Last year we received the first reports of a videographer focus EOS R5 camera named the Canon EOS R5c. I have now received multiple confirmations that such a camera is in the pipeline.
The announcement and release date have apparently been pushed back to Q1 of 2022. Originally we were told that an announcement around NAB in October was possible, but it looks like it has been pushed back. I do think Canon would like products announced and shipping within 60 days of the announcement.
What do we know about the Canon EOS R5c?
It's an EOS R5 with active cooling, a slightly different form factor, and more codecs for video recording. The camera will also come with a full-size HDMI port.
Keep in mind that most of the specifications from the Canon EOS R5 will carry over to the Canon EOS R5c.
Yet, they are so inventive, they'll soon focus on another "issue"...
Will there be also a R5a?
If I could bring a new Canon R… I would bring something <R5 or alsp <R6 but with 30MP and ~10-12 FPS, IBIS and dual cards.
It gets hot at the grip area. Uncomfortable enough that rotating to vertical to hold the battery grip is a relief. Enough to make one understand the concept of low-temperature burns. I shot some images with my phone using my Leupold LTO, which does not show absolute temps.
It shows the hot areas rear, with card extended, side, top and front.
The first impression is that the card is the "smoking gun" but it wasn't alarmingly hot more than the rest, and I suspect it just reflects interior temp, not the heat source.
This will be a Canon R body not taking my money out of the pocket due to the fact me primarily focussing on stills :)
- R
- R5
- R3 ?
- R1 ???
I don't do video, but shooting stills my R6 usually gets slightly warm, mostly on the left side. But yeah, just warm, it doesn't make the camera uncomfortable to hold.
Be happy that it gets hot, because this means the camera is able to transport enough heat outside. If it would stay cool, it would melt internally. That's the price one has to pay for high data rates in high MP, fast shooting cameras in compact bodies, because today's semiconductor tech is extremely ineffective. And the more data such a camera has to process, the hotter gets it internally. That's no special problem of Canon, that's the limits of actual silicon based semiconductor tech. IBM's Watson, e.g., consumes Megawatts of electrical power and transforms it mainly into heat that has to be vented out of the processors. In contrast, our brain, capable of lots of Teraflops of computing power, just needs 20 Watts and heats the head up to only about 37 °C (w/o feaver, of course). Neurons are much smarter, that's why I still love to use my eyes as natural cameras and draw what I see ;)
I wonder how the R3 is going to turn out with regards to heat management, maybe they will take the same approach as in the R5/R6 to segment it from their video cameras, which are also going to receive BSI stacked sensors.
CPUs are getting with each interation more enery efficient not less.
If the programming is more efficient, if high cpu work is done on a dedicated asic, if the chips are lower voltage parts or if the chips are made with a smaller more advanced process less heat will be created for the same work done.
If the heat has no direct path to the outside camera body, then the entire body will heat soak with local uncontrolled heating, which is what we see. If the heat is led to an outside surface (preferably with a heat pipe), heat will flow to that surface. The total heat output of the camera remains the same. That outside surface needs to be broad enough that the total heat energy is spread out, and also needs to be able to shed heat to the air (i.e. exposed black anodized aluminum not insulating grip material).
If there were a heat pipe to a base plate with an exposed aluminum/mag base, video shooters could mount a heat sink in place of a battery grip and increase the thermal capacity of the camera a great deal. At design time, a camera metal body that's partly exposed at the baseplate and a less than $10 heat pipe would be the only changes. I suspect the new camera will be something similar, but with the grip heat sink as an integral part as that's the obvious way to go.
Unless R5C will FF C70 with DGO.
Why can't we have a choice between single shot, low (5ps), medium (10fps) and high (20fps)...
And while they're fixing issues, it would be nice if the eyepiece sensor had a user adjustable timer, to prevent the EVF shutting down 4 seconds after removing the camera from the eye.