Canon EOS R6 Mark III | A powerful stills camera with advanced filmmaking features.

Canon EOS R6 Mark III
A powerful stills camera with advanced filmmaking features.

Canon has been on a roll this year. We’ve already seen a flurry of major launches across both stills and video, from the introduction of the creator-focused V-series to a steady stream of impressive new RF lenses that keep expanding what the system can do. But despite an already packed schedule, Canon isn’t slowing down. Today the spotlight shifts to the newest body joining the line-up, the Canon EOS R6 Mark III.

The EOS R6 Mark III steps into an interesting space within Canon’s mirrorless ecosystem. It’s designed for photographers and hybrid shooters who need a careful balance of resolution, speed and workflow efficiency, without heading into the size, cost or file demands of the higher-end bodies. It succeeds the hugely popular EOS R6 Mark II and builds upon everything that camera did well, while pushing performance much closer to Canon’s flagship models. In many ways, this is the most advanced camera we’ve seen outside the R5 Mark II and the much-anticipated R1.

I headed to Bath, walking the city streets with the R6 Mark III paired with the new RF 45mm f/1.2. It’s the kind of combination that immediately encourages shooting, thanks to the compact form factor and crisp rendering of the lens. After the street test, I brought the same kit to a weekly training session with the Search & Rescue Team, so I’ve also included a selection of those images too.

At its heart, the R6 Mark III features the new 32.5-megapixel full-frame sensor. This immediately places it in a sweet spot: a noticeable jump in resolution over the 24 megapixels of the Mark II, but without the enormous 45-megapixel files of the R5 Mark II. That extra resolution gives you the freedom to crop tighter, print larger and retain detail in textures, foliage and fine patterns. The added benefit is a greater sense of dynamic range; tones feel richer and images hold onto highlight and shadow information with more confidence straight out of the camera.

Crucially, this increase in resolution doesn’t compromise speed or low-light performance. The native ISO range extends to 64,000 and can be expanded further to 102,400. Canon’s processing ensures noise is handled with restraint, maintaining image integrity even in demanding lighting conditions. It feels like the sensor has been tuned not just for sharpness, but for balance, a camera that works just as well in low light as it does on a bright day in Bath.

Speed is where the R6 Mark III becomes exciting for action shooters. Its electronic shutter delivers burst shooting at up to 40 frames per second, while the mechanical shutter offers a still-impressive 12 frames per second for those who prefer a more traditional approach. The buffer has doubled since the Mark II, allowing bursts of up to 150 RAW images before slowing down. Wildlife, motorsport and fast-moving events become far more forgiving when the camera simply refuses to choke.

Canon has also pulled across Pre-Continuous Shooting from the R5 Mark II and R1. When activated, the camera begins recording frames before you fully press the shutter, providing roughly half a second of buffer that captures the moment just before your reflexes kick in. It’s astonishingly useful for fleeting gestures, sudden wildlife movement or those unpredictable slices of time that normally happen between frames. It does, however, demand discipline, as it can fill your memory card surprisingly quickly.

Autofocus is powered by Canon’s Dual Pixel CMOS AF II, running new AI-driven subject detection algorithms inherited from the flagship models. Tracking feels not just quick, but intelligent. Once the camera locks onto your subject, it holds with confidence. The Mark III also introduces Registered People Priority AF to the “six” series, allowing you to store and prioritise up to ten individuals. In a crowd, the camera instantly identifies and focuses on those chosen faces. Wedding shooters can home in on the couple, event photographers can prioritise key speakers, and sports shooters can track the same athlete throughout a match. These profiles can also be saved to a memory card, supporting up to one hundred recognised faces, which is invaluable for team or recurring client work.

For those who shoot a variety of subjects, the Mark III allows custom autofocus “recipes”. You can create and name presets for motorsport, wildlife or portrait setups, and recall them directly in the menu. It’s a small but thoughtful feature that makes switching environments effortless.

Video performance has seen one of the biggest leaps. The R6 Mark III introduces Open Gate recording, a feature only recently released on the higher-end cameras. It uses the entire sensor, both height and width, providing enormous flexibility when cropping to different aspect ratios later. With more productions needing simultaneous landscape, portrait and square output, this is a genuine time-saver. The camera can even display two framing markers at once, making it very easy to compose for multiple deliverables during the same shot.

Internally, the R6 Mark III records up to 7K RAW at 30p, or up to 7K 60p when not using Open Gate. Oversampled 4K goes up to 120p, and Full HD reaches 180, opening the door to silky slow motion and incredibly detailed footage. External output through HDMI offers 7K 30p RAW or 4.3K at 60p. Add false colour, waveform monitoring, four-channel audio, DCI and UHD options, plus internal proxy recording, and the camera feels remarkably close to Canon’s cinema line.

Canon’s heat management system means you can record 4K continuously for over two hours, and everything runs from the familiar LP-E6 battery that many Canon users already own, and for hybrid shooters, this reliability matters just as much as specs.

In-body image stabilisation reaches up to 8.5 stops when using a compatible lens, matching the R5 Mark II and making handheld shooting feel effortless. Low-light street scenes, handheld long exposures or fast, reactive run-and-gun video all benefit from this level of stabilisation. The body also retains Canon’s ergonomics with a comfortable grip, intuitive dials and a layout that feels immediately familiar. There are dual card slots: CFexpress Type B for speed and SD UHS-II for flexibility, and connectivity includes both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and full UVC streaming up to 4K 60p. Meaning you can plug it straight into a computer and stream without additional capture hardware.

After time spent shooting around Bath and at Search & Rescue training, the impression is clear. The EOS R6 Mark III represents Canon’s current philosophy: performance, creativity and choice. It gives photographers and filmmakers the freedom to produce work that stands out, without wrestling with limitations. Whether it’s the detailed stills, the confident autofocus or the ability to shoot 7K RAW one moment and livestream in 4K the next, this is a camera built for real-world hybrid use.

Check out our full video below.