After the EOS R3, Canon will introduce new “affordable” RF mount cameras [CR1]

[EduPortas]

Most Canon M users don't think about all of this stuff. They do a little research, buy a camera and a couple of lenses, and then use them for at least four or five years before the stick their heads up to see what newer stuff is out there. They're not camera gearheads.

Yep. All the more reason to cut them from the balance sheet. They are not a long term proposition.

Practically every other camera maker, save for Canon, has already taken that step.

 

[scyrene]

Would an Aps-C RF camera not be targeted at vloggers. And useful for birders?

Why would a vlogger need APS-C, aside from the lower price?

 

[scyrene]

This may be controversial, but who cares about IBIS for photos? The high reach lenses have amazing optical IS systems. And other manufs probably have their IBIS more refined by this point than Canon

Um, me? There isn't a lens in the world that can do 8 stops of IS, but some of the RF ones can on the IBIS bodies (whether the lens has IS or not). As for others being 'more refined' - everything I've heard suggests Canon's system is just as good, if not better (aside from the lack of pixel shift for high res stills).

 

[David - Sydney]

Another group is macro photographers especially ones who herp, very few move to FF cameras.

Wouldn't they use the 180mm macro on a full frame sensor if they need that equivalent focal length?

 

[David - Sydney]

That's exactly what happened to me...

After more than 10 years apsc I bought my first fullframe camera and guess what? I sold all my FULLFRAME lenses except 50mm F1.4 and 14mm F2.8 Samyang. Both not the greatest lenses but I get nothing for them on the refurbished market so I kept them. I don't like them anymore...

As an apsc shooter my only apsc lense was the 18-55mm kit lense.
And I thought at that time as a teenager I will only buy fullframe lenses because later I want to upgrade. The only problem was, that as a apsc shooter you won't invest good money for extraordinary lenses. You just buy cheap and old stuff for a few hundred bucks which in my opinion is already a lot for an apsc shooter. I think most of them stick with their kit lense.
So now I have really good lenses because I understood that my cheap old fullframe lenses won't make me happy anymore.
Would I have bought this lenses for my apsc cameras?
No way!

Anyone had a similar experience?

I went from 7D with EF24-105mm/f4 to 5Diii/5Div to R5 and I still have and use the same EF24-105mm.
My second lens was a second hand EF-s 10-22mm which I used a lot but I upgraded to 5Diii with EF16-35mm/4 under an insurance claim when I accidentally drowned the 7D/EFs10-22mm. It is now my most-used lens.
4th lens was a EF70-200m/2.8 IS ii which I had for a long time as I never thought I needed to upgrade.... until the RF70-200mm came along last year and I got 20% off pricing.
My EF8-15mm and EF100/2.8 macro were second hand
My 5Div was second hand bought and sold at the same price after 2 years
Everyone has a different story to tell but mine was from APS-C to pre-ordering the R5 last year

 

[Chaitanya]

Wouldn't they use the 180mm macro on a full frame sensor if they need that equivalent focal length?

Depends on what they are shooting for herping 90/100/105mm are extremely popular, 180mm Macro are used for some dangerous snakes and for butterflies but on APS-C cameras. Around 5-6% of herpers I know shoot on FF cameras with rest all on crop sensor.

 

[David - Sydney]

Most M owners don't speak/read/write English. They live on or near the Pacific rim.

Not sure that is correct. I am also assuming that you mean the western Pacific rim as the US west coast is also on the Pacific Ocean.
English is the second language of most non-english speakers globally as well as the pacific rim (taking out mandarin vs local dialects). I have lived and worked in Asia/Australia for decades in corporate roles and communicating in English is normal. Noting I am not saying fluent/native level English though.
They may not participate in English language forums such as canon rumors though.

 

[David - Sydney]

7D has never cost as much as the 5D.
It usually does cost around the 6D.
I have also not seen people asking for 8K video.

The 7D series were a unicorn from a marketing perspective. Relatively cheap, weather sealed, dual cards, borrowed AF system from the 1D series. Today this is the R6 in full frame although the 7D probably had better weather sealing. They should have been priced at the 5D level based on the cheaper ASP-C sized sensor but more expensive AF system than a 5D.
That great value (and extra reach/pixel density) was very attractive

 

[Dragon]

If there's an APS-C RF camera, at least we'll have a use for all our EF-S lenses, with an adapter. Unless Canon cripples EF-S lenses on the RF crop bodies, which I wouldn't put past them. But yeah, you'd think replicating the messy EF-S bodies/glass situation would be the last thing on Canon's mind. This is not the 2000s-2010s. Sales of bodies are still dropping hard. If they start dumping RF-S bodies into the market again, year after year, fragmenting the product line with minor tweaks, T8i/80D/77D... ugh.

All your EF-S lenses already work just fine on an R5 and AFAIK on all FF R cameras. Pop an EF-s lens on an R5 and it automatically switches to crop mode. 17.5 MP with the new AA filter is about as good as 20MP with a conventional filter, so the result is decent.

 

[David - Sydney]

The problem is that a M6 Mark II replacement in RF mount can never be that small as the M6 because of the bigger mount.

Assuming that all the controls are still there. The Sigma fp is an example of how small a body can be compared to the mount size. Whether you consider the lack of controls to be a M6ii replacement is the question

 

[David - Sydney]

That would depend on what you mean by affordable.
There is not much point in a cheap RF APS-C camera before cheap lenses arrive.
People complained about the RP but owners were able to adapt EF lenses.
Rebel users can already do that to the M line.
M line users can't do that at all.
7D owners often use full-frame lenses so an R7 makes more sense.

Agreed....
The M eco-system is all about affordable and small size. ASP-C RF mount cannot replicate this without a range of cheap/small RF lenses which are nowhere to be found but we all wish that they were there.
The ef40mm pancake is one of the smallest EF lenses but adapted means doubling the length on RF mount and doubles the cost if the R mount adapter is included. Surely a small/cheap RF lens wouldn't be too hard for Canon to release.

Note that RP can also adapt EF-s for even cheaper lens options

 

[David - Sydney]

An aggressively priced RP would be perfect as a second body for R5/6 users and great introduction for new users to RF system even using EF-s lenses

Hard to imagine that a ASP-C sensor in RF mount would be smaller than a RPii though unless there are less controls like the Sigma fp or maybe M200. This would be a completely different market segment than the current 7D series.

The rumour has the ASP-C option as more expensive and smaller than the RPii. The APS-C sensor should be cheaper than FF just on silicon costs assuming that both are new sensors but why more expensive than the RPii? Would that model appeal to new users? Surely the RPii would be the introduction model. I guess that reach would be important for macro or cheaper super tele lenses but the res tof the features would let down the action shooters.

The M ecosystem is all about affordable and small system. Currently the RP body is 50% more than the M50 + kit lens or 10% more than the M6ii + kit lens not to mention the cost of a R mount adapter and EF-s lens so completely different segment for price and size

A true 7D replacement would be a R6 with APS-C sensor (dual card, weather sealing, great AF). Recycling the 32mp APS-C sensor is an option but AF would suffer and assuming that video wasn't a key feature. The 1Diii and R6 share sensors so some volume is there. The real question that only Canon can answer is whether a new APS-C sensor body for action would sell well and at what price.

 

[-pekr-]

The throat is the inner diameter of the lens mount, not the diameter of the full mount.
View attachment 198318
The outer diameter of the EF-M mount is...60.7mm, essentially diameter of all the EF-M lenses (they are all flush with the edge of the thin black ring around the silver mounting surface, which is the place the rubber ring on weather-sealed lenses actually seals on FF cameras). The outer diameter of the RF mount is 69mm, meaning had Canon used the RF mount for M cameras, all the lenses would be 13% larger in diameter, meaning a 28% larger volume assuming the lenses stayed the same length. That's a far cry from 'wouldn't be any bigger at all', isn't it? #factsbeatopinions

Just theoretically - what if Canon would create something like RS lens? Still the same mount diameter, but then reduced to a thinner barrel, to just cover the size of an APS-C sensor? I know that the lens would look a bit weird, but could something like that actually work?

 

[Dragon]

Just theoretically - what if Canon would create something like RS lens? Still the same mount diameter, but then reduced to a thinner barrel, to just cover the size of an APS-C sensor? I know that the lens would look a bit weird, but could something like that actually work?

Of course it would work, but like the Nikon DX 16-50 kit lens for the Z50 it would be ugly and esthetics do matter. The Canon M cameras are esthetically very pleasing and believe it or not, that is one of the reasons they sell well.

 

[Michael Clark]

Yeah, that Kalifornian can be hard to understand.

Ok. They live on the western half of the pacific Rim (which is in the Eastern Hemisphere, unlike the Eastern Pacific Rim, which is in the Western Hemisphere).

 

[Michael Clark]

Funny, the M50 has consistently been showing up 3 or 4 times in the top 10 on Amazon US. Makes it look like the best selling camera in America. But, yes Americans speak American, not English .

Amazon is where non-gearheads buy cameras. Just because a camera is in the top 10 on amazon in the U.S. does not always mean it is in the top ten among all cameras sold in the U.S. But even if it is (and it may well be), the fact that it is in the top 10 cameras in the U.S. does not eliminate the possibility that in Eastern Asia it sells far more units as the #1 selling camera in that part of the world.

 

[Michael Clark]

And gosh, as **I** already told you, Nikon paid a huge price for that as their autofocus sucked for a decade or two and their lenses had to be designed around the small aperture.

In contrast, no-one's illustrated some huge price that Canon would have had to pay by making the EF-M mount simply the RF mount albeit perhaps with the EF-M film-to-flange distance. Sure its a few mm bigger, but I don't think big enough that the cameras or lenses would be notably bigger or bulkier or more expensive or heavier. If I'm wrong about that, please tell me which M model or EF-M glass would no longer sell if it had an RF mount. But please stop just ignoring what I explained now several times and continue citing the false example of Canon as a company that retained a mount and paid a price. (That would be a parallel if Canon, instead of making the EF-M the size of the RF mount, instead continued using the inappropriate EF-M mount for the R series bodies. They'd have a bad electronic bus and small mounting aperture, both of which would cripple the system.)



OK, that was pretty funny :-D

• Thanks, finally some numbers to work with.

You got me. The M2 would be 4mm taller, less than 2/10" in America-speak. That would of course let you cram just that much more hardware inside vertically, making the camera a bit narrower and/or shallower, no?


YES BUT ONLY BECAUSE THE M LINE WASN'T THE R LINE. You're presenting the fact that Canon did the very thing, the stupid thing, I'm arguing against, as an argument that they had to make that decision.

In the EF world we had one system from pros to neophyte weekenders. People are arguing here that somehow Canon is clearly thought this all through and for THIS era, with LOWER sales, is magically maximizing profits with TWO SEPARATE SYSTEMS, and yet the same camera company with, you'd think, the same brainpower, thought in the PREVIOUS era, when sales were much HIGHER, that ONE system would serve everyone.

Just to be clear what I'm saying would have been smart:

• When introducing the M system, give it the dream FF mirrorless mount. Basically the RF's diameter and system bus. Flange distance could be the EF-M's 16mm (18mm??) or the RF's 20mm, I don't think it matters too much. As you say, some M bodies might have been 4mm taller and correspondingly narrower or shallower. I can't imagine that would have torpedoed sales.
• In addition to lenses with a small image circle, make a few more lenses like 24/2.8, 28/2.8, 35/2, 50/1.8, with full image circles. "Don't bother telling anyone" as it doesn't start to matter until the R body comes out.
• R comes out, with its initial 3-4 lenses... but it turns out, hey presto, another 4 lenses long used by M shooters work full-image on the R! And all the small-sensor ones do too! And if you choose to use those with the small image circle, then you can shoot now and tweak framing later. Take any shot and make it a vertical shot. Or make it square or 2:3 or 9:16 or 4:3 without wasting pixels. Or rotate it a few degrees to straighten up the angles without having to throw away pixels. The result is that an 18-55 zoom on the M works on the R and gives you the same MP as the typical M body and same "reach", when that's convenient for you. And when not, then use big-boy full-frame lenses.
• Meanwhile put any of your big-boy full-frame lenses on your M body. Maybe you're backpacking but want that pro-quality macro, or what have you.

Right, and if some M models need to be a couple mm taller, they can then be a couple mm narrower or shallower. You seem to be thinking I'm demanding more volume inside the camera. Not at all. Likewise you say the RF mount is 54mm and EF-M lenses typically 60mm in diameter? In other words the lenses wouldn't be any bigger at all, would they?

How hard is it to understand that the incompatibility between the EOS M/EF-M system and the EOS R /RF system is intentional?

Canon decided they wanted it that way. Period. End of Story.

Look at Canon's history for the past several decades. Every major decision they've made of such importance has been carefully calculated and, in the long run, turned out to be the one that maximized their rate of return on investment.

 

[Michael Clark]

I’ve got to say I’m still not seeing it.

View attachment 198317

Most of the difference is in chrominance noise, which is fairly easy to clean up without affecting fine detail too much. I don't see much difference at all in luminance noise. The difference in resolution is, of course due to 20 MP vs. 30 MP and the increased magnification ratio of the smaller sensor (assuming both were shot at the same distance with the same lens at the same focal length). As I'm sure you well know, the reason larger formats can be sharper than smaller formats with lenses of the same resolution is because they require fewer lp/mm from the lens to get to the same number of lp/ih.

The other issue I deal with when shooting at ISO 6400 is that the white jerseys (one team always wears white jerseys in the U.S. for U.S. football, basketball, and baseball) clip one stop sooner than when shooting at ISO 3200. So to keep from clipping the jerseys I need to underexpose an additional stop at ISO 6400 and then suffer the additional noise when raising the shadows and mids in raw development.

As it is, I shoot at ISO 3200 and expose with the white jerseys just on the verge of clipping (in the raw file - the blinkys are all over the frame in the LCD preview image if they are enabled), then pull the highlights back a tad as I boost exposure about one-half stop, maybe pull up the shadows another one-third stop or so for poorly lit areas of the field and then crush the blacks up to a level to get the dark sky or areas outside the end of the stadium solid black when developing the raw files. (I'm not a fast turnaround PJ so I don't need to shoot JPEG, which pretty much requires letting the highlights blow for the white jerseys with most cameras. That's where the 1-Series would really come in handy by allowing highlight and shadow control in camera in addition to the overall contrast setting. But I don't generate enough revenue to justify the expense of 1-Series cameras.)

 

[Michael Clark]

Dragon, you said (inside the quote you were responding to):

"Funny how system MTF always comes back to bite the smaller formats in the behind even if the sensor noise performance is equal. That is the price to pay for that supposed extra "reach". With the right lenses (a very short list) and enough light, the extra reach is there, but statistically not as often as APS-c and u4/3 aficionados would like to believe."

It all depends on the planned usage of the end product. If the images are being published at lower resolution for web, or even for small prints, the MTF loss is not as significant. The extra reach is nice to allow cropping before downsizing for web. Yes, there is the resolution penalty due to the increased enlargement ratio. But it's an acceptable tradeoff for the difference between generating positive revenue or losing a little based on the cost of each system.

 

[Michael Clark]

Yep. All the more reason to cut them from the balance sheet. They are not a long term proposition.

Practically every other camera maker, save for Canon, has already taken that step.

There are still a lot more camera buyers worldwide that fit the EOS M profile than there are gearheads like those of us here on Canon Rumors. North America and Western Europe have a lot more potential customers with large discretionary income compared to the rest of the world.

Canon will continue to sell EOS M cameras to those buyers as long as they keep buying enough of them for Canon to make a profit on the R&D they have already spent to develop the EOS M system. A few new models to keep interest up will allow them to sell already existing lenses for a few more years until smartphones, even the more affordable models that those in the non-affluent parts of the world tend to use, eventually eliminates that market.