GOOD. DIFFERENT.
One day the story will be told about how two of the most significant new camera launches came to happen within a mere fortnight of each other. This is incredible for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that the development time would be at least three years – maybe a bit longer – and yet Canon and Nikon reached the finish line at exactly the same time. It’s hard to believe that one was waiting for the other to show its hand, given there’s still kudos attached to being first (as, indeed, Nikon has found). And, besides, nobody waits to make a big announcement these days; the imperative is to get products into the hands of eager consumers as soon as possible. Plus there’s all the time needed to prepare for launches (unlike Nikon, Canon held real ones), publicity material, technical info and advertising… none of this can be put in place in just 15 days so you can be sure that Nikon probably didn’t take Canon by surprise.
For its part, Panasonic – which joined the full-35mm mirrorless camera party only another three weeks later – expressed surprise at the closeness of the Canon and Nikon announcements, but still believes it was simply a coincidence. It did concede, however, that the timing was nevertheless fortuitous as it helped focus even more attention on its plans for the Lumix S system.
Perhaps much less surprising is that there are a number of similarities between Canon’s EOS R and Nikon’s Z systems, but also some marked differences (’twas ever thus). Of necessity, both employ all-new lens mounts with, now that the reflex mirror is gone, much shorter flange back distances than their existing D-SLR fittings. Both camera makers are emphasising the increased possibilities in lens design that their new mirrorless mounts will enable, although it’s interesting to note that the inner diameter of Canon’s new RF bayonet fitting is the same as that of the EF mount, indicating that there was a fair amount of forward thinking going on when it made its debut back in 1987. Given the disruptions caused by introducing a new lens mount, both systems include an adapter which maintains a high degree of compatibility with the current D-SLR systems, although Canon has gone further here, offering three options (more about these shortly).
The new RF mount retains a three-claw mechanical configuration and has the same internal diameter of 54 millimetres as the EF mount, but the flange back distance is reduced to 20 millimetres (compared to 44 millimetres).There are 12 communication pins to enable faster communications between camera body and lenses (up from eight on the EF mount).
For the record, Canon now has four lens mounts in play (EF, EF-S, EF-M and RF), but interestingly the two mirrorless fittings aren’t compatible as EF-M has an even-shorter flange back distance of 18 millimetres. Consequently, there’s no adaptor for EF-M lenses, but there is a choice of three for fitting EF and EF-S types (the camera automatically switches to ‘APS-C’ format with the latter). In addition to the standard EF-EOS R mount adaptor, one adds the
