Interview: Talking with Canon about the EOS R system and its future

someone on another site said the DR on this seems maybe not even as good as on a 6D2!

It's similar to the 5DIV, as evaluated by Bill Claff : http://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/RN_ADU.htm#Canon EOS 5D Mark IV_14,Canon EOS R_14
(please don't compare the 5DIV and R with other cameras in the list, that graph isn't normalised for resolution differences).

Given the DNGs circulating, it's also got the same banding pattern. So a very, very similar performance.
 
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Are kids the market for this camera?

If I am an adult kid ... yes.
I really like the EF-S 10-22 for its very low distortion and great contralight stability but it has very visible CA - correcting the CA in camera gives me very good video files which need only minor postprocessing.
My main application is video material for students for video analysis of motion etc.: If you need the full frame you can be happy to have good sharpness (very low CA is very helpful) straight to the corners sometimes. Doing the video in the classroom and put it to the students notebooks within a minute is a great advantage!
 
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Not nearly the same level of convenience. It’s one of the things Thom Hogan rails about with regularity, and one reason “cameras” are losing out to smartphones. Younger people, who’ve never had the love of sophisticated photography from the beginning, have little interest in it, and find smartphones far more suited to their uses, where small, low Rez images in Facebook, e-mail and messaging apps, Instagram, etc. are far more appealing.

Connectivity can certainly be improved, and ought to be. I'm not sure dedicated cameras will ever be able to compete with smartphones for ease of use though. Also, I expect the vast majority of images taken on phones are shared direct without transferring them to a computer first - I seriously doubt we'll see DSLRs (or MILCs) with Facebook and Twitter installed. As an aside, I think generalising about what 'young people' think is a bit suspect. The idea that 'the love of sophisticated photography' is greater in older generations is spurious, imho.
 
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AlanF

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Connectivity can certainly be improved, and ought to be. I'm not sure dedicated cameras will ever be able to compete with smartphones for ease of use though. Also, I expect the vast majority of images taken on phones are shared direct without transferring them to a computer first - I seriously doubt we'll see DSLRs (or MILCs) with Facebook and Twitter installed. As an aside, I think generalising about what 'young people' think is a bit suspect. The idea that 'the love of sophisticated photography' is greater in older generations is spurious, imho.
You may think that, but the evidence is pretty clear, and not spurious. This isn’t the only industry seeing declining sales from a lack of new, younger users coming in. The audio industry, which I’m close to, is having the same problem.
 
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You may think that, but the evidence is pretty clear, and not spurious. This isn’t the only industry seeing declining sales from a lack of new, younger users coming in. The audio industry, which I’m close to, is having the same problem.

Where's your evidence that 'sophisticated photography' (however you're defining that) was more than a minority pursuit before? Weren't most pictures taken casually, with cheap gear - disposable cameras, instant cameras, etc? And (if not instant) developed at a local shop or posted off? The vast majority of people taking pictures in the past surely didn't use interchangeable lens cameras and develop themselves, nor did they know more about the technical side of photography than people now?

A decline in young blood can be caused by many things; a lack of high-end technical interest seems less likely than simply the device everyone carries all the time anyway getting exponentially better at taking pictures, and meeting most people's needs most of the time. Dedicated cameras have other advantages for those who are interested in particular types of shooting, but just as phones can't foreseeably have big sensors*, big interchangeable lenses, etc, high end cameras can't be shrunk down to pocket size*, nor can they offer the same connectivity or processing power. Better file transfer capability is desirable, but it can't be about trying to out smartphone the smartphones.

*Until and unless some technological revolution occurs, then all bets are off.
 
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Where's your evidence that 'sophisticated photography' (however you're defining that) was more than a minority pursuit before? Weren't most pictures taken casually, with cheap gear - disposable cameras, instant cameras, etc? And (if not instant) developed at a local shop or posted off? The vast majority of people taking pictures in the past surely didn't use interchangeable lens cameras and develop themselves, nor did they know more about the technical side of photography than people now?

A decline in young blood can be caused by many things; a lack of high-end technical interest seems less likely than simply the device everyone carries all the time anyway getting exponentially better at taking pictures, and meeting most people's needs most of the time. Dedicated cameras have other advantages for those who are interested in particular types of shooting, but just as phones can't foreseeably have big sensors*, big interchangeable lenses, etc, high end cameras can't be shrunk down to pocket size*, nor can they offer the same connectivity or processing power. Better file transfer capability is desirable, but it can't be about trying to out smartphone the smartphones.

*Until and unless some technological revolution occurs, then all bets are off.

We just have to look at sales. DSLR sales are off by more than half in the past several years. Compact camera sales by almost 90% over the past few years. Go to the photo sharing sites, and the most popular camera has been the iPhone, for years now, when earlier, it was always from a camera maker. The trend is clear. Who do you think is leading that trend, people like us, or younger?

People who took pictures in the past had to use cameras. What else was there? But going from the first 480 x 320 digital cameras (Casio, I’m pointing at you!) to what we have now, “real cameras”, came a new class of devices called cell phones. Those started out with pretty terrible cameras, as the first, small digital cameras were. But if you’re go8ng to have your phone anyway, you might decide - this time - to not take your camera too.

For us, that was a harder decision. But for younger people, such as my pro photographer daughter, who is 27, the decision comes more easily. Her friends who are not in the business, find it even easier. The problem for the camera industry is that while lower in quality, it’s good enough for most smartphones, and pretty good for a small few of them.

I just watched Apple’s presentation of the new Watch and iPhones. What Apple is doing in computational photography is amazing. Last year, their neural chip in the SoC did 600 billion computations a second. This year, it’s 5 trillion. The camera ISP decides what parts of the chip will do what with each image. The new HDR function takes about 8 pictures, and uses them in different ways to improve the image. A shot they showed of a woman in the water throwing her hair back with a flip of her head has tack sharp water droplets, even with all those images used. Continuously variable out of focus backgrounds adjustable after you take the picture, at any time, as many times as you want. Vastly improved hair detection for out of focus backgrounds, and far improved bokeh for that out of focus.

4K at up to 60fps.

DCI-P3 camera color gamut, with DCI-P3 screens, built-in Apple systemwide color management.

There’s actually more, including the bigger sensors for wide angle and telephoto cameras, etc.

The point is that smartphones are far smarter than far larger, heavier, and expensive cameras that do nothing more than take pictures. Is there a wonder that younger people who never really got a chance to buy an actual camera because they’ve had smartphones since they were 12, always had a camera with them? And those cameras are advancing faster than the ones we use.
 
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Michael Clark

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Canon has a long tradition of using the term "all new" for sensors that are merely adapted from one camera to another. There were dozens of 18mp sensors, each of which was "all new" relative to the last for a couple years back there. Maybe they consider an "all new" sensor to be one that isn't made from literally recycled parts. This camera's sensor is the 5d4 sensor with the adaptation of having microlenses that are made for the new flange difference. The performance, design, etc. is substantially identical to that of the 5d4's sensor.


For a couple of years? More like ten. The first version of the 5184x3456 pixel 18MP APS-C sensor appeared in the 7D in 2009. It's still being sold in the Rebel T6/1300D. Other bodies that had variations of it included the 60D, 550D, 600D, 650D, 700D, 100D, 1200D, EOS M, and EOS M10.
 
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I’ll yield to you superior musical acumen. But, are you aware of any musical instrument blogs that have exceeded 1000 posts within a week of a new release? ;)

Unfortunately, most musicians are too busy practicing or gigging (or working at Guitar Center to make ends meet) to have enough spare time for blog posts...
 
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