The Canon EOS R3 has been quite well received, and though it has some top-level professional capabilities that help it compete with cameras like the Sony a1 and Nikon Z9, it is not meant to be Canon's flagship mirrorless camera. That title will belong to the EOS R1, whenever it gets here, but when will that be?
In the last few months, Canon has continued to release new mirrorless cameras and lenses, but news about the EOS R1, the mirrorless equivalent of the 1D series, has been rather hard to find. However, Canon Rumors is reporting that the EOS R1 will be announced in the second half of next year, with teasers from Canon starting to drop in the first half of the year. The body is rumored to have the highest resolution of any full frame body, a title currently held by the Sony a7R IV, which sits at 61 megapixels. I am not surprised to hear that the camera will offer high levels of resolution, as the EOS R3, Nikon Z9, and Sony a1 are all fairly evenly matched on the specs sheets except in that category, where Canon's offering sits at about half the resolution of Sony's and Nikon's. Further information on the camera is scarce at the moment, but I suspect Canon will be borrowing features from the EOS R3 and taking feedback from pros using the camera to incorporate into the EOS R1. Hopefully, we will hear more soon!
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If Canon is smart, and they are, they will wait until everybody who needs an R1 buys an R3. THEN, after sales of the R3 have topped out, they will release an R1. This assures them that most pros who need a top shelf body will buy TWO very expensive cameras, instead of just one.
It's just good business to "force" your customer base to buy something very expensive that is ALMOST what they need, and then a year or three later, offer them the camera they truly need, and get them to buy that, as well. Two $5,000+ sales are much better than one $5,000+ sale.
At least that's how I would think if I were a Canon executive or one of their stock holders. And those are the people who ultimately make the decisions about what cameras to release and when to release them. It is a business, after all, and their ONLY goal is to generate as much profit as possible ... which means getting as many of our dollars as they possibly can.
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Whatcha talking about, the R1 launched last year? They just had to change the 1 to a 3 because they spent who knows how long developing an A9II slayer and didn’t anticipate that a stacked 50MP camera would drop out of nowhere.
And there’s no shame in that. No one else thought that’d happen either, and the only reason the Z9 is as good as it is comes down to Nikon having the freedom to purchase bleeding-edge components rather than having to fund the R&D to develop them from scratch.
I’m sure we’ll see an R1 branded as such by the time we see 3rd party lenses on R-mount.
Can we get a guide to Canon cameras like what are the different lenses mount, what works with what and the meaning behind their naming conventions?
All EF and EF-S lenses work perfectly with R cameras with the adapter. The control adapter adds RF features to the EF series.
No score card is needed like the 9 different Nikon mounts and what works with what and most do not work adapted to the Z mount.
Additionally all your M39, R, FL and FD leases now work manually on R cameras with the adapter. They are manual focus lenses so no loss and theR cameras add auto exposure to these lenses.
As an R5 owner, I was disappointed in the R3 with its mediocre resolution. In my eyes, it made no sense to release the R3 with a lower resolution than the R5. With Sony and Nikon releasing higher-resolution sensors, the R3 seemed a step back. But at least it saved me $6-8k for another year as I await the $1!
Hopefully Canon won't go nuts on the price. I am waiting for an R1, but if it's to pay for more video tech, I'll be okay to wait for an R5m2.
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How does the R3 lower resolution not make sense?
The R3 and the R5 are not made for the same purposes. The R3 is not made to be "better than" the R5.
The R5 is made for fine art photography, while the R3 is made for action sports photography and for photography in harsh environmental conditions such as rain, snow, dust, sand, etc.
Canon's top tier bodies have never been about ultimate image quality. They have always been about ruggedness, weather sealing, frame rate, and superior tracking autofocus.
The R3's strengths, and weaknesses, are consistent with what Canon has been doing for the last 20 years. How, then, does it not make sense to you?
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This!!! You saved me a lot of typing, Tom. ;-)
The R3 I'd also think was meant to be the R1 but they got cold feet at the sight of the A1. It's a good camera but probably not good enough to deserve the R1 badge (I'd argue the 1DXIII wasn't good enough either - 20MP was undercooked).Canon probably have taken some time to come up with a great R1. I have an R5 and its quite impressive. I think focus tracking is the weakest part of modern cameras. It has a way to go. MP once it goes past 50MP is a diminishing return, as it FPS after 20FPS. The industry has more or less perfected cameras. Honestly an R5 is more than 99% of photographers will ever need.