Canon EOS R1 Announced

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Canon’s long rumored EOS R1 flagship camera is indeed upon us. Although it would also be appropriate to think about it as an R3 Mark II. This camera has a 24mp sensor and prioritizes speed and thus is less of an all-arounder than the Canon R5 II or the Nikon Z8. If you need the speed of this camera you know who you are. This camera also has good video specifications yet will likely be of less interest than the R5II to most video makers.

Despite Canon making a reasonable effort with this camera it feels disappointing. The direction Nikon went with the Z9 seems preferable. And if this was to be a R3 Mark II it would have been nice to give it something new or better than what the competition can muster. We could be wrong though. These are just first impressions.

Key specifications:

  • 6K 60P RAW video recording
  • 4K, 120P
  • C-log2 and C-log3
  • XF-AVC-S and XF-HEVC-S
  • overhauled and improved DualPixel intelligent AF system
  • 8.5-stop in-body image stabilizer
  • AI in-camera integration for stills
  • Professional, durable body and great ergonomics
  • $6300
  • 2 CFexpress Type B card slots
  • up to 40 fps of RAW, JPEG, or HEIF (HDR-PQ) images using Electronic Shutter
  • great buffer

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Canon EOS R5 Mark II Announced

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The Canon EOS R5 Mark II is here after many years of waiting. Canon shooters, particularly those already using the R5 or R5C, will likely find this camera interesting. The big question is whether or not Canon has done enough at a good enough price relative to the competition.

The Nikon Z8 is a significant amount cheaper and has pros over the R5 II (as well as cons). We do think Canon over priced the R5 II considering it’s really just what the R5 should have been with likely not a large improvement in image quality (in fact, the efforts to improve readout speed can reduce image quality).  What can we say?  Life is full of trade offs.

Key specifications: 

  • $4300 USD
  • IBIS with up to 8.5-stops of stabilization
  • New Canon-designed full-frame back-illuminated stacked CMOS 45MP
  • 30 fps electronic shutter
  • New focus system with eye control focus plus lock onto a subject even if things move in front of them
  • Capture video and stills simultaneously
  • People Priority Shooting lets you register up to 10 people the camera can recognize and prioritize
  • Capture 8K raw at 59.94/50.00 fps, and LOG 2 (although don’t expect this mode to let you capture for long without over heating — perhaps 18-21 minutes)
  • Same 0.5-inch 5.76 million dot OLED EVF fas is found in the Canon EOS R3.
  • Three optional battery grips are available to expand your capabilities
  • Canon LOG2
  • Full-size HDMI

But it is early days.  So let’s wait for the reviews to come in before we judge this camera.

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New MacBook Air Laptops With M3 Chips

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We’re happy to see an update to the MacBook Air models:

13-inch ‌MacBook Air‌ 15-inch ‌MacBook Air‌
13.6-inch Liquid Retina display 15.3-inch Liquid Retina display
M2 or M3 chip M3 chip
Starts with 8-Core GPU 10-Core GPU
Four-speaker sound system Six-speaker sound system with force-cancelling woofers
52.6-watt-hour battery 66.5-watt-hour battery
30W USB-C Power Adapter or 35W Dual Port Compact Power Adapter 35W Dual Port Compact Power Adapter
$1000 and up $1300 and up

Apple is saying these are 1.6X more powerful than the M1 versions which makes us think that this M3 version is not that much faster than than the M2 version but time will tell.

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Stable Diffusion 3

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The open source, locally ran software Stable Diffusion has announced their next version which is not yet available to download.  Current versions of Stable Diffusion don’t produce text coherently but this new versions appears to change that significantly, amongst some other incremental improvements to image generation, especially with multiple subjects.

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Nikon Z9H Camera With Global Shutter

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There are now rumors of Nikon releasing a global shutter camera using Sony’s global shutter sensor.  Likely a lower megapixel model compared to the Z8/Z9.  However, for Nikon’s purposes a non-global shutter with a fast read out would make a lot of sense so we’re not at all certain that there is any truth to this rumor.

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Nvidia RTX 5000 Blackwell Series

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Rumors seem to be indicating that we might see the Nvidia RTX 5000 Blackwell cards in 2024.  We certainly hope this is true.  Not much is known about these cards yet although we are seeing several sources say there could be a 40% generational improvement which would be quite significant.

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Nintendo Switch 2

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Some updates about the forthcoming Nintendo Switch 2:

  • Nvidia SoC using Samsung’s 8nm technology
  • Better than expected performance
  • Delayed until 2025
  • Can output 4K with reasonable image quality
  • Like 12GB of ram

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MSI CLAW A1M Handheld Game System

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The MSI CLAW is already available in some places but will be coming to most of the world in later March.  There will be 3 versions available:

  1. Entry level MSI Claw A1M featuring an an Intel Core Ultra 5 135H CPU with integrated Arc graphics and 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM and a 512GB SSD. $700
  2. Intel Core Ultra 7 155H APU version with 512GB of storage. $750
  3. Intel Core Ultra 7 155H APU version with 1TB of storage. $800

They all have the same 7-inch screen with 120Hz VRR, Thunderbolt 4 USB-C port, a microSD card slot and a power button with a fingerprint reader.  The ergonomics look decent and we’re looking forward to this unit.

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ZEISS Nano Prime High-Speed Cine Lenses

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As mirrorless becomes more dominant and relevant to filmmakers, manufactures have started to produce more lenses for their platforms.  Mirrorless mount physics should make possible a better quality of lens than what was possible before.

Zeiss has released this interesting set of lenses with 6 focal lengths all at T1.5: 18mm, 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, 75mm, 100mm.  It’s $26,000 for the set which works out to $4,333 a lens.  These lenses are “initially available for the Sony E-mount” but we expect that the Canon R-mount is just around the corner.

ZEISS Nano Primes are cinema lenses designed for modern full frame mirrorless cameras — initially available for Sony E-mount. Lenses for everyone looking for highest performance and cinematic look in a small package. The six focal lengths all feature a consistent high speed of T1.5, come with a small and robust real cine lens housing with professional cine ergonomics and have an interchangeable mount.

Nano Primes are lenses for all cinematographers. No matter if up-and-coming or seasoned DP. For all budgets. No matter if small or big. For all projects. No matter if for commercials, documentaries or music videos, for series, independent or features films. Lenses that check all the boxes when it comes to look, ergonomics, size and weight or lens data workflow. Lenses that you can afford. Lenses that won‘t let you down.​

​ZEISS Nano Primes are the go-to lenses for everyday: True Cinema. For All.​

Visit Zeiss’s website for more information.

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AMD Zen 6 Ryzen Medusa CPUs

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It looks like we’re finally going to see a significant architecture change (new 2.5D interconnect tech) with AMD’s Zen 6 generation that will lead to better bandwidth, latency, better scaling, and power efficiency.  This will increase cost, however.  AMD is on a roll and have been able to consistently produce meaningful generation over generation performance increases.  Zen 5 itself is already claimed to have a nice performance increase.  We’re still waiting for more leaks and benchmarks for Zen 5 which should be coming out any day now.

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