The Best APS-C Cameras for Passionate Photographers

There are lots of great APS-C cameras on the market, but in the past year, some have become better than others. Due to supply issues, APS-C cameras have been hitting the market more and more. And manufacturers are putting some of their best tech into them. So we dove into our Reviews Index to see the best ones. Here are the best APS-C cameras for passionate photographers who really love their craft.

How We Chose the Best APS-C Cameras for Passionate Photographers

Here’s some insight into our process of choosing the best APS-C cameras for passionate photographers:

• Our roundups only contain products we’ve fully reviewed. And you can easily distinguish them by our special format. We’ve tested every single APS-C camera on the market. So we can say with certainty that these are the best APS-C cameras for passionate photographers.
• We’re choosing the Canon EOS R7 because of how versatile it is. It boasts the Canon EOS R3’s autofocus with an insanely fast frame rate at a great price point. Use Canon L glass to take the most advantage of it.
• The Fujifilm XH2 is one of the best APS-C cameras for passionate photographers because of the high resolution sensor and what it can do with older lenses. Photos will look great no matter what.
• Nikon’s Z30 is a nice compact camera mostly designed for content creators. But the form factor reminds us of a great point and shoot camera. Pair it with some of Nikon’s smaller lenses and it will become one of the best APS-C cameras for passionate photographers.

Canon EOS R7

PROS

• Compact
• Fantastic image quality
• Great autofocus
• Weather resistance
• Dual card slots
• Canon’s menus – deeper and pretty simple to navigate, and nowhere near the jungle Sony makes you venture into to find El Dorado
• Incredibly lightweight
• Insanely affordable
• Great high ISO output
• I like the dual back dial and joystick.
• Absolutely phenomenal autofocus when it comes to birds
• ISO 12,800 is incredibly usable.
• WITH A BIRD SHROUDED BY LEAVES, 4/19 PHOTOS WEREN’T IN FOCUS. That’s a great hit rate!
• 500mm at 1/160th still gave me usable results because the image stabilization is so good with this camera and the 100-500mm.
• Exposure preview enabled with focus tracking in low light is very accurate.
• Fastest mechanical shutter almost is like black out free viewfinder
• Canon lets you update the firmware via the app.

CONS

• IBIS doesn’t automatically detect that you’re on a tripod.
• Randomly finds an object and tries to constantly latch onto it at times
• I wish Canon offered more affordable lenses worthy of this camera.
• The ISO button is in an awkward spot.
• I had an odd issue using the Canon Control Ring Adapter and the Irix 150mm f2.8 macro lens. It wouldn’t recognize the lens’s aperture. When I tried to make a photograph, it kept the shutter open. I had to pull the battery to get it to stop.
• I wish it had a blackout-free viewfinder in mechanical shutter mode for all settings.
• Electronic shutter can really be affected by a rolling shutter issue.
• Canon Connect doesn’t let you see the star rating of images within the app.
• Exposure preview really slows down performance with scene recognition, especially in low light. Otherwise, it’s fine.
• Scene recognition isn’t as great for some wildlife in low light.
• Canon’s vehicle technology looks at the shape of a vehicle and whether or not it has wheels. Therefore it isn’t great at tracking trains.

In our review, we state:

The Canon EOS R7 is an fantastic camera. Canon took the autofocus of the EOS R3 and packed it into a camera with an APS-C sensor. This is perhaps the thing worth talking about the most as it more or less outperforms the EOS R5 and EOS R6. With that said, the EOS R3 is a fantastic companion to those cameras as well as the original EOS R. As the spiritual successor to the Canon 7D series, the EOS R7 performs very well across the board. The changes to the ergonomics will be welcome to new customers, and possibly divisive amongst Canon loyalists. The build quality is outstanding when paired with equally weather-resistant lenses. And the image quality is a fascinating thing to talk about. High ISO output is exceptionally clean for a camera like this. In some cases, it even outdoes the Canon EOS R, a full-frame sensor camera.

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Fujifilm XH2

PROS

• Very quiet
• Fantastic image quality
• High ISO images are fairly clean, or you can embrace the noise.
• The best color from an APSC sensor in a while
• Subject detection is great in sufficient lighting.
• Weather resistant
• Good for street photography
• Alright battery life
• Still works well with older lenses
• Cropped shooting mode in continuous drive mode is brilliant. (Let me get it right in camera and frame it perfectly there rather than fixing it later.)
• Continuous AF is great in good lighting.
• Very good at 10pm for tracking birds

CONS

• I miss the ISO dial so much.
• Desperately needs to find a way to make switching between subjects faster
• Rolling shutter in pre-shot ES
• I wish it had more customizable buttons.
• Fuji needs to update how their focusing modes work.
• Star ratings don’t transfer over to Capture one or Lightroom.
• Continuous AF isn’t so great in low lighting.
• Fuji needs to update their AF-C customization modes.
• Autofocus performance deteriorates with exposure preview on and lots of underexposure.
• High ISO editing versatility isn’t all that great, but for wildlife it really needs to be. 
• Fuji currently lacks a major selection of fast telephoto lenses, and they really need them.

In our review, we state:

The Fujifilm XH2 speaks more to the brain than the heart. If you want the practicality of all the DSLR form-factor cameras others produce, then you’ll like the XH2. I, however, really like Fuji’s retro-style cameras. A camera doesn’t have to do one or the other; it can do both. With that said, the XH2’s ergonomics are good from a practical standpoint, but it also feels a bit like your favorite band sold out. Good on the band for trying to make money, but you’ll miss the way they used to sound. However, the Fujifilm XH2 has the best image quality I’ve seen from an APS-C sensor in a while. And in good lighting, the autofocus is very capable.

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Nikon Z30

PROS

• Super compact
• Affordable
• Comfortable grip
• Dual control wheels
• Eye AF
• Excellent noise reduction at high ISOs
• Simpler menus and dials
• Finally, weather sealing in a budget camera!
• The build feels great and less plasticky than other budget cameras.

CONS

• No viewfinder
• No in-body stabilization
• Slower autofocus performance
• Shutter speed tops out at 1/4000
• 300 shot battery life

In our review, we state:

The Nikon Z30 is so small it resembles an oversized point-and-shoot camera. Compact size, $709 price point, and excellent image quality in low light are three strong reasons to consider this camera. It also has some weather sealing and doesn’t feel as plastic-fantastic as other budget models. It has a wealth of features for vlogging and video, but doesn’t slack when it comes to stills. Images from the Z30 are great for this price point. In particular, images in low light are quite impressive. The controls and menus are newbie-friendly, and the grip will make even DSLR die-hards happy.

Buy Now: Amazon