Thoughts on the Canon EOS R roadmap

Launching with $3,000 jaw-dropping lenses and a 6D2-equivalent body sort of seems to suggest this is what happened, especially if the follow-up bodies are lower-end products.
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Personally, I think it's quite deliberate. Canon did this with the EF mount. 50mm f1.0L....on the only body available at the time...a lowly EOS 650.

Only a gear head will buy a £2K body to get access to £3K lenses. Most buyers of the Eos R will buy cheapie EF lenses and use the bundled EF to R adapter. Gear Heads will want native R lenses...and will pay through the nose for them.
Canon will sell far more EOS R bodies than they will all of the collective R lenses currently available. They kind of win both ways...shift over priced R lenses to gear heads and shift buckets of Eos R bodies to everybody and anybody. Hell...even Sigma lenses work on it...
 
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If the magic target is $1500, we may be there in few months if we consider grey market as well. EOS R currently sells for £1659 on HDewCameras in UK (still with "some" warranty) while it is £2349 in retail.

My one off experience buying L lens with Canon's UK employee discount also showed that you can get even lower than grey market prices and still have full EU/UK warranty. Retail prices are rip off.
 
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Sep 10, 2018
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The last release was full of surprises that no-one knew about.
Anything can happen.
I for one wont be jumping anywhere for negligible improvements, no ergonomics etc etc
I see far too many Sony shooters looking down fiddling around missing all the shots. Fair enough if you have time.
I prefer to crack away and bring home the goods, get paid and start over.

Yeah sure sony users are mostly stupid and unable to use their cameras. The new realtime AF will make it even worse......

Lol
 
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If the magic target is $1500, we may be there in few months if we consider grey market as well. EOS R currently sells for £1659 on HDewCameras in UK (still with "some" warranty) while it is £2349 in retail.

My one off experience buying L lens with Canon's UK employee discount also showed that you can get even lower than grey market prices and still have full EU/UK warranty. Retail prices are rip off.

Are there many jobs at Canon UK? If one is considering a 400LIS mkIII...it might be worth a 3 month role there...
It's a pity that HDEW don't sell the bigger whites like the 400LIS mkIII. £13K is a LOT to spend...considering there are currently no discounts on that lens.
 
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Hector1970

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Mar 22, 2012
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An interesting post and commentary on the EOS-R roadmap.
Everyone is an individual.
What I am waiting for is either a better than 5D IV EOS-R and 1DR or a 7DR.
It doesn't look likely I will get any of those three anytime soon.
I considered the EOS-R while its seems quite good the lack of dual slots would rule it out for me.

For Canon I think it would make sense to bring out a range of cheaper cameras.
They have a bit of a problem here.
If they want to sell significant volume I think it would have to be sub $1000 with a kit lens of some sort.
I can't see them achieving that with a full frame camera.
For APS-C they already have the M camera range.
I can see Canon producing an R series APS-C cameras in the XXXD and XXD range even though it would sort of overlap. The could recycle the existing sensors and low FPS of those existing cheaper DSLRS 2000/3000D etc.
I don't know how difficult it is for Canon but it has alot of cheaper full frame lens that could be repeated for an APS-C R . Like a kit 18-55mm (Cheap version) , 70-300mm 5.6 to 6.3, 50 1.8, etc

It's potentially a bit of a mess as the DSLR versions would probably still be cheaper for a few years at least.

For me personally I'm not sure what I will do. I'm pretty happy with the 5DIV (excellent camera) ,5DSR (so-so happy) and 7DII (functional rather than good - and its going to break soon as I am well over 250,000 images on it) I'm heavily invested in Canon glass - which is really brilliant to use.
Fully silent shutter and Eye Focus would be useful to me. Higher FPS than 10 would be a bonus (A 1DXII is attractive at times but its very big - fine for special occasions but not day to day use).
I had Sony off the table as I though Canon might produce something suiting me in 2019 but that looks less likely as Canon's focus is on the bigger market and not currently on higher end user. It might be a wait and see. I'm sure Canon will hint at the longer term eventually. While cheaper cameras drag in customers so do the high end ones from an aspirational perspective. Why did I pick Canon in the first place - hard to know now so many years later but I'm sure the sight of the big whites at the big events would have sown the seeds of what I thought was best.
I started with the basic Canon's knowing I could upgrade to better options.
If the EOS-R is the best option Canon will have for a while its all feels a bit blah!
 
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Bob Howland

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Mar 25, 2012
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Personally, I think it's quite deliberate. Canon did this with the EF mount. 50mm f1.0L....on the only body available at the time...a lowly EOS 650..

The 50mm f/1.0 lens and EOS-1 pro film body were both introduced in September 1989, roughly 2 years after the EOS system was announced. See https://global.canon/en/c-museum/
 
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Sep 17, 2014
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I think Canon made a mistake when designed the EF-M mount.
They could have launched with the RF mount back then and make it compatible for future full frame cameras,
but probably thought mirrorless will be only a small slice of the market and only entry level.

So they never designed it for full frame and best performance in mind.
Now they have a system they have to maintain or drop it at some point.
 
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The Fat Fish

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Jul 29, 2017
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The point is - what do you value? The reason some folks criticize your comments is that you make sweeping generalizations that presume that everyone values what you value. Saying "Canon fail to offer the same value for money" is NOT A FACT, it is your opinion. When people state opinions as fact, they are going to get some backlash. It's that simple.

For me, Canon offers more for the money, and obviously other feel the same. Canon color and ergonomics are worth far more to me that anything Sony offers. I will soon begin dong some how-to videos, so an articulating screen is now a must have. So that is more value than the others offer. The touch screen AF point select is also a spec that I really like - that's why I traded my Olympus EM-1 for a Mark II. So that is more value from the Canon than it's competitors.

Now, for many folks like you, those specs may not be things they value - it may be IBIS, 2 card slots or better video specs. That's a perfectly valid opinion. If you state it that way, few will mind.
When assessing value I ask myself, what features can I workaround? For example something as subjective as colour can be worked around by shooting RAW. I can’t work around the horrendous video implementation without buying APS-C lenses which is absurd. Sure, overall value is subjective but the value of features can be quantified.
 
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Nelu

1-DX Mark III, EOS R5, EOS R
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1Dx R? I think that was a joke. Nobody wishes for that and nobody has ever expected it.
Yet another dude taking he own wishes for reality...
Where's the "Dislike" button on this forum when you need it?
 
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Where do you think the future of 7D lies-

1. With EOS-M

2. With EOS-R

3. With EOS (= with mirror)

4. Something else

im eagerly waiting for the 7d iii. I am currently using an 80d for wildlife because the image quality (sharpness etc.) is just better, but i miss the professional features of the 7 d series.
that beeing said i think they will release the 7d iii in a dslr format, because the continous focusing in canons mirrorles technology isnt there yet. Also there wouldnt be blackout free shooting. Another reason is that all the wildlife lenses are for the ef mount, even the new ones like the 600 f4 iii.
 
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Just give me the ability to backup RAW files using Bluetooth, while still writing to the card on my EOS R. That’s all I ask.

I’m not here to argue about the EOS R being a pro camera - I Pay my bills with it. My 5Div collects dust now and is ‘just’ a backup body. I’ll happily wait a year or so for the ‘Pro R’, if I get RAW file redundancy.

Please Canon, give me wireless RAW backup!

(I can wish, right?)

:)

IIRC Bluetooth specs are controlled by the phone companies who do not wish to afford Camera companies an easy way of uploading files to the phone.
 
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They could coexist, but would Canon get much more profit from two mirrorless APS-C lines? And if we include DSLR EFS, that'd make three APS-C lines.

What might make a bit more sense (but not total sense) - an RF camera with 1.3 crop factor. For birds and sports.

My suspicion is that this is exactly what they will do. Bring back an APS-H sized sensor so they can get more than double the yield per silicon wafer. Not only would the sensors be smaller and thus more numerous, any flaws would affect less sensors on that wafer so the yields should be higher. Plus digic chips don't need to be quite as beefy.

And while making the lens cheaper by making it only cover a aps-h area, I've been thinking why not just make full sized ones? Make an 18-135 f3.5-5.6 and a 70-300, or equivalent lenses to the 18-55 + 55-250. Make them full frame so that they work fine on a bigger body so if someone wants to upgrade they can. This establishes a firm middle ground.

Another possibility is canon could also bundle the control ring adapter and have it come with the efs lenses - this could be the "cheaper bundle" with the R lenses being "the upgraded" option. EFS lenses have been shown to mostly cover a full frame but with distortion present on the outside. Almost all of them would cover an APS-H just fine with no big distortion. And APS-H is not a standard per se - it could be anything from 1.5 to 1.2 crop factors really. Just something slightly better than M would help differentiate the lines.
 
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