Canon talks EOS R3, and confirms that it is not the flagship mirrorless

GoldWing

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I don't believe the "professional base" is worth as much as one might think. This is an industry in steep decline... especially the sports photographer and photojournalism base. The wedding and portrait photographers don't have much call for an R1. That's a much bigger "base", though also in decline.
Canon still owns the space, it's theirs to lose.

If the R1 can't best the A1 or even their own R5 the Agencies, Leagues, Teams, Magazines, TV Networks, Digital Media, Colleges and every photographer is not transitioning away fron every 1DXMKIII, II and I out there.

Thats a BIG built-in Canon base to start with even before SONY, Nikon shooters decide to switch to Canon.

I generally will start with two new bodies and get a third for a kit and glass optimized for same.

If each photographer and their associated entity does the same.... Like I said..... Canon will make billions. It's Canon's game, field and ball. Why would they not enjoy the money? Relative to today's matket... It will be "dominence" and that is what Canon wants to maintain as the leader in global sports photography.
 
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demand is a strong word. and helping the competition is never what somebody wants to do. on the otherhand, building a community of partnerships might create a larger market for your stuff. there is value in having the ability to accessorize and build a system using components within an active community of suppliers. and i am ok with folks choosing components based upon interoperability and adherence to formal and informal standards.
Canon does partner with companies for accessories.
8K RAW to the Ninja V+ is an example of that.
Lenses are quite different.
That would be like Bic licensing razor blades or pen refills or Keurig licensing out coffee pods.
If you take a look at lenses then I believe you will see that lens makers mostly put out lower-cost versions of the best-selling lenses.
That makes it harder for Canon to sell lenses.
While I do agree with your point that affordable third-party lenses help boost the system which adds value to Canon cameras and the lineup, I do not see that as a strong incentive for Canon to help them.

PS: If Sigma adapts their entire mirrorless line to E-mount and RF-mount then the L-mount is properly screwed save for Leica.
 
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I don't believe the "professional base" is worth as much as one might think.
Who do you think buys most of the $15K+ lenses?
There might not be very many but they spend a lot of money.
The same goes for the cinema line.
Canon mostly sells C100, C200, and C70 but most people use photo lenses with those.
The C300 and up crowd buy the expensive cinema lenses.
 
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If this is not the flagship camera, I hope it will also have a bon-flagship price. Something around 5000 Euros and not 7200 Euros like the 1D X. I hope the EU will force Canon to open up the mount for others. Otherwise it is anti-competitive beheviour. Maybe we should al send some emails to the right recipients in Brussels.

Sigma EF lenses have a big advantage though. For around 100 Euros you can change them to a different mount. I am not sure of that will be possible with RF lenses.
Maybe anti-competitive but no one has forced Canon to open their RF protocols in the past. There is a difference between physical mount and their proprietary electrical communication. One could argue that there is nothing to stop 3rd parties making RF mount compatible lenses and manual lenses currently do exist. Reverse engineered EF protocols also exist in the marketplace and can be used on RF mount ie they work but wouldn't be the latest AF speed and IS/IBIS capabilities.

There has been examples in the past of OEMs being forced to open up their protocols/APIs to 3rd parties eg pritner cartridges and PC browsers. These are mass market consumer products and HP/Microsoft etc actively stopped 3rd parties which caused the anti-competitive legal challenges which is not the case for Canon. It could also be argued that the RF system is not a consumer product space due to cost and limited volume.
 
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There has been examples in the past of OEMs being forced to open up their protocols/APIs to 3rd parties eg Printer cartridges
That is not what happened.
Printer companies were suing third-party cartridge makers for patent violations and lost.
The third-party cartridges were reverse-engineered just like RF lenses will be.

PS: The same thing happened with Keurig cups
 
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BakaBokeh

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Hmm. Never really thought about that. There is a 2-way communication protocol between lens and camera body with the RF lens mount. So unless there's a way to provide firmware updates to camera bodies about third party lenses or at least a way to manually enter third party lens information, they would not be able to leverage those proprietary RF features. It's not just the control ring, there's IBIS and AF as well. Now I see why we haven't really had full fledged RF mount lenses from third parties yet.
 
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That is not what happened.
Printer companies were suing third-party cartridge makers for patent violations and lost.
The third-party cartridges were reverse-engineered just like RF lenses will be.

PS: The same thing happened with Keurig cups
In 2016, HP issued an optional firmware update to allow 3rd party ink from their "dynamic security feature". Yes, they were reverse engineered but HP updated their firmware to reject 3rd party cartridges and refilled HP cartridges. There wasn't an anti-competitor lawsuit but HP were clever enough to retract their stance. A lot of consumers would have voted with their feet to buy alternative printers if they didn't.
https://arstechnica.com/information...op-sabotaging-non-hp-ink-cartridges-eff-says/
 
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Yup. This is the R1 in all but name, they just don't want to call it that for a few reasons:

- they don't want to make 1DX owners feel bad about their year-old camera already being made obsolete

- they feel the 'real' R1 isn't ready and want to make a splash when they finally get quad pixel autofocus (or whatever feature they have planned) ready

- they want to avoid direct comparisons against the Sony A9, whether on price or features

Look at the form factor. There's no way Canon is going to have both an R1 and R3 exist alongside each other. Once Canon finally feels like they can make a good enough camera called the R1, they'll quietly forget about the R3, just like they did with the EOS R.
I’m happy to be one of the people buying the R3 in order to find the R&D that makes the R1 happen for the people who will need that much camera.
 
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Yup. This is the R1 in all but name, they just don't want to call it that for a few reasons:

- they don't want to make 1DX owners feel bad about their year-old camera already being made obsolete

- they feel the 'real' R1 isn't ready and want to make a splash when they finally get quad pixel autofocus (or whatever feature they have planned) ready

- they want to avoid direct comparisons against the Sony A9, whether on price or features

Look at the form factor. There's no way Canon is going to have both an R1 and R3 exist alongside each other. Once Canon finally feels like they can make a good enough camera called the R1, they'll quietly forget about the R3, just like they did with the EOS R.
Nonsense.

- The 1DX III won’t be made obsolete irrespective of what MILC camera comes out, most 1DX III users know why they have a DSLR and what it will always do better than a MILC.

- Canon have a very long history of not putting all their newest tech in 1 series cameras, particularly ergonomic and interface tech. Like the R’s sliding control which was universally dismissed yet an updated version in the 1DX III is almost universally loved. I’d expect to see some tech in the R3 that won’t be in the R1 but, depending on how it is evaluated by the market, would make it into an R1 II.

- Why? Regardless of a name it will be compared against all manor of competitors and other Canon models.

As to the form factor, look back to the EOS3 and EOS1V for a history lesson on why you could be 100% wrong. On paper the 3 had ‘more’ tech, yet the 1V was much more expensive and was the ‘pro’ model.

Pro’s do not demand the latest tech, they demand reliability and durability along with a healthy dose of familiarity.
 
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Well, Canon has already stated that the R3 is slotted between the R5 and 1DX, so I'm expecting it to be better than the R5 for stills in every way. My only question is whether it will match or exceed the R5's resolution. While I think that it will be at least 45MP (see my previous posts), there's not enough information available yet to be certain of that conjecture.

To address your question, the R3 will differ from the R5 in price and form factor. I'm hoping that it will come in under $6000, but I would not be surprised if it matched the Sony A1's $6500 price.
But a sports camera at 45 mp is a bit unusual, no? Won’t that limit low light capabilities and on location upload and transfers?
 
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snapshot

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Canon does partner with companies for accessories.
8K RAW to the Ninja V+ is an example of that.
Lenses are quite different.
That would be like Bic licensing razor blades or pen refills or Keurig licensing out coffee pods.
If you take a look at lenses then I believe you will see that lens makers mostly put out lower-cost versions of the best-selling lenses.
That makes it harder for Canon to sell lenses.
While I do agree with your point that affordable third-party lenses help boost the system which adds value to Canon cameras and the lineup, I do not see that as a strong incentive for Canon to help them.

PS: If Sigma adapts their entire mirrorless line to E-mount and RF-mount then the L-mount is properly screwed save for Leica.

I am not sure L-mount is an open standard. Seems like only Panasonic, Leica and Sigma are developing products for it.
E-mount might be half-open in that a lens or adapter could be designed based upon Sony specifications after registering and accepting a non-disclosure agreement. I suspect these terms have encouraged Sigma, Tamron and others to build up the e-mount ecosystem. Interesting that Sony is willing to license the razor blades. Perhaps the margins on cheaper versions of popular lenses arent great.
 
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Billybob

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But a sports camera at 45 mp is a bit unusual, no? Won’t that limit low light capabilities and on location upload and transfers?
Well, the Sony A1 is a sports camera, and it has 50MP. Low light is not an issue. It's more a function of sensor size than sensor resolution. The A1 when down-rezzed has no more noise than the 24MP A9 cameras. Curiously, the 61MP A7r IV on DPR received a low-light score that is almost identical to the 1DX MIII score and trailed the Sony A1 score by a very small margin. Thus, low light prowess is not incompatible with high-MP count.

As for transfer speed, do correct me if I'm wrong, but most photojournalists who upload files shoot jpeg. Again, the Sony A1 addresses this problem by allowing "light" jpeg/HEIF shooting to produce small files while maintaining IQ similar to or better than standard jpeg. The camera also can downsize images in-camera to a 21MP jpeg size. I expect Canon to replicate these and or add other tricks to make meeting deadlines as quick and easy as possible. Thus, transfer speed should be no slower than with current tools. Accordingly, the needs of photojournalists is no barrier to producing a high-MP flagship camera. Frankly several commentators, including Tom Hogan (primarily a Nikon and Sony guy, not that that matters), thinks that the days of low-MP-count flagship cameras are history. I tend to agree with Sony and Nikon already committed to this approach. Of course, I'm not betting the farm.
 
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But a sports camera at 45 mp is a bit unusual, no? Won’t that limit low light capabilities and on location upload and transfers?
In the past, yes 45 mp would be too much info to process at high speed. The R5 and A1 have shown that processors and sensors now have the horsepower to process these files at up to 30fps.

Transfer speeds have also increased significantly.
 
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Ozarker

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Who do you think buys most of the $15K+ lenses?
There might not be very many but they spend a lot of money.
The same goes for the cinema line.
Canon mostly sells C100, C200, and C70 but most people use photo lenses with those.
The C300 and up crowd buy the expensive cinema lenses.
Who buys most of the $15k lenses? Well heeled enthusiasts, that's who. They aren't professionals. It's the same group that buys most of the 1DX, R5, and R6.
 
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So unless there's a way to provide firmware updates to camera bodies about third party lenses or at least a way to manually enter third party lens information, they would not be able to leverage those proprietary RF features. It's not just the control ring, there's IBIS and AF as well.
That will happen will any new camera feature that interacts with the lens.
R5 and R6 were the first Canons with IBIS and all existing lenses needed firmware updates.
It is not really worth it for Sigma to offer firmware updates for every system which I guess is an advantage Panasonic and Leica have over Canon and Sony.

By the way, Sony only officially supports Sony lenses as well and lens companies make no promises to add future Sony lens features.
 
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In 2016, HP issued an optional firmware update to allow 3rd party ink from their "dynamic security feature". Yes, they were reverse engineered but HP updated their firmware to reject 3rd party cartridges and refilled HP cartridges. There wasn't an anti-competitor lawsuit but HP were clever enough to retract their stance. A lot of consumers would have voted with their feet to buy alternative printers if they didn't.
https://arstechnica.com/information...op-sabotaging-non-hp-ink-cartridges-eff-says/

The equivalent of your HP example would be if Canon added something to the camera and lens firmwares to make it impossible to use third-party lenses.
I don't think anyone expects Canon to suddenly update firmware with the intention of making third-party lenses useless. They haven't done that in the past, any malfunctions were down to the third party manufacturers not getting the protocols just right, i.e. they didn't reverse engineer as good as they should have.

RF-mount is no different than EF-mount, F-mount, Minolta A-mount and so on in this regard. Third party manufacturers are free to reverse engineer and develop their own lenses. Canon isn't going to provide them with all the information to get it just right as that would negate a lot of their advantage as a lens manufacturer. Manufacturers who have optioned to license their mounts have put in place certain conditions to protect themselves but they also tend to lack the capacity required to develop and manufacture their own high end lenses in a way that makes a serious impact, or just lack the confidence in their mount at the time (Sony E-mount was a daring experiment that paid off, eventually, but compare that to what canon did with RF or nikon with Z)

Sigma and Tamron have figured out the EF mount pretty good. Figuring out how the EF to RF adapter works should be easy. Making lenses based on that should be no more difficult. And if it is, maybe they just shouldn't be in the business.
Anyone complaining about Canon not simply sharing with Sigma and Tamron every bit of information needed to replicate what Canon themselves are doing is just showing his or her ignorance when it comes to how a business works.
 
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Well, the Sony A1 is a sports camera, and it has 50MP. Low light is not an issue. It's more a function of sensor size than sensor resolution. The A1 when down-rezzed has no more noise than the 24MP A9 cameras. Curiously, the 61MP A7r IV on DPR received a low-light score that is almost identical to the 1DX MIII score and trailed the Sony A1 score by a very small margin. Thus, low light prowess is not incompatible with high-MP count.

As for transfer speed, do correct me if I'm wrong, but most photojournalists who upload files shoot jpeg. Again, the Sony A1 addresses this problem by allowing "light" jpeg/HEIF shooting to produce small files while maintaining IQ similar to or better than standard jpeg. The camera also can downsize images in-camera to a 21MP jpeg size. I expect Canon to replicate these and or add other tricks to make meeting deadlines as quick and easy as possible. Thus, transfer speed should be no slower than with current tools. Accordingly, the needs of photojournalists is no barrier to producing a high-MP flagship camera. Frankly several commentators, including Tom Hogan (primarily a Nikon and Sony guy, not that that matters), thinks that the days of low-MP-count flagship cameras are history. I tend to agree with Sony and Nikon already committed to this approach. Of course, I'm not betting the farm.
Thank you this is very helpful.
 
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