All good things must come to an end. And so it is that Canon has quietly started sunsetting the Canon EOS RP in Asia, first indicated by the "Sales ended" tag on the official Canon Japan store listing.
While the RP hasn't yet officially moved to the company's discontinued products listing, and though it's still being sold by both Canon USA and Canon UK, this is the first indication that the svelte mirrorless camera is being Old Yellered.
With Canon Japan having exhausted its inventory, it's only a matter of time before stocks are gone elsewhere in the world – so if you've been thinking about getting one, now is the time.
This marks the end of the first generation of EOS R cameras (following the original Canon EOS R) – but, for me personally, it's also the end of the first Canon mirrorless camera that I truly fell in love with.
The R System wasn't Canon's first mirrorless foray, of course; that was the APS-C-only M System. But while I thought the EOS M50 was a neat little camera, I don't think anybody ever felt the same affinity for M cameras that they did for the R series.
I bought the EOS R on day one, trading in my 6D Mark II so that I could join Canon's mirrorless revolution from the beginning. The original R was essentially a 5D Mark IV in drag, making it ostensibly an upgrade from the 6D Mark II. However, even though the RP was essentially an adjacent model, it was the RP that I really wished I'd gone for.
The Canon EOS RP lacked mirrorless essentials like in-body image stabilization, and the 4K video was tragically cropped and robbed of Dual Pixel AF. Crucially, though, it was Canon's smallest and lightest ever full-frame camera, coming in at just 440g body only and measuring 132.5 x 85 x 70 mm (making it smaller and lighter than the 800D DSLR).
And it was very aggressively priced, launching at just $1,299 / £1,399 for the body and the Mount Adapter EF-EOS R to use DSLR lenses straight out of the box. All of which contributed to the name, "RP", meaning "Popular" – in the Japanese sense that it's a camera meant 'for everybody'.
Even today, while the Canon EOS R8 is a better camera, the RP is still Canon's best value full-frame camera.
It's currently available for just $617 at Walmart in the US or only £799 from Amazon in the UK – an absolute steal for anyone wanting to upgrade to full-frame photography or get into Canon's mirrorless ecosystem.
So, whether you want to get one while you still can or it's a camera that you never knew existed, please join me in pouring some sip on the kerb for the Canon EOS RP. My first love of the R System.
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Got an RP? Check out the best lenses for the Canon EOS RP. Looking for an alternative? Take a look at the best Canon cameras along with the best Canon RF lenses.
