Canon announces development of the EOS R5 full-frame mirrorless camera

[Ozarker]

But someone at Canon thinks specs are pretty important, specifically video specs, on a stills camera, no less. It seems that finally, Canon and all their infallible market wisdom have decided that 4K and now 8K video are pretty important, and they do have to compete in that arena, even on their stills bodies.

I, for one, can't wait to see how this plays out, and will be excited if the video specs actually live up to the promises. If so, I'll be absolutely delighted to buy my first Canon body in years and make use of all those EF lenses (adapted) of course. If it's good enough, I may even buy a few RF lenses, and I lot of other people will, too.

So this is a huge announcement, and not just because of the scroll wheel It's going to keep a ton of people from jumping to / buying into other mirrorless systems.

There is no doubt that advancements are important to Canon and many users. However, there are those who scream for features that will never use them and see the spec wars on the same level as rooting for a sports team. There are those who will bitch and moan about Canon this and Sony that who don't own, don't plan to own, will never own, and wouldn't know how to use if they did own. They just like to perpetually cry about specs and scream "rah rah team." While there are those who will use 8k, there are others who just want to be able to say their camera can do it. Posers.

 

[Sparky]

Comparing the video to my Eos R, it looks a little bigger overall across all dimensions. Personally, I hope it is as some of the buttons are too small on the R and a more 5D4 size body would work well for me. I am really glad the back looks DSLR like, that makes me want to buy it alone!

 

[KeithBreazeal]

I did a quick size comparison between R & R5 using the mount as a reference. The R5 is taller with the difference being between the bottom of the body to the bottom of the mount. The R5 is also wider from the mount to the right edge of the body.

 

[Richard CR]

I usually give dpreview the benefit of the doubt because it's a hard job writing articles that are balanced.

But the way they reported on this development announcement leaves all credibility of balance at the door. No, not at the door, they tossed it into the trash.

They decided to ignore canon explicitly stating that they record 8k video, and latch onto canon explaining the benefits of downsampling 8k to 4k as some weird theory that canon actually shoots 8K and downsamples to 4K and that's what canon means and that it really can't record 8k video. Even though Canon states you can extract high resolution stills from the video footage (hard to do without the video file).

No to mention Canon states: "helping to produce a camera that features high-speed continuous shooting and 8K video recording". How much more clearer does one have to make it?

So in their mind that counts it up as being possibly fake 8K video and thus the "8k" in quotes in their title and their two paragraphs of misgivings about 8K video recording.

If you can follow that train of logic, I'm really impressed.

This is where dpreview gets its bad reputation from. Because my first thought was; if this was Sony - they'd be screaming it from the rooftops, holding a parade, and we'd see 5 articles discussing it by now how class leading, innovative it was, etc. It could be a totally unfair assessment, but then again, this article from them was stupid.

Even EOSHD wrote a better piece on the announcement and he's been hammering Canon continuously for the last 5+ years.

 

[ahsanford]

Thought this was a fair take article and makes good points.

Why Did Canon Just Now Decide to Wake Up?

Last night we got our first official glance at Canon's vision for their future in the R5 development announcement, and it looks to finally be an example

petapixel.com

"Since the RF mount is still a closed system, there is no reliance on third-party manufacturers to help make that transition easier. Canon decided to do it all on their own, and I argue have done an excellent job setting up that system for success once there was a camera body there to take advantage of it."

That's a wretched take. "Canon decided to do it all on their own" with lenses was said like it was the tough road no one expected them to follow. A new prioprietary mount to flummox the 3rd parties of the world was a certain goal of the platform -- not some tough choice they had to make.

And I love how third parties ease the blow for a new mount transition like Sony's approach is the established best way. Sony had to do what it did because it didn't have EF to call upon. So Canon puts out an adaptor that works perfectly on RF and that's the brave, hard road to take?

- A

 

[tron]

I like 5D4 size (and functionality of course) but when I want to squeeze a camera in a bag that has a 5DsR with 500LII attached I prefer to take EOS R with me (unless I will take the baby: 200D+10-18 and 18-55 or 15-85). But if I want a FF because the landscape opportunities may be more than the birding ones then FF it is.

 

[PureClassA]

No I would never shoot 8k, I only mentioned 8k because that dictates a >40mp sensor. I use 20mp sensors and am quite happy to stitch landscapes when I want more MP and an effective larger sensor, what that doesn't give me is more detail in one shot for moving subjects.

I don't do much video at all but what little I have done the end user specified 1080, so as far as I am concerned even 4k is overkill.

I mainly shoot on 20MP as well. Perfectly suitable for 90% of things so far as I can see. Like you, I do far less video work but enjoy it and hoping I get to do more. That said, I have definitely seen a marked improvement shooting in 4K and downconverting to 1080 rather than natively at 1080. This is especuially gorgeous on the EOS R when you use the 10bit 422 out. But the 1080 is no slouch. I think as long as you have a computer that can adequately handle 4k footage for grading and editing, you're fine. The nice thing though is that I can even take a relatively weak, entry level MacBook Pro and get seamless playblack and edits in 4K provided I recorded it in ProRes. Apple really created the absolute perfect Codec there. 8K is just getting into crazy territory for me and I imagine most others.

 

[dwarven]

I usually give dpreview the benefit of the doubt because it's a hard job writing articles that are balanced.

But the way they reported on this development announcement leaves all credibility of balance at the door. No, not at the door, they tossed it into the trash.

They decided to ignore canon explicitly stating that they record 8k video, and latch onto canon explaining the benefits of downsampling 8k to 4k as some weird theory that canon actually shoots 8K and downsamples to 4K and that's what canon means and that it really can't record 8k video. Even though Canon states you can extract high resolution stills from the video footage (hard to do without the video file).

No to mention Canon states: "helping to produce a camera that features high-speed continuous shooting and 8K video recording". How much more clearer does one have to make it?

So in their mind that counts it up as being possibly fake 8K video and thus the "8k" in quotes in their title and their two paragraphs of misgivings about 8K video recording.

If you can follow that train of logic, I'm really impressed.

This is where dpreview gets its bad reputation from. Because my first thought was; if this was Sony - they'd be screaming it from the rooftops, holding a parade, and we'd see 5 articles discussing it by now how class leading, innovative it was, etc. It could be a totally unfair assessment, but then again, this article from them was stupid.

Even EOSHD wrote a better piece on the announcement and he's been hammering Canon continuously for the last 5+ years.

There's also the strange phenomenon of Sony fanboys being absolutely atrocious. It seems like it's been that way ever since Chad Warden and the PS Triple.

 

[ahsanford]

This is where dpreview gets its bad reputation from. Because my first thought was; if this was Sony - they'd be screaming it from the rooftops, holding a parade, and we'd see 5 articles discussing it by now how class leading, innovative it was, etc.

Politics in the US* often resembles the politician being Sony and the mob of supporters being DPR -- backing up whatever their potentate says or crying bloody murder if you call him out.

*on both sides I might add. You'd think I'd being referring to you know who, but the other side can be equally full of zealots in an election year.

- A

 

[Sporgon]

Wow, so much excitement ! Canon should slip Sony a few quid for reviving what was becoming a very mature market .

 

[Richard CR]

Thought this was a fair take article and makes good points.

Why Did Canon Just Now Decide to Wake Up?

Last night we got our first official glance at Canon's vision for their future in the R5 development announcement, and it looks to finally be an example

petapixel.com

I think he's close.. but a little off the mark.

the 5D Mark IV, 1DX Mark II was hampered because the DIGIC SoC didn't have 4K encoding because at the time of creation TI who Canon was using back then (no idea on now) didn't have an effecient h.264 encoder that would not heat your coffee at the same time as encoding video.

that's why it processed video in MJPEG because that's simply streaming off the sensor, and writing out consecutive JPEG files, it's also why the HDMI ports were only 1080p because the encoded video stream inside of DIGIC was still only 1080p. That was the BIG deal with DIGIC 8, finally having 4k h.264 encoders in the SoC.

..

we know there's a much faster sensor that came out already because we saw it on the M6 Mark II - it can do 30 fps at 18MP with full AE/AF and 16 fps at 32.5MP with full AF/AE. that's using old generation DIGIC 8 - so the previous limitations, weren't just solely on the processor but also on the sensor. Otherwise, we wouldnt have seen the M6 II knock it out of the park since it still used DIGIC 8 that the EOS Rfor instance used. The EOS R certainly can't do 16 fps like the M6 II can, so it's certainly sensor speed limited.

1DX Mark III has two things going for it - a much faster sensor and ALSO a much faster DIGIC.

This allowed canon to really supercharge things. but it's really a combination of both not just the processor. If the sensor can't read and ADC convert fast enough and without using too much power, then there's no point in a faster DIGIC.

 

[PureClassA]

"Since the RF mount is still a closed system, there is no reliance on third-party manufacturers to help make that transition easier. Canon decided to do it all on their own, and I argue have done an excellent job setting up that system for success once there was a camera body there to take advantage of it."

That's a wretched take. "Canon decided to do it all on their own" with lenses was said like it was the tough road no one expected them to follow. A new prioprietary mount to flummox the 3rd parties of the world was a certain goal of the platform -- not some tough choice they had to make.

And I love how third parties ease the blow for a new mount transition like Sony's approach is the established best way. Sony had to do what it did because it didn't have EF to call upon. So Canon puts out an adaptor that works perfectly on RF and that's the brave, hard road to take?

- A

I kinda read that a bit differently. Canon did that because they CAN. Sony can't. Obviously Canon doesn't like Sigma and others honing in. Gonna happen eventually anyway. I took the tough road as meaning that Canon put all their efforts into lens design first (because they can) while settling for good-but-not-mind-blowing cameras to intro the system while they (as the article later discusses) figured out their CPU issues, which clearly they have. And it was a tough road considering all the flak they got for making these mind blowing lens designs (like the 28-70 f2) and then having (what some argued were) comparably "Meh" MILCs to put them on initially. I'm ultimately curious to hear how Canon solved the CPU design issues. The leap from Digic 8 to Digic X is orders of magnitude. Did they create a new fab process in house? Did they contract out to a third party like TSM or the sort? To me, if they hit roadblocks, then farm it out. They already make the best glass, fantastic sensors, and the best bodies in terms of ergonomics and construction. Draw up specs for the CPU you need and hand em off to a chip maker and let them worry about what nanometer speced fabrication machines they have to have.

 

[Richard CR]

The leap from Digic 8 to Digic X is orders of magnitude. Did they create a new fab process in house? Did they contract out to a third party like TSM or the sort?

Canon has never produced DIGIC in house. it's always been subcontracted out. It was in the past co-designed by Canon and TI.

 

[PureClassA]

I think he's close.. but a little off the mark.

the 5D Mark IV, 1DX Mark II was hampered because the DIGIC SoC didn't have 4K encoding because at the time of creation TI who Canon was using back then (no idea on now) didn't have an effecient h.264 encoder that would not heat your coffee at the same time as encoding video.

that's why it processed video in MJPEG because that's simply streaming off the sensor, and writing out consecutive JPEG files, it's also why the HDMI ports were only 1080p because the encoded video stream inside of DIGIC was still only 1080p. That was the BIG deal with DIGIC 8, finally having 4k h.264 encoders in the SoC.

..

we know there's a much faster sensor that came out already because we saw it on the M6 Mark II - it can do 30 fps at 18MP with full AE/AF and 16 fps at 32.5MP with full AF/AE. that's using old generation DIGIC 8 - so the previous limitations, weren't just solely on the processor but also on the sensor. Otherwise, we wouldnt have seen the M6 II knock it out of the park since it still used DIGIC 8 that the EOS Rfor instance used. The EOS R certainly can't do 16 fps like the M6 II can, so it's certainly sensor speed limited.

1DX Mark III has two things going for it - a much faster sensor and ALSO a much faster DIGIC.

This allowed canon to really supercharge things. but it's really a combination of both not just the processor. If the sensor can't read and ADC convert fast enough and without using too much power, then there's no point in a faster DIGIC.

Do we even know for sure where they went after TI? Did they go in house? Did they find another third party? Obviously whatever they did between Digic 8 and X was huge. Hell maybe they got AMD to build out on that 7nm process they have now LOL (I'm sure not, but would be cool) The Digic Threadripper

 

[Richard CR]

Do we even know for sure where they went after TI? Did they go in house? Did they find another third party? Obviously whatever they did between Digic 8 and X was huge. Hell maybe they got AMD to build out on that 7nm process they have now LOL (I'm sure not, but would be cool) The Digic Threadripper

there's absolutely no way they are doing it in house. They never have.

TI as far as processors were simply using ARM - why the bump up? not sure, maybe they changed from TI and went to samsung or something.. who knows really .. probably not that important. However no, they aren't using AMD or something - some derivitive of ARM most likely - they have to be low power processors because of heat management. They could still even be with TI. who knows.

but anyways, can't focus on just the processor - there have been massive throughput gains on the last sensor generation starting with the 32.5MP.

The DIGIC X would be moot if those changes did not occur.

 

[PureClassA]

Even EOSHD wrote a better piece on the announcement and he's been hammering Canon continuously for the last 5+ years.

That's hard to fathom. Andrew Reid I'd swear posts stuff sometimes after 3-4 whiskey cocktails.

 

[Richard CR]

That's hard to fathom. Andrew Reid I'd swear posts stuff sometimes after 3-4 whiskey cocktails.

Seriously. go read his article on it, and then go read dpreview's.

 

[TracerHD]

I'm worried about if canon will use USH-II instead of CFexpress.
If let's say the R is arround 30MB / shot by 30 MP, maybe we need about 900MB/s cards.

Right? 45MP * 20Shots/sec = 900+ MB/s?

The highest UHS-II card I found had a average speed of 242MB/sec with a top of around 272MB/sec

 

[Tremotino]

still no comments on the 'rate' button? ;-)

Rate? OMG! I realized it only right now...

This is the button I am missing on my current camera.
My dream workflow would be to download from my camera only the keepers. (I'm handling all the time too many picture) And this button suggests a fast way to get the job done.

 

[unfocused]

I've always loved this idea as it's a minimum buyers' remorse move.

Canon to buyer: 'Cards on the table. Here is what your price point gets for the next 3 years. Note that the next time we refresh this price point, it might only be mirrorless. CHOOSE.'

But Canon wants to sell us a 5D5 and an R5, or an R5 and another R model. So as much as I personally might want this, I don't think Canon will do it.

- A

Are you saying they won't release them at the same time? I know it would be uncharacteristic of Canon. Why get only one PR bump, when you can have two? I may be wrong, but in this case I think it makes some business sense. Release them both at the same time -- knowing that some of their customers are itching to get a mirrorless and knowing that other customers want a DSLR and don't intend to switch. Each constitutes about half of their full frame market (pure guess) so why alienate one half, even if it's just temporary.

Yes, Canon wants to sell us both mirrorless and DSLRs or two of one kind. (In my case it's two of one kind and at least one of the other, but I'm a special case) But, I think releasing or at least announcing both makes some sense in this instance. Although I certainly admit I could be wrong.