Have you ever used the digital telephoto modes on your Canon camera? Well, DON'T BOTHER!

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Digital zooms usually only exist on smartphones and compacts. So why does Canon have 'Digital tele-conv' on its high-end EOS cameras?

Yellow sunflower shot on a sunny day against green foliage background
Why did Canon put Digital tele-conv modes on its full-frames EOS cameras? (Image credit: Peter Travers)

I’m a Canon professional photographer, so I'm a big Canon fan and I only shoot with EOS cameras. I still use Canon DSLRs for studio stuff and day-to-day photography when I don’t need an EOS R5 Mark II’s super-fast AI AF and I’m not shooting small moving targets.

But one of the reasons I like using full-frame mirrorless Canon cameras like the R6 Mark III is that they have a clever built-in 1.6x crop mode. I find this useful when I’m traveling light and only have one lens on my camera, such as during a recent city break in Madrid, Spain.

A quick flick to crop mode and 100mm becomes 160mm for a little more reach, to help me compose on distant subjects, parts of a scene or interesting elements of architecture.

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The digital tele-converter was introduced on the Canon EOS R6 Mark II and offers 2x or 4x magnification (Image credit: Peter Travers)

Which is why I was intrigued by the Digital Telephoto Converter mode available on cameras like the full-frame EOS R8. This ‘Digital tele-conv’ mode is on the first page of the red shooting menu, just beneath the cropping mode/aspect ratio option.

I was excited to try it out and had high hopes, as there are 2.0x and 4.0x digital telephoto options, but I very quickly discovered that it has some big flaws.

I set up an EOS R8 on a tripod. This is our establishing photo of a sunflower shot in full-frame mode – this photo and all photos below were shot at 50mm on a Canon RF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM at f/5.6 in Av mode (Image credit: Peter Travers)

I switched to JPEG so I could access the Digital tele-conv in the menu, and set it to 2.0x magnification for this shot. As the sunflower head is not central, and you can only use a fixed central AF point, the camera has metered for the darker green stem and leaves, so the brighter flower head is now overexposed. But that's not the only downside to this digital zoom mode… (Image credit: Peter Travers)

While you can shoot RAW and use the crop mode, the Digital tele-conv is only available when you shoot JPEG (due to necessary in-camera interpolation) which already restricts the quality before we even get to digital croppage.

It also only allows you to use one central AF point (or box), which is fixed, and tracking frames are not displayed. Initially I found this was fine, until I realized that it affects metering for off-center subjects – as the above photos illustrate.

I now switched the Digital tele-conv to maximum 4.0x magnification for this shot. While it's filled the frame with the sunflower, and is a digitally enhanced 6000 x 4000 pixel image, the digital cropping has created a low-quality result lacking sharpness (click the cursor in the bottom-left of the image to see the image in full screen) (Image credit: Peter Travers)

However, while clever in-camera interpolation somehow keeps the 2.0x and 4.0x images at 24MP 6000 x 4000 pixels at 350dpi, they are simply heavily cropped (or zoomed-in) – so image quality is, well, rubbish. Images look low-res and unsharp.

The Digital tele-conv can also be used in conjunction with the EOS R8's 1.6x crop mode to give you 3.2x or 6.4x magnification, but again – it’s just heavily cropping into an already cropped image, so quality drops off rapidly.

For this shot I used the Digital tele-conv 4x mode along with the 1.6x Crop factor for a 6.4x magnification. Again it's filled the frame, but again the image quality just isn't there (Image credit: Peter Travers)

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Digital tele-conv mode disappears from future EOS cameras. It’s not available on the EOS R5 Mark II for good reason.

If you need extra reach for Canon lenses, get a proper teleconverter (which Canon calls extenders) for your telephoto lenses. Canon Extenders are available in 1.4x and 2x in both EF and RF mounts, and will deliver far superior results to these digital in-camera crops.

You might also like…

Take a look at the best teleconverters in 2026 to see how they work and what to look for. And of course, you can check out the best Canon telephoto lenses and best Canon superzoom lenses to get more reach without any optical compromise.

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Peter Travers
Peter Travers

The former editor of PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine, Peter has 18 years of experience as both a journalist and professional photographer. He is a hands-on photographer with a passion and expertise for sharing his practical shooting skills. Equally adept at turning his hand to portraits, landscapes, sports and wildlife, he has a fantastic knowledge of camera technique and principles. 


He is the author of several published photography books including Portrait Photographer's Style Guide, and The Complete Guide to Organising and Styling Professional Photo Shoots with fellow portrait pro Brett Harkness.


Peter remains a devout Canon user and can often be found reeling off shots with his Canon EOS DSLR and EOS R mirrorless gear. He runs Peter Travers Photography, and contributes to Digital Camera magazine. 

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