Exploring Canon’s 1 Series Digital Legacy

#21
Richard CR said:
My first camera was a Minolta 2xi! After being in the Minolta camp for a few years, I started to look for a more prosumer system, which led me to Canon, and I have been here ever since.
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It took me a little longer...
After the Minoltas came the F2 and FM Nikons, then, after a comparison with Leica M lenses, two Leicaflexes, the R4, R5, R6, R6II, R7 . (I'll skip all the Leica Ms, Rolleiflexes etc...)
Only then came the 5 DIII, 5 DIV, R and, I hope soon, two R5 II to replace them. I will never again buy a camera without eye-control AF !!!!;)
 
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#22
Enjoyed reading the historical perspective. Amazing how much technology has changed since Sept 2001. I am looking forward to a R5 Mk2 and a R1 purchase later this year.

I have been using the R3 extensively for the past two weeks for wildlife photography and my main area of improvement would be AF tracking, acquisition, and requiring once focus is lost.

I expect the R1 to make significant improvements in the previously mentioned areas and maybe even the R5 Mk2 as well.
 
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#23
justoldbits said:
I have the following white papers

Canon-EOS-40D-White-Paper
Canon_EOS_30D_White_Paper
eos-r-system-white-paper
canon_eos_r_white_paper
Canon_Rebel_XTi_White_Paper
EOS-1DsMkIII-Whitepaper
EOS-1Ds-MkII-Whitepaper
Canon_EOS_1DX_Mark_III_Still_White_Paper
Canon_EOS_1DX_Mark_III_Video_White_Paper
Canon_EOS_5D_White_Paper
Canon White Papers Beyond the Manual\\EOS HD Workflow White Papers\\001_EOS-HD_Adobe
Canon White Papers Beyond the Manual\\EOS HD Workflow White Papers\\EOS-HD_Adobe
Canon White Papers Beyond the Manual\\EOS HD Workflow White Papers\\EOS-HD_Avid
Canon White Papers Beyond the Manual\\EOS HD Workflow White Papers\\EOS-HD_Edius
Canon White Papers Beyond the Manual\\EOS HD Workflow White Papers\\EOS-HD_FinalCut
Canon White Papers Beyond the Manual\\XF Series Workflow White Papers\\XF300-305_Adobe
Canon White Papers Beyond the Manual\\XF Series Workflow White Papers\\XF300-305_Avid
Canon White Papers Beyond the Manual\\XF Series Workflow White Papers\\XF300-305_Edius
Canon White Papers Beyond the Manual\\XF Series Workflow White Papers\\XF300-305_FinalCut
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I'd love to have all of those white papers.
 
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#24
Thanks for the long but very interesting article! I think we all are looking forward to the R1 opening the mirrorless 1-series and what it will be capable of!

The R1 will define the future of the R-system for sure, bringing a lot of new features into it, which will be dropping down to the lower-end bodies in the following years.
 
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#25
Fabulous article, thanks for writing it for the history books! I've owned and worked extensively with every one of these camera bodies, and can attest that your reporting (as well as Ken Rockwell's analysis) is spot on! Can't wait to see what's next up Canon's sleeve!
 
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#27
What a nice trip down the memory lane! I used pretty much all of these and took millions of photos in the 20 years of using Canon\'s series 1 cameras.I still occasionally miss the incredible beefy feeling of these tools. It really felt like you could hammer nails with them and they took the abuse without skipping a beat. Another important factor was that all of the early series 1 cameras were groundbreaking. They were fastest, with greatest sensor resolution and best autofocus performance etc. They were the undisputed kings of the photography market at the time.

It wasn\'t until 1DX that my enthusiasm about series 1 started to fade, mainly because Canon decided to merge one major feature from 1Ds (full frame) and 1 major feature from 1D (speed). What they forgot to throw in was high resolution... And at that time 5D cameras have really picked up their pace, especially with the 5D mkII kickstarting the whole dSLR video era. When the 5D mkIII came it just didn\'t make sense for me to pay the huge 1DX prices.

And this still holds true to this day - Canon simply isn\'t making high resolution flagships anymore. And, while Canons cameras are still among the best, they don\'t really launch with such overwhelming authority and power as they used to. Pressure and innovations from Sony definitively changed the whole market and to me personally, Sony seems to be now what Canon used to be 20-30 years ago.
 
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#28
SwissFrank said:
I didn't see any mention of the first Canon digitals, before the EOS-1D? I want to say from memory DCS520 and 560 or something? They may have been sold BY Kodak but they were obviously Canons?
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Kodak used Canon bodies.
They got Canon's permission.
Other than that, Canon was not involved.
Kodak did not get Nikon's permission when they used Nikon bodies.
That became a problem.
 
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#30
EOS 4 Life said:
Kodak used Canon bodies.
They got Canon's permission.
Other than that, Canon was not involved.
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Fair enough, but still, they existed, they took Canon lenses, and were used by Canon shooters. They fit into the story somewhere.

In fact I suppose the story could have gone back to the FD mount or even earlier. Heck, back to pre-SLR days. That'd have been interesting, maybe as a second chapter? I came into photography in '94 with a Minolta but went Canon within a year or two. I only know EF and RF. I don't know the older stuff and it'd have been interesting.
 
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#31
I'm just really hoping Canon goes back to its digital roots and comes out with an R1s model that's at least 45mp. I'm still flabbergasted at the 24mp offering and seriously thinking of moving to Nikon after 30+ years of canon. I print large, but even if I didn't the answer to every other manufacturer is not to give us half of what they are, and frankly no one needs 240 fps or whatever it is.... this was fun to read through and I still have my 1V.
 
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#32
Robert Stone said:
I'm just really hoping Canon goes back to its digital roots and comes out with an R1s model that's at least 45mp. I'm still flabbergasted at the 24mp offering and seriously thinking of moving to Nikon after 30+ years of canon. I print large, but even if I didn't the answer to every other manufacturer is not to give us half of what they are, and frankly no one needs 240 fps or whatever it is.... this was fun to read through and I still have my 1V.
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How would a 45MP R1 involve Canon going "back to its digital roots"? The 1 series has always been around the needs of professional photographers, and developed taking into account heavy feedback from their (very large) existing base of such photographers. The article demonstrates that the 1s have generally focused around relatively low MP, high frame rate cameras. The 5 series has been the vehicle for high MP for some time now, and I doubt that is going to change.
 
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#34
Robert Stone said:
I'm just really hoping Canon goes back to its digital roots and comes out with an R1s model that's at least 45mp. I'm still flabbergasted at the 24mp offering and seriously thinking of moving to Nikon after 30+ years of canon. I print large, but even if I didn't the answer to every other manufacturer is not to give us half of what they are, and frankly no one needs 240 fps or whatever it is.... this was fun to read through and I still have my 1V.
Click to expand...

An R1s model would certainly be welcomed - I do miss as well the fast versus landscape split versus one camera to rule them all.

A R1 24MP and a R1s 120MP would be swell.
 
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#35
Jethro said:
How would a 45MP R1 involve Canon going "back to its digital roots"? The 1 series has always been around the needs of professional photographers, and developed taking into account heavy feedback from their (very large) existing base of such photographers. The article demonstrates that the 1s have generally focused around relatively low MP, high frame rate cameras. The 5 series has been the vehicle for high MP for some time now, and I doubt that is going to change.
Click to expand...

he's talking about the Ds models.
 
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#36
Jethro said:
How would a 45MP R1 involve Canon going "back to its digital roots"? The 1 series has always been around the needs of professional photographers, and developed taking into account heavy feedback from their (very large) existing base of such photographers. The article demonstrates that the 1s have generally focused around relatively low MP, high frame rate cameras. The 5 series has been the vehicle for high MP for some time now, and I doubt that is going to change.
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You cannot judge mp numbers of older cameras with today's metric. In their time, the 1Ds, 1Ds II and 1Ds III were high-mp cameras compared to the other offerings from Canon and other manufacturers. 11mp (1Ds) does not sound like high-res now, but they were a lot of pixels when all other cameras were 2 to 6mp
 
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#37
Jethro said:
How would a 45MP R1 involve Canon going "back to its digital roots"? The 1 series has always been around the needs of professional photographers, and developed taking into account heavy feedback from their (very large) existing base of such photographers. The article demonstrates that the 1s have generally focused around relatively low MP, high frame rate cameras. The 5 series has been the vehicle for high MP for some time now, and I doubt that is going to change.
Click to expand...

That is exactly the point. Before you had 1D for speed and 1Ds for high resolution. Both were housed in beefy pro-grade bodies, with large batteries and top notch (at the time) focusing systems. In fact, 1Ds had almost three times more resolution than 1D. It was like that until Canon abandoned the high resolution 1Ds and basically renamed 1D to 1Dx, with the benefit of giving it a full frame sensor. From that point onward, there were no high resolution sensors available in series 1 Canon cameras. You only had high speed + full frame + modest resolution.

With R3 it seemed like Canon was placing R3 as a sports / wildlife camera and keeping the R1 title for their high resolution camera. Instead, R1 is basically R3mkII. If you compare Canon's history of series 1 camera, there were always 2 versions available. Nowdays if you want to shoot high resolution, your only Canon option is R5, which is not the flagship (R1), not the runner up (R3), but rather a third place camera.

And while I love my R5, the body is simply not at the level of R3 or any of the previous series 1 cameras. It's just not. I could live with that if the upcoming R5mkII was at least bringing 60 mpix to the market. Instead it's 45 again. That is a let down.
 
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#38
DSB said:
That is exactly the point. Before you had 1D for speed and 1Ds for high resolution. Both were housed in beefy pro-grade bodies, with large batteries and top notch (at the time) focusing systems. In fact, 1Ds had almost three times more resolution than 1D. It was like that until Canon abandoned the high resolution 1Ds and basically renamed 1D to 1Dx, with the benefit of giving it a full frame sensor. From that point onward, there were no high resolution sensors available in series 1 Canon cameras. You only had high speed + full frame + modest resolution.

With R3 it seemed like Canon was placing R3 as a sports / wildlife camera and keeping the R1 title for their high resolution camera. Instead, R1 is basically R3mkII. If you compare Canon's history of series 1 camera, there were always 2 versions available. Nowdays if you want to shoot high resolution, your only Canon option is R5, which is not the flagship (R1), not the runner up (R3), but rather a third place camera.

And while I love my R5, the body is simply not at the level of R3 or any of the previous series 1 cameras. It's just not. I could live with that if the upcoming R5mkII was at least bringing 60 mpix to the market. Instead it's 45 again. That is a let down.
Click to expand...
There may still be an R5 S.
 
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#39
DSB said:
And while I love my R5, the body is simply not at the level of R3 or any of the previous series 1 cameras. It's just not. I could live with that if the upcoming R5mkII was at least bringing 60 mpix to the market. Instead it's 45 again. That is a let down.
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I’m just curious; if the camera body’s build is not up to the level you require - or wish for - how does having 60mp help ?
 
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#40
Sporgon said:
I’m just curious; if the camera body’s build is not up to the level you require - or wish for - how does having 60mp help ?
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I said it's not at the same level, which is true. My point is that people who need high resolution have been placed in third tier by Canon.

In the context of discussing the whole series 1 and how sport and wildlife shooters are getting R1, I made a comparison that people needing high resolution are going to be offered R5mk2 - in the same form factor as before, with same resolution as before, making this the first time ever in the series 5 camera that there will be no increase in sensor resolution.
 
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