Canon officially introduces the Canon EOS R1 flagship mirrorless king

[Maximilian]

relax... its called foreplay

 

[koenkooi]

Snapdragon 8 gen 1, 2, 3 are called a family of processors, Digic X is a singular chip.
[…]

Canon themselves have stated that digic X is a family of different processors.
The most obvious example is the variant in the R6II/R8, it can do double the recording time on the same battery, with more processing on the video.

I’m not going to get hung up on how Canon wants to call it, I care how it performs in the R5II.

 

[bergstrom]

well this was anti-climatic. Better we didn't get this news and wait for the unveiling.

 

[domo_p1000]

well this was anti-climatic. Better we didn't get this news and wait for the unveiling.

Very true, but on a positive note, it does seem to have coincided with open-day at the asylum and the inmates have been given free reign on the forums.

 

[R5boy]

That's disappointing because resolution will be probably Low, if it were 45 MP + they would have bragged about it.

 

[blackcoffee17]

Pretty disappointing. I will likely never buy this camera but i was hoping for an actual announcement and product launch soon. It looks like they will miss the Olympics too, apart from having the camera field tested by a few select photographers.

And does this development announcement means that we will not get any other product release for a while?

 

[Richard CN]

They can't call it X2 because the Accelerator is a separate chip from the Digic X chip. They can call it the Digic X2 System, but that would need further clarifications and can cause confusion. Now if they did package it as a System On a Chip (SOC) as I originally suggested they should have, they could call it X2 chip. Alas, Canon went the cheap route with their flagship processing.

there could be alot of different reasons why it makes sense to do it separately.
one is the economies of scale. DiGiC X is in quite a few cameras
two is thermals. If it's in one SoC the heat is more concentrated in an absolutely sealed air space. Seperate processors means they have some more wiggle room on heat dissipation during the design

DiGiC X2 or DiGiC One or DiGiC AI is just a name that means nothing little anymore. I don't think it carries the same marketing weight as it once did.

Also I'm not sure it's cheaper this way - it's most likely more expensive.

 

[Richard CN]

Pretty disappointing. I will likely never buy this camera but i was hoping for an actual announcement and product launch soon. It looks like they will miss the Olympics too, apart from having the camera field tested by a few select photographers.

And does this development announcement means that we will not get any other product release for a while?

still expecting more announcements this month. don't fret.

 

[Skux]

well this was anti-climatic. Better we didn't get this news and wait for the unveiling.

You know the drill by now, features and body photos will trickle in every couple of weeks before the sudden official announcement when your YouTube homepage will be covered in hands-on previews from all your favourite and not-so-favourite content creators who attended the all-expenses-paid promo event featuring a Q&A with Rudy Winston, portrait session and a photoshoot with athletes/dancers/motorbikes to show off the autofocus, and all the preorders open. Same template, different product.

 

[P-visie]

You know the drill by now, features and body photos will trickle in every couple of weeks before the sudden official announcement when your YouTube homepage will be covered in hands-on previews from all your favourite and not-so-favourite content creators who attended the all-expenses-paid promo event featuring a Q&A with Rudy Winston, portrait session and a photoshoot with athletes/dancers/motorbikes to show off the autofocus, and all the preorders open. Same template, different product.

You can already pre-order (pay 100 euro’s) the R1 at one of the large camerashops in the Netherlands.

 

[Jethro]

still expecting more announcements this month. don't fret.

And you would have to think the leak / rumour pipeline will start to flow as well. Although I think everyone has been saying that for a while.

 

[Joey]

TOKYO, May 15, 2024—Canon Inc. announced today that it is currently developing the EOS R1, a full-frame mirrorless camera, as the first flagship model for the EOS R SYSTEM equipped with an RF mount and is aiming for a 2024 release. The EOS R1 is a mirrorless camera geared toward professionals that brings together Canon’s cutting-edge

See full article...

I understand that the R1 mkII when combined with its optional connected gimbal will remove the need for a photographer altogether. Mounted on a tripod at pitch side, it will follow the action and take photos guided by its Digic AI-X processor and the new range of powered zoom lenses which will follow the 24-105 f/2.8.

 

[Hanley]

Snapdragon 8 gen 1, 2, 3 are called a family of processors, Digic X is a singular chip.

There is no way Canon marketing would skip the opportunity to point out a more powerful processor if they have the chance, especially in their all important new flagship product. If they did then the marketing head should be fired.
It would be particularly aggregious since 1DX III from 4 years ago introduced and uses the Digic X as well.

Maybe you should contact them and give them details of the chip you designed?

 

[tomislavmoze]

Snapdragon 8 gen 1, 2, 3 are called a family of processors, Digic X is a singular chip.

There is no way Canon marketing would skip the opportunity to point out a more powerful processor if they have the chance, especially in their all important new flagship product. If they did then the marketing head should be fired.
It would be particularly aggregious since 1DX III from 4 years ago introduced and uses the Digic X as well.

Actually canon officially stated during release of R6mk2 that the digic X in the R6mk2 and in R3 is different and more advanced than the one in the previous cameras. That allowed better AF, Less overheating and some other benefits.
But I did expected totally new chip, and not the one used 2 years ago. Or maybe they have made new improvements and they will share it with press release like they did with R6mk2

 

[koenkooi]

[…] But I did expected totally new chip, and not the one used 2 years ago. […]

Like the ‘Digic Accelerator’ mentioned in the press release?

 

[P-visie]

there could be alot of different reasons why it makes sense to do it separately.
one is the economies of scale. DiGiC X is in quite a few cameras
two is thermals. If it's in one SoC the heat is more concentrated in an absolutely sealed air space. Seperate processors means they have some more wiggle room on heat dissipation during the design

DiGiC X2 or DiGiC One or DiGiC AI is just a name that means nothing little anymore. I don't think it carries the same marketing weight as it once did.

Also I'm not sure it's cheaper this way - it's most likely more expensive.

Sony (e.g A9 III) also uses a separate / dedicated ”AI processor“.

 

[jam05]

Slight disappointment that Canon is still using the venerable Digic X from all the way back in 2020 in their new top of the line mirrorless. That is a dslr processor. They should have combined the digic accelerator chip and an updated digic x2 into one soc die at a more advanced node. Save power, heat, space, and increase performance.

Pleasd. Spare us from your wisdom.

 

[neuroanatomist]

Give us a break, Canon. An announcement from Canon that the R1 is "being developed". Canon is just trying to keep market share from jumping ship. 2025 before any orders are filled?

As we all know, Canon puts out these announcements mainly to bait little trolls like you. I’d think the little trolls would learn not to take the bait, but Canon understands that their limited mental capacity precludes learning, so they keep doing these dev announcements for their top-shelf gear.

 

[GMCPhotographics]

Slight disappointment that Canon is still using the venerable Digic X from all the way back in 2020 in their new top of the line mirrorless. That is a dslr processor. They should have combined the digic accelerator chip and an updated digic x2 into one soc die at a more advanced node. Save power, heat, space, and increase performance.

In the past (the older DSLR days) one could easily predict the upgrade specs / path for certain cameras depending on Canon's Digic announcements. Eg, if we know a upgraded camera has a specific processor which can cope with (for example) 300mb/s and we know what the frame rate is of the previous camera then it's easy to work out the new resolution of the sensor. Canon used to fox us by tweeking the frame rates beween models and some times giving us a lot less of a camera than the processor could actually deal with. Dual processors and single processors were very easy to predict, in fact the processor improvements between digic generations were the same % increase. A 1D series always had a dual proc that was 1.5x more capable than the single chip. So if you know the through put of the single chip and you knew that the 1D series generally had 15fpr...it was really easy to figure out the resolution of the new sensor. Between generations of Digic processors the scale was also very linear, a Digic 5 had 1.5x the processing capacity of the Digic 4...so a dual Digic 4 was roughly equal to a singe Digic 5 of the next generation.
Since the advent of Digic X processors, Canon have uttery obsucred us from knowing any of this by saying the Digic X has a varible and therefore undefined processor capability. Each itrerant could be over clocked, undervolted, dual , quad...who knows what the end processing capacity is for each Digic X variant! So your Digic X effectively powers every camera in the current generation regardless of the camera's specifications.
These days a Digic X mearly means that it has a Canon proprietry processor and not much else.

 

[koenkooi]

In the past (the older DSLR days) one could easily predict the upgrade specs / path for certain cameras depending on Canon's Digic announcements. Eg, if we know a upgraded camera has a specific processor which can cope with (for example) 300mb/s and we know what the frame rate is of the previous camera then it's easy to work out the new resolution of the sensor. Canon used to fox us by tweeking the frame rates beween models and some times giving us a lot less of a camera than the processor could actually deal with. Dual processors and single processors were very easy to predict, in fact the processor improvements between digic generations were the same % increase. A 1D series always had a dual proc that was 1.5x more capable than the single chip. So if you know the through put of the single chip and you knew that the 1D series generally had 15fpr...it was really easy to figure out the resolution of the new sensor. Between generations of Digic processors the scale was also very linear, a Digic 5 had 1.5x the processing capacity of the Digic 4...so a dual Digic 4 was roughly equal to a singe Digic 5 of the next generation.
Since the advent of Digic X processors, Canon have uttery obsucred us from knowing any of this by saying the Digic X has a varible and therefore undefined processor capability. Each itrerant could be over clocked, undervolted, dual , quad...who knows what the end processing capacity is for each Digic X variant! So your Digic X effectively powers every camera in the current generation regardless of the camera's specifications.
These days a Digic X mearly means that it has a Canon proprietry processor and not much else.

The current crop of Digic X tops out at approximately 900MP/s at 12-bit. The R3, R5 and R7 all have roughly the same throughput limitation, which is something that I hope will get improved in the R1/R5II.

A larger buffer and faster storage would be nice a well, but is secondary for me.