Canon shipments of the R5 dry up

Canon is still struggling under the global demand of the EOS R5.  A testament that not everyone listens to certain internet experts that deem the camera, well, unworthy.  The R5 is arguably Canon's best ever landscape camera, and I'd be tempted to also call it their best prosumer camera for just about any genre.  It has an incredible feature set and 

Even for video, if you work within the limits, it's an exceptional camera, that is certainly going to get better as Canon addresses the perceived issues.

Now onto the issue at hand, Canon via BHPhotovideo is now issuing emails on the availability of the R5, stating that new cameras should be shipping before the end of October.  That's at least six weeks away.

In our last email, we shared that Canon R5 preorders were very strong and Canon’s deliveries to US retailers have been extremely limited. We also promised to send regular updates. Since that note, we received an updated shipment schedule from Canon. Based on this latest information from Canon, we expect to ship your order before the end of October. Please note that this information could change if Canon updates its schedule.

This is something that has never really happened in Canonland before but certainly has happened to Nikon most famously in the past.

It's tough to say what the hold up is, some say its supply chain because of COVID.  It could be, but for a variety of reasons, there's now such a global demand for video conferencing, laptops, and other electronic gear that perhaps companies are simply running out of the more rudimentary parts required to build a camera.  Since we haven't heard of major supply issues from the other manufacturers I think we can rule this out.

It could just be that with the new IBIS it is just a complicated beast for Canon to make.  This I also question, because Canon does pretty good with it's automated factories these days, and I can't see anything much in the R5 that would preclude this.

So what's the hold-up? It's hard to say, Canon is being pretty quiet about it.  While I don't think it's the "silent recall" theory, it could be that Canon is looking to see if there's anything that they can do on the manufacturing line to improve things.

Did they so massively underestimate the orders that they missed all the points above? It could be.  They may have gotten burned once too often with EOS R and also EOS-M camera releases that they were pessimistic on unit sales, and then the level of preorders just surprised everyone.

It could just be that none of us has an idea of what's going on in 2020. Most likely the real answer.

Whatever the case is, we did warn you to preorder fast for this.. it looks like that prediction at least came out true.

• CanonRumors