What REALLY prompted Canon suddenly to get their act together with video?

[Cliff Totten]

We have been seeing these R5 prototypes out there for a couple of months now. Maybe with the final R5 production model, Canon will sneak in a proper cooling fan? Without that, I don't see how Canon can do this 8k/4K properly. The Canon C200, C300, C500, C700, all REDs, All BlackMagics, Sony FS5, FS7, F5, F55, FX9, All Varicams, EVA-1...and S1H have cooling fans to control sensor and processing heat in 4k/6k/8k. If the R5 really can do all that they say it can with no line skipping and/or pixel binning.. .in a passive cooled body? That would make the R5...THE..greatest electronics engineering marvel that man-kind has ever seen! Absolutely no question at all! It will literally make all the fan-cooled Canon Cine models look foolish. (And any other fan cooled 4k/6k/8k camera too) Hmmm...or maybe it's just me that is foolish for expecting all this incredible R5 8k/4k 10bit and raw capability to be fan cooled in 2020.

I'm telling you guys....the devil will be in the details, asterisks and fine print that Canon will only reveal the day this camera actually hits the streets and all NDA's are expired.

[Cliff Totten]

7 hours ago, rawshooter said:

So Canon needs to have suddenly caught up or even leapfrogged Sony if the R5's sensor should have a comparable dynamic range and low-light capabilities to the A7iii, the Panasonic S1/S1H, the Nikon R6, the Panasonic S1/S1H and the Sigma fp (all of which use the same Sony sensor or variants thereof). 

We know as a fact the Nikon Z6 and Sony A7-III use the IMX410, a really nice sensor. I good source of mine tells me the Sony A9 and new FX9 use the SUPREB IMX310 which is an upgrade over the 410. Im also told that the Lumix S1H and S1 use an "extremely close relative" to this IMX310 sensor. Again, this 310 is Sony's absolute top of the line model sensor today and with a Sony front-end that good, it explains why the S1H looks so fantastic. It's a shame that Sony crippled the FX9 and didn't use all of the IMX310 readout modes....and Lumix DID take advantage of those 6k/5.9k options!

It's hilarious that Panasonic would buy Sony sensors and turn right around and beat XDCAM over their heads with Sony's own chips!!

[thebrothersthre3]

54 minutes ago, Cliff Totten said:

We have been seeing these R5 prototypes out there for a couple of months now. Maybe with the final R5 production model, Canon will sneak in a proper cooling fan? Without that, I don't see how Canon can do this 8k/4K properly. The Canon C200, C300, C500, C700, all REDs, All BlackMagics, Sony FS5, FS7, F5, F55, FX9, All Varicams, EVA-1...and S1H have cooling fans to control sensor and processing heat in 4k/6k/8k. If the R5 really can do all that they say it can with no line skipping and/or pixel binning.. .in a passive cooled body? That would make the R5...THE..greatest electronics engineering marvel that man-kind has ever seen! Absolutely no question at all! It will literally make all the fan-cooled Canon Cine models look foolish. (And any other fan cooled 4k/6k/8k camera too) Hmmm...or maybe it's just me that is foolish for expecting all this incredible R5 8k/4k 10bit and raw capability to be fan cooled in 2020.

I'm telling you guys....the devil will be in the details, asterisks and fine print that Canon will only reveal the day this camera actually hits the streets and all NDA's are expired.

Probably can't do a lot of continuous recording but thats kind of a given. 

[Avenger 2.0]

9 hours ago, PabloB said:

I think Sony has been holding back the A7SIII waiting to see what Canon releases. I think if not for this R5, we would be seeing an incremental update from them.

Sony will have to do even better than the R5 spec wise to stop people from jumping ship and coming back to Sony as if its even level it won't stop a mass exodus.

The big question is, do they have the tech at the moment (sensor and mostly processor) to do 8k? It takes time to design and develop that.
Just quickly throwing something together will likely result in a camera that will melt away trying to do some of the Canon specs.

[Avenger 2.0]

9 hours ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

8K FF raw at this price point is awesome even if its a 5 minute record limit and poor at high ISO's. 

Indeed. For most amateur and indie filmmakers, 5 min record limit is more then enough.
I expect limits like these to still 'protect' the cinema line.
Single card video, record limit, limited sound control, no waveform/vectorscope, etc...

[Avenger 2.0]

8 hours ago, rawshooter said:

The question is: Who actually needs 8K? Sports broadcasters, nature documentarists - maybe. 

When in 10 years I can afford this camera 8k will be nice 😁

[tweak]

1 hour ago, Cliff Totten said:

We have been seeing these R5 prototypes out there for a couple of months now. Maybe with the final R5 production model, Canon will sneak in a proper cooling fan? Without that, I don't see how Canon can do this 8k/4K properly. The Canon C200, C300, C500, C700, all REDs, All BlackMagics, Sony FS5, FS7, F5, F55, FX9, All Varicams, EVA-1...and S1H have cooling fans to control sensor and processing heat in 4k/6k/8k. If the R5 really can do all that they say it can with no line skipping and/or pixel binning.. .in a passive cooled body? That would make the R5...THE..greatest electronics engineering marvel that man-kind has ever seen! Absolutely no question at all! It will literally make all the fan-cooled Canon Cine models look foolish. (And any other fan cooled 4k/6k/8k camera too) Hmmm...or maybe it's just me that is foolish for expecting all this incredible R5 8k/4k 10bit and raw capability to be fan cooled in 2020.

I'm telling you guys....the devil will be in the details, asterisks and fine print that Canon will only reveal the day this camera actually hits the streets and all NDA's are expired.

Zcam doesn't have fans for cooling... one of the many reasons I purchased one.

[Avenger 2.0]

1 hour ago, Cliff Totten said:

We have been seeing these R5 prototypes out there for a couple of months now. Maybe with the final R5 production model, Canon will sneak in a proper cooling fan?

I highly doubt it will have a cooling fan. Will make weather sealing very complex and expensive.
Will likely have a time limit (max 5 min) and/or overheating protection in 8k / 4k120 mode. 

[MrSMW]

Might tempt me out of my XT3, but will wait and see first if/what an XH2 is.

Nikon tempted but certain issues/compromises.

Panasonic S1 series has been the closest for me but the lack of PDAF kills it for me.

Sony? Just no.

But Canon I suspect have just been complacent for too long and are sick of having their arse kicked with a their ‘nearly’ offerings.

I’m not interested in the 8k, but the 120 60p.

[Mokara]

My guess is that this is made possible by the Digic 9 processor. Digic processors come in two forms, a stills form and a video form (with the prefix DV before the number). A Digic DV5 is the same processor (with some minor modifications) as a Digic 7, a Digic DV6 is the sibling of a Digic 8 and so on

The C500M2 and the new C300M3 use a new Digic DV7. The stills variant would be the Digic 9, which presumably is the one that will be used in the R5. I would guess the main difference would be the inclusion of a H.265 encoder. 

As a general rule of thumb, if you want some presight into what future Canon cameras can do, just look at the newest Cx00 models, see what processor is in them, and if it is a new version then that will give some hints of what might be possible in the next stills cameras that comes out. If they are still using an older processor, or the video specs are not too different from older models, then the same is likely true for the next stills camera as well.

[Mako Sports]

4 hours ago, Cliff Totten said:

We have been seeing these R5 prototypes out there for a couple of months now. Maybe with the final R5 production model, Canon will sneak in a proper cooling fan? Without that, I don't see how Canon can do this 8k/4K properly. The Canon C200, C300, C500, C700, all REDs, All BlackMagics, Sony FS5, FS7, F5, F55, FX9, All Varicams, EVA-1...and S1H have cooling fans to control sensor and processing heat in 4k/6k/8k. If the R5 really can do all that they say it can with no line skipping and/or pixel binning.. .in a passive cooled body? That would make the R5...THE..greatest electronics engineering marvel that man-kind has ever seen! Absolutely no question at all! It will literally make all the fan-cooled Canon Cine models look foolish. (And any other fan cooled 4k/6k/8k camera too) Hmmm...or maybe it's just me that is foolish for expecting all this incredible R5 8k/4k 10bit and raw capability to be fan cooled in 2020.

I'm telling you guys....the devil will be in the details, asterisks and fine print that Canon will only reveal the day this camera actually hits the streets and all NDA's are expired.

Hit the nail on the head. Whole thing seems fishy.

[toxotis70]

i think it will have line skipping or binning.....and massive RS.

[Kisaha]

Do we know anything about new sensor design and/or who is manufacturing them?

I remember the Canon fabs were way behind Sony ones, do they have a new one? with smaller, better and more effiient μ proccessing?

Samsung Mobile can pull a 32megapixel photo from anywhere in their video, by the way.

[jgharding]

10 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

 

As for Panasonic S1 and GH5 users, as well as Fuji X-T3 owners - it is more of a dilemma, and will depend on if you need the Dual Pixel AF, full frame 8K, 4K/120p and Canon LOG / Canon colour science on offer with the EOS R5. Let's not forget how much more the expected costs will be $4k body, expensive FF mirrorless lenses, expensive media. I don't think GH5 owners will rush over too soon. It definitely has AF over the S1, but again the 4K/24p from the S1 will probably be better looking, especially in low light.

So it all comes down to whether you need that 10bit codec at 120fps and have plenty of Canon lenses to make use of Dual Pixel AF.

Or are tired of 8bit on Sony cameras.

Lolle, yeah this is me, who just bought an S1. We've had a C200 since launch and never used the raw cos the file sizes are crazy, so I hope they've got more options ont he R5...

The Panasonic S1 has a lovely image but I'm really disappointed with the autofocus, it's basically trash. I don't have any STM lenses at all though so ya know, it'd be a whole new system. But still, I was tempted to jump up to S1H and Atomos within a year.

Maybe R5 will change that? 

As usual I'll keep shooting in the meantime and keep an eye on it... But I feel like a kid in one of those American dramas, waiting to be disappointed that dad doesn't show up to my big baseball game again, trusting him again... hahaha... damn you Canon. Maybe this time he will turn up and I'll hit a home run... *pans up to the sun with emotional music playing*

 

 

 

[Andrew Reid]

Dad's shares are crashing at home so he has to spend more time with his children now.

[gt3rs]

4 hours ago, toxotis70 said:

i think it will have line skipping or binning.....and massive RS.

RS will be max 30ms 8k 30 (so not great  at all but similar to 6k SH1),  around 15ms at 4k 60 (so quite good )and around 8ms at 4k 120fps.
The question is what about 4k 24fps will it be around 25-30ms or 15ms? The 1Dx III seems to be around 25-30 at 24,25,30 and around 15ms at 50 60 in FF. One could shoot 50 fps at 360° and drop every second frame to get 15ms RS but in the 1Dx III you loose DPAF 😞 but on the R5 it should be still available but the next question then is it super sampled at 4k at 60fps (at 30fps I'm ready to bet yes as the data is similar to 5.5k 60fps of the 1Dx)?

[Andrew Reid]

Just took the GFX 100 out again.

Nope. Don't need an R5.

[Video Hummus]

Choice-supportive bias. But you can buy almost any camera today and get excellent results with a skill. So skill is what matters.

Andrew, are you still working on SL2 stuff?

[OliKMIA]

13 hours ago, Cliff Totten said:

We have been seeing these R5 prototypes out there for a couple of months now. Maybe with the final R5 production model, Canon will sneak in a proper cooling fan? Without that, I don't see how Canon can do this 8k/4K properly. The Canon C200, C300, C500, C700, all REDs, All BlackMagics, Sony FS5, FS7, F5, F55, FX9, All Varicams, EVA-1...and S1H have cooling fans to control sensor and processing heat in 4k/6k/8k. If the R5 really can do all that they say it can with no line skipping and/or pixel binning.. .in a passive cooled body? That would make the R5...THE..greatest electronics engineering marvel that man-kind has ever seen! Absolutely no question at all! It will literally make all the fan-cooled Canon Cine models look foolish. (And any other fan cooled 4k/6k/8k camera too) Hmmm...or maybe it's just me that is foolish for expecting all this incredible R5 8k/4k 10bit and raw capability to be fan cooled in 2020.

I'm telling you guys....the devil will be in the details, asterisks and fine print that Canon will only reveal the day this camera actually hits the streets and all NDA's are expired.

Exactly. A real successful R5 would mean two things:

#1. A massive mental and commercial shift at Canon after realizing how stupid the crippling and product segmentation was for the past 10 years. The mass didn't purchase 5D and Cxxx cameras but they switch to Sony and Panasonic instead.
#2. A huge technological leap that would place Canon ahead of much stronger companies like Sony and Panasonic. After being behind for a decade in sensor and processor tech, not only would Canon beat the competition at the specs game but they'll do it more efficiently (no fan, advanced heat management).

While point #1 seems to be acted based on recent releases (1Dx3, 24p firmware update, etc.), I'm still curious about how Canon would leapfrog the current state of art camera like the S1H than can't even do full frame 4k60 on a smaller sensor implemented on a fan cooled body.

10 hours ago, Mokara said:

 As a general rule of thumb, if you want some presight into what future Canon cameras can do, just look at the newest Cx00 models, see what processor is in them, and if it is a new version then that will give some hints of what might be possible in the next stills cameras that comes out.

Cxxx cameras have never been cutting edge when it comes to pure specs, resolution and frame rate.

 

[padam]

14 hours ago, Cliff Totten said:

We have been seeing these R5 prototypes out there for a couple of months now. Maybe with the final R5 production model, Canon will sneak in a proper cooling fan? Without that, I don't see how Canon can do this 8k/4K properly. The Canon C200, C300, C500, C700, all REDs, All BlackMagics, Sony FS5, FS7, F5, F55, FX9, All Varicams, EVA-1...and S1H have cooling fans to control sensor and processing heat in 4k/6k/8k. If the R5 really can do all that they say it can with no line skipping and/or pixel binning.. .in a passive cooled body? That would make the R5...THE..greatest electronics engineering marvel that man-kind has ever seen! Absolutely no question at all! It will literally make all the fan-cooled Canon Cine models look foolish. (And any other fan cooled 4k/6k/8k camera too) Hmmm...or maybe it's just me that is foolish for expecting all this incredible R5 8k/4k 10bit and raw capability to be fan cooled in 2020.

I'm telling you guys....the devil will be in the details, asterisks and fine print that Canon will only reveal the day this camera actually hits the streets and all NDA's are expired.

Only the S1H is worth mentioning from this list which is both huge, heavy, and also very expensive variant of an existing camera tailed for video needs specifically.
All the others are not stills cameras, therefore totally different category. They have always been, so they can be pointlessly compared all day long.

Most of the FF competitors record 6K downsampled and compressed down to 4K.

This camera is recording 8K without any downscaling from a next generation sensor using a next generation processor.
Is that really such a huge challenge in terms of processing power if the CFExpress can handle the speed required to transfer the data? Same with the H265 8K encoding, provided the hardware specifically supports it.
I am not sure about full sensor 4K (what if it is binned in all 4K modes to be great at rolling shutter) but at least it is at the ideal downsampling size compared to 6K.