Imho atm Canon is hard-pressed to catch up to reality and sanity again. Given the current feature/price combinations this doesn't seem to be the usual volatile "AMD in front of Intel, then the other way around" situation, because once AMD falls behind Intel they concentrate on releasing products with more attractive prices. Conservative Canon with its immovable userbase seems to try "more of the same" no matter what the competition is up to (like 6d vs d600).
+1
I was strongly thinking about the race between Intel and AMD, or Nvidia and ATI (sorry AMD again). Here we have a highly competitive market, 2 different situations; with processors, AMD clearly lost the race against Intel, and generation after generation , their CPUs are disappointing performance wise, hence they now compete on the price segment.
In the graphic card race, AMD is much closer to Nvidia and release their GPU generation shortly before Nvidia, as soon as Nvidia shows its own new gen GPUs, AMD is quickly reacting by adjusting the price, so that the performance/price ratio stays decent compared to the concurrence.
I know digital SLRs are a bit more complex than a graphic card, but when we speak sensor tech, IMO Canon is, for the time being, behind Sony/Nikon, but instead of adjusting the price accordingly, they just raise it, strange sense of marketing....
I do not want here to enter the debate where the new 4.25D Mk7 has a better AF or can reach 508.000 ISOs, when Nikon can't. We talk about high megapixel cameras for users who have some need for. Who are the people who need such cameras ? Likely people who do high end work where technical quality is a must (beauty shots, art reproduction, architecture, landscape, ...). We are talking about people who need a specific camera for a specific task, and the closest tool to their requirements is medium format. Here, super high ISO, amazing framerate and combat AF systems are irrelevant, the only requirement is a GOOD sensor, with as much DR as possible, the most faithful color reproduction and a high resolution.
Problem is pricing of MF systems is closer to real estate than cars. So a lot of people, including pros, can not afford such systems. In the good old days, a SINAR system was f.....g expensive, but you would keep it for 20 years. How long is the lifespan of a DSLR ?
It makes sense to produce FF DSLR that fit that niche, and even at 8-10k, it would be reasonable for lots of pros IF the camera can really deliver. For now, the only camera that comes close to that IQ is the D800(E), sold for 3k+. My point is that Canon will have to release a sensor AND body that crushes it, if they want to sell it 3 times the price. Though I am not sure it requires the 1D form factor, a 5D3 body would more than do the job, and would be a better answer to the D800(E).
One last word about the D1X merge, some see it as the best of both worlds, well I don't. Sport / wildlife photographers have lost the reach with their lenses, and studio / landscape photographers have lost their pixels, looks like it was mainly targeted at news pros who need speed, WA lenses and extreme reliability. It's a strange move, since pro shooters have specific needs that require specific cameras, and Canon is proposing only one answer to these needs. Their offer was IMO better scaled with the previous DSLR generation.
