PREVIEW
EOS R3
CANON TEASES A ‘HIGH SPEED AND HIGHLY SENSITIVE’ CAMERA Similar to last year’s piecemeal announcement of the EOS R5 camera, Canon has once again taken the step to release snippets about its next evolution in camera design. Let’s delve into the details released so far about the EOS R3, a new professional full-frame mirrorless camera that is due for launch later this year. Let’s start from the top. Or the bottom. We can see at-a-glance that this is definitely a pro camera body. That’s evident fr om the design, given that it features a built-in camera grip, with a second set of controls for vertical shooting. Canon has confirmed that the EOS R3 will sit between the EOS R5 and the flagship DSLR, the EOS-1D X Mark III.
Borrowing another feature from the 1D X Mark III, the R3 is the second camera to deploy a Smart controller. Essentially, this is an AFON button on steroids – it is touchsensitive and can be used to move the AF point around the frame with the touch of a finger or thumb. If you’ve used a trackpad on a laptop, then you’ll be familiar with the idea.
Pro-specced
Sensor first
The EOS R3 may not be a 1-series camera, but it shares many of the pro features. The body is made from magnesium-alloy and has the same level of weather resistance. There are dual card slots; one SD, one CFexpress. For faster workflow, there’s a wired LAN port and 5G Wi-Fi, and the R3 is compatible with Canon’s new Mobile File Transfer app. The EOS R3 even shares the same LP-E19 battery as the EOS-1D X Mark III.
While we don’t yet know the sensor resolution, what we do know is that the EOS R3 is the first Canon camera to use a back- illuminated stacked (BSI) CMOS sensor. We’ll have to wait for more details, but the benefits of moving to a BSI sensor could include better lowlight performance – and Canon has already said the R3 focuses down to -7 EV – less noise, faster read-out speeds and improved electronic shutter performance (see right).
As well as the Smart controller (circled), there’s another notable feature – a vari-angle screen. This is the first time that an EOS camera with a built-in grip has offered this, making it an even more versatile tool.
10 | EOS EOSmagazine magazine July-September 2021 preview 22 July-September 2021
Primarily for stills? Canon isn’t making much of the R3’s video capabilities, after going big on the 8K announcement for the EOS R5. In fact, the first announcement made no mention of video. However, it has since said that the R3 will be able to capture oversampled 4K video, as well as capture RAW footage internally. For serious production sets, Canon Log 3 is natively available in-camera. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the same subject AF tracking features (see opposite) are available for video as well as stills shooting. And for stills? Well, we know from Canon that the electronic shutter feature (see EOS magazine ‘Silent shutters’ article, July-September 2020, pages 52-57) is being improved, with the aim to reduce distortion for moving objects when in use. It will also enable flash sync with a Speedlite, something which previously caused banding. The R3 can shoot at 30 frames per second (fps) – even for RAW files – when using the electronic shutter. And all of this is powered by Canon’s latest generation of processor, DIGIC X.
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The EOS R3 truly is a hybrid, next generation camera for the sports and news photographers of today and tomorrow.
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Canon Europe press release, 14 April 2021
www.eos-magazine.com
