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After Nikon announcement of its entering the full-frame mirrorless segment (our in depth article available at this link), it's Canon time that couldn't stand by the window and see photographers move to Sony. Yesterday Canon has announced the new RF mount and the first full-frame mirrorless, the EOS R, that will have to face competition with the new Nikon Z6 and current comparable Sony model that is the highly regarded A7III.

To start, here you have the official presentation videoclip of the new RF system.

 

Let's dive into the details of the new system and compare it with the competition, beginning with some considerations about the new mount.

The new RF mount

As in Nikon, Canon too introduces a new mount for its 35 mm mirrorless system: the RF mount (R will not stand for Reflex for sure ????), with the same diameter of current EF mount at 54 mm but with a reduced distance to the sensor (flange distance) from 44 mm to 20 mm - it's longer than 16 mm in Nikon and 18 mm in Sony mirrorless systems. The shorter distance compared to the reflex system allows more compact lenses and bodies as well as improving optical quality reducing for example some aberrations.

The new mount is designed with 12 pins to support communication between the camera and the lens - Canon claims the new communication protocol allow very fast and additional data transfer aimed for example to improve auto focus, that is already very fast in Canon models. This new protocol implies that current EF lenses attached through an adapter will not be able to provide the improved performance that the new RF system is able to provide.

Canon provides even 3 adapters from RF to EF/EF-S mount: one base that is included in a new EOS R camera purchase, one intermediate that offers a ring which function can be set from the camera (e.g. changing ISO or aperture) and one advanced and more expensive that beyond the ring supports also insertion of filters (so that you can put rear gelatine filters for lenses that do not support front filters). The adapters are compatible also to EF-S lenses, those ones for APS-C format: of course the image will not cover all the full-frame sensor but for example to shoot 4K video with the new EOS R it will be (unfortunately) very useful - "unfortunately" since it is for a severe limitation of the new camera that we'll see below.

Along with the new mount and camera, first 4 RF lenses have been announced - specifications available in our Lens Catalogue:

 

The new camera - EOS R

The first mirrorless full-frame camera with RF mount is the EOS R - the main specifications are available in our LightPoint Camera Database at this link.

Let's see the main improvements and also what's missing.

Improvements

What's missing/wrong

 

Concluding this analysis, it's surely an interesting camera but in my opinion there are (too many) limits/missing feature, probably just holding off for another more expensive model in the future, but for the price tag maybe it's better to wait the next proposal from Canon, or... wait that the price will drop, if you want to stay with Canon.

The new RF mount is promising for the new lenses that will be native, now first 4 ones and quite expensive, but probably more affordable models will be pushed out and in the long run they could make the current EF mount lenses fade away.