Canon has just announced its new mirrorless flagship, which is the ultra-anticipated EOS R1 – The mirrorless successor for the legendary DSLR model, 1DX Mark III. Unfortunately, this powerful mirrorless is focused on photography rather than cinematography, so there is no big announcement regarding video capabilities here. However, there’s the zero rolling shutter as the sensor is high-speed, and that is an essential factor for action video shooters.
Canon EOS R1: Based on the 1DX Mark III
The EOS R1 is Canon’s top-of-the-line full-frame professional camera that is a powerhouse for professionals working in fast action situations, carrying on the legacy of the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III digital SLR camera (which was defined as the last DSLR flagship). “The 1-series has a long tradition of providing excellent AF performance, speed, durability, and reliability, all areas the EOS R1 excels in, but there is so much more including new faster processing, state-of-the-art video features, and networking options that make this 1-series camera the ONE everyone has been waiting for,” Canon says.
Key Features
- 24MP Full-Frame Stacked BSI CMOS Sensor
- DIGIC Accelerator + DIGIC X Processing
- Dual Pixel AF with Action Priority
- Improved Eye Control AF
- 6K 60 Raw & 4K 120 10-Bit Internal Video
- Up to 40 fps, Pre-Continuous Shoot Mode
- 9.44m-Dot 0.9x EVF, OVF Sim. View Assist
- 3.0″ 2.1m-Dot Vari-Angle Touchscreen LCD
- Vertical Grip, 2x CFexpress Type B Slots
- Wi-Fi 6E, 2.5G Base-T Wired Ethernet
Fast new sensor: Zero rolling shutter
The sensor design on this camera is all new, and all Canon. This new 24.2MP back-illuminated stacked CMOS sensor is the heart of the EOS R1. Balancing the needs of speed and quality, this sensor provides enough pixels for a two-page magazine spread (without enlargement of the file), while also providing fast sensor read-out speeds, and enhancing low-light performance. According to Canon, the sensor read-out is so fast that it has virtually eliminated Electronic shutter rolling shutter distortion issues. Thanks to this new sensor, and the addition of the new DIGIC Accelerator front-engine processor, the R1 is capable of capturing up to 40 fps of RAW, JPEG, or HEIF (HDR-PQ) images using Electronic Shutter. The DIGIC Accelerator chip also has a useful In-camera Upscaling feature that uses deep learning to double the horizontal and vertical size of a JPEG on your card (leaving the original image alone) in about 10 seconds. That means you can upscale a 24MP image to 96MP right in the camera. The EOS R1 maintains a full Mechanical shutter, and First Curtain Electronic shutter, both capable of continuous shooting at up to 12 fps. Additionally, all continuous shooting speeds with electronic shutter can be user-customized to meet your continuous shooting needs.
New DIGIC processor: Enhanced AF capabilities
The DIGIC Accelerator processor is a completely new front-engine processor, developed by Canon to supplement the power of the proven DIGIC X processor. The DIGIC Accelerator handles the processing that makes many of the new features of this camera possible, allowing the DIGIC X chip to focus solely on image processing, again contributing to enhanced speed. The DIGIC Accelerator processes enormous volumes of data directly from the image sensor for actions like AF detection to exposure metering calculations that enable eye-control focus, subject identification and tracking, and even deep learning with features like In-camera Upscaling and Neural Network Noise Reduction.
Time to focus: Based on R3
Autofocus is on a whole new level with the EOS R1.New subject tracking allows you to maintain focus on a moving subject even when they are obscured briefly while shooting. And, for even faster positioning of your active AF Area, the R1 adds Canon’s Eye Control AF —even more advanced than the Eye Control in the EOS R3 camera. Once you calibrate the viewfinder to your eye, just look where you want to focus, and the AF Area will move there when you press the AF activation button. This new system is even robust enough for many users to work when the photographer is wearing glasses. The R1 features another first for Canon — the CMOS sensor itself now has cross-type Dual Pixel AF on its imaging sensor, to give a more positive focus response to scenes that have a lot of linear detail like window blinds or planks on a boardwalk.
Autofocusing
As stated by Canon: “Thanks again to the increased camera processing power of the DIGIC Accelerator chip, we have developed a new AF mode called Action priority. This new focusing technology recognizes specific subject movements in selected sports, and automatically moves AF points to a player performing that motion — taking a shot, passing a ball, and so on. According to movement and other factors, it simplifies finding and keeping an active AF Area upon a subject about to perform a critical action, and it can help get great sports pictures! This feature works with three sports at the moment, soccer, volleyball, and basketball. With Action priority the camera can recognize and track specific people and takes into account ball tracking, movement evaluation, and even multiple subjects in a scene at the same time, to help ensure you get the action shot you want when everything is moving so fast in front of your eyes. This Action Priority mode takes on even more power when you pair it with pre-continuous shooting. When enabled, pressing the shutter button halfway will start the pre-recording process, when you fully depress the shutter, the previous 1/2 -second of images will be written to the memory card (so up to 20 if the R1 is shooting at 40 fps), and will continue capturing images until you release the shutter button”.
EVF: Best in the EOS R lineup
The new Electronic viewfinder is now Canon’s best, featuring a 9.44 million dot resolution in an OLED display, a 0.9x magnification for a large view, and its maximum brightness is the highest yet in an EOS R-Series camera. Additionally, some of the EVF optics inside the body are sealed in an airtight structure, making it less likely that the viewfinder will fog up. As Canon says: “If you are coming from a DSLR, using this EVF will feel very natural to you, but you will have access to much more information than you ever could have had in a DSLR. And, low-light viewing is a big improvement over previous optical viewfinders, as well”.
Reliability and robustness
Like every 1-series camera before it, the EOS R1 features robust dust- and weather-resistance and the camera also features a magnesium alloy exterior body. Reliability means more than just weather resistance at Canon, every component of the R1 is put through more rigorous testing than any of our other models — from button presses, to dial turns, this camera is ready for real-life photo and video capture and all of what that entails.
Media: Dual Card Slots for CFexpress Type B
Dual slots for CFexpress cards give the speed and storage needed for demanding projects. This also allows for cool abilities, like the ability to record smaller-sized proxy movies to slot 2 while simultaneously capturing high-res footage on the main card in slot 1. Using the Dual Shooting (still & movie) setting, the dual slots also allow you to capture 17MP JPEG still images to slot 2, while recording 30 fps Full HD video on the main card with no interruption to the video.
Improved Image Stabilization
The EOS R1 has three stabilization methods (in-body, optical, and independently activated movie digital IS) for spectacular stabilization performance, especially when recording video, where it can help suppress blur in the peripheral area. IS (Coordinated Control) can deliver up to 8.5 stops at the center and 7.5 stops at the periphery. The in-body image stabilization is even more powerful when paired with a compatible RF or RF-S lens with image stabilization for coordinated IS, where the lens and camera work together to maximize the stabilization effect.
What about video?
The EOS R1 also provides versatile cinema integration, with a range of high-performance video features, including 6K, RAW recording in-camera at up to 60 frames per second, 4K MP4 recording up to 120 frames per second (with audio), and 2K or Full HD recording to 240 frames per second. The R1 even has a built-in tally lamp and is capable of recording 4-channel audio.
Cinema EOS Integration
Despite its prowess as a camera for stills, the EOS R1 touts strong video capabilities and supports an integrated workflow with Cinema EOS shooters. The R1 supports up to 6K 60p raw recording or 4K 60p MP4 recording using a 6K oversampling area with 10-bit 4:2:2 sampling. Proxy recording is also possible and helps expedite post-production by splitting two separate recording formats across the two separate memory cards; for example, record a 6K 60p raw version to one card and a DCI 2K 60p MP4 version to another so you can edit and grade the lower bit-rate footage and then apply your edits to the higher bit-rate version when finishing. Video features highlights:
- 6K 60p raw internal recording using full sensor width
- 4K 60p normal LGOP recording for approximately 120 minutes
- 4K 120p and FHD 240p high-speed recording options
- Raw and XF-HEVC S/XF-AVC S formats
- In-camera custom picture profiles include Canon Log2, 3, PQ, and HLG
- Full-size HDMI Type-A for external recording
- False color, zebra display, and tally lamp functions
- LPCM 24-bit/4-channel audio
Final thoughts
So there you go. The new Canon mirrorless flagship replaces the legendary 1DX Mark III DSLR flagship. Unfortunately, this powerful mirrorless is focused on photography rather than cinematography, so there is no big announcement regarding video capabilities here. We’ll need to test the zero rolling shutter though, which is a dominant factor when shooting action videos. This might be the winning element here.
Price and availability
The Canon EOS R1 camera is expected to be available in the Fall of 2024, for an estimated retail price of $6,299.00 (which is less than its DSLR twin). Order yours in the Product Links at the end of the article.
Product List
Here are the products mentioned in the article, and the links to purchase them from authorized dealers.
- Canon EOS R1 Mirrorless Camera
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