Canon R1 has been announced

[Kayaker72]

Sweet series Jonathan!

[Always Looking]

Fantastic shots. Thank you for the commentary, amazing how far autofocus has come.

[Jonathan Huyer]

Fantastic shots. Thank you for the commentary, amazing how far autofocus has come.

Yes it definitely seems to be an improvement. In situations like this with other cameras, I would often lose focus as soon as the background got cluttered. This was just one very quick experiment, but the R1 sure passed with flying colours.

[DavidEccleston]

This was just one very quick experiment, but the R1 sure passed with flying colours.

Well, flying brownish greys anyway. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Fantastic shots, and congrats on the shiny new toy.

[Jonathan Huyer]

Well, flying brownish greys anyway. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Fantastic shots, and congrats on the shiny new toy.

Ha ha yes! More appropriate . I just found out today that there is a firmware update for the RF 100-300 (which I used for these shots). It's supposed to improve tracking when used with the R1 and R5II. So I'm installing that right now.

[Jonathan Huyer]

Here is another good test: Are 24 megapixels enough? I went out for owls yesterday and while I didn't find a Great Grey, we spotted a tiny pygmy owl on top of a tree. This is the original image, at 420 mm (100 - 300 mm lens with 1.4 TC):





Next, massively cropped in with a few exposure adjustments:





Then I ran it through Photo AI, choosing the Upscale option:




The end result is maybe suitable for a 4"x6" print. Perhaps the R5 would have done better, but this ain't bad.

[DavidEccleston]

Not bad, but you need the other extender... The R7. Your middle 9MP, would be 32 instead.

[Jonathan Huyer]

Not bad, but you need the other extender... The R7. Your middle 9MP, would be 32 instead.

I'd guess the owl covers maybe 1% of the frame, so that means there there was less than 0.5 MP on it.

I'd love to see a comparison between a cropped image from the R1 and an uncropped image from the R7. Sometimes pixel count isn't everything.

[Kayaker72]

You get in tight enough, you can see the difference. But, really, it takes some effort.

I spent a day alternating between the R5 and R1 in January. I have a few different birds I could compare, but here are male and female cardinals. Same day, same lens (EF 500 f/4 II). Exported at full resolution, all are cropped at ~1/9th the frame.

R1:
R1-8252 by kayaker72, on Flickr

R1-7897 by kayaker72, on Flickr


R5:
R5-6572 by kayaker72, on Flickr

R5-6850 by kayaker72, on Flickr

I am happy with the R1 and really enjoy using it. The R5 is a great camera. I am headed out on a trip and packing the R5. Overall, this is a potent combination.

BTW, all are on the prop stick I have next to my feeder. ~27 ft/9 m distance.

[Jonathan Huyer]

Nice comparison! I looked at the larger versions on your Flickr page, and like you say, it takes some effort to notice any difference.