{"id":25940,"date":"2024-07-17T10:20:05","date_gmt":"2024-07-17T10:20:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/236a6fb3-2f74-425b-ad09-187c807d639a12"},"modified":"2024-07-17T10:20:05","modified_gmt":"2024-07-17T10:20:05","slug":"canon-r1-hands-on-incredible-speed-but-24mp-resolution-may-disappoint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/canon-r1-hands-on-incredible-speed-but-24mp-resolution-may-disappoint\/","title":{"rendered":"Canon R1 hands-on: Incredible speed but 24MP resolution may disappoint"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canon has unveiled its most important camera in years \u2014 the EOS R1 mirrorless. Launched alongside the 45-megapixel R5 II<\/span>, it\u2019s the company’s new flagship designed to replace the 1DX Mark III DSLR<\/span> and help Canon maintain its leadership in the pro sports photography field.<\/p>\n

The R1 is all about speed, with the stacked sensor allowing 40 fps RAW bursts with continuous autofocus. Other features are designed to help nail crucial shots, including pre-capture, eye-tracking AF and sports-specific settings. At the same time, it should be great for video, thanks to its support for 6K RAW capture.<\/p>\n

One potential downside is the 24-megapixel resolution, which is lower than rivals like Sony\u2019s A1<\/span> and the Nikon Z9<\/span>. To see how that affected image quality and gather some impressions on performance and new features, I was able to get a short amount of hands-on time with the R1 in Phoenix, Arizona.<\/p>\n

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Though massive for a mirrorless camera, the R1 is lighter than it looks \u2014 it only weighs 2.12 pounds. The magnesium alloy body is dust- and water-resistant and the large, comfortable grip uses new rubber to reduce slippage. It\u2019s a stable platform, even with telephoto lenses, and was clearly designed for working photographers.<\/p>\n

Controls are laid out much like the EOS R3,<\/span> with two control dials, a rear dial, joystick, mode switch and many customizable buttons. It has matching vertical controls, with the same layout in portrait and landscape modes.<\/p>\n

Canon did add a touch-sensitive IR button called the smart controller, which offers three ways to adjust autofocus. Overall, the R1 handles like an F1 car \u2014 fast and reactive, but there’s a steep learning curve.<\/p>\n

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Canon EOS R1 hands-on<\/h2>\n
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Canon EOS R1 hands-on<\/p>\n

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The viewfinder is Canon\u2019s best yet with 9.44 million dots, 0.9 times magnification and 3x brightness, all tops in the EOS series. The rear display fully articulates for high- and low-angle shooting.<\/p>\n

Canon decided to ditch SD cards in favor of two CFexpress type B slots. That allows for maximum RAW burst speeds, as well as fast and reliable backups, but you’ll end up throwing your SD card collection out the window. By contrast, Sony’s R1 has dual card slots for both SD UHS II and CFexpress type A.<\/p>\n

The R1 uses a variant of the battery from the EOS R3 that supports up to 650 shots and 70 minutes of 6K video on a charge. Connectivity is the best I\u2019ve seen on any Canon camera, with Wi-Fi 6E, ethernet, USB-C PD and more.<\/p>\n

The R1 is built for action and suffice to say, it\u2019s fast. In blackout free electronic shutter mode, you can shoot JPEG and RAW frames at up to 40 fps for a long while before the massive buffer fills \u2014 with Canon promising “1,000 or more” shots when shooting uncompressed RAW and JPEG files. It hits 12 fps with the mechanical shutter, a feature missing on Nikon\u2019s rival Z9.<\/p>\n

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Steve Dent for Engadget<\/span><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

The latter isn\u2019t usually necessary, though, as the stacked shutter largely eliminates rolling shutter distortion.<\/p>\n

Canon is bringing numerous autofocus improvements as well. With regular single-point tracking, you can change the target with either the joystick or smart controller. In addition, the R1 has a new eye-tracking system called Eye AF II, a more sophisticated version of its Eye Control AF from the R3.<\/p>\n

As with the R3, you must calibrate Eye AF II first. And it won\u2019t necessarily function well for all eye types, but it worked great for me, as the tracking box followed my gaze with less drift than before. That didn\u2019t always translate to sharp photos, but again, I was using a pre-production unit.<\/p>\n

Of course the R1 offers face- and eye-detection for both humans and animals. But what happens if you\u2019re trying to single out someone in a crowd of players?<\/p>\n

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Steve Dent for Engadget<\/span><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

First off, there are now AI modes for three specific sports, volleyball, basketball and soccer. The idea is that the system will track action around the ball to help you nail key shots. It\u2019s also supposed to stay locked on a player even in traffic. Finally, you can register up to 10 faces to keep track of a whole team of athletes.<\/p>\n

How well does this work? It\u2019s hard to say in the short time I had the camera, but I didn\u2019t notice a dramatic improvement with chaotic action or specific sports. But these features require time to master, so a full review will tell me more.<\/p>\n

Another new feature to help pros avoid missing shots is pre-continuous shooting, something that’s seen on many high-end cameras these days. The R1 starts taking photos when you half-press the shutter button, recording up to the last 20 frames once it\u2019s fully pressed.<\/p>\n

Canon has led the way in image stabilization since the R5, and the R1 offers a solid 8.5 stops of shake reduction with supported lenses. This isn\u2019t necessarily a great benefit for action shooting, but it does help with landscapes or low-light shooting.<\/p>\n

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Canon EOS R1 sample images<\/h2>\n
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Canon EOS R1 sample images<\/p>\n

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Canon likely anticipated complaints about the relatively low 24-megapixel resolution. In response, it unveiled a new feature called in-camera upscaling. It uses deep learning to quadruple image size to 96 megapixels in-camera after shooting, supposedly while maintaining apparent resolution.<\/p>\n

This is different from Sony’s pixel-shift scheme that takes multiple separate photos and merges them into one. However, it was hard to get a straight answer from Canon as to how exactly the upscaling works. Obviously, it can\u2019t be a true resolution increase without actually capturing extra pixels.<\/p>\n

Image quality is difficult to judge in pre-production cameras, and Canon specifically said that in-camera RAW processing was a work in progress. Nonetheless, JPEGs looked sharp out of the camera and had the company\u2019s typically excellent skin tones.<\/p>\n

Low-light image quality is a selling point of this camera, and it did appear to perform well at high ISOs, with decent image quality at ISO 12,800 and beyond. However, it\u2019s no Sony A7S III at very high ISOs, so the max of ISO 102,400 is for emergency use only.<\/p>\n

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Steve Dent for Engadget<\/span><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Stacked sensor cameras tend to sacrifice some dynamic range in favor of speed, but there\u2019s no sign of that with the R1. However, I’ll need more time to get a full idea of RAW image quality, particularly at high ISOs.<\/p>\n

Though mainly aimed at photographers, the R1 is potentially a monster video camera on its own. It lacks the R5 II\u2019s 8K feature, but does offer 6K Canon RAW video at up to 60 fps, using the full width of the sensor.<\/p>\n

You also get fully oversampled full-sensor 4K at up to 60fps, or 4K pixel-binned or cropped at 120 fps. Full HD can be recorded at up to 240 fps, either cropped or with pixel-binning. On top of Log 3, Canon\u2019s Log 2 is now supported with 10-bit capture.<\/p>\n

Canon has significantly reduced its previous overheating issues, though they’re not completely eliminated. You can record more than 120 minutes of 6K 60p RAW with proxy recording, as well as 4K 60p, with no restriction for 4K 30p. The primary limitation is 15 minutes for 4K 120p, but that shouldn\u2019t be an issue for most videographers or content creators.<\/p>\n

As you\u2019d expect, the oversampled 4K 60p and 6K 60p RAW video is sharp. Canon\u2019s RAW video is very easy to work with in post and with the Log 2 setting delivers extra dynamic range and latitude in post.<\/p>\n

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Steve Dent for Engadget<\/span><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

It\u2019ll be interesting to see how pro photographers react to Canon\u2019s new flagship. They do gain an extra 10 fps in RAW shooting speeds over Sony\u2019s A1 and the Nikon Z9, and the sensor is solid in low light. The downside, though, is the fact that it offers half the resolution of its rivals.<\/p>\n

The Eye AF II is an interesting gimmick that may give Canon an edge. Other features like face-memorization, sports-specific AF and cross action seem good on paper, but I wasn\u2019t able to get the most out of them in the short time I had the camera \u2014 so further testing is required. The EOS R1 is set to arrive in the fall of 2024 with an estimated price of $6,300.<\/p>\n

Canon paid for this contributor’s travel and accommodation for the launch of its new cameras in Phoenix, Arizona. This article was produced independently for Engadget, with no oversight from Canon.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Canon has unveiled its most important camera in years \u2014 the EOS R1 mirrorless. Launched alongside the 45-megapixel R5 II, it\u2019s the company’s new flagship designed to replace the 1DX Mark III DSLR and help Canon maintain its leadership in the pro sports photography field. The R1 is all about speed, with the stacked sensor …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25941,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-25940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gadgets","has-thumb","has-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25940"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25940"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=25940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}