Canon EOS R5 launch price will be below $4000 USD [CR3]

Michael Clark

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...and in TN, Amazon and B&H charge state sales tax (9.25% in my location) but B&H offers the Payboo option to avoid it. However, Adorama still does not charge state sales tax.

The Payboo option does not avoid it. The states for which B&H collect sales tax still get paid that sales tax by B&H. B&H just gives you a rebate, at their expense, for the tax they collected from you and paid to your state.

Adorama charged me sales tax on an order last year. YMMV depending on in which state you live.
 
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Michael Clark

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Yes, you should become realistic.

$3500 is my guess, but $3000 would be like next winter's holiday prices.

Being realistic means realizing that the R5 will be like nothing else on the market.

IMHO we won't see an R5 from an authorized dealer for $3,000 until holiday season 2022 at the earliest.

If it intros at $3,500-3,800 and production issues due to COVID-19 and the resulting economic fallout keep demand well ahead of supply, then holiday season 2021 will have little or no discount on the R5. It's rare for Canon to discount their top tier bodies and lenses during holiday promotions until almost the end of that product's lifespan. They typically go after the mass market by offering holiday discounts on their more consumer oriented gear.
 
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RP is a nice body and cheap too but what about the R, slightly higher MP count, better battery life?

Actually I had hoped the R would be what now the R5 turns out to be.
Test drove the R for a week, and while the technical results were impeccable,
I found the ergonomics repulsive.

Badly wanted the RF 15-35mm though, so I settled for the RP as
an interim solution. Found it surprisingly smooth in ergonomics
and will likely keep it even after two R5 have entered the house.

So yes, the technical results from the R will be better (dynamic range,
to name the most important), but it handles very uncomfortable.

YMMV.
 
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derpderp

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Looking at your kit, I have a similar set up, EOS R, 24-105MM f4 & 70-200MM F2.8 &I've been thinking about swapping the 24-105 for the 28-70mm for the extra aperture. Do you find you have to swap lenses often as there is no overlap?

Not particularly, since for my style of photography (portrait/travel/street), I tend to use the 28-70mm 80% of the time, whereas the 70-200mm would come in for those special situations when I can't get close enough to the subject, or that I want more compression.
 
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Michael Clark

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Canon 5DmkIV was $3499 at time of release in 2016.
Accounting for cumulative inflation of 6.8% that would be $3,738.89 today*.

But inflation can't be the only indicator, because the 5D mkIII was also $3499 at release in 2012. That would give it a value of $3,908.46 in 2020*.

Going all the way back to the mkII, it had the bargain price of $2699.99 at release in 2008. That would be $3,215.23 in 2020*.

So we are all over the map as far as what a 5D typically nets.

So Canon can do one of several things:

A) Keep the recent tradition and price it at $3499.99 like the previous 4 & 3 iterations.
B) Tack on inflation and round up price at $3799,99
C) Reason that the upgrades in specs and technology are so incredibly significant that they can push it all the way to $3999.99 and still boast that they kept it under $4k.

Some other thoughts. I bought a 5DmkIV a few months before the EOS R was announced. So I weighed heavily "upgrading" so shortly after buying the 5DIV. There were so many similarities, that it made no sense to switch so early. Same sensor, identical IQ, same Dual Pixel AF system and the tradeoffs did not give me a big enough reason to switch. Like trading dual card slots for a variangle screen, or superior weather sealing for access to the wonderful, albeit limited, RF lens lineup. What was noticeable is that with all that "equivalence" I struggled with, the EOS R was significantly cheaper than the 5DIV. Like almost a thousand dollar difference. Today, that price for the EOS R is even more way down. So maybe there's something to be said about manufacturing cost for a mirrorless system being significantly lower than for a DSLR. Maybe that's why for all the incredible spec jumps, they can still keep the cost at a "5D level?"

So maybe there's another option?

D) Manufacturing cost keep the price nice and tidy and maybe accounting for an economy in shambles we get it at a jaw dropping $3299.99. After all that would put it right around the cost of the last Canon camera that was a generational game-changer: the 5DmkII.

*inflation calculated using https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

If you go back and look at the USD ←→ yen exchange rates in 2008, 2012, 2016, etc. before comparing those prices in their historical context with the equivalent dollar amounts today you get a fuller picture.

Yes, I know that Canon does not pay their U.S. employees, both in retail sales channels and in support operations, in yen. They probably do not pay shipping costs to transport their products to the U.S. in yen.

But they do pay almost all of their R&D and manufacturing expenses in yen, so exchange rates do matter.
 
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Ozarker

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Wow dude! D'you actually work for Canon? I'm trying to point out that the market changed dramatically, in order to sell the price has to be right. I'm not talking just about Canon. My kit ain't cheap bruv, I'm just not 100% convinced it's worth all that money. I know a lot of people who think the same way. DSLRs age very quickly, too quickly. It's not about how much you spend but what you get. Camera manufacturers want you to spend 4k+ for a semi-pro body every 4 years; roughly. And now change a system as well. Given the economy, the technology and, most of all, the way people consume photography 4k price tag dramatically limits your sales volume. Higher price will not make up for it. It's simple. If this continues the camera as we know it, DSLR, will extinct because of greed of the likes of Canon.

It should actually be well below 3k. Well below. Producing D7, D7.5, D6.25 etc will not help either.
In my opinion, what a camera company wants and what an individual can or should do is two different things. Canon might want one to switch every 4 years or so, but that doesn't mean one should or even that it is necessary. I mostly shoot portraits. I had everything I needed and wanted with the 5D mark III and and big collection of EF "L" lenses. Everything I had did everything I needed to do. If I were a professional portrait shooter, I really don't see why I could not have gone on for several more years with what I had. Most people (probably 99.999%) have no idea what we are shooting with or what the cost is anyway. All they care about is the result. To be real honest, if results sucked with a 5D mark III they will suck with an R5 and RF glass too. Professional photographers are not nearly as large a market, and not as important, as people who just do this stuff for fun and have the money to do it with. Many of us (like me) have very little money and just want what we want... so we get it when we can, however we can. I'd love to have a side by side retail priced $14,000 4x4 ATV, but I can't afford one. In my disappointment, should I accuse the manufacturer of being greedy and decide myself that the price shout be $6k? Seriously, that is a flawed world view. It really isn't about what you spend or what you get with any of these modern cameras. It is about what you can do with what you get. Is any camera worth the money? For me, and many thousands of others, it isn't about money at all. I don't make a cent. However, the pleasure of the hobby makes it totally worth it.
 
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One will have to shoot the video with the intention of only using it for frame grabs if they wish to use a "sports rated" exposure time. At 1/1000 second video will look very choppy. If they use "video rated" exposure times/180° shutter angle, then frame grabs will suffer immensely from subject motion blur.

For video, you SHOULD BE shooting at a 1/xyz shutter speed where xyz is equal to twice the frame rate. So if you're shooting 24 fps in video you should be at 1/48th of second shutter speed. For 30 fps video it should be 1/60th of a second and 60 fps should be 1/120th of a second, etc. That means you will STILL get video-centric motion blur which will look quite nice on most modern televisions.

If you are doing frame grabs (i.e. DCI 8K 8192 by 4320 pixel or 35 megapixels) from the R5, it depends upon the subject matter. For sports, I am shooting 1/400th at a minimum for basketball/hockey/football/soccer up to 1/2000th of a second for F1, Skiing, Air Races, Speed boats, etc. You can use software to get rid of rolling shutter at a loss of about 100 to 200 pixels on either the left or right side where the temporal interpolator (i.e. camera-pan-oriented, time-based photo pixel re-interpolator) will move pixels left or right to remove rolling shutter effects.

From what I have heard, rolling shutter on the R5 will be NOWHERE NEAR AS BAD as what some of the Sony cameras are like!

Canon makes their own sensors so they DO NOT DEPEND upon what Sony does with CMOS image sensors! Canon ALSO HAS the ability to make a Global Shutter Sensor as that is what's in the current Canon C700 4K GS Cinema Camera which is GLORIOUS to behold! I've used that one quite a bit now and I REALLY LIKE global shutter CMOS cameras!

I suspect the upcoming Canon R1 Pro-level Mirrorless WILL HAVE a likely 6K Global Shutter Sensor (25.16 megapixels) at 30 fps burst rate for stills! And that means with a Global Shutter 6K sensor at 3:2 aspect ratio 6144 by 4096 pixels (aka 25.16 megapixels), the dynamic range will be MORE THAN 15 STOPS probably and is even likely to be 16 stops with GREAT nearly-noiseless imagery at ISO 12,800 in low-light and highly usable imagery using ISO 25,600 in low light situations!

The Canon R1 Pro-level Mirrorless will take video at 6144 pixels by 3456 pixels (16:9) at a probably full 60 fps in BOTH 4:4:4 3:1 RAW and H.265 video at 10-bit 4:2:2 colour with DPAF and fully active high quality eye/face tracking! All Canon needs to DO THEN is make sure that they add a 4 or 8 terabyte removable SSD drive slot in addition to the DUAL CF-express so that your MANY HOURS of video and HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of HEIF-format still photos can be done on a single drive or via two fast cards OR split between them for 4K proxy video and HEIF stills on the CF-express cards and 6K full 3:1 RAW video and full 3:1 RAW stills on the removable SSD drive!

I should finally note that 25.16 megapixels is the PERFECT BALANCE between a Full Frame sensor with enough low-noise and high-enough sensitivity and dynamic range for bad lighting concerts and night street photography versus a high-enough pixel count for pro-level sports/action/wildlife commercial photography! IF THAT is what the Canon R1 Pro-Level Mirrorless brings at $6399 US, then Nikon become TOTALLY DEAD IN THE WATER !!!! The D6/D7 WILL BE GONE !!! No-one would buy it ESPECIALLY if the Canon R1 has a native R-mount f/4 to f/5.6 150mm to 650 L-series Sports Zoom available!

That combo of a FAST-glass 150 to 650mm sports zoom with 6K 60 fps 10-bit 4:2:2 video/25.16 megapixel 4:4:4 RAW stills at 30 fps burst rate all for $6499 US IS A TOTAL NIKON DESTROYER !!!

Whooooooaaaaaaaa !!!! Most Excellent !!!!!

V
 
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Let's hope that 6 week sea freight shipments will not delay the R5 deliveries then (...)

It won't. Canon usually sets a sales embargo, and they make
sure every reputable dealer in every country has stock before
they allow anyone to sell.

Sell early only once, and all your future orders will show as
being backordered for the next century. So nobody does it.

On sales day, everywhere around the world there will be stock.
When Canon showed first teaser images, the hardware was
already finalized and production had started full throttle.

There was work to be done on software (firmware/DPP), manual,
marketing material, but the hardware was there.

This time they will not caught with their pants down by excessive
demand as had happened with the 5D MkII. They know what to
expect. And they know that all the first day buyers are willing to pay
almost any price, so they make sure to have enough stock all over
the world to make as many people as possible a first day buyer.
 
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Starting out EOS R

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Actually I had hoped the R would be what now the R5 turns out to be.
Test drove the R for a week, and while the technical results were impeccable,
I found the ergonomics repulsive.

Badly wanted the RF 15-35mm though, so I settled for the RP as
an interim solution. Found it surprisingly smooth in ergonomics
and will likely keep it even after two R5 have entered the house.

So yes, the technical results from the R will be better (dynamic range,
to name the most important), but it handles very uncomfortable.

YMMV.
It's so interesting how people can have the same thing yet have totally different experiences. I moved from a 7D MKII to the R and after a week or so, even though the buttons and screen etc were different found I was completely comfortable with the ergonomics.

I don't think there is a right & wrong in this kind of thing, sometimes there's no logical reason why as it's a perfectly good piece of equipment but you just dont feel comfortable with something. I've had that with other things.

it sounds like you have a wider experience with different bodies than me so know what you like and are comfortable with. I say go for it if it works for you.
 
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koenkooi

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It won't. Canon usually sets a sales embargo, and they make
sure every reputable dealer in every country has stock before
they allow anyone to sell.

Sell early only once, and all your future orders will show as
being backordered for the next century. So nobody does it.

On sales day, everywhere around the world there will be stock.[..]

Sometimes stores will start shipping preorders a day early to make it show up on your doorstep on launch day. I always wonder if that violates the embargo or not.
 
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Starting out EOS R

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I was also considering whether to get the RF24-105mm or not (and sell my EF24-105mm L mark 1) but I realised that I do have different use cases. 24-105mm for walk around and for indoor sports where there is a lot of movement at variable distance (eg karate sparing where everyone is on the floor at the same time) with the ISO cranked up. If I have space, then I will take the 70-200mm f/2.8 and the 16-35mm f/4 for coverage in any situation... groups with the wide angle eg churches where you might not have a lot of distance with lots of people and telephoto for closeups of couples/babies etc. I can't justify the RF15-35mm as I will always need some depth of field for groups and the quality of the EF16-35 f/4 is excellent. My land/seascapes with higher apertures don't need f/2.8 and my 77mm filter set fits both telephoto and wide angle. Lots of extra cost to move the the RF wide angle for me. I will probably get the (probable) RF24-105mm kit with the R5 and sell my EF24-105mm.
I do like the RF 24-105MM F4L it's a genuine all rounder and after having the EF version, it is an improvement. I was seriously thinking about switching to the RF24-70mm f2.8l but I just dont think I will have the scenarios where it will benefit me so cant justify the cost.

I think it's a case of seeing the shiny new kit and wanting it but I think sense and my bank balance will prevail, especially if I buy the R5. :)
 
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Michael Clark

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Looking at your kit, I have a similar set up, EOS R, 24-105MM f4 & 70-200MM F2.8 &I've been thinking about swapping the 24-105 for the 28-70mm for the extra aperture. Do you find you have to swap lenses often as there is no overlap?

I've had both the EF24-105mm f/4 L IS and the original EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L in my kit for a decade. They're different lenses for different use cases.

The biggest strength of the original 24-105/4 is that it can take a pounding like no other lens I've ever seen and just keeps on working. It's not the greatest in an optical sense, but very often it is good enough. The IS also comes in handy when I'm shooting a concert from the wings on an outdoor temporary stage that is bouncing around like the San Andreas Fault just before Game 3 of the 1989 World Series.

The extra focal length range is nice for a lot of two body situations since I tend to shoot a 70-200/2.8 on an APS-C body if there's enough light to hold 1/1000 at ISO 3200 doing sports under the lights, so the 24-105 ends right were the 70-200 * 1.6 = 112-320 "equivalent" angle of view begins. In that scenario, the wider angles of view from the 24-105/4 let me get away with slower Tv than I can with the telephoto.

If I'm in dimmer light and need the 24-70/2.8 for the extra stop of speed, I'm probably shooting the 70-200 on another FF body if I'm not shooting fast primes on both FF bodies.

Where the 24-70/2.8 shines for me is when I still need a zoom for tripod mounted work in low light. This places a higher premium on optics than build and IS. That, and when I need the better IQ than the 24-105 can give even if shooting handheld.
 
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Michael Clark

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I think the UK is on a bunch of islands off the continent, so it depends upon what you mean by "Europe." They used to have holdings on the mainland, but that was a lot wars ago.

The islands occupied by Great Britain are on the continental shelf of the European continent.
 
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Again, those who actually use the EOS 1D X Mark III to shoot birds and other animals say it locks onto the eyes of birds and animals very consistently in LV. Who cares what the marketing department calls it?

can you imagine what the R5 is capable of ;)

I would think a firmware could come to the 1DX III, enabling 'true' animal AF like the way eye AF works. The 1DX III is of course a terrific body, but I think in terms of AF, an R1-type body would run circles around it when it appears next year.
 
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Michael Clark

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What is the best alternative to the Canon R5/R6. Something less pricey but good enough for portrait photography.
Would love to get the R5 but a prize of guessed 4299€ but the insane cost of the R glass makes photography extremely less fun for me.
Love to have the best but this is in sum too much - as a hobby.
Full frame in a small studio would be preferred but any input is welcome.

Right now it's hard to beat the 6D Mark II for the price. Put an EF 85mm f/1.4 L IS on it and you're in business in your small portrait studio for less than the cost of an R5 body and no lens.

Of course it's not a sexy new mirrorless and all...
 
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Michael Clark

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Personally I am not a fan of the 5Ds and consider it a niche camera similar to the 1DX. He/She will end up with massive files that are huge overkill for a hobbyist in a studio and a camera body that is not great at much else. The 5DIV is a true hybrid camera and is more suitable to a wider range of scenarios.

But were can you get a grey market 5D IV for $1,100? At that point just buy a US warranteed 6D II.
 
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Michael Clark

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I made a quick chart showing the price with inflation (using https://www.usinflationcalculator.com). Yellow highlighted cell is the launch price and shows what the price is with inflation adjustments by the year of other releases.

View attachment 190628

View attachment 190629

Thing to note is, often times, especially with technology/electronic items, the trend does not follow the inflation model.

The EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS II was $2,499 USD at launch in March of 2010 but dropped to $2,299 by late summer. It went back up to $2,499 for most of 2011 and again from mid-2013 to mid-2014. It didn't drop to $2,099 (without a temporary promotional incentive) until about five years after introduction in mid-2015.

If you got your prices from the Wikipedia article, the prices of the discontinued lenses all appear to be their official MSRP (before promotional discounts) when they were replaced, not when they were introduced. The prices for the lenses still in the catalog also appear to be their current MSRP (before promotional "instant rebates") and not their introductory prices.
 
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Michael Clark

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That is an interesting question, but I think the more relevant question is what is best telezoom to pick amongst the currently available RF 70-200 f/2.8 versus the upcoming RF 70-135 /f2 and the RF 100-500. The answer is going to depend on what other lenses you have in your kit and how you use your lenses. Between the 70-200 f/2.8 IS II and the 100-400 II, I used the 100-400 II more because my kids play soccer and for travel. The 70-200 was primarily a portrait and indoor lens. However, I got the 70-200 first and I used it for everything (even with the extenders). It's only when there multiple options to choose from that the 70-200 got less use.

I see a similar scenario playing out for the RF ecosystem. The RF 70-200 may be the best single lens choice, and it's reduction in stored length and weight makes it more portable than its EF counterpart (but it doesn't accept TCs anymore). However, if you plan on getting the 100-500 anyway, then the 70-200 becomes less important. Like the RF 28-70, I see the RF 70-135 as more of a niche lens. I'd expect it to be similar to the 70-200 in weight/size, so you're trading focal length range for a larger max aperture. The scenario that I'd make that trade most is for portraits and indoor stuff. Where the 70-135 f/2 gets interesting is that it's getting to max apertures of primes. The current L 135mm prime is f/2, and the RF 70-135 will get you there, so I can see Canon selling more RF 70-135s because people may use it like the 135 f/2L only with the flexibility of zooming. It'll be interesting to see if Canon releases a RF prime at 135mm. If so, I'd expect the max aperture to be faster the f/2, but what is the trade between aperture and cost? Sigma is at f/1.8 and that's only 1/3 of a stop, so I can't see that as being a big differentiator between a prime and a zoom. If Canon tries to go to f/1.4, then it'll cost a lot more (similar front element size to the EF 200 f/2 and EF 300 f/2.8).

In your case, if you're restricted by budget to a 2 zoom L lens solution, then it'll be based on the max focal length you need and get less expensive EF f/1.8 prime to adapt for portraits/indoors.

Your kids' soccer games must have been in daylight!
 
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SecureGSM

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One will have to shoot the video with the intention of only using it for frame grabs if they wish to use a "sports rated" exposure time. At 1/1000 second video will look very choppy. If they use "video rated" exposure times/180° shutter angle, then frame grabs will suffer immensely from subject motion blur.
Exactly my point, Michael. And rolling shutter issues in addition to the motion blur issue.
 
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