Canon EOS R: Already?

What means this? The EOS R was only announced eight months ago, and already there's a $300 discount on it, with freebies thrown in?! That seems too quick to me.

Anybody know what's going on there?

Mike

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Mark Pfeifer: "Simple—battle for market share. Nikon's got discounts on the Z 6 and Z 7 as well. (This may be the last time I include the space in the name). The camera market is shrinking and all of the companies want to get people using their mount and buying their lenses."

Carlos Esguerra: "Here is the reason: 'BCN reports the Sony A7III sells more than the competition combined (Canon R, Canon RP and Nikon Z6).'"

SteveW: "Nikon Z6 too."

David Evans: "I'm not in the market, having just traded in my GX8 for a G9, but for me the lack of IBIS would be a deal killer. I wonder if that's why."

Ken: "Camera makers have been knocking each other over trying to corner the high-price, high-profit-margin full-frame market in a seeming response to declining sales. Well, it appears to me that most consumers are not ready to follow them there, and/or that particular niche market is much smaller than advertised. Plus, it looks to me like camera manufacturers are getting stuck in the 'JC Penney trap'—meaning that many (most?) customers have been trained to just wait for the next sale, which is surely right around the corner, and the camera companies have no choice but to have more frequent sales to make their quarterly numbers."

Robert: "Canon as been stupidly/recklessly/stubbornly/cavalierly/obnoxiously (take your pick) resistant to providing IBIS. This has been a spectacular own goal* of potentially revenue/market share -busting significance. Whoever in the company pushed for this strategy needs to go, and they have to very quickly mobilise their resources to rectify the situation as soon as possible, before everybody moves over to Sony. Dumb, dumb move!"

[*In soccer, an "own goal" is when a team member scores a goal for the opposing team. —Ed.]

Thom Hogan: "The R always seemed like an awkward and hastily prepared entrant to me. It tried to straddle A7/A7R and Z6/Z7 positions with an old sensor mounted on a body with some experimental and untested UX [user experience —Ed.], at a tweener price. Not surprising that it's on discount, but so is some of its competition."

Barry Reid: "No affordable lenses."

Comments

[Keith]

I think Canon is being aggressive in trying to grab and maintain early market share for their mirrorless product line, especially seeing as how most of the reviews position the Canon a bit below the comparable models from Sony and Nikon. It doesn't even have IBIS. Possibly the market is responding somewhat less favorably than hoped. Canon can afford to make this a loss leader if necessary in order to lock customers into the mount early into the full frame mirrorless movement.

[PaulW]

Perhaps this is a reflection of Canon's predictions about the contraction of the camera market. Thom Hogan has some thoughts on his site. I also noticed that Nikon and Olympus were/are having sales.
BTW, I sill want to hear more about how the G9 is working out for you!

[Michael Perini]

They are matching Nikon's $300 rebate on the Z6, Them Hogan has coverage of all the rebates, and the fact that CIPA numbers are more in line with Canon's fairly dire estimates for this year.
There are lots of rebates in an attempt to move sales.
No matter what brand you like there are some great deals on some really fine cameras & lenses
That said, I also find it interesting that Canon is accelerating lens production, having announced 10 R lenses by the end of the year, and just came out with another matched set of high end cinema lenses. That is a lot of high end lenses.
These so called Sumire line (matched for Color, 'Look', are T stopped & expensive) will be available in PL mount first this time. Their last cinema set were available in both EF and PL mount
They are having success in cinematography products (I believe I read that all 5 Oscar nominated independent films this year were shot with Canon gear.
They appear to be trying to grow in cinema products as still photography contracts.
Cameras have gotten SO good so fast that most folks don't need, more than they have.
My Daughter who shoots Weddings and events looks for low milage Nikon D3s's -she has 2 or 3 of them because it has the perfect balance of features, reliability, and file size. I'm sure she is not alone.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Summer's near and the time is right for snappin' in the street. (with apologies to Martha & the Vandellas)

Plus it seems that sales of large system cameras like this have plumbed new depths, with or without mirrors. At least that's the word on the street.

[c.d.embrey]

Maybe it's just Spring-Sale time in Japan. Nikon is offering US$200 off the Z6 in any form (body only, filmmaker's kit, body+kit lens), US$600 off the Z7 in any form (body only, body+kit lens).

[Rob]

Mike,

Check out Nikon Z6 and Z7 prices.

[Franklin Berryman]

It's a warmed-over 5DMkIV with a three year old sensor that wasn't exactly state of the art when introduced. The sure can't sell it at a premium over the Sony A7III and Nikon Z6.

[Thomas Rink]

The Nikon Z6 and Z7 are currently sold at a discount of about 20% here in Germany. What's going on? Well, this is what is to be expected when an oversupply hits a contracting market: Prices drop. Apparently, these hyped full-frame mirrorless cameras aren't that hot in terms of customer demand.

Personally, if I were in the market for the Z6 or the Z7, I'd wait for another year. I expect the discounts to settle at about 30% to 40% down from the listed price - if you want to take chance that the mount is still supported in 5 year's time. Don't get me wrong, I've used Nikon cameras and lenses for the past 9 years and I think that they are pretty good. On the other hand, trying to sell two competing lens mounts at the same time in a contracting market doesn't sound like a good idea.

[jseliger]

Anybody know what's going on there?

The camera market is still shrinking and the EOS R is not a terribly desirable camera; while it has a couple of strong points, especially in the price and compatibility with existing Canon lenses, the negatives are well known too.

[Kent Phelan]

Dear Mike: You seem to be the last person on earth who has not heard of the current Nikon rebates on Z6/Z7 cameras. $600 off the Z7 is serious jack. I ordered my Z7 + 24-70 kit yesterday, after snaking my way through your site to find an Adorama link so you would get credit. (I no longer use B+H due to them charging sales tax in my state) The $300 Canon R sale is a rather limp response.

Also, please refreshen your partnership with Adorama. They seem to be the only major vendor left that does not charge tax. That change alone saved me ~$300...

[Jim Arthur]

Canons last full frame DSLR release was the underwhelming 6D Mark II back in 2017. In the mirrorless realm the R (2018) and RP (2019) both seemed like place holders to me. Canon has 6 RF lenses due in late 2019 and Canon just announced a 20% reduction in its profit forecast for fiscal year 2019. I’m guessing we have at least one full frame mirrorless body coming soon and if Canon should decide to try IBIS, we could see two.

[Stan B.]

Guilt for making such a god ugly camera?

[Andrew Molitor]

A quick glance at Canon's last annual report tells me that "imaging systems" were down almost 12% from 2017 to 2018, while all the other business segments were up slightly. This in spite of "strong sales" of new cameras models "such as the EOS R"

I've never been a "neener neener canikon, sony will win!" guy, quite the opposite, but this is not a good number.

[Stephen S.]

What's going on is that nobody is buying it. They're buying the A7 III instead.

https://www.bcnretail.com/market/detail/20190424_115433.html

[hugh crawford]

Sony is up to their third or so generation of three full frame mirrorless ILCs, so Canon needs to catch up quick.

Or maybe Canon shot a dud.

[Oskar Ojala]

Whenever this happens, the safe assumption is that sales targets are not being met and these new numbers from Japan would indicate that Canon most likely isn't making the dent in mirrorless that it was hoping to do https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=ja&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bcnretail.com%2Fmarket%2Fdetail%2F20190424_115433.html

[Huw Morgan]

One clue: Sony Rumors reports that Sony A7riii sales in Japan exceed combined Canon and Nikon full-frame mirrorless sales. If you look at Amazon sales in the mirrorless category, the eos-r is faring poorly. A price drop may goose sales, but I'd bet that Sony can easily match Canon on price if it comes to that.

[PhotoDes]

I'm receiving almost daily email promotions from Nikon to try their Z models and B&H says this is "National Photo Month", so we're probably just seeing various attempts to stimulate sales of the newest models.

[Ned Bunnell]

Mike, with all your years in the industry, you don’t know what’s going on? Come on, you could write a thousand words about it:)

[John Camp]

Two thing:

One of my news feeds today said that iPhone sales are dropping fairly severely, along with other cell phones. I don't think it's a sign of recession or bad advertising, I think it's just that people have the phones that they need, they still work, so why pay $1,000 for a similar phone? Why wouldn't that same thing apply to regular cameras? I've seen a lot of commentary lately on how, when it comes to actual photos, there just isn't much to choose between even smaller sensor cameras and FF. There might be some differences in large prints, but for 99%* of the people, what they see on their monitor is all they'll ever see, and on the monitor, there's *no* difference. So, they've already got all they need.

*I pulled this number out of the place where the sun don't shine. But you get the idea.

I desperately need to know whether the sales on the Nikon Z6 and Z7 are simply sales (for whatever reason) of if they're sales in advance of an announcement of the Z8 and Z9. If they're just sales, I'm going to jump on a Z7 kit like a duck on a june bug. If they anticipate new cameras, I may wait. I need information. Where's Thom when you need him?

[Werner Gansz]

I've been looking at the used DSLR market on Ebay. Prices on former top-of-the-line Nikon D810's are in the $1200 range for low mileage camera bodies w/o accessories. Incredible. I think it listed in the mid $3000's. Seems like a good time to pick up last year's dream camera.... if you still want it.

[Tom K.]

One word. Sony.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

I should add that I took an EOS R for a week-long spin last year and liked it. Yes, it has some now well-documented design oddities. But it gave me a very comparable image to my 5D4 (which, is the 2nd loveliest color and contrast, just below my Leicas) plus a nice articulating LCD and good viewfinder. It didn’t give me much noticeable weight and space savings. Still, if I was looking to expand my Canon system into mirrorless I would consider the EOS R. But I think most prospective buyers are waiting for the next, more refined and more pro-grade version long rumored to be coming from Canon.

[Bob Johnston]

What is interesting is the prices of mirrorless cameras. They must be much cheaper to build than slrs. They don't have mirror mechanisms, focusing assemblies or the chassis components to hold all that stuff together when the mirror is flapping up and down at 10 frames per second. They have no requirement for precision alignment of the mirror, sensor and focusing assembly either. If that is not enough they can be much more modular. Many of the same components can be used across the range. So the profit margin must be much larger. I would guess that even with the discount Canon are still making a fat profit.

[Hank]

Maybe prices are just falling to where they should be anyway?

[Marti]

Es mejor la sony alpha 7 calidad precio

[Trevor Johnson]

As Kenneth said, "But I think most prospective buyers are waiting for the next, more refined and more pro-grade version long rumored to be coming from Canon".

I am a prospective (new ILC) Canon buyer and am waiting for the next verion of the 'R' series.

[Joe B]

Maybe the popularity of full frame mirrorless is a popular illusion provided by the mass enthusiast media. As for me, my old obsolete dslr (with a mirror) provides wonderful results.

[Mathew Hargreaves]

A friend knows a Nikon rep and asked them about the price drops. Nothing like as stated by everyone. The price drop is for "mother's Day" sales. The same will follow for "Father's Day" and presumably for Graduation Day too.

Still no square format sensor camera. Sigh.

[Diogene]

To early?
No body want a camera with outdated sensor and overpriced.
This camera target photographer that have the 5D Mark IV and good canon lenses but this camera don't bring anything more than the 5D mk IV.
That said by Canon User since 1997.
New user? Who will invest k$ on a camera and lenses on a brand that don't show any innovation and has difficulties to catch up the competitors?

[Mark L]

That's one butt-ugly camera, might be something to do with it.....