Canon came blazing out of the gates with its mirrorless lens line, though the EOS R camera was a bit more in the middle of the pack. Apparently, that won't last long, as the company has confirmed they have an 8K mirrorless camera in the works.
Imaging Resource recently interviewed executives at Canon about the future of their mirrorless line, and there were a few surprises. Perhaps most surprising was Canon saying they have an 8K mirrorless camera in the works:
Video will play a huge role in the EOS R System for sure. For example, an 8K video capable camera is already in our EOS R-series roadmap.
There have been complaints about the EOS R's crop factor in 4K, and Canon has traditionally been thought of as quite conservative when it comes to 4K, so to hear that they already have an 8K camera in the works is a bit out of left field and could indicate a desire to seriously compete with Sony on the innovation front.
Canon also confirmed that they'll continue developing DSLR models and use customer feedback (likely meaning sales figures) as a guide for how to continue further development.
Check out the full interview here.
Wonder if this means there's some legitimacy to speculation of an 8K Sony mirrorless. We know for sure they have a sensor for it.
Honestly I wish we could see improvements in codecs, bit rates, raw etc. rather than gains in resolution. With Nikon now allowing 12 bit RAW video out, Sony and Canon need to step it up on that front. 8K is such an unnecessary resolution even for the highest end productions, aside from some very special purposes. 6K would be nice but more than that is excessive and just leads to storage and computer processing issues. I'd like to see implementation of things like ProRes RAW or BMRaw, which give us a stunning amount of image quality in a pretty small package.
I’d say yes and add that it validates other rumors of Canon releasing a super expensive “pro level” camera soon as well since EosR got bashed specifically for the massive crop.
That camera could have been a huge hit if they didn’t botch the 4k (on purpose I think).
Yeah, it's definitely on purpose. Both Sony and Canon have been too afraid of cannibalizing their cinema cameras, but they'll need to get over that now with heavy competition from Nikon and Panasonic.
Never thought I would say "Nikon" in reference to video competition.
What's the actual market penetration of 4K TVs and monitors these days? With more people watching on phones and laptops I gotta think it's really low. There surely aren't a lot of people watching 4K Blu Rays on their 4K TVs thinking "gahhh curse these pixels that are ruining my experience!"
Even more the size of 8K displays must be pretty large and you must sit pretty close to see a real difference. 8k displays do not make much sense.
However don't forget that recorded 8k material gives you more editing capabilities, even in case you are just creating HD content like panning or zooming in post.
On the roadmap, yeah, like 10 years down the road once their cinema cameras are recording 16k.
One thing I think many people are underrating is how much the Tokyo 2020 Olympics will drive 8k adoption, and not just in the capture space, and not just to move product.
Canon, Sony, Sharp, Panasonic, etc, are all hell bent on pushing 8k, because the Olympics will be a global showcase of Japan that simply can't be matched. Japan simply isn't associated with the 'cutting edge' like they once were- that's for Chinese and Korean companies now. They want it back, and this is the chance to do that. We can't discount how important national pride is in driving this standard.
Interesting take, makes sense.
Wish they would stop pushing for 4k, 5k, 8k etc. Instead please focus on dynamic range, noise performance in low light. And maybe re-assess your approach to camera ergonomics and styling.
I switched to Fuji last year because Canon seems like a dead end.
Can't wait for that Canon 8k video with 3.4 crop factor ;)
😂