We have researched all we know about the Canon EOS R3. The launch is about 2 months away, for what will be Canon’s fastest mirrorless full frame camera. The EOS R3 is going to be the go to camera for sports and wildlife professional photographers for years to come. To get this right, Canon is going for some pretty awesome features.
Although the R3 will probably be too expensive for many amateurs, some new features do give us an indication of how camera technology is progressing and what we might expect further down the line for Canon mirrorless cameras.
Canon EOS R3 Features:
So let us look at what is new.
Stacked CMOS Sensor on the EOS R3
The R3 will be the first EOS camera to feature an entirely new stacked BSI CMOS sensor. The advantage of this type of sensor is the fast readout speed. This boosts the camera’s maximum shooting rate. With no mirror constantly flipping up and down, mirrorless cameras are pushing burst shooting rates ever upward, but now with this sensor they have just got quicker.
Faster readouts also mean faster autofocus. So fast that it happens in the blinking of an eye. This means shooting 30fps with full AF/AE tracking using the electronic shutter. Canon claim that even at this speed there will be ‘minimal distortion’ of the type usually caused by a rolling shutter.
So this begs the question why do we need a mechanical shutter?
Eye Control AF with the EOS R3
Yes, autofocus in the blinking of an eye. Look at a subject and the AF will follow your eyeball and focus on what you are looking at! This feature is going to be the most talked about subject of all. in the R3 reviews.
The original technology was first seen in the 22-year-old Canon EOS-3 film camera, but never progressed to digital. One of the problems was the tracking of eyes through glasses. What about sun glasses?
This is the rear of the Canon EOS R3 and it can be seen just how big the viewfinder has to be to accommodate this technology.
Capturing Movement with the R3
Canon insists that the R3 can master fast movement. This will not only interest sports photographers in the Grand Prix arena, but wildlife photographers capturing birds in flight. Canon eye tracking is already good with the R5. It will be amazing to see an improvement in this area.
Canon R3 Sensor Size
Rumour has it that the R3 will be priced around $6000. Below the Sony A1. Why? Well the A1 has a 50.1MP sensor. We don’t know the size of the R3 proposed sensor, but it could be that the R3 will have a smaller sensor. Perhaps as low as 20MP to enable sports photographers to quickly transfer images from the touchline.
UPDATE: We are now pretty confident that the sensor size will be 24MP
Just a thought, but what if the size of a sensor in the future is no longer linked to image quality? What if Canon’s new sensor is low in megapixels but has stunning image quality? Maybe through the use of new technology, perhaps even AI as employed on camera phones? There has been considerable research going on into this phenomena over the past few years. What if Canon has cracked it?
Canon EOS R3 Summary
What is quickly becoming apparent is that the R3 is an expensive specialist camera with awesome technology. It is not an amateur camera. We will not be seeing many at the local camera club outing to Clacton. However, what we can expect is that many of its new features will be headed for a Canon camera near you in the near future.