Amateur Photographer had a chance to interview Canon executives at the recent CP+ show in Yokohama, Japan. They touched on the usual things going on in the industry.
Canon also confirms (again) that IBIS is coming to future EOS R camera bodies, as well as saying the EOS M and EF-M will be around for a while. They also didn't close the door on an APS-C EOS R camera.
You can also likely expect dual card slots on coming EOS R bodies as well. Canon has apparently heard everyone on this issue.
From the interview:
AP: Are you going to keep EOS M in its existing form, or are you going to make a APS-C camera with the RF mount?
YM: That’s a product development for the future so I can’t go into detail, and the market will dictate what sort of direction we should take. If the customers do want a small size, lightweight mount I believe there is room for that, so as we said in the previous answer, we will continue to work with the M mount.
AP: There have been quite a lot of requests from customers and reviewers alike for IBIS on the EOS R, not to mention dual card slots. How do you respond to this?
YM: Yes, we are aware of these voices… We are thinking how we can develop the line-up. With the R and RP we look at the entirety of the package, as mentioned. In terms of IBIS, we are looking into it for the future. We believe IBIS will work together hand in hand with optical IS lenses, such as the ones you see in front of you, to offer better features
AP: Do you think the mirrorless market has peaked, particularly in Japan, and do you ever regret coming relatively late to the mirrorless party?
GT: The pace of the shift to mirrorless has slowed down a bit here in Japan and the mirrorless market share for cameras stands at about 60%. As you may know, Canon has a history of not always being first in the market with new technology, but we are very good at catching up, going beyond and becoming the leader.
You can read the full interview over at Amateur Photographer
With that said, comparing the size of an M50 and an RP suggests to me that the differences in body size don't need to be substantial.
I hope so as well. If Canon are able to improve the focus acquisition speed of DPAF, then an APS-C sensor paired with their x1.4 or x2 Teleconverters and a moderately fast telephoto (say a 200mm f/2.8L or a 400mm f/5.6L) will open up some new (and affordable) photographic opportunities for wildlife/sports photographer enthusiasts.
I don't think Canon will develop APS glass for the RF mount, but there's plenty of EF and EF-S glass to make it an affordable and effective model.
Of course they consider they whole system when talking about small and lightweight. As a first order approximation a 1.6x crop means four times smaller lenses by volume and weight. And it doesn't really make sense to compare the smallest R to the largest M! I doubt there will be an M100-sized R body, ever.
It is quite a leap to call that a confirmation of anything. In fact, the whole interview consists of the interviewer asking questions and Canon responding with "we will consider that if the market demands it."
People can read into the interview whatever they want, but the truth is, all that Canon said is that they are putting products out there and are waiting to see how the market reacts. Don't expect any major reconfiguration of the lineup.
I also like to see a range-finder style EOS R body (FF) with no EVF and a tilt screen. Similar to EOS M6 with no built in flash.
Sport/wild life high performance with R mount? I'm not a user so can't comment on the desire. My guess is Canon will develop its next Pro-DSLR first. Then offers a FF high performance Mirrorless to compete with Sony A9, and afterwards may release an APSC. I don't see it coming anytime soon. As far as I know, Sony never did it either.
"In terms of IBIS, we are looking into it for the future. We believe IBIS will work together hand in hand with optical IS lenses, such as the ones you see in front of you, to offer better features."
I have a hard time seeing Canon say IBIS will work with their in lens IS to offer better performance and then not develop it.
I think there is a fair bit of suggestion that its coming: i.e. the slide at the recent lens unveiling that said IBIS would work with in lens IS, and the 2 CR2 rumours since December, and the IBIS patent from late 2018, and the IBIS patent from earlier in 2018 to address focus stacking while using IBIS. There's been a number of indications that it could come, but still certainly short of a confirmation.
1.6 * 1.6 = 2.56 , how are you getting to "four times smaller" ? And a smaller sensor means less light so if you are ever light limited you need to compare a full frame f/4 to crop f/2.8 size/weight . Even comparing the exact same focal length and aperture, are 2x crop lenses usually 4x lighter than full frame? The olympus 50mm f/2 weighs 300g while the canon 50mm f/1.8 weighs 160g. Maybe they're not the same quality but for smaller sensors you need better ( heavier due to more glass ) lenses if the pixel density is higher.
For telephoto lenses a smaller sensor doesn't really make the lens any smaller at all due to the physics of it, and you don't get more "reach" with crop compared to a higher megapixel full frame sensor with the same pixel density.
So while you can indeed make some crop lenses a little bit smaller/lighter your first order approximation is completely off base.
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I think there will most certainly be an M100-sized R body as full frame gets cheaper and more common, maybe in 5 years, maybe in 15, but most certainly at some point in the next 30 years before Canon switches mounts again.
I think he's taking 1.6 * 1.6 * 1.6= ~4, maybe to try and compare equivalent focal length as well as image circle size? I don't think it works that way though... I don't believe lens length is proportional to focal length.
I'm guessing if there's an APS-C R camera it will be some combination of the 7D and 80D. That would be nice, actually.
Yeah, I agree there are lots of tea leaves pointing in that direction. I just think it is a bit of an overreach to characterize it as confirmation. And knowing how people on this forum jump to conclusions I think a bit more caution ought to be exercised before claiming a confirmation. If the next mirrorless body does not have IBIS, I can guarantee you there will be tons of forum experts claiming that Canon promised IBIS and using Craig's post as "evidence."
2.56 is the surface area, 4 is volume. Given that flange distance is not a problem with mirrorless anymore, and with EF-M you're not constrained by the large diameter of the EF/EF-S mount, you could simply reduce all the dimensions of a FF lens by 1.6 and get a 4x lighter crop lens with the same field of view and relative aperture. After all, a 28mm equivalent f/1.8 phone camera lens weighs maybe a few grams. Now, in the real world not everything in a lens scales down like that, so the real gains are less than 4x. But they can easily approach and exceed 3x.
Of course an f4 crop lens gathers less light than an f4 FF lens, but that's not really relevant. You can't have your cake and eat it too. People who are in the market for a small camera aren't going to attach huge lenses just to get that FF look.
Of course a 1.6 crop factor makes telephoto lenses smaller, keeping FoV the same! Compare the EF-M 55-200mm to, say, the EF 70-300mm.
Have you actually seen any of the existing EF-M lenses? They are tiny.
Sorry, it just doesn't work like that. EF-M lenses are smaller than EF-S because they make compromises to be small in some cases, and for wide angle the smaller registration distance allows them to be smaller than EF-S. EF-S lenses are not anywhere near 3x smaller than EF. Ask yourself why aren't olympus 2x crop lenses 8x smaller/lighter than canon full frame lenses? If you can make a 1.6x crop lens 3x smaller than a full frame lens while keeping all the other qualities the same you have a very lucrative future ahead of you as a lens designer.
I don't think you understand my other points, I recommend you do a little more research.