48 hours in Seville with the EOS R10

If you want to see a holiday destination in a new light, then set your alarm clock, says travel content creator Diana Millos. "Sunrise is my favourite time to explore and take photos," she explains. "There's usually nobody around and the light is really soft. It's just more magical at that time of day."

Diana has captured sunrise around the globe with her Canon EOS 80D (now succeeded by the Canon EOS 90D) and Canon EOS 7D Mark II. Her images have attracted more than 135K followers on Instagram, and she has visited a diverse range of locations – from long-haul destinations such as India, Mexico and Vietnam, to European city breaks in Romania, Georgia and Italy.

On a recent city break in her native Spain, however, Diana was joined by a new travel companion: the Canon EOS R10. The EOS R10 is one of two mirrorless cameras in the EOS R System, alongside the EOS R7, to feature an APS-C sensor, breaking new ground for Canon. The EOS R10's impressive 24.2MP resolution, compact design – weighing just 429g – and creative photography and video features, make it ideal for explorers looking to tell their stories in unique and innovative ways.

Diana took the EOS R10 to capture scenes from Seville on a 48-hour trip to the Andalusian capital. Architectural photography is one of her specialities, and she visited some of the city's iconic landmarks, including the Plaza de España, the Giralda (the bell tower of Seville Cathedral) and the Metropol Parasol – one of the world's largest wooden structures.

"I woke up before sunrise every day in order to make the most of the beautiful light," reveals Diana. "It really felt like summer in February. Seville is such an ornamental city and it's really pretty.

"I used the EOS R10 in a variety of situations, from shooting flamenco dancers to photographing rowers on the river, and got to play with the camera's autofocus, high-speed continuous shooting and video options."

As well as being the first time that Diana had photographed Seville, the trip was also her first opportunity to use a mirrorless camera. "I found it really simple to transition to the EOS R10," she says. "There were some different buttons on top, but it was really easy to use."

Diana was also equipped with two new RF-S zoom lenses designed for the APS-C EOS R System, both of which offer fantastic image quality. The small and relatively discreet Canon RF-S 18-45mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM features an 18-45mm focal range for a wide variety of travel scenarios, while the versatile RF-S 18-150mm F3.5-6.3 IS STM has great close-up capabilities as well as offering a telephoto reach and a large zoom with an 18-150mm focal range. Both lenses also have image stabilisation.

The first stop on Diana's tour was the Plaza de España, a landmark building that showcases a range of architectural styles. "It mixes the influence of the Arab legacy that we have in Spain with Iberian architecture," says Diana. "Those who follow me on social media will know that my typical photo is a wide-angle shot of a building with me in front of it, so I was using the RF-S 18-45mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM attached to the EOS R10, but I also switched to the RF-S 18-150mm F3.5-6.3 IS STM to take close-up shots of the beautiful tiles in the square."

Diana then focused her attention on capturing the drama and movement of flamenco dancers. Here, she took advantage of the EOS R10's advanced autofocus, which uses Eye Detection AF to track people with increased precision, as well as the camera's rapid 15 frames per second (fps) continuous shooting speed using the camera's mechanical shutter¹.

"Although the dancers were twirling and moving around all of the time, the camera stayed focused on them, even during fast bursts of shots, so that was amazing," says Diana. "In some shots I used a relatively slow shutter speed, which blurred the corners of the girls' dresses a little, so that you get a sense of the dancers' motion. I love the way that it keeps everything in focus and how crisp the photos look."

Diana says that the electronic viewfinder (EVF) was an advantage when it came to confirming that her images were sharp. "You can see the Face Detection and Eye Detection working in the viewfinder, and that's so useful, because you can tell exactly what's in focus."

The EVF is also useful when shooting on bright, sunny days as it enables you to check your exposure and make any adjustments before pressing the shutter button. Being able to see the effects of camera settings is particularly helpful for less experienced photographers because it makes shooting more intuitive.

In addition to distinctive architecture, photographs of the local cuisine are an essential ingredient of Diana's travelogues. "I love working with colours, and often the colours of the places that I visit are related to the food," she says. "Food is part of the culture and important to photograph when you want to capture the essence of a place."

Diana used the EOS R10 to capture close-ups of food in a tapas bar and at a local market. "I wanted to photograph the colourful ingredients and the textures," she says, "so I used the centre focus macro feature of the RF-S 18-150mm F3.5-6.3 IS STM."

Experimenting with using manual focus and macro enabled Diana to get even closer to her subjects – a 35mm focal length gives a maximum magnification of 0.59x – so she could capture every detail.

Diana also tried out the camera's in-camera focus bracketing depth compositing functions. "It is not something I have used before, and it was really cool to be able to shoot a series of shots with a single press of the shutter button, and then see them combined into one image with everything in focus. The camera also saved all the individual photos, which had different parts of the frame in focus. I loved that feature."

On the second day of her city stay, Diana headed to Metropol Parasol, also known as 'Mushrooms of the Incarnation'. "It has amazing views across Seville, and you can capture all of the roofs and buildings in the distance," she says. The modern wooden structure provided a counterpoint to the traditional architecture, and Diana knew that it would provide her with some interesting images.

To put herself in the picture, Diana typically uses a small tripod to support the camera, and for this trip she took the highly portable Canon Tripod Grip HG-100TBR. "It's a short tripod, so the EOS R10 was quite close to the ground, but the vari-angle touchscreen meant that I could see the image easily, just as I can with my EOS 80D," she says.

The best travel cameras need to be capable hybrid performers, and the EOS R10 is no exception. Equipped with a powerful set of video features, this camera can record beyond the conventional 30-minute time limit, allowing travel memories to be captured in crisp 4K 60p, 4K 30p with 6K oversampling and high-quality Full HD, and making it one of the best cameras for vlogging in Canon's lineup.

The camera's high-speed 4K UHD 60/50fps is ideal for filming action clips in sharp detail and Diana made use of these video capabilities while recording rowers on the river. The image is cropped² when shooting at this higher speed, which can be an advantage when filming distant subjects that you want to appear larger in the frame.

High Frame Rate recording is supported when the EOS R10 is set to Full HD video, enabling super-smooth slow-motion video to be captured at 120/100fps. "For one video, I followed the rowers and managed to include a family of ducks in the shot too," says Diana. "When you see it in slow motion, it's really cool."

From the splendours of historic architecture and twirling flamenco dancers to colourful foods in delicious close-up, the Canon EOS R10 has been designed to give content creators even greater freedom to explore the world in fresh and creative ways. It offers all the benefits that come with Canon's EOS R System cameras, and yet will be a familiar proposition for vloggers and bloggers like Diana who are used to shooting on a DSLR and want a camera that's compact, fast and affordable. "That's what I really love about it," Diana adds. "It's small and lightweight, yet still so powerful."

Written by Marcus Hawkins