It’s been a long wait but finally Canon have announced the full specs of their first full frame mirrorless camera. Sony announced their first full frame mirrorless, the A7, all the way back in October 2013, almost 5 years ago and their first 5-axis stabilised sensor model just over a year later. Canon consumer APS-C mirrorless series, the M line, was unveiled in June 2012 but it’s not been a system that has been adopted by many due to the lacklustre lens line up and the very consumer specs. Their M50 is their best model in that line to date but it has a number of issues.

Today the Canon EOS R (R for revolution) was revealed to the world, although the full specs had been leaked a few days ago. I have yet to see it, touch it and of course shoot with it. It’s very dangerous to judge a camera based on specs, we all did that many years ago when they launched with C300 Cinema camera which had very underwhelming specs but turned out to be a gorgeous and very successful camera.

Obviously from the title of this blog post it is clear that I find the specs pretty disappointing. There are a number of things that I like the look of but they are outweighed (for me) by the negatives. The camera seems to be very much based on the disappointing Canon 5D MK IV, essentially a smaller mirrorless version with some new features and a few things lacking.

Lets start with the positives:

The new R mount looks great. It has the same diameter as the EF mount but with a much smaller flange which allows for smaller, faster and optically superior lenses. There will be an adapter for EF lenses for it of course but don’t expect any adaptor for Sony FE lenses due to the similar size flange. The adaptor will allow for EF and EF-S lenses (something the 5DMKIV cannot do due to the mirror getting in the way) and the R will switch the APS-C mode when it detects them (obviously with a loss of resolution.)

The new lenses look great, with the standout being the 28-70mm F2 L. There is also a 50mm F1.2, which is nice but not as nice as the new Nikon Z mount 50mm F0.95 which was recently announced along with their new Z line of mirrorless cameras (more on them later.) The number of high performance lenses announced is impressive, way way better than Sony’s E mount lenses which took years to get to the professional GM line.

Canon have the best video autofocus in the world, their dual-pixel system is incredible, I have the C200 video camera and it is one of the highlights of it. Sony’s phase detection autofocus is quickly catching up though and is faster on some of their cameras. The EOS R has this wonderful autofocus and a touch screen LCD to make the most of it, which is also fully articulating making it ideal for vlogging, neither Sony nor Nikon offer a fully articulating screen.

The EVF looks good with a 3.69 million dot OLED with 100 percent coverage.

It uses the Same LP-E6N batteries as the 5DmkIV which is a big plus as those are excellent and Canon 5D and 6D users will have stacks of these. The new Sony Z batteries in the A9, A7III and A7RIII are also excellent and improve on the awful batteries their first and second generation A7 models have.

There is a nice meaty battery grip on the camera which will please users with big hands. You know what they say about men with big hands don’t you? Big hands, big gloves and big camera grip.

There is a lovely looking liquid crystal display on the top which is way better than their previous 1980’s LCD style ones. It is very reminiscent of the Fuji XH-1 and GFX 50S.