The Canon EOS R3 will be 24mp, confirmed by EXIF data

[Michael Clark]

The R5 is just an amazing camera. I'm still in awe of it every time I shoot with it. I don't even see how they could charge $4500 for it considering the biggest things this camera has going for it are +10 fps and a bigger battery bay..........but that's at the cost of half the resolution and a myriad of video features. Then you realize it will most likely cost closer to $6000 and you have to laugh. Kinda lame honestly, IMHO.


A lot of people here keep taking exception to others comparing this to the A1. It's a valid comparison because that camera has been released for nearly six months. What they don't realize is that Canon's own release from a year ago makes this camera look bad too. Shame, really.

Anyone who has never shot sports/action with Big Whites fails to understand how much difference the larger battery with higher voltage makes in terms of AF speed with large lenses having heavier AF elements when compared to similarly spec'd cameras with lower voltage batteries. It can often be the difference between keeping up with the subject or not during continuous tracking in continuous drive mode.

 

[Michael Clark]

I am a professional bird and wildlife photographer that takes 1000+ photographers out in the field on tours each year and I have been doing it for over 20 years. I am not sure where your "...but those are the minority." data came from, but from what I have seen over the years there are a lot of people in the world with a lot of money and they switch systems and shoot multiple systems. Since Sony came out with the a9, then the a9II, and now the a1 I have seem many of my repeat clients switch from Nikon and Canon to Sony. Many of these folks shot the other systems for many years and where highly invested in those system. This is just one example. These people are not just professionals, but also enthusiasts. There is inertia as you put it, but also thousands of people who go with the flow and switch systems to meet their desires. Within the realm of bird and wildlife photographers, I am not sure those who switch systems or shoot multiple system are a minority, but instead may be closer to the majority, and there are a lot of wildlife photographers out here with more joining their ranks every day. Just one persons somewhat educated perspective.

You kind of make Goldwing's point. Those who are switching are not, for the most part, professionals who earn their living by selling photographs. It sounds like even you might be more of a professional photography teacher who makes a good portion, maybe even the majority, of your income from the tours you conduct, rather than from the photos you license to commercial clients.

 

[Michael Clark]

Tbh i have a feeling that the 30fps will be much more of a marketing gimmick than a practical tool for a while, mainly because of the lenses, or the focusing motors in lenses to be more precise.
If you look at the R5/R6 manual you'll see several lists, one for EF and one for RF glass, listing their support of high frame rates. given that most relevant EF glass peaks out at 12 fps, only several RF lenses currently support 20 fps, and even that, only wide open and only above certain battery charge levels (i'm assuming this is related to output voltage).

Careful, don't confuse them with facts.

On top of that - given that you cant really use teleconverters on RF 70-200's, or lack any telephotos except the 100-500 zoom, and have no 300, 400, 500, 600, 800 L primes coming anytime soon professional sports/wildlife/action photographers will have quite a useless 30fps spec on their 7k$ cameras.

It ain't gonna be $7,000 USD. It's going to be priced close enough to the α9II to be competitive.

 

[Michael Clark]

Why are they useless? What stops all lenses to work at 30fps fully open? Also aren't EF lenses supposed to work OK with 1DxIII? So 16fps must be doable with many modern big white EF lenses.

All EF lenses are supposed to work at least as well on RF mount cameras as they work on EF mount cameras. They're not necessarily supposed to work as well as RF lenses on RF mount cameras.

 

[Michael Clark]

For when we can't remember where that dang stadium was.

Well, there is the Tour de France, and GPS might also be helpful in identifying exactly at which hole on a links golf course a photo was taken.

 

[Michael Clark]

When you're a professional photo journalist, action, or sports photographer; switching to a rival camera system is the option. The gear is paid for on your first or second assignment. The semi-pro and enthusiast crowd own pro bodies as a luxury item.

I'm glad to hear your day rate is a lot higher than what many of my friends who once were former staffers at major (and minor) newspapers using company equipment are now getting paid to shoot sports with their own gear on spec these days.

 

[Michael Clark]

I know I am the exception, but I've never found the ergonomics of the 1 series to be that much superior to the five or seven series, especially if you choose to add a grip. In fact, the older I get the more I like not having to lug around the extra weight of a 1 series body. Part of it, I know, is just the way I shoot. After decades of using film cameras, my muscle memory is so accustomed to leaving my hands in the same place when I switch to vertical, so I find the vertical controls on the 1 series and grips to be useless for me.

I used to shoot portrait mode that way until I ruined my right rotator cuff. Now I can't really shoot vertical without a grip. Even on days I have the range of motion, which isn't very often, I don't have the stability I need in that position.

 

[tapanit]

There, fixed that for 'ya.

I hope the R3 will perform well when water is dry. That is, cold snow.

 

[Michael Clark]

Confirmed 24 MP makes this push a wee bit ahead of the 45MP+ Z9 in my opinion. But it is still going to depend on what the big boy lenses look like on both. Nikon seem to have all new 400 f/2.8 and 600 f/4.0 instead of 'old' lenses with built in adaptors.

It seems to me the EF 600mm f/4L IS III and EF 400mm f/2.8L IS III released in 2018 could just as well have been purpose built RF lenses with shortened rear barrels. They're pretty much totally new optical designs compared to the II versions of both those lenses.

 

[Deleted member 381342]

It seems to me the EF 600mm f/4L IS III and EF 400mm f/2.8L IS III released in 2018 could just as well have been purpose built RF lenses with shortened rear barrels. They're pretty much totally new optical designs compared to the II versions of both those lenses.

Note the single quotation marks around old. However, they are clearly not RF native designs. I don’t believe like some that making all new designs so soon after release is necessary nor required, but I also expect designing for RF from the get go will produce lenses that better match the RF design.

 

[entoman]

By your logic, there’s no reason Canon couldn’t have fitted a 50 MP sensor (the 5Ds/R launched just before the 1D X II) into the 1D X III.

When they limited the 1D X III to 20 MP, that must only have been done as a product differentiation tactic to make people crave the _________. (Since this is your logic, you should have no trouble filling in that blank for us.)

Typical neuroanatomist condescending reply.

There's a simple and obvious reason why the 50MP sensor from the 5DS wasn't put into the IDxiii.
It simply wasn't good enough for the applications the ID series are primarily aimed at, i.e. reportage, sports and wildlife, in low-light / high ISO conditions.
Photographers using the 1D series typically shoot at high ISO, but the 5DS (I owned one) was crap at anything over ISO 1000.

 

[entoman]

I'm not sure Canon cares. Canon may figure they already have that group covered with the R5, which many reviewers have said is the best bird and wildlife camera ever.

Yes you may be right, the R5 has the resolution covered and meets most of the requirements of wildlife photographers - although I could suggest a few basic improvements (and have passed my comments to Canon).

 

[FrenchFry]

It seems to me the EF 600mm f/4L IS III and EF 400mm f/2.8L IS III released in 2018 could just as well have been purpose built RF lenses with shortened rear barrels. They're pretty much totally new optical designs compared to the II versions of both those lenses.

Canon has said that these lenses were not designed for RF. They have also said that they released the RF versions of these lenses by popular demand, but that this was not the original plan. Presumably that means that more telephotos that were planned are still being actively worked on.
There was a thread covering this on Canon Rumors, and here is the source:

Canon interview: 'Development of compact devices supporting 8K is a very high priority'

As part of our ongoing series of executive interviews at major camera and lens companies, we talked recently with Go Tokura, Chief Executive of the Image Communication Business Operations at Canon.

m.dpreview.com

 

[Sporgon]

It simply wasn't good enough for the applications the ID series are primarily aimed at, i.e. reportage, sports and wildlife, in low-light / high ISO conditions.
Photographers using the 1D series typically shoot at high ISO, but the 5DS (I owned one) was crap at anything over ISO 1000.

Not when you downsample to the same 20mp as the 1D it isn’t.

 

[entoman]

At least one. I can process an image faster and better in Adobe Camera Raw than I can in Photoshop and I never have to worry about color balance when shooting indoor sports, as I can adjust it easily in raw.

It's often stated that among the prime requirements of sports and reportage photographers, is the ability to have small file sizes that can be rapidly transmitted straight to the picture desk - and that means JPEGs (or possibly low-res CR3 RAWs). That's what I hear and read regularly, so I'm guessing it's true.

I think you must be one of the few who shoot RAW for sports (I'm more than happy to be corrected ).

If you do your own processing in ACR, it implies that your work is non-urgent....
Is your photography for your own use, rather than for instant publication on the media?

 

[entoman]

Not when you downsample to the same 20mp as the 1D it isn’t.

Yes that's true.

 

[entoman]

what a pity for birders. I´ll stay with my R5...

But what is following? R1 with 20MPix, as professionals do not need more?
I hope for an high MPix R5 or R3 for birders.

Yes, a higher MP for the R3 would indeed be valued by wildlife and BIF photographers, and probably sports and reportage photographers too.

But R5? Seriously? You need more than 45MP?

I see the "R5s" with its rumoured 90MP as being a studio, advertising and landscape camera, not a sports or wildlife camera. It's unlikely to achieve more than 6-8fps.

 

[neuroanatomist]

Typical neuroanatomist condescending reply.

There's a simple and obvious reason why the 50MP sensor from the 5DS wasn't put into the IDxiii.
It simply wasn't good enough for the applications the ID series are primarily aimed at, i.e. reportage, sports and wildlife, in low-light / high ISO conditions.
Photographers using the 1D series typically shoot at high ISO, but the 5DS (I owned one) was crap at anything over ISO 1000.

Read more carefully. I didn’t say they should have used the 5Ds/R sensor in the 1D X III, I said give it 50 MP. Just as when you suggested they could have given the R3 a 45 MP sensor, I didn’t assume you were suggesting they just reuse the R5 sensor and it’s traditional architecture rather than making it a stacked, BSI sensor like the R3 will have. But maybe that was giving you too much credit.

Given that the R5 launched not long after the 1D X III, the better architecture found in the R5 sensor was being developed concurrently with the 1D X III. Also, as @Sporgon pointed out (and you acknowledged), downsampling the image would eliminate the concern of high ISO even has they used an older architecture as in the 5Ds/R sensor. I trust you recall that your argument for a high-MP R3 was based on downsampling…

So, will you be the typical forum dweller unable to admit when they were wrong or their logic was flawed? Or will you continue to maintain that the only reason they didn’t make a high MP R3 (assuming the 24 MP spec is true) is as a differentiation tactic to push R1 sales (assuming the R1 has substantially higher MP)? In the latter case, I’m still waiting for you to fill in that blank…..

 

[entoman]

Read more carefully. I didn’t say they should have used the 5Ds/R sensor in the 1D X III, I said give it 50 MP. Just as when you suggested they could have given the R3 a 45 MP sensor, I didn’t assume you were suggesting they just reuse the R5 sensor and it’s traditional architecture rather than making it a stacked, BSI sensor like the R3 will have. But maybe that was giving you too much credit.

Given that the R5 launched not long after the 1D X III, the better architecture found in the R5 sensor was being developed concurrently with the 1D X III. Also, as @Sporgon pointed out (and you acknowledged), downsampling the image would eliminate the concern of high ISO even has they used an older architecture as in the 5Ds/R sensor. I trust you recall that your argument for a high-MP R3 was based on downsampling…

So, will you be the typical forum dweller unable to admit when they were wrong or their logic was flawed? Or will you continue to maintain that the only reason they didn’t make a high MP R3 (assuming the 24 MP spec is true) is as a differentiation tactic to push R1 sales (assuming the R1 has substantially higher MP)? In the latter case, I’m still waiting for you to fill in that blank…..

I'm perfectly able to admit when I'm wrong or when my logic is flawed, as unlike yourself I'm not perfect .
Perhaps you'd be less irritating if you took a less condescending attitude when replying to people.

As you are so clever, perhaps you'll enlighten the world and explain why Canon apparently chose to limit the R3 to 24MP, when they could have used the R5 sensor?

 

[neuroanatomist]

I'm perfectly able to admit when I'm wrong or when my logic is flawed, as unlike yourself I'm not perfect .
Perhaps you'd be less irritating if you took a less condescending attitude when replying to people.

As you are so clever, perhaps you'll enlighten the world and explain why Canon apparently chose to limit the R3 to 24MP, when they could have used the R5 sensor?

LOL. I'm a fan of cogent, logical arguments even when I disagree with them, but I admit that I have a low tolerance for inane arguments that are clearly not well thought out. Ridiculous statements engender ridicule.

I don't think we know that they've chosen to use a 24 MP sensor in the R3. This 'conclusion' is based on the EXIF data from images from a single photographer using a Chrome plugin that is reporting the EXIF info on a camera that has not been released, and other EXIF viewers, e.g. the excellent exiftool, do not show that information on downloaded images.

But, assuming Canon is releasing an R3 with a 24 MP sensor, presumably it's because they believe that's what they perceive as the major market for it wants. The 1D X was 18 MP, and both the MkII and MkIII versions of that camera were 20 MP. If the R3 is targeting that market, 24 MP is very logical.