Canon North America Professional Services and EOS RF what's happening?

I was looking at the Canon CPS Programs in both Canada and the USA, and I came up with one logical conclusion which stunned me. 

First, let us briefly talk about the two programs.  Canon USA goes by a point score with various lenses and camera bodies that have different points rewarded for each variety of camera or lens.  Canon Canada simplifies it and states that you simply need a minimum number of what they deem "professional" cameras and L series lenses.  Both programs sound good and rather straightforward. Let's now look at the two CPS programs in detail and how they support the new RF ecosystem.

Canon Canada

Canon Canada has a straightforward membership application.  Just have to have a specific number of cameras and lenses and you are set.  When you go to apply for membership you can add in the various lenses and cameras that you own.

If you look at Canon Canada's CPS main requirement page, it lists all the various lenses, cameras, and accessories that are supported under the CPS umbrella for the service and also for "membership".  There's an extensive collection of DSLR's but what about mirrorless? Only the EOS R shows up as a supported camera and one that is part of the membership requirements. So does it include the new R5 and R6 camera bodies? It does not seem so. So even if you can enter them into the system, it's implying that they don't count towards your membership requirements.  Is Canon Canada's CPS main requirement page wrong or out of date? The page could be, but it's certainly confusing on what is supported and counted as membership requirements and also what RF camera bodies are included as part of the premier CPS support.

Canon Canada's CPS website certainly doesn't go out of its way to encourage you to get fully into the RF system and have Canon Canada's  CPS program help you out along the way.  According to the membership page, unless you have the EOS R, you'd have to have a few DSLR's to gain CPS membership.

Canon USA CPS

This is the premier Canon CPS support system.  I doubt it gets much better than Canon USA CPS with the possible exception of Japan.  Canon USA CPS has multiple levels of support for professional services; Silver, Gold, and Platinum.  Anyone can join up to at least silver (it's free!), but the requirements for Silver, Gold, and Silver include the requirements of "points". You accumulate points by having what Canon USA deems as professional gear.  Each piece of gear whether it be an L lens, or a camera body is listed with a relevant number of points you get for that particular piece of gear.

Canon USA has possibly the strangest points awarded for the RF camera bodies possible.   Consider this list of points taking from this page.

Now look at that list as we compare side to side;

Now can someone explain to me why the EOS R5 has the points as a 6D Mark II? Why the EOS R and Ra actually are scored higher than an R5 or R6 camera? Why on earth is the Canon 5DsR which is slightly more megapixels than an R5 worth 8 points versus the R5's 5 points?  I can't for the life of me explain the logic behind these points, but I do know, it's certainly not convincing people to move over to the RF system when you actually get fewer points for more advanced professional gear than what you had in the past.

Canon Europe

We checked the Canon Europe CPS program to see what they offered, and they, like Canon USA CPS are based upon a number of points.  You have to enter in your gear to determine your points but this is what we could find.

This shows that the points are more or less equal across the platforms, you could argue that the R6 maybe should have more points than the 6D Mark II, however, the point difference is negligible.  But notice that the latest and most expensive camera on this list the R5 also gives you the most points.  

So what does this all mean?

Both North American CPS programs, in my mind, should also be actively supporting professionals as they migrate from the EF system to the new RF system; and in the case of new professionals adopting Canon's RF ecosystem; supporting the migration and supporting them as well.   Granted the newer cameras are more technically advanced, and may actually be harder to support; however they are also more costly than their DSLR counterparts.  Canon Europe also shows that the weighting doesn't seem to be based upon the newness of technology or support difficulty since they rank the EOS R5 the highest in terms of membership points awarded.

Canon Canada may have simply made mistakes on their membership page we'll give them the benefit of doubt. But if I'm a new professional looking at that page that bought 2 R5's and a select number of RF Lenses, which would total over easily $20,000; I wouldn't be supported by Canon Canada CPS.  According to that page, even though I purchased the flagship RF camera body, I'd have to go out and get a couple of EOS R's or a few DSLR's.  Something isn't right about that.

Canon USA is basically stating; we are going to penalize you if you move to the RF system.  Could it have been simply mistaken on the scoring? Perhaps, however, if you actually look and compare the RF lens points versus the EF lens points the RF lenses match and score exactly the same as their older EF counterparts.  So it's really hard to believe that the scoring of the cameras is not intentional.  It could be because of the additional complexity of the cameras, however, if you've ever seen the shutter and mirror box assemblies on DSLR's, you'd see quickly that they are extremely complex mechanical devices.  I can't imagine how a mirrorless could possibly be more complex even with IBIS.

If I was a new Canon customer or a perspective customer I would naturally want to see what Canon would offer me in terms of professional support.  From looking at either program, Canon USA and Canada both are actively trying to persuade me not to upgrade to the RF system, or, as an RF system user, not to join CPS.

We did reach out to Canon USA, however received no response to our query.

Happy New Year! Sirui Anamorphic 24mm F2.8 coming for EOS-M