According to a reliable rumor source (thank you!) Canon is testing prototypes of the following DO super telephotos;
- RF 400mm f/3.5 DO IS USM
- RF 400mm f/4 DO IS USM
- RF 500mm f/4.5 DO IS USM
- RF 500mm f/5 DO IS USM
- RF 800mm f/9.5 DO IS USM
According to the source, only one of these is expected to make it out of the prototype and into production. The 500mm lenses have had the best results so far, with one of them currently in the wild.
While we didn't have an RF 500mm DO IS USM on our roadmap, with current supply chain delays Canon may be forced to do something out of order with these lenses.
Interestingly, the source states that Canon hopes to announce this lens either with an actual announcement or development announcement in conjunction with the R1 announcement. The source mentions that production delays may force Canon to do just a development announcement for this lens this year. The source is certainly implying that the R1 announcement is expected later on this year.
Canon certainly could do the R1 this year, especially after so firmly stating that the R3 is most definitely not their flagship mirrorless camera. An R1 announcement later this year, would be 18 months apart from when we first found out about the R3, and 3 years since the development announcement of the 1DX Mark III.
This in the past is nothing unusual as Canon has had fairly quick turnarounds in the 1 series cameras;
1D | December 2001 |
1D Mark II | April 2004 |
1D Mark III | Feb 2007 |
1D Mark IV | December 2009 |
|
|
1Ds | September 2002 |
1Ds Mark II | November 2004 |
1Ds Mark III | April 2007 |
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1DX | October 2011 |
1DX Mark II | February 2016 |
1DX Mark III | January 2020 |
So there is nothing historically different from Canon releasing the R1 this year. The only oddity would be that it's far from the next summer games hopefully held in 2024 and that the major “sports” capable flagships are released during the Olympic years. But faced with stronger Nikon and especially Sony competition, Canon may be feeling the heat to release it as soon as possible.
(The EF 400mm DO is shown above as a reference)
In many ways Canon should have launched the R1 first and then the R3 then they would have had less pressure the same could be said about the R5C. A R7 for instance to replace the EOS 7D MKII which they launched in September 2014 would I’m sure have a huge following if it’s a crop sensor with at least 32MP.
They really like to target the early spring prior to a summer olympics, which would put it 2 years out. If this comes to pass, and if it is indeed a <30mp camera (pretty good odds, made more likely with the non-optimized MTF performance of its newly-announced big white superteles), there will be some teeth gnashing, but this would be most consistent with precedent.
Naw not that easy. the site seems to use a plugin used for tables - I don't seem to have a way to set particular stylesheets for the tables though. have tables been a problem in the past here?
I really miss the old "400 mm f5.6 L" days where we could have a GREAT tele Canon lens around $1200. Never was replaced!