Is a native EF mount coming to a Canon full frame mirrorless camera? [CR1]

[neuroanatomist]

Make the sensor round, and then you have a choice.

Wouldn't it be great if silicon wafers were like sugar cookie dough, where you could cut out circles then gather it back into a ball, roll it out again, and cut out more circles? Alas.....

 

[scyrene]

Possible. But there has been quite a lot of extrapolated calculations, and not all of the that far from logic and reason. I believe it will be large and if they start making cameras that fit my hands, and have fast glass available, like the rumoured 50/0,95, I might pick up a Nikon before a dinky sized Canon with mostly f/4 lenses available. The prime reason that I’ve stayed away fron the M-series so far is that the available glass is slow, and if I use EF glass and an adapter, it’s not better than any other APS-S body.

Wait, the make-or-break issue for you is whether they can produce f/0.95 lenses??

 

[takesome1]

Wouldn't it be great if silicon wafers were like sugar cookie dough, where you could cut out circles then gather it back into a ball, roll it out again, and cut out more circles? Alas.....

If Santa brings you a new camera for Christmas, that is exactly how the Elves do it.

 

[ahsanford]

Make the sensor round, and then you have a choice.

And the viewfinder, and the pentaprism/EVF, etc.

It's a lot to ask.

- A

 

[ahsanford]

Wait, the make-or-break issue for you is whether they can produce f/0.95 lenses??

I can't speak for that poster, but some folks see mirrorless as a chance to smash the limits/orthodoxy/constraints we live with in our current systems. Some folk look to mirrorless not for size or the potential upsides of mirrorless, but because it's their company's one chance in 20-30 years to try something new: f/0.95 lenses, medium format mirrorless, etc. comes to mind.

In short, while the mount / sensor size / etc. are unknown, anything could be possible. Some people are off the races with that notion. Let them dream -- no harm there.

- A

 

[Hector1970]

If I were Canon I would do a flagship 1DX III mirrorless. It can have superior battery power than Sony. It could have a great FPS and silent mode. A bold statement of intent. I’d keep the EF Mount for it but promise a future EF-x compact full frame. I think Canon trade a lot from the brand exposure at sports events. It can let that market fall into the hands of Sony

 

[snoke]

Does Canon even dare to try such a camera in the first round of FF mirrorless?

I not say 1DM first.
You say 1DX3.
I say no more 1DX.

If I were Canon I would do a flagship 1DX III mirrorless. ... I think Canon trade a lot from the brand exposure at sports events. It can't let that market fall into the hands of Sony

Smart.

 

[ahsanford]

I not say 1DM first.
You say 1DX3.
I say no more 1DX.

This somewhat implies that if Sony simply had more lenses, the A9 would eat the 1DX2's lunch. That's a farce.

Please tell me why a super high FPS mirrorless FF rig is needed so urgently when 99% of all sports photogs are happily using D5 and 1DX2 cameras. I would argue this segment of user is the last bastion of the mirror, where it will be the hardest to get people to switch due to some very very high performance standards. I wouldn't touch this market with mirrorless until it legitimately was as good as the 1DX2 is now.

- A

 

[ahsanford]

If I were Canon I would do a flagship 1DX III mirrorless. It can have superior battery power than Sony. It could have a great FPS and silent mode. A bold statement of intent. I’d keep the EF Mount for it but promise a future EF-x compact full frame. I think Canon trade a lot from the brand exposure at sports events. It can let that market fall into the hands of Sony

Sony is years away from truly making trouble for Canon here. They need a good 4-5 more higher end superwhites and a mechanical shutter that can handle high fps shooting. Currently the A9 is capped at 5 fps mechanical and the 20 fps e-shutter rather famously had some problems with stadium lighting.

The A7 III / A7R3 is a 10 fps mechanical shutter, so Sony is improving. But they need to have world class AF + a big spread of longer glass + 15 fps or so to even get into a conversation about stealing sideline sports work, IMHO. They are years away from that.

- A

 

[Leigh]

1) What about the EF-M adaptor to EF/EF-S makes you think Canon can't make an excellent adaptor? They write the AF routines and make the lenses, so it should work just fine, correct?

2) If it's just for landscape work, why not just get the Sony? You don't need great AF if you're living in tripod LiveView work, do you? You just need the lenses to mount and communicate with the body for aperture, so any concerns of adaptor AF somewhat go out the window.

- A

Using the Sony + Adapter for Landscape would certainly be an option; but I'd rather stay with a system that I'm familiar with, rather than endure the learning curve of an unfamiliar system----So I'll wait to see what Canon has offer---If Canon disappoints, in that regard, I'm getting tired of playing the "waiting game", & I likely will be getting a Sony A7R3.

 

[ahsanford]

Using the Sony + Adapter for Landscape would certainly be an option; but I'd rather stay with a system that I'm familiar with, rather than endure the learning curve of an unfamiliar system----So I'll wait to see what Canon has offer---If Canon disappoints, in that regard, I'm getting tired of playing the "waiting game", & I likely will be getting a Sony A7R3.

Depends on what you are waiting for: if it's a sensor better than Sony's, just get the Sony now. If it's better ergonomics, handling, AF, etc. then wait for Canon.

And if you are leaning, remember that you don't have to plunge -- you can dabble. Consider a rental from Uncle Rog and giving it a go, or possibly even just picking up the (now ancient and far more afforable) A7R I, which had a sensor on par with the D810 (which is to say = great).

I continue to be appalled buy folks who convert their photography armamentarium at spectacular cost only to realize they've made a mistake. Rent rent rent before making any plunges!

- A

 

[Kit.]

Wouldn't it be great if silicon wafers were like sugar cookie dough, where you could cut out circles then gather it back into a ball, roll it out again, and cut out more circles?

They are, in a sense, but "gathering it back into a ball, rolling it out again" is not cheap.

 

[nchoh]

If I were Canon I would do a flagship 1DX III mirrorless. It can have superior battery power than Sony. It could have a great FPS and silent mode. A bold statement of intent. I’d keep the EF Mount for it but promise a future EF-x compact full frame. I think Canon trade a lot from the brand exposure at sports events. It can let that market fall into the hands of Sony

You may be right.

 

[jolyonralph]

Wouldn't it be great if silicon wafers were like sugar cookie dough, where you could cut out circles then gather it back into a ball, roll it out again, and cut out more circles? Alas.....

Now, I'm not an expert in CMOS fabrication by any means, but would it be possible to use the wasted corners of the circle to add some more circuitry for the sensor to use, eg RAM?

Anyway, I did a thing on the whole circular sensor thing a while back on my blog. http://www.everyothershot.com/whats-better-full-frame-sensor-circular-sensor-course where I go on and on about how wonderful an idea it is.

Of course it'll never happen.

 

[Hector1970]

Sony is years away from truly making trouble for Canon here. They need a good 4-5 more higher end superwhites and a mechanical shutter that can handle high fps shooting. Currently the A9 is capped at 5 fps mechanical and the 20 fps e-shutter rather famously had some problems with stadium lighting.

The A7 III / A7R3 is a 10 fps mechanical shutter, so Sony is improving. But they need to have world class AF + a big spread of longer glass + 15 fps or so to even get into a conversation about stealing sideline sports work, IMHO. They are years away from that.

- A

I don't think they are that far off at all. Their big whites are en-route. The electronic shutter will give them the frame rate well beyond 15 FPS. Their eye focus is impressive, the focus ability will keep improving. I've never been particularly interested in Sony but I'd have to say the A7RIII is very good camera. Alot of things depend on Sony will to win. The sector is not as profitable as it once was and I'm sure its not cheap for Sony or Canon to keep developing the technology in a shrinking market

 

[neuroanatomist]

I don't think they are that far off at all. Their big whites are en-route. The electronic shutter will give them the frame rate well beyond 15 FPS. Their eye focus is impressive, the focus ability will keep improving. I've never been particularly interested in Sony but I'd have to say the A7RIII is very good camera. Alot of things depend on Sony will to win. The sector is not as profitable as it once was and I'm sure its not cheap for Sony or Canon to keep developing the technology in a shrinking market

A big white is en-route. Singular. How about TC's to use with that one (singular) big white? Sure, Sony has them. You can mount them between their weather sealed A9 and their weather sealed (singular) big white...and provide the perfect ingress for water. But maybe Sony is only targeting the fair-weather pro sports photography market.

 

[applecider]

Sure, but Ken raises a fair point. In other industries, there a very clear delineation of good / better / best.

$X gets you Good.
$X + $Y gets you Better, which offers everything that Good did and then adds some stuff
$X + $Y + $Z gets you Best, which offers everything that Good + Better did and then adds some more stuff

Canon is usually pretty good at this, but they don't always do this. Sometimes it's for segmentation reasons (wildlifers need fps, not MP as one example) or sometimes because they arugably drop the ball. In 2012, some folks ponied up a lot of money for a 5D3 as the only FF option other than the 1DX1 -- quite possibly buying more camera than they needed -- and then Canon put out the 6D1 at 60% of the price. Surely the superlative 5D3 would run circles around the cheaper product, right? (In fairness, largely it did, but one could certainly make a parity argument on the most important component inside.)

Canon either listened to peoples' complaints (unlikely) or saw unit sales values which more heavily favored the 6D1 than the 5D3, and they (apparently) vowed to not repeat that error with the 5D4 vs. 6D2. Job done.

- A

The missing ingredient comparing the 5D4 vs 6Dii is time.

Sure the lower camera should not say have a better sensor if it is released simultaneously, but if the release of the lower camera is say two years later, and on sensor processing has been introduced and resulted in better performance in this case even with a crop the 80D, then I’d say that the “lower” camera could have say better low light especially if it has fewer larger pixels.

So time of release would seem to be a factor as to whether a non top of the line could have a better feature than an apex model. I’m not saying the 6dii is not a great camera, just that certain expectations were made by consumers about sensor say progress.

 

[ahsanford]

I don't think they are that far off at all. Their big whites are en-route. The electronic shutter will give them the frame rate well beyond 15 FPS. Their eye focus is impressive, the focus ability will keep improving. I've never been particularly interested in Sony but I'd have to say the A7RIII is very good camera. Alot of things depend on Sony will to win. The sector is not as profitable as it once was and I'm sure its not cheap for Sony or Canon to keep developing the technology in a shrinking market

A big white is en-route. Singular. How about TC's to use with that one (singular) big white? Sure, Sony has them. You can mount them between their weather sealed A9 and their weather sealed (singular) big white...and provide the perfect ingress for water. But maybe Sony is only targeting the fair-weather pro sports photography market.

And if crazy high fps e-shutter is such a winner, why did Sony revert to a mechanical 10 fps shutter in the recent III line of A7 cameras?

Answer: it's not ready for primetime. There were problems shooting sports with stadium lighting. The A9 was simply not a finished product nearly so much as a showhorse with eye-popping specs.

- A

 

[ahsanford]

The missing ingredient comparing the 5D4 vs 6Dii is time.

Sure the lower camera should not say have a better sensor if it is released simultaneously, but if the release of the lower camera is say two years later, and on sensor processing has been introduced and resulted in better performance in this case even with a crop the 80D, then I’d say that the “lower” camera could have say better low light especially if it has fewer larger pixels.

Sure, but that delay of time was less than a year b/c the 6D follows the 5D, which follows the 1DX. When they are that close together, I consider all three of those lines arriving on more or less the same bus. Those products should be very clearly delineated good/better/best as a result, and (now) I think they are.

The wildcards that muck with this approach are:

• Products on a completely different timeline with a high-level of prestige/market value. 5DS, I'm squarely looking at you -- that product line was seemingly engineered to create some feature-set envy with the 5D line. Canon has to walk a careful line when it staggers two roughly equivalent price point cameras 2-2.5 years apart like that. If the 5D4 gets too much good stuff, the 5DS people freak (case in point: the wifi SD card appeasement move). If the 5DS2 gets some sick hot lava that the 5D4 wants (tilty-flippy immediately comes to mind), it will happen the other way. (This could be chaos Canon benefits from as well, but that's another matter.)
• Generational tech trickling down inconsistently: on chip ADC sensors making it into an 80D but not a 6D2 come to mind here.
• Lower level tech getting heretofore premium features: 4K popping up on lower/middle cameras while nicer cameras abouve it don't have it (as they simply haven't come up for refresh: M5, M6, etc.)

- A

 

[ahsanford]

I don't think they are that far off at all. Their big whites are en-route. The electronic shutter will give them the frame rate well beyond 15 FPS. Their eye focus is impressive, the focus ability will keep improving. I've never been particularly interested in Sony but I'd have to say the A7RIII is very good camera. Alot of things depend on Sony will to win. The sector is not as profitable as it once was and I'm sure its not cheap for Sony or Canon to keep developing the technology in a shrinking market

Also: as much as Sony is offering a ton of tech, they've shown little ability to flip pros.

Consider: Sony is in a far far far better position to flip (say) photojournos, wedding shooters, portaiture folks, studio folks, etc. than sports and wildlife people. And they still haven't even flipped many of those folks yet.

So I give Sony a lot of credit for pumping a lot of tech out, but if they haven't flipped pros that would represent technical difficulty 3 out 10, what makes you think they'll soon have the goods to flip the 9 out of 10 warhorse sideline / safari / wildlife guys?

- A