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Canon's latest feature costs $120 and is meant for school photographers

Canon's latest feature costs $120 and is meant for school photographers

DPReview News
canon-cropping-guide-example
Image: Canon

Canon has announced a new 'Cropping Guide' firmware update, which aims to make framing portraits easy and consistent. The feature costs $120 per camera and is available on the EOS R50, R10 and R7.

According to Canon's website, the function includes four guides with built-in borders for standard print sizes. The guides are designed to work whether you're shooting in landscape or portrait and to let you frame both headshots and full-body portraits.

The framing guides are clearly meant for professionals shooting high-throughput portraits; think school photos, sports events, or corporate events where everyone in the company has their picture taken. Driving this point home, Canon's press release mentions that it'll show the feature off at the School Photographers Association of California trade show early next year.

canon-four-crop-guidelines

The feature lets you choose between four guidelines, with some offering lines for different-sized heads like you'd find in a school, and others leaving room for pieces of equipments like balls and rackets.

Image: Canon

There is one caveat for anyone looking to add the function to their camera: you have to send your camera to a service center to activate it. That could be a problem if you only have a single camera body, though that's likely not the case for most working photographers. Also, a lot of mass portraiture work happens in cycles; schools and sports leagues all tend to have pictures taken at the same time of year. Canon also sells versions of the EOS R50, R10 and R7 with the feature pre-installed at a $120 markup from the normal models' MSRPs.

Still, it's hard to ignore that Panasonic and Sony sell similar features delivered via an immediate firmware download. There are some other differences, too: Canon's framing guide is only available on its APS-C cameras, while Panasonic and Sony limit their versions to more expensive full-frame cameras like the Lumix S5 II, a7 IV and a9 III.

Panasonic's solution, called Lumix Volume Photography, also goes further than just including frame guides; it also integrates with Opticon scanners, letting you bake a student's information into the photo file for easier sorting. However, it also costs $199, versus Canon's $120 and Sony's $150.

Lumix-volume-photography-scanner

Panasonic's firmware upgrade for volume photographers includes a suite of features meant to make their jobs easier.

Image: Panasonic

There will be people who balk at any mention of paying for new features, and you could argue that it's a slippery slope leading to cameras riddled with microtransactions or subscriptions. Ricoh started selling an $80 software graduated ND filter feature for some of its cameras earlier this year, but surely we don't want that to become the new normal.

On the other hand, this specific function is something that most people buying these cameras will never want or use, so why should they pay for the development work that went into it or have to navigate around it in their menu system? Let the professionals who will almost immediately make the money back in time saved fund it instead of baking it into the price of the camera.

However Canon's regular customers feel about paid functions, the company will likely only pay attention to how the pros respond. As we saw with Sony's a1 II, pricing for professional products is based on how much the market will bear rather than the types of value calculations hobbyists make. If you're a professional who shoots portraits, we'd love to hear from you in the comments. Would you or your company pay for this feature, and would its availability be a big factor in you choosing which camera to buy?

Press Release:

Canon Launches New Cropping Guide for Select EOS Cameras, Empowering Customers to Capture Beautifully Optimized Photos

MELVILLE, NY, December 9, 2024 – Canon Inc., the parent company of Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions, announced today a new Cropping Guide feature that will be available via a firmware update for the Canon EOS R50, EOS R10 and EOS R7 camera models that allows users to more easily frame their subjects through the use of four tailored on-screen guides. The new feature will be available December 9th from Canon USA for the price of $120 USD. For customers who have previously purchased one of the camera models compatible with the feature, they can send their device to a Canon Service Center and it will be returned with the Cropping Guide feature installed. For those new customers interested in the above mentioned models, the option to purchase them pre-loaded with the feature (for an additional cost) will be available via Canon Direct and other dealers starting December 9th.

The new Cropping Guide feature provides on-screen guidelines that help shooters position subjects with precision, helping to ensure consistent and professional results while saving time on editing. It allows for Canon users to position the frame at the time of capture so that post-production and editing can be kept at a minimum. Lastly, the Cropping Guides can be applied to horizontal or vertical framing scenarios, allowing for a wide range of shooting situations.

Canon will showcase its new offering to visitors to the School Photographers Association of California (SPAC) trade show from January 21-25 in Las Vegas, NV at the South Point Hotel and Casino at Booth #715. This new feature is specifically designed for school photography, sports events, or any scenario in which subjects need to maintain a consistent position.

Availability

Cropping Guide will be available December 9th. For additional information about the software, a list of compatible cameras and how to access the Cropping Guide, please visit here.