As I hinted at in yesterday’s podcast, Canon Rumours has now posted my extensive field report on the Canon EOS R1 from my time in Antarctica, photographing Emperor Penguins earlier this month (December 2024).

Canon EOS R1 Field Report from Antarctica: A Wildlife Photographer’s Perspective

Backstory: I have been a full-time professional Nature and wildlife photographer for almost thirty years (www.jholko.com). I have specialised in Polar and sub-polar photography and have made over 100 expeditions to both the Arctic and Antarctic. I have owned and shot nearly every single 1-series Canon Camera since the original EOS 1n and EOS 1n RS. I resisted the shift to digital for many years (I was in love with transparency film then) and only committed to digital cameras when the original EOS 5D was released. The instant feedback from the histogram made me an immediate convert, and I sold off my film cameras shortly thereafter. After the 5D, I owned and shot the EOS 1D MK3, Mk4, 1DS MKII and MKIII and the 1DX MKI, MKII and MKIII. I still own an EOS R5 and EOS R5 MKII (although I rarely use them) and owned and shot two EOS R3’s from their release until I purchased and took delivery of two of Canon’s new EOS R1 flagship cameras a month or so ago (the first delivered in Australia). I purchased all of these cameras with my own money. Although Canon has supported me for many years in various ways, they have never gifted me cameras or lenses. Nor have I ever asked them for free equipment. We have a professional business supplier relationship, and I prefer to keep it that way.

This report isn’t a full review of the Canon EOS R1. There are plenty of those online, and the world doesn’t need another. Nor is this meant to be a performance review of everything the R1 is capable of. Rather, this is a field report on my experiences and impressions shooting with the EOS R1 and how it performed for my needs in one of Earth’s most remote and hostile places.

For nature and wildlife photographers, the Canon EOS R1 represents a quantum leap forward in technology. The camera enables the photographer to successfully capture images that were either impossible or extremely difficult beforehand. This enabling is primarily due to the combination of pre-capture, phenomenal high ISO performance, and the 40 fps RAW shooting offered by the EOS R1. However, the story runs much deeper than just pre-capture, ISO performance, and frame rate, and some context is necessary to better understand this report.

I recently returned from a two-week (early December 2024) extreme camping expedition on the frozen sea ice of Gould Bay in the Weddell Sea region of Antarctica. To the best of my knowledge, this was the first time anyone had taken Canon’s new flagship EOS R1 to Antarctica, and it was undoubtedly the first time anyone had photographed Emperor Penguins on the frozen sea ice with the camera. This expedition aimed to photograph Emperor penguins and their young chicks at the world’s most southerly colony before the colony disbanded for the season and went to sea. The timing of the expedition was early December, which proved ideal as the chicks were off their parent’s feet and highly active in the colony. This timing provided plenty of action and the ideal hostile environment to field test Canon’s new flagship camera.

I should preface this article further by stating that my experience and opinions are based on actual real-world usage. For over a week, I camped in a tent on the frozen sea ice at Gould Bay, deep in the Weddell Sea region of Antarctica. To access this location, I flew by private charter plane from Chile to Union Glacier deep in Antarctica. I then took another charter Basler aircraft another three hours out onto the frozen sea ice at Gould Bay. Here, we established a camp on the sea ice from which I would walk the roughly two-kilometre return route across the ice to the main colony daily. At this time of year, and this far south, the sun remains high, providing 24-hour daylight to photograph. Typically, I chose to photograph at night when the sun was lower, and the light was soft and ethereal. Overcast days were preferred as bright sunny days result in overly strong contrast and an extreme dynamic range that blows out the white feathers on the penguins. The sea ice of Gould Bay is about as remote and extreme a location as to be found anywhere on Earth. It was the perfect testing ground for the new flagship EOS R1. These are my opinions after a real-world expedition (not a zoo visit or Nature walk). Based on this experience with the EOS R1s on sea ice, I can confidently report that this camera is a game-changer for wildlife photography in extreme environments.

Build Quality, Durability and Ergonomics

The EOS R1 is built like a tank. Like all of Canon’s 1-series cameras, it feels as if you could hammer nails with it. Years ago, with near-frozen fingers, I dropped a 1-series from the open door of a helicopter as I was coming in to land at Fox Glacier in the South Island of New Zealand. The camera bounced across the rock-hard ice before coming to rest in a small melt pool. On landing (and after some swearing), I retrieved the camera, screwed a lens on it and went straight back to photographing the ice formations. Other than a few cosmetic knocks, the camera never missed a beat. While I have not dropped the EOS R1 from a helicopter, I accidentally dropped it on some glacial ice in Antarctica from eye level while fumbling with my phone. Other than some choice words at the time, no damage was done. While I would never advocate deliberately dropping any camera, the EOS R1 does match up with its ancestors in build quality and durability, and not much more needs to be said. It is quite literally built for a warzone. The EOS R1 is undoubtedly the toughest tool in Canon’s arsenal and the ideal camera for any unforgiving environment. I would not hesitate to take this camera anywhere for any assignment or project.

On the Antarctic sea ice, where temperatures can plummet well below freezing, the magnesium alloy body and weather-sealing performed flawlessly for the duration of the expedition. Despite heavy snow, strong winds, and exposure to saltwater spray, the cameras never faltered. Although I have yet to test them, there is no reason to believe that the EOS R1s will not perform equally well in extremely hot and humid environments. I found the new textured rubber on the EOS R1 to be a small improvement over the EOS R3 and 1DXMK3. The difference in the hand is subtle, but the camera feels solid in the hand (even with gloves on). In practical use, I didn’t notice the slight increase in weight over the EOS R3.

I have long maintained that camera ergonomics are significantly more important than megapixels. If a camera’s controls do not fall intuitively under the fingers, then the photographer is going to struggle with making quick, creative changes on the fly. When this happens, the photographer is going to have to stop thinking about the subject in front of them and start thinking about how they are going to make the required changes to the camera’s settings. In other words, they will have to work as a technician rather than an artist. In my experience, it is vital to free up your brain in the field from the limiting constraints of the camera’s controls so that you can work freely and creatively as an artist. The moment you have to stop in the field and think about what you are doing ‘technically’ with the camera is the moment you are no longer being creative. Many photographers never reach this point as they upgrade their cameras too often and never learn to master the tools they already own. Learning to work the camera’s controls with muscle memory is a critical skill that will improve your photography without bounds. One of the keys to mastering your camera’s controls and developing muscle memory of your camera’s controls is how you interact with your camera’s ergonomics.

I have large hands and find that the buttons on the EOS R1 fall naturally under my fingers without the need to stretch or reach and without having to think about where my fingers fall on the camera. Camera ergonomics are highly personal and much depends on your hand size and personal preferences for button location. In my case, the EOS R1 is perfect for my hand size, with the buttons falling naturally under my fingers. If you are considering adding an EOS R1 (or any new camera) to your equipment list, I encourage you to test drive first to see how the ergonomics work for you. By comparison, I find the buttons on both my R5 cameras to be too close together, and I struggle with these cameras as a result (especially with gloves on). It is also why I dislike Sony cameras. The buttons are too small and placed too closely together for my sized hands. The ergonomics of Sony cameras don’t work for me, making them a non-starter.

Image Quality

The R1’s 24MP full-frame sensor delivers stunning detail, dynamic range, and colour fidelity. Emperor penguins are a challenging subject, with their striking black-and-white contrasting feathers, subtle colour tones and finely detailed feathers. The R1 rendered these nuances beautifully, capturing the ultra-fine texture of their feathers and the delicate yellow gradations of their upper feathers. High ISO and IBIS performance were another standout feature, allowing me to shoot handheld when I wanted to slow shutter speed without sacrificing image quality. This expedition was not the best test for high ISO performance with 24-hour daylight and highly reflective ice and snow. It was never necessary to set the camera to anything more than ISO400. If you are interested in the high ISO performance of the R1 I encourage you to read the detailed article I wrote on how this camera performs and how it sets a new standard for high ISO performance.

Canon EOS R1 – Canon EOS R5 MKII Noise Reduction Pre-sets

Although I have no scientific data to back this up, there appears to be a purity and depth of colour to the EOS R1’s 14-bit RAW files that I have only seen before in much more expensive medium format files. I have not done direct side-by-side testing and base this opinion on decades of user experience with Canon cameras in the Polar regions. I would need to do significant side-by-side testing to verify if there is a quantifiable scientific improvement. Nevertheless, there appears to be an improvement in colour purity in the new 14 bit RAW files. YMMV.

Autofocus and Speed

One of the most critical aspects of wildlife photography is autofocus performance, where the R1 truly excels. The new AI-powered Dual Pixel CMOS AF II system can lock onto a penguin’s small black eyes against their black feathers even as they waddle across uneven ice or huddle together during low visibility and snowfall conditions. This is an extremely difficult task, as the black eye of the Emperor penguin is extremely small and virtually indistinguishable from the black feathers that surround it. With the camera set to AI Servo and eye tracking turned on, the tracking was near-flawless, even with small chicks partially obscured by adults or driving snow. Only once did I make any adjustment to the focus tracking during heavy snowfall when I found it necessary to shift the Autofcous to being more ‘locked-on’ to avoid it grabbing the falling snow. Shooting at 40 fps with the electronic shutter allowed me to capture penguins interacting together and never miss the decisive moment. 40 fps, whilst excessive in many situations, does give the photographer the ability to pick the decisive moment during the editing process. The addition of Pre-capture ensures nothing is missed. ‘I wasn’t quick enough on the shutter’ is no longer a valid excuse.

Battery Life

Battery life was another area where the R1 excelled. Even in sub-zero conditions, where battery performance typically suffers, I could shoot for three days and put more than 4000 images on my memory card before the camera called for a new battery. For a multi-day expedition on the sea ice, in freezing conditions, this battery performance was invaluable. Over the course of the entire week’s shoot on the sea ice, I only changed the battery once in each camera. That is phenomenal performance. I did shoot some video over the course of the week, but my emphasis was on stills. I expect battery life will vary with extensive movie shooting.

Movie Shooting

Although I shot small video snippets while in Antarctica, I want to be clear that I am not a videographer and am very much a stills-only photographer. Video shooting was confined to small 4K High Frame Rate snippets that I transferred to my phone on location with the Canon Camera Connect app to share with family and friends. Nevertheless, I was impressed with the video quality and features of the R1. Dedicated videographers will no doubt already know if the R1 is fit for their purpose.

Usability

The R1’s control layout and interface are intuitive and highly customisable. With gloves on, the buttons and dials were still easy to operate. However, you must choose gloves carefully to maintain the back-button focus’s touch capability. It has been my experience that many touch-sensitive gloves do not work with the Canon touch-sensitive AF button. I recommend you try any gloves before you buy. I found a pair of 66º North touch liner gloves that worked best after trialling over a dozen different types of gloves.

The new EVF provided a clear, natural viewing experience crucial for tracking fast-moving subjects. Although penguins move slowly on land, I appreciated the bright viewfinder when tracking the much faster-moving South Polar Skuas. Historically, I have always preferred optical viewfinders over electronic. The R1 is the first camera I have used where the electronic viewfinder is as good as a high-quality optical viewfinder, such as that found in the 1DX MK3. I have never been a fan of articulating LCD screens, but confess the screen was useful for shooting from low angles.

Weather-Sealed Lenses

Pairing the R1 with Canon’s RF lenses, such as the RF 14-35mm f/4, 600mm f/4 and RF 70-200mm f/2.8, provided a lightweight and weatherproof kit ideal for the Antarctic environment. The optical quality of these lenses complemented the camera’s sensor, delivering edge-to-edge sharpness, ultra-fine detail in the penguin feathers and creamy bokeh in portraits of penguins.

A Word on Megapixels

There has been much scuttlebutt online about the EOS R1’s 24-megapixel sensor being insufficient in today’s world. In my experience and line of work as a Nature and wildlife photographer, 24 megapixels is more than sufficient. Anything over 24 typically becomes a storage headache for the tens of thousands of images I shoot annually.

Throughout my career, I have frequently made and sold prints as large as 40 x 60 and 60 x 90 inches from 24-megapixel files, and not once in more than thirty years have I ever had a client say to me that they wish the print had ‘more resolution.’ Outside of bragging rights, the usage case for more than 24 megapixels is extremely small. Anything online requires no more than eight megapixels, and social media (where the majority of photographs seem to end up these days) doesn’t even need that. Making a book? 10-14 megapixels has you more than covered for all but the largest table books. To my mind, the only actual argument for more than 24 megapixels is cropping power, and typically, it has been my experience that if I need to crop that heavily, then it probably was not a very good photograph, to begin with, and I should probably move on to a different image.

It is also important to remember that the way we consume photographs is not at 100% magnification on a screen (that is how we pixel-peep them) but scaled to the resolution of the display device we are viewing them on. Twenty-four megapixels was, to my mind, the perfect choice for the Canon EOS R1 as it provides all the resolution photographers need in combination with incredible high ISO performance. For those who still feel they ‘need’ more resolution then Canon offers the EOR R5 MKII. You can have your cake and eat it, too.

In my recent testing and development of the EOS R1 (and R5 MKII) Noise Reduction pre-sets, I concluded that the EOS R1 has a realistic, workable high ISO limit of 25,600. This incredible performance would not be possible if the camera had a higher megapixel sensor. Sure, you can pixel bin a higher-resolution file to reduce the noise, but then what was the point of the extra resolution if you are just going to throw it away anyway?

Canon EOS R1 – Canon EOS R5 MKII Noise Reduction Pre-sets

Areas for Improvement

While the R1 is close to perfect, there are a few areas where I’d love to see refinement. The menu system, though improved, still feels dense, and it took time to navigate certain settings. The learning curve is steep (especially if you also shoot video), and this camera will likely be intimidating to the newcomer. Additionally, the inability to directly assign pre-capture to a multi-function button is a current limitation, easily rectified by a future firmware update. My workaround was to assign pre-capture to the custom shooting mode ‘C-1’. Although this is easier to access than ‘My Menu’, it still takes more than one button press and is thus sub-optimal. Wildlife photographers will want and need to turn pre-capture on and off quickly (and frequently) and the ability to assign this function to a multi-function button would be ideal. Other than that small niggle, I found nothing wanting in the R1’s performance. It is as close to perfect and fit fur purpose as I have yet experienced for wildlife and nature photography.

Conclusion

The Canon EOS R1 is a dream camera for nature and wildlife photographers. Its rugged durability, cutting-edge autofocus and exceptional image quality (even at high ISO) make it ideally suited for extreme environments like the Polar regions. The addition of pre-capture and 40 FPS RAW ensures you will never miss the action.

This report reflects my experiences with the camera’s capabilities photographing Emperor Penguins in the unforgiving conditions of Antarctica and showcases its strengths in wildlife photography in harsh environments. In early January of next year, I will take both EOS R1 cameras to the far east and west of Mongolia on two back-to-back wildlife trips for Pallas Cat and Snow Leopard. Temperatures this time of year will be well below -20º Celsius and could dip as low as -40º. I have no doubt the EOS R1 will handle this with aplomb.