Canon Going Bonkers!

Anyone watching the camera press recently cannot have missed Canon's new product launches last week.  No new DSLRs for us Luddites (alas), but some interesting hardware none the less.

The R5 has caught all the headlines, with its 45Mpixel full frame sensor, 12/20 fps shooting and especially IBIS (In Body Image Stabilisation).  That latter could make things very interesting - it means you can now get some stabilisation to your non-stabilised lenses (remember that EF lenses apparently all work very well on the RF mount with an adaptor).  I'm wondering what the lovely 400mm f/5.6 L lens will be like for example.  That's a superb lens, but its lack of stabiliser has always been the let down.  Video up to 8K if that's your thing - and all for the bargain price of a mere £4.2k.  Ouch!  Mind you, I have seen a video clip showing the "Eye AF" in action on birds & animals and it does look amazing - really fast and responsive - that would be an attractive feature for us wildlife chaps.

The R6 gives you a lot of the benefits of the R5 but with a 20Mpixel sensor - basically the same as on the 1DX3, so no slouch.  Indeed, with better ISO performance and a deeper buffer (smaller file sizes), it may be the better bet for many people, especially as it's "only" £2.5k.  When did such large amounts get used in the same sentence as the word "reasonable"?

Battery performance on both is pretty rubbish (as you'd expect from a mirrorless camera) but I did spot the ability to charge from the USB port, so in theory at least, topping the camera up from a suitable power bank might be possible

On the lens front, a couple of new RF primes have appeared - a 600mm and 800mm.  They are both fixed f/11 lenses - ie you cannot change the aperture at all.  That, together with their use of diffractive optics, makes them small, light and inexpensive (the 800 is just over £900, the 600mm £750).  They also feature a collapsible design, meaning you have to extend the lens before use.  Takes up less room in the camera bag that way.  Rather odd looking, but you have to commend Canon for thinking out of the box and doing something different.  The f/11 simply wouldn't work on a DSLR (too dark in the viewfinder) but the limitation isn't there with mirrorless, so it will be interesting to see what the quality is like.

A new RF 100-500 f/7.1 L has also appeared - it's the RF version of our beloved EF100-400 (and looks very similar).  This one I find a bit interesting.  All comments so far have concentrated on the extra 100mm you get (which is handy obviously), even though you're at f/7.1 at the longer end.  However, careful checking of the specs does show that minimum focus takes a hit, despite the blurb talking about improvements.  The EF100-400 has a minimum focus of 98cm, whilst the RF100-500 mentions 90cm.  However, that 90cm is only at 100mm focal length, at 400mm it's 1.2m minimum focus.  Curious, I tried out my 100-400 and 98cm is the WORST it does (at 400mm).  At 100mm, the minimum focus is actually closer (around 6-8" closer).  So the benefits for swapping an EF100-400 for the RF100-500 should you buy an RF mount body are not as clear cut as you think, especially at £2.9k for the newly announced lens.  Bug hunters in particular will be annoyed at having to step back a little, through the 500mm should offset it.  Two new extenders (1.4x & 2x) are available and work with this lens, but only from 300mm up.  You have to extend the lens past 300mm before attaching the extender.  This strikes me as being annoying to say the least.

Still, it's been an interesting few days for us techie people to wade through information!