Official announcement of the Canon EOS R1 is now expected in July

[mpb001]

I think this is right.
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All in fun: let me 'correct'/add a bit to this part:

Market segmentation is part of every camera manufacturer’s plan to be fair advantageous to its stockholders(!).
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...and this sentence can be sweetened a bit as well (in terms of context):

"Crippling the R5 to make the r1 sell would only give advantages to their competitors."

Some who post here seem to assume that Canon never makes mistakes. I do not agree with that assertion.

Great thread!

 

[mpb001]

The R5II and R1 are catering to entirely different markets. A R1 is obviously mainly for pro sports photographers, news, speed-critical use. R5II will mostly be desired by landscape photographers and others where detail is critical. They are not competing against each other most photographers know this.

 

[David - Sydney]

And therein lies the problem. Of course, not a problem for Canon, but potentially a problem for Canon photographers. Big companies with locked-in user bases have little incentive to innovate. Just evolve the products ever so slightly to keep users from jumping ship. I'm not claiming this is happening with Canon.

Migration to full frame mirrorless is a generational step - both in learning and cost. At that point, the user needs to make a clear decision for their future needs. I deliberately excluded EF-M as the total cost of the ecosystem was low enough not to be a major decision for future needs. YMMV

Being able to adapt existing glass seamlessly is a big incentive to stay with a brand but the cost/benefit becomes an inflexion point rather than an incremental decision. I believe that that can be the time that potential switchers are most likely to consider it.

4 years ago, it was clear to me that my L lenses were worth more than the body and the R5 was such a step up from 5Div that the decision was simple.
That may not be the case for users today with different needs.

 

[sanj]

The R5II and R1 are catering to entirely different markets. A R1 is obviously mainly for pro sports photographers, news, speed-critical use. R5II will mostly be desired by landscape photographers and others where detail is critical. They are not competing against each other most photographers know this.

Detail? Are you saying R1 will not have detail?

 

[patrickvisuals]

The R5II and R1 are catering to entirely different markets. A R1 is obviously mainly for pro sports photographers, news, speed-critical use. R5II will mostly be desired by landscape photographers and others where detail is critical. They are not competing against each other most photographers know this.

Surely not, but all what we are asking for is a high-speed 45MP+ camera in a R3 style body

 

[EOS 4 Life]

As for your second assertion, do you have inside information or are you basing the claim on rumored specs or wishful thinking?

Based purely on the rumored spec.
We are on a rumor site in a thread about rumored specs of the R1.
People are being down on the rumored specs of the R1 without acknowledging the rumored specs of the R5.

 

[EOS 4 Life]

But what incentive does Canon--who pioneered DO lenses, the same tech as pf, years ago--have to produce competitive lenses at competitive prices?

If they are selling well and making money for Nikon then they could presumably sell well and make money for Canon.
We have no way of knowing for sure, but I do not think we would have the RF 200-800 if the Sony 200-600 did not sell so well.
The Nikon 800 f/6.3 PF is not nearly selling as well as the RF 200-800 or RF 800 f/11 DO but it is surely out selling the RF 800 f/5.6.
Maybe there is room in Canon's lineup for an RF 800 f/6.3 DO.
I definitely see room for an RF 600 f/6.3 DO.

 

[EOS 4 Life]

Surely not, but all what we are asking for is a high-speed 45MP+ camera in a R3 style body

It does not sound like much to ask for.
The question is, is the market big enough?
Canon should be basing that decision on current Z 9 sales data.
It is the only such camera on the market.

 

[EOS 4 Life]

R5II will mostly be desired by landscape photographers and others where detail is critical.

There does not seem to be any benefit at all for landscape photos of the rumored R5 II specs over the R5.

 

[koenkooi]

Surely not, but all what we are asking for is a high-speed 45MP+ camera in a R3 style body

I agree that it would be nice to have the choice between, let's called it the R4 and the R5II for a 45MP sensor. But that would put Canon in a similar situation as Nikon, with the Z8 and Z9 being practically identical.

You could observe Nikon struggling to differentiate between the two in realtime during the autocapture announcement. Their youtube video had a section where the host said "This is coming to the Z8 as well in the future!", but an hour later that video was gone and replace with one a few seconds shorter and missing the Z8 mention.
Nikon did give in and added it to the Z8 a few months later, but we'll never know if that planned or due to the backlash.

 

[P-visie]

The question is, is the market big enough?
Canon should be basing that decision on current Z 9 sales data.
It is the only such camera on the market.

I doubt that the Z9 sales data is representative for the “market”. Canon will base such a decision on their own market research and feedback from the “target” photographers for such a camera. If the rumors are correct, then 24mp in a gripped body is what meets the needs Canon’s target market.

 

[scyrene]

a few Canon authorised dealers here in Sydney were saying that the "family" series were confusing for some people.

What do you mean?

 

[scyrene]

Big companies with locked-in user bases have little incentive to innovate.

And yet they do innovate.

I'm not claiming this is happening with Canon.

Well then.

I would be quite pleased if the R5II is release with all--or even 75% of the rumored features especially the stacked sensor. But this would simply be playing catchup or maintaining serve with Nikon.

They are bound to leapfrog each other each release cycle.

Meanwhile Nikon--who many honestly thought was doomed--is the hungrier company. Having already lost huge chunks of market share, it needs to swing for the fences and, so far, it's hit a few homeruns mostly in the long-lens segments but I'd also include the Z9, which few saw coming.

They're only "homeruns" if they generate enough sales/profit to make the R&D worthwhile.

But for serious birders and wildlife shooters, having access to Nikon pf lenses would be a tremendous boon. But what incentive does Canon--who pioneered DO lenses, the same tech as pf, years ago--have to produce competitive lenses at competitive prices? Especially considering how sticky that near-50% market share is?

Are you saying Canon's long lens offerings are insufficient? A great deal is made of Nikon's mid-range supertelephotos, and they do appear to be very good; but why must Canon reproduce their smaller rival's lineup, and not vice versa? They have innovated, with the lightweight primes and long zooms. Either midrange primes are on the way, or they have divided up the range differently. Neither approach is intrinsically better.

 

[John Wilde]

Big companies with locked-in user bases have little incentive to innovate. Just evolve the products ever so slightly to keep users from jumping ship. I'm not claiming this is happening with Canon.

Every year Canon issues a press release bragging about the huge numbers of patents they filed during that year. All they have to do is use them.

 

[neuroanatomist]

Every year Canon issues a press release bragging about the huge numbers of patents they filed during that year. All they have to do is use them.

If a patent is filed in a forest and no one is around to buy it, does it even count as innovation?

 

[amorse]

There does not seem to be any benefit at all for landscape photos of the rumored R5 II specs over the R5.

While as someone who shoots almost exclusively landscapes I’d agree with that on the surface, but looking deeper I’m not sure that it’s not all doom and gloom. Looking over the R1 specifications, the one rumoured spec there that I’d be pretty excited to see come to an R5 was the 16 bit DGO raw. If that makes its way to the R5ii, I’d be pretty pumped. Also, as someone looking to upgrade, I’d be a touch hesitant to upgrade to an R5 today given that there’s been mixed compatibility with some offerings lately for earlier R series bodies. For instance, the rumour that the new tilt shift lenses may not have autofocus on older R bodies but on new bodies it will, or the change in the hot shoe, etc. I would just be anxious making a sizeable investment today in something that is already seeing mixed support for newly-released Canon products.

We have only really heard specs which were targeted at complaints against the original R5 like video overheating, recording limits, some improvement opportunities for auto focus, etc. I’m holding out hope there’s a bit more for landscape photographers, but I suspect we’ll know soon enough!

 

[frankchn]

Are you saying Canon's long lens offerings are insufficient? A great deal is made of Nikon's mid-range supertelephotos, and they do appear to be very good; but why must Canon reproduce their smaller rival's lineup, and not vice versa? They have innovated, with the lightweight primes and long zooms. Either midrange primes are on the way, or they have divided up the range differently. Neither approach is intrinsically better.

The midrange teles from Nikon fit into the market occupied by forum posters.

If we want a very long tele for birding (e.g. ~800mm), most of us are not going to go out and buy a RF 800/5.6L at $17k, but on the other hand we can afford to spend more money and get a brighter lens than an RF 800/11 or even the RF 200-800/6.3-9.

We are already talking about buying $4k R5IIs, so spending $6k and getting a 800/6.3 is not out of the question if you are a serious birder.

 

[HarryFilm]

Back in the day when I shot a lot of skiing / giant slalom / slalom racing events (i.e. Western Canada mostly) in-between my IT industry gigs, i actually shot on Hi-Def 1920 by 1080 pixel resolution VIDEO cameras because some of them were high-speed 60 fps video capture capable. This means we could get shots no-one else could get since we could film the entire race and CHOOSE the specific frames we wanted and then I or one of the other Photoshop geniuses we hired would do all sorts of luminance levels adjustment, saturation and hue levels and then contrast enhancement before we upscaled the 1920 by 1080 pixel video frame captures into the 5,760 by 3240 pixel images we upsized via an open source fractal resizer program which created super-sharp image which we then cropped to 3:2 aspect ratios which was finally sent to the press agencies and newspapers. This was in 1998! (26 years ago!)

Nowadays in 2024 there are cheap 4K and above video cameras that shoot up to 120 fps in video mode! You just need to KNOW what Fro-Pack colour-correction and luminance-level image adjustment filter to use and apply in order to make a decent media/press-ready images from video frame captures! Any decent paint program can upsize an image to any size you want and then use your BEST JUDGEMENT and CROP HARD to a 3:2 aspect ratio ready for internet distribution. A $6000 USD Canon 1dx3 or R1 is NOT necessary when I can buy a decent lens with a good 120 fps 4K resolution video camera head for less than $2000 and get ANY SHOT i want and make it perfect with a good RGB/HSL adjustment pack (i.e. a blatant plug for FroKnowsPhoto Fro-Pak plug-ins here!) and then use a good fractal or Lanczos-3 or Lanczos-5 resizer and a final UnSharp Mask. Your images will be press-ready if you have even some mild image-enhancement skills!

After using the Blackmagic 12K cameras which are 12,288 x 6480 pixels (i.e. 79.6 megapixels) at up to 60 fps you can crop to any shot you want AND even though 60 fps has lots of motion blur, you can also change resolutions to 4K pixels to get 240 frames per second to make it look better since most press release shots are only about 6 to 8 megapixels anyways! I have shot a lot of video-converted-to-still sports imagery so I have my workflow down pat! While I am not going to Paris for this year's Summer Olympics to do some sports filming for an agency, I am definitely scheduled to goto Milan, Italy for 2026 Winter Olympic so I will be bringing along a VIDEO camera and shooting high frame rates for the GS / Slalom Ski and Snowboarding events.

So the POINT of this large text missive is you DO NOT NEED to have and use the most expensive camera around! You just need a set of GOOD long and short focal length lenses AND a decent frame rate and some fast shutter speeds! Learn Photoshop or other Paint program and LEARN what a Fractal Resizer filter is and I do heartily recommend Fro-Pack filters to make your video frame captures or still photo camera images POP! Some of your shots WILL be press-ready if you LEARN to make them so!

12 hours worth (i.e. done in one week!) worth of watching some online Youtube tips and tricks for your favorite photo editor program and some practise sessions WILL let your imagery be press-ready and POP-OUT for wide-spread publication!



V

 

[Quack]

...
Canon should be basing that decision on current Z 9 sales data.
It is the only such camera on the market.

Luckily, Canon is not that stupid. Canon, I would be almost certain, is basing their decision on market research and by polling existing Sports and news photographers. While totally anecdotal, I just watched a Nikon ambassador(?) on a podcast discussing the 24 MP Z6 III. He said in conversation with sports photographers, many said they really would like a 16 MP camera. They really do not need or want more than that!

 

[Ozarker]

I'm wondering about what differentiates the two products? Size, ruggedness, resolution, battery life, and card slots (I doubt that the R5II will have dual CFE slots) will be different but what else? Will the R1 have better (more accurate, quicker, consistent etc.) AF? Will the R511 not have the rumored stacked sensor? Excuse me for wondering, but if Canon is announcing them at the same time, it will want to give photographers real reasons to opt for an $8k camera rather than a $4k one. I fear there may be some unnecessary crippling of the R5II in order to accomplish this differentiation.

R5 II = Mucho grandes megapixels R1 = poquito crippled megapixels