What will Canon bring to the table with the EOS R1?

Yesterday Sony set the gear world ablaze with the Sony Alpha a1, their new flagship full-frame mirrorless camera. It boasts a ton of pretty great features that most of you already know about. In particular, I love the EVF on paper, the 1/400 flash sync and the autofocus looks tremendous.

So what could Canon potentially bring to the table with their upcoming flagship mirrorless camera, which I call the EOS R1? The rumors for this camera have been minimal, with only very broad strokes about what we can expect.

One area I think Sony should have changed with the Alpha a1 is the form factor and ergonomics of the camera. If you have ever used a flagship DSLR like the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III or Nikon D6, you can have a hard time going back to other cameras, this is especially true with the EOS-1D series of cameras.

I am hoping that when Canon does bring the EOS R1 to market likely later this year, we get more EOS-1 than EOS R5 when it comes to form factor and ergonomics. While the ergonomics are very good on the EOS R5, personally I had a bumpy road getting used to things after only really shooting with EOS-1D cameras for the last decade or so. I’m used to the EOS R5 now, but I would still love it in a larger body with a similar layout to the EOS-1D X Mark III.

So what have I heard about the EOS R1?

Unfortunately nothing new. There have been mentions of a new Quad-Pixel AF system, which we have seen patents for in the last year. There has also been repeated mention of giving the EOS R1 a global shutter image sensor. The latter may be hard to do and perhaps Canon can do something like Sony did to get rid of rolling shutter when using the electronic shutter.

I also don’t believe we’re going to see another 20mp camera. I think it’s safe to say that pro-level cameras going forward will be 8K capable. So I would suspect we’re going to see at least a 45mp image sensor in the EOS R1. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a slight increase.

I have been told that we will hear from Canon about the EOS R1 sometime in the 2nd half of 2021. With the Olympics looking less and less likely to happen, there may not be a marketing rush to get the camera to market and that could get pushed back. We’ll also have to see how manufacturing challenges are alleviated throughout 2021, as that will likely play a big role in announcements from Canon.

Once I hear more, I will obviously let the Canon world know!

More to come…