Canon Hasn't Forgotten About the Flagship EOS R1 Mirrorless Camera

Canon Hasn't Forgotten About the Flagship EOS R1 Mirrorless Camera

With the announcement of the EOS R3 now 18 months behind us, many have started to wonder where Canon's flagship mirrorless camera, the EOS R1, has gone to. In a recent interview, Canon reassured its users that the EOS R1 is indeed still in development and will be on its way eventually. 

While the Canon EOS R3 has been mightily impressive, Canon's naming conventions have long dictated that the EOS R3 would not be the eventual flagship of the line; rather, that title would go to the EOS R1. In an interview with Photo Trend, Canon reaffirmed that an EOS R1 model is on the way, saying: "there's a reason we named the [EOS R3] the '3'." 

Go Tokura, General Manager of Imaging at Canon, went on to say that users can indeed expect an EOS R1 from the company and that the model is currently under development with the intention that it will be the ultimate flagship of Canon's mirrorless camera lineup. I highly suspect we will see the EOS R1 at the 2024 Olympics, as this is often where companies show off some of their newest and highest-level equipment, and it would align with Canon's general development timelines. Hopefully, we'll hear more soon.

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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7 Comments

One would only speculate that a R1 would be released long before the Summer of 2024 by then we will have a way to record 24 stops of DR and output to apple glass!

But then again some companies are still riding the tails of the 2015 cameras technology introduced in 2018. giving excuses for ....
Earthquakes ruing calibration of sensor manufacture equipment
Cell phone competition
Chip shortages
Money crises
Road maps hampered by bleak sales.

It used to be don't fit all the priorities into a camera system because of price point concerns some of the priories got cancelled that was then, now bodies are 6-9000.00 and the same old strategies of limiting firmware actions, camera buttons, EVF-LCD resolution, water resistance, live histograms and capture rates are still major obstacles we should be past all of that by now.

Not sure what you're trying to say.

I think they are working on a sensor global shutter to keep up with the z9

The Z9 doesn't have a global shutter, just an electronic one that "rolls" at 1/270s, versus the 1/250s of everyone's pro-grade electromechanical shutter.

There's no way a 24x36 global shutter bayer sensor will be in mass production by 2024. No doubt it's coming. But it is a long way off.

I'm not claiming the R1 is it, but I'm not sure it's that far off. Canon has a full frame global shutter sensor already, sold for industrial use like all of their market sensors. Sony has an APS-C and a 3.6" sensor (at 127 megapixels) with global shutters, also currently sold for industrial use. A handful of cinema cameras are on the shelf with APS-C and possibly larger global shutter CMOS sensors. I'm not sure, as in the Nikon Z9, if global 7s necessary as ,ong as it rolls faster than the mechanucal shutter. Then again, a 1/32,000+s shutter speed with no roll has possibilities.

Canon introduced an industrial full frame global shutter sensor in December 2022, so the sensor technology is already there, it just needs to trickle down into the high-end consumer market.