I think when anyone, me included, sees information they are interested in, they get excited and focus on that, losing some objectivity and perspective along the way.
I'm not in marketing but Canon could have positioned this a little better to manage expectations and focus on the R5 being a fantastic stills camera with some incredible options re 8K?
Maybe Everyone needs to chill a little, reflect on if they got a little too excited and manage their expectations?
I've been thinking about this a ton. Imagine if Canon had said the following in it's R5 development announcement:
- High Res 12/20 shooting
- Full width 4K30/4K60
- Full array of codecs and bit rates
- 10 bit 422 internal and via HDMI
- DPAF in all modes
- Additional situational-use, high quality modes teased, including RAW and HFR. "Still being finalized based on user feedback"
- Could even voice over that this represents a shift from overly cautious to more aggressive, even if that means stressing the hardware.
The video world would have gone crazy. Canon finally is doing full width! Clean 422 10 bit 60fps! And then at launch, unveil those extra modes with an asterisk.
Based on the fact they had to release this followup statement, I think Canon got hit with a few whammies:
- The 8K leak happened way, way earlier and canon felt the need to address it for some reason
- COVID really botched their normal release plan
- Marketing over-promoted the 8K, and their was this weird drip-drip-drip of info (e.g. the Canon Australia thing) that made it SEEM like canon was doing some big hype train buildup.
The last one is a little tough because it's not canon that was overhyping, it was the photo/video circles on forums, YouTube, etc. But instead of video folks being thrilled, they feel like their cheese was moved. EOSHD was saying he wished canon hadn't included those modes and just given us what worked flawlessly. I disagree, but just saying "custom function" would have tempered some expectations greatly. "We weren't going to give you these options but our testers demanded we release them!"
The counter argument here is, of course, that this camera is likely going to be supply constrained for 6 months. If they're moving units and customers are happy that's not much of a fail.