Canon rumor

[John_SD]

The various tech and rumor sites are stating that their Canon sources are indicating that Canon may unveil an entry-level full-frame mirrorless, the EOS R, as early as September 5, which would be in time for Photokina later in the month.

This one is specced similarly to the enthusiast-level Nikon Z6. And the cost would be roughtly the same at around $1999. I believe the 6D II was priced at $1999 upon its release. But what is really interesting, is that according to the Canon source, the new EOS R will be able to accommodate EF lenses without an adapter. All of this is rumor, but I hope it is true. 

The Canon full-frame mirrorless flagship, to be released a couple of months later, is to compete with the pro-level Nikon Z7.

See Canon Rumors, TechRadar, PetaPixel, etc. 

[ebiggs1]

"As for film, it is a vestiage of bygone times, despite knowing a few guys who shoot a roll now and then."

Film has moved to the vestige of 'art'.

Canon has already ditched a lens mounting system once.  Will they do it again?  

[Tronhard]

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@ebiggs1 wrote:

"As for film, it is a vestiage of bygone times, despite knowing a few guys who shoot a roll now and then."

Film has moved to the vestige of 'art'.

Canon has already ditched a lens mounting system once.  Will they do it again?  

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John_SD says "I don't have much money invested in DSLRs or lenses. "    So what did you spend your money on, or is this a new thing for you?  How much skin do you have in the game?  If you are a newbie I would agree that careful investment in MILC tech is a good idea, but don't underestime the enormous market out there in DSLRs that the major manufacturers have to support and show respect to.

The thing is this is not an 'all or nothing' situation right now or for some time yet.  I have already agreed that this is the beginning of an evolution from DSLR to MILC, that was pretty obviously coming for some time, but both Canon and Nikon have been demonstrably wary of jumping in with both feet - they have left that to Sony and Fujifilm in particular.  Canon are expected to release more DSLR bodies and are supporting the EF mount so they have not suddently switched platforms and left the market hanging, specifically because of the investment of millions of customers throughout the world - that would be poor business strategy.  In support of the EF situation I only have to look at the crop of quality EF lenses that they have just released in the last few months - they, like bodies, take time to develop and they aren't just going to drop them tomorrow, for a start they are still selling well they want to get their money back, and lenses last for a very long time.

The comment about film being "a vestige of a bygone age" is simplistic, dismissive, disrepectful and demonstrative of those who see photographic technology as an end in itself rather than a tool to achieve a result. I suggest doing a search on Google for professional photographers who shoot film, and while we are at it read the Time article http://time.com/4646116/film-photography-inspiration/ .  These are successful, high-status photographers who are much sought after and get very well paid because of the quality of their analogue work.

As ebiggs1 has said it is most likely connected to art.  Well, the news is that photography is a marriage of technology and technique for a myriad of purposes and art in its various forms is a huge part of that. Most experienced photographers would say that of the two, technique is the more significant a photographer who knows his equipment and the right skills will always beat an unskilled photographer with the latest tech.

Supporting analogue technologies is recognized by a growing list of film manufacturers including:

    China Lucky Film - the market in China is growing massively
    Cinestill
    Ferrania (included the Solaris brand. Shut down in 2012, but as of 2017 efforts to revive it are underway)
    Fujifilm
    Ilford Photo (went bankrupt in 2004, but reorganized and restarted production)
    IMAX
    Inoviscoat (An Agfa spin-off that manufactures film components for other brands, including Impossible Project)
    Kodak
    Lomography
    Polaroid Originals (was Impossible Project)
    Rollei (repackages film from other sources, including aerial film manufactured by Agfa-Gevaert in Belgium)
    Tasma

and the list is growing...  there are even companies starting to make new film bodies.  They would not have got past the business case stage from investors if they could not prove a viable market.

I used to shoot film professionally, though I have been a digital (professional and non-pro) user for 18 years now, but I recognize the value of the medium and I am not arrogant enough to dismiss those who still see value in it.  I own about $50k worth of digital gear, including MILCs, but I have no intention of selling off my stuff in a panic.  Good luck to those who do.

[RobertTheFat]

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@John_SD wrote:

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@amfoto1 wrote:

Frankly, for my purposes I'll need to stick with my DSLRs for the foreseeable future, in large part due to the 2500+ shots per charge I get with a pair of LP-E6N. Mirrorless have to power up a lot more stuff contiuously while in use, so none are anywhere near as power-efficient as DSLRs.

Even so, I can hardly wait until tomorrow to learn more about the new camera!

***********   

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Those are poor reasons to stick with what will become dead tech.

Unless I were quite elderly and already had a fortune tied up in DSLRs and its lenses, I would be thinking not of batteries, but of the need to unload my existing DSLR gear while I can. Virtually all authorites are stating that DSLRs are not the way to spend your gear money now. Their resale value will be abysmal, and sooner rather than later. Of course, that won't matter if you plan to stick with DSLRs for the remainder of your life. But the writing is on the wall and it couldn't be more clear. DSLRs are soon to be a thing of the past and mirrorless is the future, for pro and enthusiast alike. Sure, there are guys who still shoot film. So what? The world has moved on and they haven't.

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I'm quite elderly and already have a fortune tied up in DSLRs and their lenses. So for me to question your conclusion may be a little too obvious.

But I will anyway, because to me you seem to be missing most of the point. Few, if any, of the regulars in this forum doubt that the future of professional and serious amateur photography rests with mirrorless technology. But to jump from there to the conclusion that this new and unproven series of cameras is about to render all previous products obsolete is silly on its face. None of us have any experience with these new products, and our genuine hope that they will meet your optimistic expectations (and those of "virtually all authorities"?) is, at this point, merely wishful thinking. Maybe they will be wildly successful, but we don't know that yet. There is plenty of time to find that out before we undertake to jettison our current equipment.

[Waddizzle]

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@ebiggs1 wrote:

"As for film, it is a vestiage of bygone times, despite knowing a few guys who shoot a roll now and then."

Film has moved to the vestige of 'art'.

Canon has already ditched a lens mounting system once.  Will they do it again?  

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It would seem that Canon may have dropped the EF-M mount, and perhaps the entire M Series.  There is no compatibility between EF-M and EF-R mounts.

[Tronhard]

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@Waddizzle wrote:

It would seem that Canon may have dropped the EF-M mount, and perhaps the entire M Series.  There is no compatibility between EF-M and EF-R mounts.

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I don't think so...  I think the M series and the new R series cameras are aimed at two very different markets.   It seems to me that Canon is continuing to support the M series considering it has just released a new EF-M 32mm F1.4 STM lens, ( see https://www.dpreview.com/news/0463137161/new-32mm-f1-4-stm-joins-canon-s-ef-m-lens-collection ).  The timing, hard on the heels of the announcement of the new RF series of lenses suggests they are sending strong signals for the support of the M series and strong hints are that they are seeking to release an M5 MkII in the not too distant future.

The thing is that there are adaptors for the  EF and EF-S lenses to R mount, and for the EF and EF-S lenses to M mount, so Canon have made sure that both systems can access the huge amount of glass out there in the market.  The fact that there is no direct adaptor between the M mount and the R mount (in fact there is no R lens to EF mount either) is likely because of the physics and because they see the markets as completely divergent.

[Waddizzle]

“I don't think so...  I think the M series and the new R series cameras are aimed at two very different markets.   It seems to me that Canon is continuing to support the M series considering it has just released a new EF-M 32mm F1.4 STM lens, ”

Yes, I have heard about the new lens.  

They have announced the new EF-M lens.  I have the EF-M 22mm f/2 STM lens, and it is a great lens.  It has been the only fast lens made or the EF-M mount.  It has an equivalent focal length of 35mm.  I started a thread in the “Share YOur Photos” forum for M Series bodies.

The new lens looks promising.  It is a EF-M design that is long overdue.  If the 22mm is any indicator, then this lens is going to be very sharp, too.  Sometimes, I like to sightsee with a 35mm or a 50mm lens on a full frame body.  I bought the M3 so that I do not look like Joe The Pro Photographer, so I can travel light and still get high quality images.

But, if mirrorless is the future, then releasing a new mirrorless mount that is not compatible with the existing one does not make a lot of sense to me.  The existing full frame lenses can mount on APS-C bodies.  This design trend seems to have been dropped.  

Without some sort of adapter, the new full frame mount for full frame mirrorless bodies can not be mounted on the APS-C mirrorless bodies, and vice versa.  That does not seem like good marketing, not unless one of the mounts is going to be retired soon. 

Seeing how the new full frame mirrorless body can use an EF-S lens in crop mode, this may not bode will for the future of the EF-M mount.  I have not compared the focusing distances between the two mirrorless mounts.  If there was an adapter for EF-M lenses, I would have expected it to have been announced with the camera body.

[kvbarkley]

I would guess that EF-M lenses are designed for the short mount-to-sensor distance of the M bodies. An adapter would put them too far away from the sensor of the R series without optics.

This is not a problem for EF and EF-s lenses since the adapter takes up the space the mirror box used to.

[wq9nsc]

John SD wrote...

"Those are poor reasons to stick with what will become dead tech.

Unless I were quite elderly and already had a fortune tied up in DSLRs and its lenses, I would be thinking not of batteries, but of the need to unload my existing DSLR gear while I can. Virtually all authorites are stating that DSLRs are not the way to spend your gear money now. Their resale value will be abysmal, and sooner rather than later. Of course, that won't matter if you plan to stick with DSLRs for the remainder of your life. But the writing is on the wall and it couldn't be more clear. DSLRs are soon to be a thing of the past and mirrorless is the future, for pro and enthusiast alike. Sure, there are guys who still shoot film. So what? The world has moved on and they haven't."

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If you are worried about resale value you had better unload anything below the pro-level soon because the great majority of people are fully satisfied with the images they get from their smartphones and other gadgets and going to a lighter weight mirrorless design isn't going to bring back the masses. I have hiked extensively for many years and I can easily recall the time that the majority of people carried a decent camera and often it was a SLR; now that images can easily be captured with devices they already own AND always have with them most don't bother.  Certainly a "real" camera and lens does a better job but Joe average consumer doesn't really care for the same reason that the masses are quite happy listening to highly compressed MP3 files through often abysmal ear buds.  A mediocre image works just fine for their social media interests.

Very few cameras hold any significant value over time because technology and tastes change too rapidly.  The first generation mirrorless truly will have very poor resale value because the greatest changes and advances will occur within the first few generations. I still have a 1D Mark II series body I bought in 2005 and it wasn't worth trading in or selling because of the low value.  It still gets used some and a friend will be borrowing it in a few weeks to capture his son's USMC graduation.

For me changing to mirrorless now would be a huge disadvantage even if I didn't mind dumping a group of L series lenses.  There is nothing mirrorless out there that provides the performance of the current 1 series body and the very poor battery life of a mirrorless with its equivalent of constant live view mode would be a disaster for those of us who shoot long sports events.  The slight weight reduction of a current mirrorless is offset by its power consumption and need for spare batteries.  And for my most used L series telephoto primes and zooms the 1 series body is the perfect balance.

At the point that mirrorless provides real benefits for what I do without fatal drawbacks then I will happily make the transition but I will never chase technology simply for the sake of technology.  And for full disclosure my "fun car" is a highly impractical 2016 Corvette Z06 with the latest version of the OHV pushrod small block Chevy V8 that debuted in the 1950s and this dated technology still embarasses the road course times of European rivals costing over twice as much.  It has techonlogy that is well fitted to its purposes and owner demands just like the Canon 1 series DSLR.

Rodger

[Tronhard]

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@Waddizzle wrote:
I bought the M3 so that I do not look like Joe The Pro Photographer, so I can travel light and still get high quality images.

But, if mirrorless is the future, then releasing a new mirrorless mount that is not compatible with the existing one does not make a lot of sense to me.  The existing full frame lenses can mount on APS-C bodies.  This design trend seems to have been dropped.  

Without some sort of adapter, the new full frame mount for full frame mirrorless bodies can not be mounted on the APS-C mirrorless bodies, and vice versa.  That does not seem like good marketing, not unless one of the mounts is going to be retired soon. 

Seeing how the new full frame mirrorless body can use an EF-S lens in crop mode, this may not bode will for the future of the EF-M mount.  I have not compared the focusing distances between the two mirrorless mounts.  If there was an adapter for EF-M lenses, I would have expected it to have been announced with the camera body.

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I, like you it seems, got into the M series because of their small size.  For me it was mostly because I could barely walk and the lighter gear gave me some ability to go and take photos.  I also agree it is far less conspicuous than a large DSLR with a white lens on it!

The market I see for the M series is for those people who are currently happy with the Rebel (xxxd) and possibly XXD bodies and lenses, and for those who want an intercheagable lens system and are migrating from perhaps a cell phone.  It also sweeps up what is left of the compact point and shoot market that has been massacred by mobiles.  Many of those will be very happy with what they have got and stay with the M system.

Putting the adaptor on the M mount gives some scope for attaching better lenses but for me there is no benefit as it would completely unbalance the camera, so unless they come up with some amazing improvements in EF-M lens I will always want a larger body camera... and that takes us to the current DSLR and new MILC cameras.

So I can take my EF and EF-S lenses with me for a DSLR and for the MILC (with adaptor), so I have not lost too much and can improve my body tech.  I think we will see BOTH DSLRs and FF MILCs  for a while, and then as the tech improves the MILC will dominate... but not for a wee while yet.

Both Nikon and Canon have produced good FF MILCs but not top end ones.  LIke several commentators I think they have put their toes in the water rather than drive a stake into the ground. These bodes do not compete with their very top end ones (Nikon perhaps a bit more) but in Canon's case I see the new body as a MILC version of the 6DII+

[Waddizzle]

“Putting the adaptor on the M mount gives some scope for attaching better lenses but for me there is no benefit as it would completely unbalance the camera, so unless they come up with some amazing improvements in EF-M lens I will always want a larger body camera... and that takes us to the current DSLR and new MILC cameras.“

Exactly.  That is exactly why I think the life cycle of the EF-M will end before any of the others.  Maybe the M-Series will replace the Rebel line, and the EF-S family will be retired, instead of the EF-M.  Supporting four mounts is too many, especially when you are competing with smart phones and tablets.