Canon EOS R5 Specifications

[mppix]

Your argument seems to assume both EF and RF are equally mature systems. They are not. Canon has sold over 100 million EF EOS cameras and 130 million EF/EF-S/TS-E/MP-E lenses. Many of those cameras and their users are still out there taking photos.

As long as there is sufficient demand for EF lenses, Canon will continue to crank out more of those fully mature current designs to meet that demand. If stock drops enough while specific models are still selling well, they'll continue to make more of them.

And all of these lenses work on RF. Not sure if we see many new lenses with possible exception of big-whites.
If you want to convince birders you could offer a mount convertible version like EF or RF+integrated 1.4x. (.. can you fit an extender in 22mm?).

 

[koenkooi]

[..]
Canon: We could totally you make an small and light RF body and offer inexpensive crop image circle RF lenses, but nah. Two mirrorless mounts: CHOOSE NOW. And, oh, by the way, you must sell everything you own in EF-M if you want to move up to RF. Thx byeeee.
[..]

Is there some space/time continuum hazard if you keep your EF-M gear while buying RF gear? I hope not, since I didn't sell my EF-M gear

 

[Michael Clark]

Once Canon has all RF bodies at the sports sidelines and in the press hands as they dominate now with the DSLR then you will see the DSLR fade out fairly rapidly. The same way you saw film disappear.

When film disappeared those sports shooters and press photographers - or more accurately, the agencies who employed them as staff photographers - were by far the largest group of advanced ("pro") camera buyers. Due to the collapse of print media and the "freelance-ation" of the rest of media, that is no longer the case.

 

[Michael Clark]

I think it's worth considering that Canon produced and inventoried enough EF cameras and lenses they deemed necessary to last a year or two or three before switching the production lines over to RF. They have deep enough pockets to allow for such a move...

They switch production lines over all of the time. It's not like once they start making RF cameras on a specific line they can never again make any other EF cameras on that line. It's not a lot different from making a run of 800D bodies, then making a run of 5D Mark IV bodies, then making a few 7D mark II bodies, then making a run of 2000D/4000D bodies, etc.

 

[Michael Clark]

It can be, but for that, effing Canon needs at least to add (and publish) effing "power on" command to its effing BLE camera control protocol.

What killed film was not image quality and not body lineup, but workflow. Mirrorless has a similar potential for workflow improvements, but it's currently mostly unusable because the manufacturers don't understand what they miss.

What killed film was the cost per frame of film versus digital and the instant feedback of digital. Once digital got remotely close to film quality, the cost advantage pushed everything over the edge. Sure, part of that was workflow and the time someone had to spend in a darkroom, but for press agencies it was ultimately about the bottom line: Which system costs less per 10,000 images? For consumers it was the instant feedback with digital.

 

[AlanF]

That's what accountants call an "expense", not an "investment."

What you are describing is a "capital expense", not a "capital investment."

Investments are things that one can reasonably expect to increase in value apart from their utility during the time they are owned/used.

If I buy a house for $200,000, live in it for ten years, and sell it for $180,000 I've lost money on the "investment", even though the $20,000 I lost on the transaction (plus what I had to spend on upkeep/maintenance) is less than I would have needed to spend on rent to live somewhere else for those ten years.

In an economic sense, an investment is the purchase of goods that are not consumed today but are used in the future to create wealth. In finance, an investment is a monetary asset purchased with the idea that the asset will provide income in the future or will later be sold at a higher price for a profit. (investopedia). A professional photographer will invest in his or her gear to make a profit. At the end of its use to him or her, the price it is sold for will affect the overall wealth created, but is should still be a profitable investment even if sold at a loss. If you had rented out that house for $20,000 p.a. for ten years, and lost $20,000 on its purchase price, it would still have been a profitable investment.

An old meaning of investment is: the surrounding of a place by a hostile force in order to besiege or blockade it. This discussion is beginning to resemble the archaic meaning.

 

[Kit.]

That's what accountants call an "expense", not an "investment."

In economics (if you are a business), it is called "fixed investment".

Investments are things that one can reasonably expect to increase in value apart from their utility during the time they are owned/used.

And this is called "value investment".

 

[Quarkcharmed]

Ironically, what we call analog (film) is more digital than the analog thing we call digital (CMOS sensors that measure analog charge values up to hundreds of thousands of electrons).

In terms of the electronic circuits, the film is neither analog nor digital. In terms of the output signal after processing, film responds as an 'analog' media. There's no way to read each silver halide crystal as an actual digital bit and use its value in the electronics.

Anyway this argument is irrelevant to what was discussed. I explained it several times, last time in this post.

 

[Alex784]

In economics (if you are a business), it is called "fixed investment".

And this is called "value investment".

I am not a specialist in economics, but would it make sense for a business to announce a better and cheaper product, which includes the latest technology included in its flagship product, even before starting to sell its flagship product ?

 

[Michael Clark]

The top retailers already do this. And it’s 30 days with free shipping both ways. 60 days if you pay for the VIP plan. Much cheaper than CPS but appropriate only for when you really plan to keep it if you like it. I switched to Canon last year after testing the RP and sending it back, then again when I was more committed. They even pay shipping both ways unlike CPS.

I’m taking heat for this on another thread but wouldn’t be a Canon owner without it.

CPS Platinum does pay shipping both ways.

 

[Michael Clark]

I totally agree - one more FF DSLR means a minimum of one less RF lens sale, which means one less lens to amortize the huge develop costs of the RF line. Not the best long term business strategy.

I also doubt there will ever be RF-S cropped line - too expensive, not another lens line! Better to keep RP line (i.e. no IBIS to help keep costs down) with a couple of slower consumer grade zooms as a gateway to the RF ecosystem (I hate that word!).

Canon can just as easily amortize development costs of RF lenses with the larger profit margin they make when selling mature EF lenses, which have long since recovered the R&D costs associated with them, as they can by selling an RF lens. Revenue is revenue. Yen are yen.

 

[Michael Clark]

Canon 2020: one mount to rule them all - RF.

Do you remember when the EF mount was introduced? Did Canon say let's keep making non EOS bodies and lenses for our their faithful FD users? Nope. You either get on the train or you get run over.

As you know, a camera system revolves around the lenses, not the camera bodies which change frequently. Canon will not go with two mounts for much longer. It is not economical.

Have you ever considered the possibility that:

1) The transition from all mechanical FD to all electronic EF forced Canon to choose not to make them backwards compatible in 1987? (Yet even then, Canon kept on selling FD lenses and bodies for another half decade until 1992.) History has shown that it was the right choice for Canon. It put them at #1 for the first time in history, where they have stayed for the past two and one half decades.

2) Canon may have learned something from the FD to EF transition and are using that knowledge now?

3) You're so bitter because of your own experience during the FD to EF transition that you can't look at this with a clear eye?

 

[Quarkcharmed]

Canon can just as easily amortize development costs of RF lenses with the larger profit margin they make when selling mature EF lenses, which have long since recovered the R&D costs associated with them, as they can by selling an RF lens. Revenue is revenue. Yen are yen.

This is how it happens in huge bureaucratic companies like Canon. There would be a marketing department with smart guys in it. They'd prepare a report with beautiful slides and exact calculations on what would be sold and what should be developed. Then a very big guy would carefully listen to the presentation, nod affirmatively, and pay marketing guys big bonuses. And then he would take final decisions totally unrelated to the smart calculated predictions.

There's a lot of bureaucracy and internal politics involved and you'll never know for sure why Canon makes one decision or another.

 

[Michael Clark]

This is going on a bit and the discussion should end. They didn’t buy to speculate or make a profit but to spend their money in a way that would be relatively frugal in the long run.

My point is: anyone who spends what an EF 300mm f/2.8 L (in any version) cost when new should know that they may not "get their money back" after they've used it for a while. "Frugal" is making do with a lesser lens, not spending $5K on a lens because in the past others have been able to get all or most of that money back when they sold theirs. Anyone with that kind of money should know that "past results are no guarantee of future performance."

 

[Michael Clark]

And all of these lenses work on RF. Not sure if we see many new lenses with possible exception of big-whites.
If you want to convince birders you could offer a mount convertible version like EF or RF+integrated 1.4x. (.. can you fit an extender in 22mm?).

Where did I say anything whatsoever about new EF lens models? I said Canon will continue to sell and, if necessary, manufacture more copies of existing EF lens designs.

 

[Michael Clark]

It’s all ultimately digital, even “analog” - quantum theory.

Maybe, but quantum mechanics is more than "binary", which is what we usually mean when we say "digital."

 

[Kit.]

I am not a specialist in economics, but would it make sense for a business to announce a better and cheaper product, which includes the latest technology included in its flagship product, even before starting to sell its flagship product ?

1DX series is hardly a "flagship" in terms of revenues.

 

[UlricWolf]

It was for me. Inside the store, it was WAY brighter than the store.



But blacks were black where the image would contain detail.



Not bright enough in full sun.



If so, sad for the industry because it was obvious and horrible.



Yeah, it would, if you shoot fast-moving subjects and have to track them with tight framing.



So blurry that when my son just walked past me, it was too blurry to read the block letters on his shirt.



Which is an unmitigated disaster since it will ruin the dark-adaptation of your eyes.



I've used the viewfinder for 6 hours and shot 2,250 shots and half an hour of video on my 7D Mark II, on 90% of one battery. I suspect the same thing here would use 6-10 batteries.



Which is useless.



Which doesn't work because it doesn't represent the raw data, just the JPEG.



Always searching for solutions, it's just that EVFs are a solution without a problem. They only have two advantages - shooting video and manual focus aids. I added one to my SLR for those rare instances when I'm doing one of those.

Reading all this I clearly see that You have no clue and You havent actually used a camera (because few of the stuff You are writing is complete nonsense and out of this world) Maybe You have, but for, maybe, few test situations and few minutes. Good luck then with Your DSLRs. Im not returning to those old sh*ts.

 

[AlanF]

Maybe, but quantum mechanics is more than "binary", which is what we usually mean when we say "digital."

Digital can be to any base, not just to base 2 as in binary. The point is that ultimately an analog signal is composed of discrete quanta.

 

[Joules]

That's the point. They don't need much innovation with the 5D5 -- just jam the R5 internals into a 5D SLR. Done. People will absolutely buy that SLR.

- A

There's not much innovation needed, as that has been already done for the 1DX III. But there may be new components needed, that make it more difficult to create a 5D V than an R5 with the rumored R5 specs.

Namely, the R5 doesn't have a mirror assembly and doesn't have a specialized focusing sensor. If the 5D V will employ the same innovations seen in the 1DX III, one would expect the mechanically coupled mirror assembly and a Cmos based AF sensor to be included. If that's not the case, and they stick with the traditional parts, they may have trouble matching the LiveView AF performance at 12 FPS.

And if they go with the new designs, reusing the same parts as the 1DX III uses sounds like a good way to spread cost, but on the other hands those parts are highly specialized and may add more cost than reusing them saves. In any case, it will add more cost compared to the R5. I don't think a 5D V will be as easy as just putting in the R5 in a different shell. Simply because in terms of parts, the sum of all R5 parts should result in an incomplete DSLR body. And supplementing the rest with legacy components from the 5D IV may result in poor performance.