beginners because it keeps the eye-level viewfinder that makes shooting outdoors so much easier.

Some cameras win on a headline spec. The Canon EOS R6 Mark II wins by not losing anywhere. It’s fast, it focuses brilliantly, it handles well and it shoots clean 4K at 60p from the full sensor. Since its launch in late 2022 it has been the camera Canon shooters point their friends to when they ask what to buy.

It also has a sequel now. The R6 Mark III arrived in late 2025. That makes the Mark II a discounted, proven body, and there’s a strong case that it’s the better buy for most people.

The R6 Mark II’s one real weakness was resolution. Twenty-four megapixels is plenty for most jobs, but it left little room to crop. The Canon EOS R6 Mark III, announced in November 2025 at $2,799 for the body, fixes that with a new 32.5MP back-side illuminated sensor. Then it adds something no R6 has had before: internal raw video.

That makes it a different kind of camera. The Mark II was the do-everything bargain. The Mark III is closer to a small R5, at a price to match.

The Canon EOS R7 is Canon’s enthusiast APS-C camera, and the one wildlife and sports shooters keep coming back to. It launched in May 2022 at $1,499 for the body with a 32.5MP APS-C sensor, 15 frames per second with the mechanical shutter, and in-body stabilization. The APS-C crop gives every lens 1.6 times more reach, which is exactly what birders want.

Put Canon’s RF 100-400mm on it and you get the field of view of a 640mm lens for very little money. That combination alone sold a lot of R7s.

The Canon EOS R8 has a simple pitch. Take the sensor, processor and autofocus from the R6 Mark II, put them in a much smaller and cheaper body, and leave out the expensive extras. It launched in early 2023 at $1,499 for the body, about $1,000 less than the R6 II, and weighs about 461 grams with battery and card.

That makes it one of the cheapest ways into modern full-frame, and one of the lightest.

Most telephoto zooms that reach 400mm cost thousands and weigh well over a kilo. The Canon RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM costs about $650 and weighs around 635 grams. It’s light enough to carry on a hike, cheap enough to buy on a whim, and a lot sharper than the price suggests.

That’s why it became one of Canon’s most popular RF lenses. It’s the default “first long lens” for R50, R10, R8 and R6 Mark II owners who want to try birds, kids’ sports or airshows without committing serious money.

For years, a fast f/2.8 standard zoom on Canon’s RF mount meant one thing: the big, expensive RF 24-70mm f/2.8 L. The Canon RF 28-70mm F2.8 IS STM, launched in September 2024 at $1,099, changed that. It’s compact, it’s stabilized, it’s sealed against weather to Canon’s L-series standard, and it costs less than half as much.

It’s the lens Canon owners had asked for, especially those with smaller bodies like the R8 and R6 Mark II, and one Sony and Nikon owners had long enjoyed from Tamron.

The Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 DC DN Contemporary is the lens to buy after the kit lens. It covers the same range as most APS-C kit zooms, roughly 27-75mm in full-frame terms, and it does it at a constant f/2.8. That’s up to two stops more light than a typical f/3.5-5.6 kit zoom at the long end, in a lens that weighs only about 290 grams.

Sigma launched it in 2021 for Sony E-mount and L-Mount. Fujifilm X-mount followed in 2023, and Canon RF-mount in 2024 when Canon opened its APS-C mount to Sigma. That makes it one of the few lenses you can buy for nearly every APS-C system covered on this site.