Canon EOS R Mirrorless System announcement

Disclaimer:  I know next to nothing about mirrorless technology.  

Question:  Why the slow frame rate?  Does it have to do with the exposure of various sections of the sensor being spread out over a longish period no matter how fast the shutter speed?  This latter is a major concern to me BTW, in addition to the slow frame rate.  I'd be interested in seeing a photo of a fast-moving subject (eg a fast-flapping BIF) taken at high shutter speed with a mirrorless body. 

thx

Mike Danzenbaker wrote:Disclaimer:  I know next to nothing about mirrorless technology.  

Question:  Why the slow frame rate?  Does it have to do with the exposure of various sections of the sensor being spread out over a longish period no matter how fast the shutter speed?  This latter is a major concern to me BTW, in addition to the slow frame rate.  I'd be interested in seeing a photo of a fast-moving subject (eg a fast-flapping BIF) taken at high shutter speed with a mirrorless body. 

thx

"a mirrorless body" covers quite a few different bodies with completely different capabilities.  The Sony A9 is probably better for BIF than your DSLR and this new Canon is probably like a dslr from the early part of this century.

Mike Danzenbaker wrote:Disclaimer:  I know next to nothing about mirrorless technology.  

Question:  Why the slow frame rate?  Does it have to do with the exposure of various sections of the sensor being spread out over a longish period no matter how fast the shutter speed?  This latter is a major concern to me BTW, in addition to the slow frame rate.  I'd be interested in seeing a photo of a fast-moving subject (eg a fast-flapping BIF) taken at high shutter speed with a mirrorless body. 

thx

Nope, it's a design choice.  The Sony a9 does 20FPS, the Fuji XT3 which will be announced later today will do 30FPS.  Mirorless cameras do not have the mechanical constraints of having to move a mirror put of the way so can do very high frame rates.  Once we have global shutter sensors for large sensor cameras, there's virtually nothing that restrains the frame rate other than the shutter speed in use itself....

E.J. Peiker wrote: - [Canon's] Menu system is 10 million times better [than Sony's a7RIII]

Menus systems and the Owners' manual are items we inevitably overlook when the excitement of "all-new" products come to market. Yet, even the best of hardware or lens design falls flat when "how to use it," gaining an understanding is lacking; Sony's is the worst I've ever encountered... still haven't gained solid user-control over how the 7RIII works. Never realized how good the Canon system was... until changing to Sony.
EJ's "10 million times better" remark, sadly, is spot-on!
Sony's version is nearly impenetrable. A Flagship product without a compass. Sheer irony!

Ed Okie wrote:

E.J. Peiker wrote: - [Canon's] Menu system is 10 million times better [than Sony's a7RIII]

Menus systems and the Owners' manual are items we inevitably overlook when the excitement of "all-new" products come to market. Yet, even the best of hardware or lens design falls flat when "how to use it," gaining an understanding is lacking; Sony's is the worst I've ever encountered... still haven't gained solid user-control over how the 7RIII works. Never realized how good the Canon system was... until changing to Sony.
EJ's "10 million times better" remark, sadly, is spot-on!
Sony's version is nearly impenetrable. A Flagship product without a compass. Sheer irony!

Have you used Olympus?  It's a million times worse than Sony

There is a downloadable very thorough interactive guide to the Sony cameras and also, in my review of the a7R III I go through extensive set-up tips for wildlife and landscape photography

E.J. Peiker wrote:Touchscreen only AF point movement... really????  There is no other way????  Ugh!

Explanatory videos from Canon show that you can move the focus point with the buttons if you want.  Can do touch or drag on the screen. 

rtvernick wrote:

E.J. Peiker wrote:Touchscreen only AF point movement... really????  There is no other way????  Ugh!

Explanatory videos from Canon show that you can move the focus point with the buttons if you want.  Can do touch or drag on the screen. 

Please post link.  Several reviewers have said that they could only move them on the screen at the event in Hawaii...

Thanks Mike and EJ.  And so the reason for the slow FPS design decision would be what?  Technical reasons such as the "rolling exposure" thing I mentioned above (that issue was mentioned in the Nikon mirrorless thread), or deliberately deferring the capability for inclusion in a high-priced body later?  

There is one thing that limits FPS besides shutter speed, that being the buffer size and write speed to the card, right?  

thx

It may just be me but I find the touchbar gimmicky. I find the touchbar on Apple laptops gimmicky too... I just prefer tactile physical controls I guess.

E.J. Peiker wrote: Have you used Olympus?  It's a million times worse than Sony

Hey, Olympus has feeling, too



I don't know what other people use their Olympus for but I personally don't find its menu a letdown. Obviously it's just me.

Mike Danzenbaker wrote:Thanks Mike and EJ.  And so the reason for this design decision would be what?  Technical reasons such as the "rolling exposure" thing I mentioned above (that issue was mentioned in the Nikon mirrorless thread), or deliberately deferring the capability for inclusion in a high-priced body later?  

There is one thing that limits FPS besides shutter speed, that being the buffer size and write speed to the card, right?  

thx

Wanting to protect sales of other models is generally the reason.  Canon is being pretty forthright in marketing this as a camera for people already invested in Canon.  I think if somebody without a legacy of lenses were to evaluate the three full frame systems, Canon, Nikon, Sony, there is no comparison, Sony wins on virtually every front - part of having several generations of iteration under their belt.  Both the Nikon and Canon offerings, largely seem like they are very competitive with the last generation of Sony a7 bodies but not all that competitive with the a7 III, a7R III or a9. 

It's the same on the video side, Canon continues to protect their expensive purpose built video cameras by only offering 1.6x crop 4K video which basically means that a wide angle is going to be very hard to get and that you have to change lenses between video and still to get the same angle of view.  Everybody else, even Nikon, gives you full frame 4K these days.

Other than bragging rights to having a full frame mirrorless Canon, or to have a smaller body on the same sized lenses, I don't see the appeal of this camera at all. Unless I'm missing something, it brings little else to the table and takes away a lot just comparing it to the 5DMarkIV. Maybe the AF is superb, but the camera seems crippled in terms of frame rate for sports or action, so fantastic AF isn't much of an advantage.

E.J. Peiker wrote:

rtvernick wrote:

E.J. Peiker wrote:Touchscreen only AF point movement... really????  There is no other way????  Ugh!

Explanatory videos from Canon show that you can move the focus point with the buttons if you want.  Can do touch or drag on the screen. 

Please post link.  Several reviewers have said that they could only move them on the screen at the event in Hawaii...

Here’s a link to the Canon videos. Go to 7:45 of the EVF and autofocus video.

https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/explore/product-showcases/cameras-and-lenses/full-frame-mirrorless-system/videos?cm_sp=full-frame-mirrorless-_-eos-r-camera-nav-_-videos

Joe

Something I find interesting is that you can reverse the focus direction of the lens ring with the menu options. That would make it easier for a Nikon user to focus when using manual focus.

Joe

It seems very bizarre to me that the silent shutter only works in single shot mode.

SantaFeJoe wrote:Something I find interesting is that you can reverse the focus direction of the lens ring with the menu options. That would make it easier for a Nikon user to focus when using manual focus.

Joe

Olympus has had that for a long time.  Focus by wire lenses allow this.  Personally my preference is for heliocoid focus mechanisms that are mechanically direct linked - it's just a lot more accurate and the same amount of movement causes the same amount of focus change regardless of the speed of movement.  But, most new lenses for mirrorless are focus by wire these days

Scott Fairbairn wrote:It seems very bizarre to me that the silent shutter only works in single shot mode.

Supposedly they will fix this in firmware at a later date.

Very nice page with lots of Canon videos about the various aspects of this camera:
https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/port ... v-_-videos

Single card slot? Dual pixel focus only? I am sure thay have improved DP focus over the 5d4 but I would still not want to rely on it especially as all my teles are EF and built for PDAF. Canon claim it is the fastest focus system in the world but only with the RF 24-105...or do I need to now, after buying the 400mm 2.8 mk2 buy the mk3?

I think for the moment I will stick with Sony for my landscapes. Shame. Both N and C had a chance to impress.

I wonder how much quality loss there is using EF lenses with the RF adapter ? I certainly don't want to re-buy the same focal length lenses in "R" version that I have in "E" versions.