Canon EOS R5 Specifications

[ahsanford]

I don’t think there are millions on the fence, as only a small percentage of the market are as obsessed as the people on this board. There are however, millions of DSLR owners who just need a compelling reason to upgrade.

You need three things:

• Performance levels and features in RF that are not available in EF
• RF lenses that EF will never or can never offer
• The knowledge the Canon is eventually moving away from EF -- more frequent RF refreshes, more new glass, etc.

Over time, each three of the above become more and more compelling until there's just a small subset of 1-/5-series pros saying "You can take my mirror out of my cold, dead hands." Canon will keep giving them a new SLR, but at a very high price very infrequently.

But I contend that transition (esp. for the higher end bodies) will still take a good 10 years.

- A

 

[dtaylor]

Put it this way, if the specs were similar would you put down $3,500 on a 5D5 or R5?

To me the answer is clear.

I think I would have to see the EVF and AF in action, and handle the body with a larger lens attached. For all the hype about mirrorless AF I still feel like off-mirror PDAF is faster/more reliable if you can keep the point on target, and that's after comparing against an A9. A friend who regularly uses both DSLR/MILC (Nikon) said the same thing to me just yesterday.

That said, I could see myself owning both. Budget willing you want two bodies any way. Why not have DSLR and MILC?

IMHO Canon should offer at least one more generation of pro DSLRs. They've done that with the 1DX3. I would love to see a 5D5 and, if/when they release their high resolution R, a 5DsR mark II. Canon marketing probably doesn't want to do that because they want to consolidate lines and encourage people to buy RF lenses. But Canon should consider that those of us asking for this would likely own one of each.

 

[AEWest]

You need three things:

• Performance levels and features in RF that are not available in EF
• RF lenses that EF will never or can never offer
• The knowledge the Canon is eventually moving away from EF -- more frequent RF refreshes, more new glass, etc.

Over time, each three of the above become more and more compelling until there's just a small subset of 1-/5-series pros saying "You can take my mirror out of my cold, dead hands." Canon will keep giving them a new SLR, but at a very high price very infrequently.

But I contend that transition (esp. for the higher end bodies) will still take a good 10 years.

- A

In a perfect world I would agree with you. They should keep both lines for several years to keep all photographers happy.

But I see a shrinking camera market that is forcing manufacturers to rationalize their offerings very quickly so that they can no longer be all things to all people. The market is making that decision for them. (I'd hate to be a Pentax shareholder right about now)

Just look at Canon's financial statements over the past few years - it shows how quickly the camera market is shrinking. Therefore rationalization is necessary in this environment, not in 10 years but now.

So to keep similar spec MILC and DSLRs lines going and splitting your market share between the two makes little sense. Your costs per unit will be much higher for each line including for lenses, so unless you can charge significantly more for each camera, you will lose margin on each camera. Also your development costs will be much higher.

These are not the outcomes shareholders or CEOs want. That is why I believe Canon is rushing out R glass so quickly - they are basically telling the market that mirrorless is the future, and the future is now.

 

[reef58]

A proper mirrorless body from Canon.

Where is the bar where all of these people are going to rush in and buy? Specifically.

 

[reef58]

Everyone who wants an Ford F-150 has one already too. No need to make anymore of them.

1. They're waiting on the $
2. They're waiting on a body they desire.
3. They're waiting for the body they want to drop in price.
4. They're trying to decide whether or not they want to go mirrorless.
5. They recently upgraded a DSLR and it isn't time to buy another body yet.
6. New people entering the hobby.
7. Waiting for the right lenses.
8. etc.

That analogy doesn't work because in this case it is really not a F150 anymore. Canon continues to produce the (F150), but this is more like F150's are dead (DSLR) everyone is waiting on the hybrid version of the F150(mirrorless).

 

[analoggrotto]

That analogy doesn't work because in this case it is really not a F150 anymore. Canon continues to produce the (F150), but this is more like F150's are dead (DSLR) everyone is waiting on the hybrid version of the F150(mirrorless).

Funny analogy: Electric F-150 is the mirrorless to the F-150's DSLR

First Look at the Electric Ford F-150's Frunk

As shown in a patent application, the upcoming truck's front trunk will have two separate compartments and can be accessed without opening the hood.

www.caranddriver.com

 

[ahsanford]

But I see a shrinking camera market that is forcing manufacturers to rationalize their offerings very quickly so that they can no longer be all things to all people. The market is making that decision for them. (I'd hate to be a Pentax shareholder right about now)

Canon is too big and has too much money in longer term investments/inventory, etc. to rationalize everything in a rapid manner. Far more likely they will:

• Phase 1 (in progress): Publicly state that they will no longer make new EF lenses, and not publicly slow down some SLR refreshes or just cancel specific lower-runner SLR refresh projects
• Phase 2 (3-5 years maybe): Throttle down EF production or make final large EF orders, shut down those lines, and sell to depletion; we start to see bread butter Rebels and XXD bodies go mirrorless only
• Phase 3 (8-10 years): Once the tipping point is hit for camera bodies in service / in actual use, they'd announce obsolescene of EF lenses and then you see a fire sale at all the resellers. Only 1-series and possibly 5-series keep their mirrors.

They have a way to go.

So to keep similar spec MILC and DSLRs lines going and splitting your market share between the two makes little sense. Your costs per unit will be much higher for each line including for lenses, so unless you can charge significantly more for each camera, you will lose margin on each camera. Also your development costs will be much higher.

Again, you are speaking logically, not pragmatically. 'The world will be cheaper to support on one platform' is entirely true but entirely impractical. All EF users won't move to RF just because that's all Canon offers. If Canon (let's say) aggressive terminated their SLR lines across the board in 2-3 years and said 'you must buy a mirrorless camera', Nikon will earn a lot of SLR business. Canon needs to show it users where the next exit is on the freeway -- not force them to take it.

Mirrorless will take over, surely, I don't contend that. But it will not happen overnight. Canon will not burn the people who have trusted it for so long just to get to their desired future state as profitably as possible. That would be cutting their leg off to run faster.

- A

 

[Eersel]

If this is true... I'm sold.

 

[ahsanford]

Where is the bar where all of these people are going to rush in and buy? Specifically.

It's not far from happening, believe it or not.

If you want an inflection point where mirrorless FF hits (say) 50% of all of Canon's FF bodies in use, I'd argue (at a minimum) you need mirrorless versions of the 5D and 6D that are at least as compelling/effective/reliable as their SLR counterparts, and the RF platform needs to be fleshed out more. RF lenses don't need to clone all of EF as that will take a decade or more. It just needs to have the Top 10-15 most used lenses and point to adaptors for the rest.

We knew the lenses were coming, but now we know the bodies are coming, too.

Once it gets to basic 5-series and 6-series parity with SLR, you'll see some kind of tipping point where EF users feel more comfortable to grab one as a second body, Canon's marketing corps finally peels off some Nikon/Sony users for something their system doesn't have (ergonomics, glass, reliability, interface, etc.) and it kind of snowballs from there.

- A

 

[Quarkcharmed]

I’m not going to pretend I have any idea what you guys are talking about but I did have a question. Do you find the DR in Canon’s current 30mp sensor insufficient for your needs photographically or is this more of an intellectual exercise?

lol, I'm losing the track in this discussion too.
Yes I'd like more DR but current 5DIV performance is ok. If Canon increases the resolution and keeps the DR at the same level, it'll be satisfactory. However I'm struggling with banding sometimes and would also like to see improvements in this area too.

 

[reefroamer]

Canon is too big and has too much money in longer term investments/inventory, etc. to rationalize everything in a rapid manner. Far more likely they will:

• Phase 1 (in progress): Publicly state that they will no longer make new EF lenses, and not publicly slow down some SLR refreshes or just cancel specific lower-runner SLR refresh projects
• Phase 2 (3-5 years maybe): Throttle down EF production or make final large EF orders, shut down those lines, and sell to depletion; we start to see bread butter Rebels and XXD bodies go mirrorless only
• Phase 3 (8-10 years): Once the tipping point is hit for camera bodies in service / in actual use, they'd announce obsolescene of EF lenses and then you see a fire sale at all the resellers. Only 1-series and possibly 5-series keep their mirrors.

They have a way to go.




Again, you are speaking logically, not pragmatically. 'The world will be cheaper to support on one platform' is entirely true but entirely impractical. All EF users won't move to RF just because that's all Canon offers. If Canon (let's say) aggressive terminated their SLR lines across the board in 2-3 years and said 'you must buy a mirrorless camera', Nikon will earn a lot of SLR business. Canon needs to show it users where the next exit is on the freeway -- not force them to take it.

Mirrorless will take over, surely, I don't contend that. But it will not happen overnight. Canon will not burn the people who have trusted it for so long just to get to their desired future state as profitably as possible. That would be cutting their leg off to run faster.

- A

If the market keeps shrinking and unit sales keep falling, it will be harder and more costly to keep those DSLR customers, even with two legs. At some point, you gotta stop the DSLR bleeding, whatever it takes.

 

[Kit.]

Put it this way, if the specs were similar would you put down $3,500 on a 5D5 or R5?

To me the answer is clear.

Given that 5D5 is unlikely to have any specs related to EVF, I'd rather wait to check if R5 has any EVF at all.

 

[Architect1776]

Canon is too big and has too much money in longer term investments/inventory, etc. to rationalize everything in a rapid manner. Far more likely they will:

• Phase 1 (in progress): Publicly state that they will no longer make new EF lenses, and not publicly slow down some SLR refreshes or just cancel specific lower-runner SLR refresh projects
• Phase 2 (3-5 years maybe): Throttle down EF production or make final large EF orders, shut down those lines, and sell to depletion; we start to see bread butter Rebels and XXD bodies go mirrorless only
• Phase 3 (8-10 years): Once the tipping point is hit for camera bodies in service / in actual use, they'd announce obsolescene of EF lenses and then you see a fire sale at all the resellers. Only 1-series and possibly 5-series keep their mirrors.

They have a way to go.




Again, you are speaking logically, not pragmatically. 'The world will be cheaper to support on one platform' is entirely true but entirely impractical. All EF users won't move to RF just because that's all Canon offers. If Canon (let's say) aggressive terminated their SLR lines across the board in 2-3 years and said 'you must buy a mirrorless camera', Nikon will earn a lot of SLR business. Canon needs to show it users where the next exit is on the freeway -- not force them to take it.

Mirrorless will take over, surely, I don't contend that. But it will not happen overnight. Canon will not burn the people who have trusted it for so long just to get to their desired future state as profitably as possible. That would be cutting their leg off to run faster.

- A

Once Canon has all RF bodies at the sports sidelines and in the press hands as they dominate now with the DSLR then you will see the DSLR fade out fairly rapidly. The same way you saw film disappear.

 

[PureClassA]

Here's hoping, but I want to see how:

• A proper 5D thumbwheel
• A tilty-flippy
• Thumb drag gestures

All coexist. Something tells me we may get all of that but at a price we don't expect -- thumb wheel brought more to the right, thumb wheel reduced in size, thumb drag move is too far to the left for some hands, etc.

Very curious to see what they come up with.

- A

Love my thumbwheel. I think the touch drag back AF button is friggin GENIUS and I would fully expect it on the R5 and R6. Tilty flippy Im less convinced would make it On R5 but I wouldnt doubt it. Again not too interested in R5. More interested in R6. That camera thus far appears to fill the gap in my Canon family

 

[Quarkcharmed]

7 is good enough.


No, it just tells that you chose the values with the difference too big for typical shot noise. So, have you switched to talking about inadequate spatial resolution of the bigger pixel sensor this time?

Hmm I think this argument went off the original track
Originally it was about downsampling that increases DR but loses resolution. My points were, IIRC,
1. Using noise reduction on 7D, you can't really catch up to 5DIV sensor or A7RIV sensor in terms of DR.
2. After normalisation/downsampling, the resulting absolute DR value is meaningless, especially when it goes above 14 stops in 14-bit sensors. The value can only be used for comparison between the sensors.

 

[ahsanford]

R6 specs just hit CR3, FYI

 

[ahsanford]

Once Canon has all RF bodies at the sports sidelines and in the press hands as they dominate now with the DSLR then you will see the DSLR fade out fairly rapidly. The same way you saw film disappear.

Disagree. Because it's not the quantum leap forward that film --> digital was, the value proposition to get folks to switch to mirrorless is watered down in comparison. 1-series will hold on to their mirrors the longest of all.

- A

 

[ahsanford]

If the market keeps shrinking and unit sales keep falling, it will be harder and more costly to keep those DSLR customers, even with two legs. At some point, you gotta stop the DSLR bleeding, whatever it takes.

If this is true, Nikon will buckle and shut down F long before Canon does the same with EF.

It's not time for panic stations, forced migrations and pulling out the rug on longtime customers yet.

- A

 

[reefroamer]

If this is true, Nikon will buckle and shut down F long before Canon does the same with EF.

It's not time for panic stations, forced migrations and pulling out the rug on longtime customers yet.

- A

Not yet.

 

[brad-man]

I think it's worth considering that Canon produced and inventoried enough EF cameras and lenses they deemed necessary to last a year or two or three before switching the production lines over to RF. They have deep enough pockets to allow for such a move...