We Might Have to Wait a While for Canon's Flagship Mirrorless Camera

We Might Have to Wait a While for Canon's Flagship Mirrorless Camera

The Canon EOS R3 is currently Canon's most powerful mirrorless camera, and it offers some impressive features and capabilities that have impressed most of its users. Nonetheless, the title of "flagship" will eventually belong to the EOS R1. It looks like we might have to wait a while for that, though.

Canon has built out its mirrorless camera and lens lines quite a bit, but the EOS R1, the mirrorless equivalent of the 1D series, has not yet made its way to the market. Canon Rumors is reporting that we might have to continue to wait for a while, as it might not make an appearance until the 2024 Olympics in Paris, France. This might be frustrating for photographers who are eyeing cameras like the Sony a1 and the Nikon Z9 with envy, but in the meantime, cameras like the EOS R3 and EOS R5 have generally satisfied the needs of most professional photographers. Nonetheless, whenever the EOS R1 does make its way to the market, I am sure there will be plenty of sports and wildlife photographers interested in the camera. It isn't surprising to hear that it might appear at the Olympics either, as this is a common place for camera companies to show off their latest tech. Hopefully, we'll hear something before that! 

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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4 Comments

Legend has it, if you peel back the R3 badge it says R1 underneath.

Canon only uses its own sensors, and it spent who knows how many years developing a stacked 24MP chip. And then oopsy stacked 50-ish MP chips were suddenly the new 24MP.

No wonder it’ll take till 2024, they have to run a whole new R&D cycle and find a way to fab higher res stacked chips profitably. And maybe even try to leapfrog the competition (if they can) so they don’t get caught out again.

> Legend has it, if you peel back the R3 badge it says R1 underneath

Well, you know. The Internet...
I also saw someone saying Canon renamed the camera from R1 to R3 because of a flagship camera from another cameramaker. And the "proof" was that camera in the original rumours was called "R1". But guess what, the original source of rumour didn't name the camera. Canonrumors site made a qualified guess or assumption and gave it the "R1" moniker: https://www.canonrumors.com/the-rf-mount-version-of-the-eos-1d-x-mark-ii... (*)

If Canon follows their usual 4-year cycle of flagship releases, 2024 is the expected year for an "R1" to hit the streets, as the follow-up to 2020's 1DX Mark III.

(*) An updated canonrumors site is a bit unstable these days. Link sometimes work, sometimes doesn't...

I am waiting for this beast to come out…