Canon teases product announcement for February 8th

Canon China has posted a teaser to the Chinese social media website Weibo for a product announcement event on February 8th. The event is set to start at 11:50am China time on February 8th, which means 3:50am for the UK and 10:50pm Easter and 7:50pm Pacific on the February 7th. Time Zones are a pain. Anyway, Canon seems set to make a big announcement within the next couple of days.

There are no hints as to what the product might be, but with rumours of EOS R8 and EOS R50 cameras being announced soon, it’s logical to assume that’s what we might see being announced. The EOS R8 looks like it’ll replace Canon’s original EOS R camera (and perhaps the EOS RP), while the EOS R50 finally appears to be a true EOS M system replacement and a direct replacement for the EOS M50 II.

If we are to hear of a single new camera, rather than both simultaneously, I think the EOS R8 is more likely, as we’ve seen a lot of specs leak for that over the past week or so. Here’s a summary of what the rumour mill says so far:

24 million pixels full-frame CMOS sensor
Dual Pixel CMOS AF II
DIGIC X processor
Object detection (aircraft, railroad, car, animal)
40 fps maximum
4K 60p (6K oversampling)
Full HD 180fps
C-Log3
No in-body image stabilization
Vari-angle monitor
3.5mm microphone jack
Streaming over USB-C
Weight: 461g
Expected announcement: February 8th
Kit lens: RF 24-60mm f/4.5-6.3 IS STM
Price: $1,499 body only, $1,699 with the kit lens

The new kit lens that’s expected to be announced with the EOS R8 doesn’t look like anything special, although it would make for a fairly decent vlogging lens without breaking the bank. If the leaked prices are anything to go by, you’re only paying an extra $200 to get the lens along with the camera. If you’re completely new to the EOS R system, it should be a decent enough lens to get you started and it’ll serve as a handy backup in the future.

The big expected disappointment with the EOS R8 is that it won’t contain IBIS. Even if it has amazing lens stabilisation, this is going to be a huge deal breaker for a lot of potential customers. Sure, that cheap kit lens might work for vlogging, but when you want to get a bit more serious, use lenses that don’t have built-in stabilisation and rely on the camera having it… Not to mention the fact that Canon’s cutting off 3rd parties from developing their own stabilised AF lenses for the RF system. Yeah, that’s going to be very off-putting.

When it comes to the EOS R50, very few details have leaked at all. Probably the most surprising thing (or maybe not) of the few details that have been leaked is that it appears it will be available in multiple colour options. Precisely what those colours are is anybody’s guess, but I expect one will be the traditional black. Perhaps the other is white? Here’s the list as it stands at the moment, such that it is:

Expected announcement: February 8th
Colour options: Possibly two – Two SKUs have been listed for the EOS R50 (5811C001, 5812C001)
Kit lenses: RF-S 18-45mm f/4.5-6.3 IS STM, RF-S 55-210mm f/5-7.1 IS STM
Price: $679 body only, $799 single lens kit, $1,029, double lens kit

The EOS R50 is also expected to introduce another new lens, this time an APS-C lens, the Canon RF-S 55-210mm f/5-7.1 IS STM. Of course, it will be available in kit options, too, that contain a more standard shorter focal length variable aperture zoom lens. This kit lens is expected to be the same RF-S 18-45mm f/4.5-6.3 IS STM lens that comes with the EOS R7 and EOS R10 lens bundle kits.

[via Digicame-info]