Last week, Canon Europe teased a new EOS R series announcement and now Canon USA has followed suit with a YouTube premiere for a launch scheduled for 6 AM EDT, 3 AM PDT on Wednesday July 17.
With the promise that “something big is coming,” Canon will announce something related to its EOS R series cameras later this week. While that promise is not new (Canon said the same last week on Instagram), the YouTube premiere is. Also, as was the case with the teaser from Canon Europe last week, there is very limited information on what Canon plans to announce available.
While it could be anything, it’s very likely to be a camera announcement as Canon hasn’t put this much fanfare behind any of its other product launches. In fact, PetaPixel staff cannot remember a time when Canon has ever done this much teasing for a new product before. Canon also tagged the video with “Mirrorless Cameras” and “Canon Cameras,” with no mention of optics.
The obvious guess for what is to come is something related to the R1, which was announced as in development just two months ago on May 14. That development announcement was also light on details, although Canon did say that it would use a newly developed image processor called the DIGIC Accelerator in addition to the currently existing DIGIC X.
It’s almost time… 📸
Tune in on 7/17 at 6am EDT/3am PDT: https://t.co/EeUmIdqhki pic.twitter.com/rpF3Vbmj5Y
— CanonUSA (@CanonUSA) July 15, 2024
“The new image processing system, composed of these processors and a new CMOS sensor, enables large volumes of data to be processed at high speeds and delivers never-before-seen advancements in Auto Focus (AF) and other functions,” Canon said at the time.
The company also promised a noise reduction function, high speed and high-accuracy subject recognition, and the ability for the camera to recognize subject movement by analyzing the “subject’s status” with an emphasis on sports as an application.
If this announcement is the R1, it would be significantly faster than the R3’s timeline, which saw a five-month gap between development announcement and full announcement. The R3 also didn’t hit the market for three more months after it was announced.
The EOS R1 is one of the most, if not the most, beleaguered cameras in the digital era. It has been at least three years since sources indicated that the camera was being developed. The company has a mountain of expectations to live up to as well, making it one of the most important camera launches in the company’s history.
