“Too Good” R1 Flagship SPecs Rumored on CanonWatch

CanonWatch.com put forward specs from an anonymous source describing what could be the expected Canon flagship R1 camera. Acknowledging that this list of capabilities is a bit too good to be true, the site notes that the R5 release last July took the industry by surprise with its features. Here is the list:

• 85 megapixels
• Quad-pixel autofocusing
• 40 frames per second continuous shooting at 21 megapixels
• 5-axis in-body image stabilization (IBIS) giving up to 9 stops of movement reduction
• ISO 160-1.6 million
• 9.44 megapixel viewfinder
• $8,500 price
• 15.5-stop dynamic range
• Global shutter at 85 megapixels

There are some elements to this list that have an odd ring of truth for this type of rumor. The fact that it indicates a compromise resolution at the highest framerate is the sort of user-settable compromise that Canon will put in a camera that seldom makes it to fictional spec lists on rumor sites.

That said, while technically within the theoretical bandwidth limit of CFexpress cards, Camnostic’s own tests of the current offerings show that today’s cards would have the throughput to push 40 frames per second at 21 megapixels only if those images were in JPG or another compressed format.

While the largest technical hurdle in the above list remains the global shutter feature, which would eliminate rolling shutter effects, the feature that seems most unlikely is the 85 megapixel resolution, due simply to Canon’s historical aversion to high resolution in its integrated-grip professional bodies.

Just a year ago, some of these specs would appear to be science fiction. The 9-stop IBIS capacity, for instance, would have been hard to believe before the R5 came out and showed up to 8 stops of stabilization with lenses built to provide additional accelerometer data to the camera’s processor.

Were Canon to make a single camera that was a “flagship” to the landscape and product photography professionals in addition to sports photographers, it would likely cause much consternation among those hoping for a high-resolution RF-mount pro body that was sized and priced closer to the 5-series, as Canon has traditionally offered.

The rumor on the new body meshes with other rumors making their way around, including one put out yesterday by CanonRumors.com, indicating a major release including a large number of lenses slated for the second half of 2021. Canon traditionally has coupled the release of a slate of “big white” super telephoto lenses with the launch of its 1-series cameras.