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The original Canon EOS R3 was a “stop-gap” for lack of a better term until Canon could develop what they considered a true 1 series flagship. The EOS R3 certainly resembled Canon's gripped DSLRs like the EOS-1D Mark III, that was and is extremely popular among professionals in various disciplines.
The EOS R3 has a 24MP fast readout stacked sensor, along with advanced autofocus and great image quality. It is also built to withstand a lot of abuse. At the time of its release, Canon made it clear that it was not a “true flagship”.
What's up with an EOS R3 Mark II?
Over the last year there has been a lot of chatter about a follow-up to the R3. Most of it originated on YouTube and I haven't bothered to address it. It's hard to make a business case for releasing another gripped camera. As great as the EOS R1 is, it's not a camera that moves the unit sales all that much for obvious reasons.
The only segmentation that made even a little sense to me was making it a high-resolution camera body. I mean well beyond the 45mp we see in the EOS R5 Mark II.
There's no way to make a “baby R1” make sense. What would you take out of the R1? If you can spend $4500- $5000 for such a camera, you can probably spend $6000 on the used market or during rebate programs for an R1.
Is an EOS R3 Mark II Possible?
Over the last month or so, I have had a lot of anonymous mentions about an R32. While anonymous can be accurate, I'm more comfortable when someone I know “cannot confirm or deny”.
The latest talk is about an EOS R3 Mark II appearing for the Milan Olympics in February. Canon always makes a splash ahead of the summer and winter games. We saw the EOS R1 development announcement ahead of last summer Olympics in Paris and the camera was front and center with professionals there.
Too many questions without answers
What is being said is that the camera will be “high-resolution and significantly more pixels than the R52”.
I'd like to say, ‘wow I was right', but I'm not convinced whatsoever. Maybe this post will bring some clarity from folks I know, or it will go nowhere.
I had to address it because it keeps coming up, from people with direct questions or sending me links to various people talking about it.
Did the EOS R1 target market of professionals go to Canon and ask for more resolution, but they don't want to use the R5 Mark II? I don't know for sure, but I do know some sports shooters that do want more resolution but have no interest in a 5 series and just roll with the R1.
How would Canon make a high-resolution sensor fast enough to appeal to those shooters? For studio work and that sort of thing, you'd just go buy a Fuji GFX or Hasselblad, as a lot of people do.
Another gripped body in the lineup? It's been a long time since that occurred. In 2011, the EOS-1D X amalgamated the 1D and 1Ds lines into one model and it has remained that way ever since.
I can understand why people don't think an R3 Mark II makes any sense, and I'd lean towards that thought process as well.
If there is something going on for Milan, then we don't have long to wait. If nothing happens by then, it's never happening in my books.
More to come
The image associated with this post is a mockup and not a real product.
Look at what Fuji did when they updated the GFX 100 to the MkII:
While I agree that an additional gripped body doesn't necessarily make sense in Canon's lineup, an R3 II could be used to introduce/test new features (like eye-controlled AF) that need to be refined before introduction into the 1-series.
An R3 MKii would be interesting, but only if Canon could increase the MP and maintain clean files at high ISO. Will it happen, I suspect not, but I live in hope.
There would be a market for such a camera, although it may be somewhat small. A crop R3 with a couple or 3 fast zooms like a 15-55 f/2.8 or 15-85 f/4 L quality available.
Nikon do the same camera, one in a normal body, the other on a gripped body with the Z8 and Z9. So Canon could put the R5 II in a gripped body and call it R3 II...
If I think of which use cases would be open to compromises (maybe low light performance, burst speed) to get more resolution than an R5 ii, my guess would be landscape photographers, architecture photographers, and maybe fashion photographers? I'm not sure wildlife, or sports would be willing to sacrifice some low light or maybe burst speed for the extra resolution. Landscape and architectural photographers are more likely to work on a tripod, and at least from a landscape perspective (speaking selfishly here) a smaller body is often advantageous to reduce carry weight and size. A grip seems counter intuitive in those instances to me.
Fashion photography for sure: it has long been the territory of slow and high-res medium format backs. There's no such thing as too much resolution in fashion photography.
For me the downsides of higher res are:
- the need for better shooting discipline
- bigger file sizes
- longer processing time in post
- lower FPS (the latter not being a factor in some use cases).
Noise is less and less of an issue with modern AI NR and one can always downsize in low light and still enjoy the higher level of details when the light is good.And after using a 1D X, I had come to love the ergonomics of gripped bodies.
As others I do not see the logic of an R3 II being a fast low(ish)-res body since that would cannibalize the R1 which has some time to go before a R1 II appears.
Canon's continuing inability or unwillingness to produce a high-resolution successor to my 5DsR is the reason that I'm almost certain to move to a different platform during the next year — most likely Sony.
(I don't care if it is "gripped," in fact I prefer that it not be for my purposes — in the same way that the 5DsR was largely the same body as the other 5D series bodies.)
So it would be the readout speed of an R3 with 32MP, and it would slot in right between an R5 II and R1. It wouldn't have cross-type points, dual CFe slots and EVF of an R1, but it would be lighter while better in low light than an R5 II.
Remember that MF bodies have different crop factors (<1) and lenses behave a bit differently so there is a bit of a learning curve. I was (very pleasantly) surprised by the way lenses behaved with my H5X. Having said that, it depends on your needs, as long tele is where MF bodies have the most limitations.
For some time I played with the thought that this would be my first R.
Then the R6m2 delivered almost the same sensor performance for half of the money. So I went that way.
If there's an R3m2 and it's not an MP monster I will get triggered again to get it as an upgrade from my R6m2.
I would love the Idea of an R3m2, but I don't see the market segment for it between the R5m2 and the R1.
I don't believe that Canon will do another "Baby R1".
While it is true that most MF systems are limited at 16mm-equiv, more or less, I find it better because the lenses have a longer fl and behave in a way that I prefer.
Fuji has a GF 500mm lens (~400mm in 35mm equiv) but yes, that's a rarity and MF is not for applications heavy on tele lengths.
In the end, medium format systems are not a jack-of-all-trades. They are used for specific applications and that's why my R5 does the many things my Hassy can't or is ill-suited for