Ever since the release of the Canon EOS R5 and the Canon EOS R6, Canon has been dogged by rumors and quiet accusations that it was purposefully limiting recording times in order to protect its professional cine camera line. However, in an interview with CineD, Katsuyaki Nagai, the Product Management Director of Image Communications Business at Canon Europe, dismissed these claims in no uncertain terms.
"This is an accusation we've seen before which belongs on the conspiracy theory pile. It is simply not a sensible business idea as users are more likely to switch to competitor systems than buy a much more expensive camera to get a certain feature."
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There have been plenty of rumors regarding the recording limits on the R5 and R6, including that it came from artificial software limits. With one report from respected outlet EOSHD saying, "to the user, it appears that for every minute the camera is left switched on in the menus or in stills mode (with 8K or 4K HQ toggled in the video menu), the runtimes decrease even though you have not shot any video. Very disturbing behavior."
However, Katsuyaki Nagai went on to explain why exactly the Canon EOS R5 and Canon EOS R6 have such restrictive recording limits. "There are factors that govern what a camera can and cannot do, the primary of which is the components used based on the cost of the camera. Making a camera that can do everything would require higher resolution viewfinders, bigger buffers, faster processors to handle the data, faster card buses to write to cards, etc., all components which typically cost more.
"It is important that we evaluate the primary customer for each product and decide what features would be required by that typical user. We do not 'cripple' our cameras, our aim is always to focus the product better to the typical user."
Katsuyaki Nagai also reiterated that the EOS R5 and R6 aren't dedicated video cameras, but should be considered stills camera hybrids for users that shoot both stills and video.
If you want to read the full interview you can find it on CineD here.
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