Canon announces Canon EOS R3 plus 2 new RF lenses and 4 new accessories

We're here, live, popcorn in hand! Are you ready to see THE MOST EXCITING ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE YEAR? Canon hopes so!

Canon also hopes that the fanboys and Redditers don't go ape when they feel this isn't, in fact, the biggest announcement of the year. Especially with Apple holding its big launch event later today. 

The live chat is already speculating as to what it could be. 

Canon EOS M60? 

RF 85mm f/1.4 lens? 

RF 135mm f/2.8 lens? 

Others are being more cynical, thinking that Canon will just announce a printer. Well, if it is a printer, it better be a bloody good one. 

PREMIERING IN 60 SECONDS! Thanks, YouTube.

What are the odds that Peter McKinnon will front end this video again?

Aaaaaaand it's the Canon EOS R3

And my Xbox YouTube app is about 15 seconds slower than YouTube on my laptop

The "latest big RF launches" – lenses, then!

Here's Mike Burnhill, to talk about the geeky stuff. 

The R3 sits between the 1DX Mark III and the EOS R5, and resurrects the EOS 3 product line. 

Aimed at traditional DSLR users and professionals who want the benefits and advantages of mirrorless technology. Somewhere, Sony smirks. 

Eye tracking, face tracking, IBIS… all these mirrorless features, while eliminating mirrorless foibles like rolling shutter and flicker in lighting conditions.

SPOILER ALERT: We've already got the R3 and we've already reviewed it. Read our Canon EOS R3 review here! 

The R3 is all about the 30fps, Eye Control AF, 6K video, 4K up to 120p… this is a big boy camera. And now here's a pro Formula One photographer to show us how it uses the latest AF feature: vehicle AF detection, for cars and motorbikes.

Long story short: all the clever AF tech means that you can focus on the picture, not on fiddling with focus points. 

THIS JUST IN: The Canon EOS R3 will be on show at The Photography Show this weekend, from 18-21 September, at the NEC in Birmingham, England!

According to this chap, the most exciting thing about the 30fps shooting is that you can FREEZE CHAMPAGNE DROPS when photographing winners on the podium

Weather sealing, of course, is a big feature, and it's on par with the 1D X Mark III. 

This chap also loves the Eye Control AF, and the quality of the viewfinder (which is 5.75 million dots)

Question is, will the vehicle tracking come via firmware to the Canon EOS R5 and R6? (We think probably not)

Larry Chen is wearing mirrored, colored sunglasses while talking about the Eye Control AF. We know that the Eye Control is brilliant, but we haven't tried it with sunglasses… yet

Mike Burnhill is back, talking about the stacked, BSI sensor. 

BSI flips the sensor on its head, to put the wiring at the bottom, and the pixels at the top, which is more complex but the benefits are that you can have larger pixels, that lets through more light, with better noise performance, dynamic range

The extra circuitry on a stacked sensor gives a faster sensor for 14-bit RAW processing at 30fps, reduced rolling shutter, and flash with electronic shutter

Not enough pixels? (Hi, 50MP Sony A1!)

Ultimately 24MP is the "perfect balance" due to file size, being able to send images, but also keeping the quality. So the balance "is not for everybody", and that's where the R5 comes in, but the R3 is focused on news and sports. 

Focusing accuracy: Subsample focusing at 60 times per second, 0.03 focusing speed, AF algorithm is faster, tracking moving objects is made easier, how AF points operate has been changed, low light focusing down to -7.5EV… the AF is a bit good, basically.

The R5 and R6 introduced Deep Learning AF, analyzing tens of thousands of images to teach the camera how to recognize subjects. 

The R3 now adds GT cars, rally cars, open cockpit cars (where you can choose to focus on helmets), bikes… along with improved core human and animal AF performance.

Back to Eye Control AF. Concedes limitation of the original Canon EOS 5 back in the day.

7,000-pixel sensor tracks the eye, with several LEDs that track the eyes (some for glasses, some for eyes). Points out limitations: this isn't a picture-perfect, works-for -everyone solution; it's a shortcut for your brain to interface with the AF system. And you need to calibrate the camera, just like the fingerprint phone on your phone.

Again, we've used it – and it's great. Check our Canon EOS R3 review. 

"The eye control might not work for everybody" so there are options, including the return of the BRILLIANT optical smart controller from the 1D X Mark III!

High resolution 5.75 million dot EVF, with 120Hz refresh rate. 

You can also turn on an Optical Viewfinder Simulation, if you're bewilderingly old school and you'd rather not see a live exposure preview. In which case, there might be something wrong with you. 

You can copy your network settings from your 1D X III onto a card, and put them straight on your R3. 

It takes the same high-capacity battery, too, and it also uses CFexpress (but only one of them – it has one CFexpress, one SD card)

Mike Burnhill says there are 100 improvements, including the ability to use movie mode to switch to silent ("stealth mode" for shooting in the locker room, which sounds a bit dodgy, Mike)

Oh hello, 6K 12-bit RAW 60p video! 

4K RAW up to 60p is downsampled from 6K, too. He only briefly talks about improved recording time – you can now record up to 6 hours of video without overheating. 

4K 120p quality is improved over the R5. 

Accessory time! Thanks to the new Multi Function Shoe, a 21-pin connection that enables you to power and communicate with hot shoe devices without the need for external cables or batteries. These include:

Directional Microphone DM-E1D
Speedlite Transmitter ST-E1
Hot-shoe adapter AD-E1 (to use existing flashguns and accessories with weather sealing)

And upcoming will be a smartphone adapter to use it as an external monitor!

NEW LENSES TIME! 

Meet the Canon RF 100-400mm f/5.6-8 IS USM – a brilliant, compact, lightweight super telephoto with 5-stop stabilization that costs just $649 / £699

And the Canon RF 16mm f/2.8 STM, a brilliant ultra wide-angle prime that uses the same tiny chassis of the 50mm f/1.8, and is basically made for vloggers – and costs just $299 / £319