Dear oh dear Canon what have you done? On the back of perhaps its most underwhelming release this century, things just go from bad to worse for its new mirrorless camera.
Not content with releasing a camera that's barely more than a 5D Mark IV without a mirror, reports out this week seem to indicate that the build quality and the video recording options are not quite up to standard either. Dave Altizer, part of the popular Kinotika YouTube channel, has provided photographic evidence that the top LCD panel on his new EOS R mirrorless camera has cracked for no apparent reason during routine use, which suggests that the cover doesn't seem properly reinforced or the weather-sealing isn't really up to scratch.
Add to that the new finding that the EOS R doesn't allow 1080/60p in crop mode for any EF-S lenses - something not mentioned anywhere in the official Canon specs - and you start to get the feeling that this could be a long, slow slide that you watch painfully through fingers parted ever so slightly across your face (or with utter glee if you're the type who enjoys a mild dose of schadenfreude).
Believe me, I so wanted Canon's new mirrorless camera to be a gamechanger. I am a Canon user. I live in Japan. I speak Japanese. My wife is Japanese and I am friends with many in the camera world of Japan, some of whom work for Canon. I was sure they were going to produce something big. Alas, I was disappointed. And never felt stronger in my conviction that I'd stay loyal to my trusty 5D Mark IV and legacy lens range. News like this doesn't exactly fill me with hope.
Optimistically, this is just teething problems for Canon's first full-frame mirrorless iteration and it only gets better from here. After all, every release of a new i-phone has some kind of problems that are unaccounted for yet users remain loyal. Or am I just being naively sanguine? Do you have any hands-on, real-world experience with the new Canon EOS R, either positive or negative? Please share in the comments below and assuage my ever expanding doubts.
Same reason they have 50%+ market share, they just work. On paper you’d think they were trash (in reality slightly behind in certain metrics and ahead in others) but in hand, it’s my favourite camera ever. I guess it sucks or whatever though, luckily I’m very happy with mine because I’ve actually used one.
Maybe someone was simply
careless with it causing it to break?
It was ever thus...
The Nikon F2 is one of the highest-regarded 35mm cameras of all time. I bought my first in the 1970s as soon as the F2SB was released. Now considered to be the ultimate pre-AI Nikon, my new camera would not index lenses reliably and had to be sent back three times to be sorted. (After that, it was sublimely perfect!)
I also bought a new Canon F1n when it came out (the pretender to the place of the Nikon F2) that promised a lot. Some bits on it broke almost immediately and it had to get fixed twice. It was never right. I sold it, and never bought a Canon again.
My early Olympus OM-1 from 1975 had problems with the meter coupling to the lens and I sent it to be repaired before it was two months old. Olympus was fantastic, and the "repaired" camera was with me within a week. I have always suspected that it was a new body and I still own it still and it still works 40 years on.
Skip a couple of decades, and my first OM-D E-M1 (bought not long after it was released) was such a dog, I had it replaced for a new one, which has been a faultless workhorse ever since (and nevermore have I heard a mirror flap).
It does not surprise me at all that there will be problems with these new mirrorless cameras today. I would be much more surprised if they were all just fine! I am a sucker for new tech, so I have been stung by faults whenever I bought "the latest" camera over the last four decades.
Thanks to the engagement of the manufacturers, each of my problematic cameras (with the exception of the Canon) came through the tough times and became utterly dependable workhorses and favourite cameras. I hope that this will be the experience of the new owners of these cameras, which are IMO the way forward.
はじめまして
Well the Nikon Zs suck too...
The touch bar on the back of the Canon R seemed like a great idea for a control / input device at first. It offers right tap, left tap, and side-to-side scroll. For example, you can assign a low ISO to the left side, a high ISO to the right side, and then use the scroll function to get to any other ISO you may need.
At the PhotoPlus Expo I tried the R and its touch bar. It was very finicky and too easy to touch by accident because of course it's close to where your thumb goes. It can be disabled to avoid those accidents, but then you have to go through that process of turning it off and then turning it on again when you need it. These extra steps seem cumbersome and inefficient to me.
Furthermore, turning off the touch bar involves resting the tip of your thumb on the left side in juuust the right way without actually tapping it and invoking whatever function is mapped to the left side. I tried 4 or 5 times and I couldn't actually disable it the way the Canon rep showed me. I guess it takes practice...
Oh, and the touch bar won't function at all when wearing gloves.
Thanks for the info. I’ve tinkered with many friends’ mirrorless bodies and always found my fingers hitting wrong buttons. I never really queried because I put it down to simply not being used to it. But in the back of my mind I’ve alqays wondered just how practical these smaller bodies will be, especially for people with big ole sausage fingers.
If you look at my responses to comments here you’ll find typos all over the place as much as I try to edit. It infuriates me trying to type quickly ln a smartphone qwerty keyboard. Sometimes smaller definitely isn’t better but until I’ve owned and/or used a mirrorlessbody for a year or so I don’t want to speculate too much.
But your post is food for thought.
Seriously ?
What is the point for all youtubers and influencers ? Do they need to find anything possible and dreamed to get a little traction and get some likes/clicks ??
This is all pathetic and lame...
hey guys, get a life, and do something usefull instead of bragging tons of crap about gear. Ok, some infos can be usefull to know, but why doing in like a dramaqueen ?
Canon bashing is so much fun, isn't it?
Almost every product is going to have hiccups. This camera has a lot of potential and shows that the path to a pro version in the future will be pretty awesome, and way better than Sony or Nikon. ☺️
I don't understand the reference to living in Japan, having a japanese wife, speaking japanese, and well, rooting for Canon. You could make the same statement for a Nikon, Sony, Fuji, Panasonic, Olympus camera with that logic (except maybe you don't have friends working for every single one of those companies).
(I live in Tokyo, my wife and daughter are japanese, I speak some japanese, but I ordered the Nikon Z6)
I have had no issues whatsoever with the camera. It’s a little quirky yes but the results I get out of it are spectacular. I’m looking forward to shooting 10 bit video with the new Ninja.
Does anyone recall all the issues with overheating on Sony cameras? Or the focus issues when the GH5 was released? There is almost nothing that gets released without some issues that crop up. Cannons issue with video and this camera is they still don’t know what features to add that will not impact the c100 c300 sales. And they are confused about letting 3rd parties make lenses. I think they will realize in the end that volume sales will be better than a closed and somewhat crippled system.
One person has a cracked screen, so that means Canon has big "problems"? No it doesn't. It just means one person has a cracked screen. Things break, even with normal use. I had a cracked top screen on an older camera and I know the exact reason: I banged it into another piece of equipment. Yes, things break that way. I should not have banged it into the other piece of equipment. I did not blame Canon or write an article for publication.