Hands on With the Canon EOS R3

September is shaping up to be a busy month for Canon with rumors that the greatly anticipated EOS R3 is due to be announced September 14. One lucky photographer has a preproduction model in his hands and can at least give you a quick tour of the body and its various buttons and screens.

Jared Polin appears to have been watched very carefully by a Canon employee during the making of this video, and while he can’t tell you the number of megapixels, there’s a fairly broad assumption that the R3 will be 24 megapixels. Back in July, some sleuthing revealed that images shot on an R3 being used by a photographer documenting the Olympics had not been stripped of their metadata, revealing the file dimensions and allowing Canon fans to calculate the resolution. The manufacturer might yet surprise us with something else, but at this stage, it seems fairly unlikely despite their ongoing secrecy regarding the official figure.

Canon is also slated to have a couple of lenses due for release this month. According to Canon Rumors, there is an RF 100-400mm IS USM with an aperture range that is likely to be f/5.6-7.1, and an RF 16mm f/2.8, which some assume will be very compact and lightweight — perhaps ideal on a small APS-C body?

If it’s released in the next couple of weeks, when might we see the R3 on shelves? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Andy Day's picture

Andy Day is a British photographer and writer living in France. He began photographing parkour in 2003 and has been doing weird things in the city and elsewhere ever since. He's addicted to climbing and owns a fairly useless dog. He has an MA in Sociology & Photography which often makes him ponder what all of this really means.

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1 Comment

Interesting to see it being picked up and moved around. It does look a good deal lighter and reasonably smaller than the 1DXIII. The 1DXIII is a heavy camera. Canon seems to be determined to still consider the 1DXIII its flag ship camera. I own one. It's a fine camera but for it was a mistake not to make it 30MP. The 20MP choice added nothing to the camera except the almost infinite buffer. I think 20MP made it out of date the day it arrived. The R3 looks like its 24MP. I don't think this was a good choice either and may also have been driven by buffer at 30 FPS. I'd prefer 20FPS and 30 or 50MP. As Fro said there Sony and really making headway in the photographic agencies. AP and now PA have both switched to Sony. I don't get why Canon went with the R3 as is. It feels like an R1 that they got cold feet about with the A1. Canon are a smart company with a loyal following (or alot of people heavily invested in them). Hopefully this R3 will be special.