The thing to be aware of with CCD, is that when doing the read out of a sensor after capture, it has in the past always been limited to row by row, so you can imagine you have to clear one row at a time, it’s actually very slow. CMOS on the other hand allows for all rows to be read out at the same time which as a rule means you can get the image off the sensor and ready for the next frame a lot faster.

CCD is probably the better technology in a lot of ways, but due to production costs very little R&D is done on it when compared to CMOS, ironically CCD was originally the technology associated with less noise and better IQ for the longest time until canon started producing their own CMOS sensors and winning the IQ/low noise game for a few years, at which point nikon started to look at alternatives to CCD as well.

It still makes me laugh a little that the SLR market is dominated by CMOS, but the med format market is still using CCD for it’s once upon a time better DR and lower noise in shadows, but then if you go down to the compact market… we see a lot of CCD’s again which I think come mostly from sony still? although I’m not 100% on that.

My two cents are that this issue is more related to pixel density and internal design of electronic function like peak detection and signal noise reduction. At high speed it’s difficult to clear the sensors of the previous electrical charges. Hence the problems that are arising on remanent image, or remains of previous shots on a picture (somewhat seen of the 7D). I am pretty sure that CCD, more expensive, prone to heating, requiring to be charged to function (not passive capture), are relatively shielded from that problem…

The highest speed of D3s is achieved with DX format…but given the super coverage that a FF taylored AF would have on APS-H or APS-C coverage, and the enhanced tracking performances (pure speculation and whishful thinking here but…) it would have. I am pretty sure it will find great interest among photographers.

I am not sure on the Higher X-Synch, but yeah…at this price point, 300th should really be the minimum

I was actually really glad to see the 1d IV having a flash sync of 300th of a sec rather then 250th because I always assumed it would be logically possible considering they share the shutter tech between the two 1 series bodies and if the ff can do it in 250th the aps-h should be able to do it in less with the smaller plane to travel across.

the 550d is everything a 60d would have, except for the build…

I’m not saying there isn’t room for a lower rez ff camera by canon, but chances are it wouldn’t win them many more sales then they already have but rather make them split sales between the 5dII and the lower rez sibling. Which would mean higher production costs between the two bodies… potentially raise the price of both and net them fairly few additional sales.

I’m inclined to think canon will at the least match the build quality and AF to some extent of the 7D in it’s next prosumer FF body. But don’t hold your breath for it being a blazing fast sports camera, a slight frame rate booste, and if you’re really lucky they might not increase the mp, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they did.

Personally I think the 5dII is a very solid camera, it’s af is a short coming, but it’s IQ is imo the best over all of anything in the 35mm market atm and even it’s DR is pretty respectable I pull 8-9 stops out of mine comfortably and that’s better then mostly any color film ever does.

The camera isn’t perfect, but if you can’t get a great image on a 5d II your just not trying hard enough. Here’s hoping the 5d III has a better af though :)

I call this “features war”… while the camera with all the features might not necessarily be the better camera… only satisfying the needs of customer and creating new different selling points for making sales and that is what canon is doing IMO.

So yea, depending on your intended usage, both camera will do fine; but the 550D may do better at some areas that the 500D could not fare.

All Im hoping that is the 7D will go down in price with this announcement and the future 60D announcement :)