Announcement Date? [CR1]

[CJRodgers]

What does everyone think the price will be on launch.

http://uk.camelcamelcamel.com/Canon-Digital-Camera-Mark-EF24-105/product/B001E97GIU

This shows the amazon price for the 5d mkii at launch with a kit lens. So it was launched at £3000 and seems to have lost a big chunck by it first December. Then plataus at that for a couple of years and lately has dropped further. So if it came out in spring i guess waiting till the following winter is a good idea if your not desperate to upgrade.

Do you expect 5d mkiii to be a similar pricing?

[mathino]

What does everyone think the price will be on launch.

http://uk.camelcamelcamel.com/Canon-Digital-Camera-Mark-EF24-105/product/B001E97GIU

This shows the amazon price for the 5d mkii at launch with a kit lens. So it was launched at £3000 and seems to have lost a big chunck by it first December. Then plataus at that for a couple of years and lately has dropped further. So if it came out in spring i guess waiting till the following winter is a good idea if your not desperate to upgrade.

Do you expect 5d mkiii to be a similar pricing?

I bet that if 5D Mk III will be released with 24-105 f/4 IS as a kit lens - price will be above 3K. My bet is that as a kit it will be 3500 or higher.

[tt]

£2500 for the camera back on launch day is my guess.

http://uk.camelcamelcamel.com/Canon-Digital-SLR-Camera-Mark/product/B001E97GIK?active=amazon


One further thing - have you seen the price swings on those charts?! Both the camera alone, and the kit were dropping £200-300 in the first month or so.

[CJRodgers]

What does everyone think the price will be on launch.

http://uk.camelcamelcamel.com/Canon-Digital-Camera-Mark-EF24-105/product/B001E97GIU

This shows the amazon price for the 5d mkii at launch with a kit lens. So it was launched at £3000 and seems to have lost a big chunck by it first December. Then plataus at that for a couple of years and lately has dropped further. So if it came out in spring i guess waiting till the following winter is a good idea if your not desperate to upgrade.


Do you expect 5d mkiii to be a similar pricing?

I bet that if 5D Mk III will be released with 24-105 f/4 IS as a kit lens - price will be above 3K. My bet is that as a kit it will be 3500 or higher.

Do you think it will lose a chunk off the RRP by December if announced by spring / summer as the 5d mkii did, or do you think the second hand market for the 5dmkii will be strong and prop up the RRP for the new camera?

[mathino]

£2500 for the camera back on launch day is my guess.

http://uk.camelcamelcamel.com/Canon-Digital-SLR-Camera-Mark/product/B001E97GIK?active=amazon

If you assume highest price point was 2250 USD then in assumptiom that there will be price increase of 25% = you get 2 812,5. If the price increase will be around 1/3 of the highest price (as for example new lenses like 70-200 f/2.8 II) = you get 2 992,5 for body only.

I, personally, think the price of new 5D Mk III will be 3000 USD for body only. Maybe even over it - depends on sensor, AF and other specs. But we have to wait until official info is released to get something to catch to :-)

[Meh]

Another mention of 22mp resolution came in, as well as a “pro level” autofocus system. That bit of info comes from a known source.

The 5DIII as relly an almost baby-1D X?  I'll play devil's advocate to my own viewpoint, and ask why not?  Canon has to have a flagship, a truly top of the line pro camera.  But they merged the 1D and 1Ds (or eliminated the 1Ds and made the 1D a FF camera, if you prefer) - still having a flagship, but not two of them.  I have no doubt that the 5DII made them more profit than the 1DsIII and 1D IV combined.  So, why not combine the 1-series, which they did, and not expect to make a hefty profit from that line.  Make the 5DIII a significant improvement over the 5DII by giving it an excellent AF system, forget about 'cannabalizing' 1D X sales, the 5DIII is the real profit engine, so make it as good as possible.

I can say this, though - if they release a 5DIII with 22 MP and a “pro level” AF system (e.g. recycle the 1DsIII AF), leaving the main differentator from the 1D X as the frame rate (still 4 fps, even), I'd be quite interested - perhaps enough to get the 5DIII instead of the 1D X.  Don't worry, Canon    the money saved will go toward lenses....

Ok, I'll bite at that...

It's perfectly plausible that they accept a smaller market for the 1DX by having less of a gap above a 5D3.  It could make sense if they believe they only need minimal performance advantages to sell enough 1DX bodies... maybe the dual CF slots, ethernet, extra processors for AF, etc. etc.

But... if they intentionally accept a smaller market for the 1DX then I'd think the one thing they'd want to make the same is the sensor because the R&D and set-up costs to manufacture a sensor is high.   The difference between 18 and 22 (22 is still just speculation for now) isn't huge so the advantage in IQ and FPS that are affected by MP count wouldn't be big enough to be a significant differentiating feature.  Makes sense?

[JR]

Another mention of 22mp resolution came in, as well as a “pro level” autofocus system. That bit of info comes from a known source.

The 5DIII as relly an almost baby-1D X?  I'll play devil's advocate to my own viewpoint, and ask why not?  Canon has to have a flagship, a truly top of the line pro camera.  But they merged the 1D and 1Ds (or eliminated the 1Ds and made the 1D a FF camera, if you prefer) - still having a flagship, but not two of them.  I have no doubt that the 5DII made them more profit than the 1DsIII and 1D IV combined.  So, why not combine the 1-series, which they did, and not expect to make a hefty profit from that line.  Make the 5DIII a significant improvement over the 5DII by giving it an excellent AF system, forget about 'cannabalizing' 1D X sales, the 5DIII is the real profit engine, so make it as good as possible.

I can say this, though - if they release a 5DIII with 22 MP and a “pro level” AF system (e.g. recycle the 1DsIII AF), leaving the main differentator from the 1D X as the frame rate (still 4 fps, even), I'd be quite interested - perhaps enough to get the 5DIII instead of the 1D X.  Don't worry, Canon    the money saved will go toward lenses....

I really think makes a lot of sense but I think there is another factor at play as well.  Having too many products in a segment can obviously become expensive for Canon.  Now that Canon positionned itself wanting to come out with some "movie" DSLR, while we dont yet know what they will look like, for sure they will take good still pictures...

So....it make some sense to simplify your existing offering in order to make room for the new product they will come out, and make sure your simplified offering is very strong.  This rumored of pro grade AF makes me dream of this small body camera now...hummm what should I get now!

[tt]

I, personally, think the price of new 5D Mk III will be 3000 USD for body only. Maybe even over it - depends on sensor, AF and other specs. But we have to wait until official info is released to get something to catch to :-)

Possibly - the Amazon pricing charts were for amazon.co.uk and in GBP not USD.

5D Mk II only: Initially at £2250 or $2700
5D Mk II + 24-105mm: Initially at £2990 or $3500

So apart from not working out if it's a 5D MkII or a 7D hybrid, isn't there still the issue of video? Is Canon offloading that to the C300 or a dSLR in the future, releasing the 5D MkIII from heavy video duties so it will be focused more on stills?

[neuroanatomist]

It's perfectly plausible that they accept a smaller market for the 1DX by having less of a gap above a 5D3.  It could make sense if they believe they only need minimal performance advantages to sell enough 1DX bodies... maybe the dual CF slots, ethernet, extra processors for AF, etc. etc.

But... if they intentionally accept a smaller market for the 1DX then I'd think the one thing they'd want to make the same is the sensor because the R&D and set-up costs to manufacture a sensor is high.   The difference between 18 and 22 (22 is still just speculation for now) isn't huge so the advantage in IQ and FPS that are affected by MP count wouldn't be big enough to be a significant differentiating feature.  Makes sense?

Makes sense to me.  I'd perhaps take it a step further and say they might essentially write off profit from the 1D X - they need a flagship, but if they cripple the 5DIII sufficiently they'll hurt sales of that.  Given the relative numbers, it's worth considering that they might prefer to completely sacrifice 1D X sales to enhance 5DIII sales.  Just one possibility of many.

The 200-400mm f/4 I guess  ?

Probably the 500mm f/4L IS II, actually.  That with a 1.4x III would give IQ and focal length on a FF camera that would exceed that of the 100-400mm on APS-C.

[Meh]

It's perfectly plausible that they accept a smaller market for the 1DX by having less of a gap above a 5D3.  It could make sense if they believe they only need minimal performance advantages to sell enough 1DX bodies... maybe the dual CF slots, ethernet, extra processors for AF, etc. etc.

But... if they intentionally accept a smaller market for the 1DX then I'd think the one thing they'd want to make the same is the sensor because the R&D and set-up costs to manufacture a sensor is high.   The difference between 18 and 22 (22 is still just speculation for now) isn't huge so the advantage in IQ and FPS that are affected by MP count wouldn't be big enough to be a significant differentiating feature.  Makes sense?

Makes sense to me.  I'd perhaps take it a step further and say they might essentially write off profit from the 1D X - they need a flagship, but if they cripple the 5DIII sufficiently they'll hurt sales of that.  Given the relative numbers, it's worth considering that they might prefer to completely sacrifice 1D X sales to enhance 5DIII sales.  Just one possibility of many.

My point was meant to be that if that was their intention or even if they were going to accept that (not worrying about sales/profit form the 1DX) they would have designed one sensor for the 1DX and 5D3 and not spent all the money on R&D and setting up the fab.  This view of course is predicated on the rumours that the 5D3 will remain in the 21-22 MP range... if it ends up being higher then of course they might not have been able to get high enough fps from the 1DX.

[Craig Richardson]

2012 is shaping up to be the ultimate year of Gear Acquisition Syndrome.  First Fuji, then Olympus, and now Canon and possibly Leica... All I can say is there has never been a better time to be a photographer, keep up the good work Canon Rumors!

[gmrza]

My point was meant to be that if that was their intention or even if they were going to accept that (not worrying about sales/profit form the 1DX) they would have designed one sensor for the 1DX and 5D3 and not spent all the money on R&D and setting up the fab.  This view of course is predicated on the rumours that the 5D3 will remain in the 21-22 MP range... if it ends up being higher then of course they might not have been able to get high enough fps from the 1DX.

I agree - a 21 to 21MP sensor for the 5DIII doesn't really make sense economically, since it would have no real IQ advantages over the 18MP sensor in the 1DX.

I believe that with the 1DsIII and 5DII, Canon probably made a very profitable move by allowing the 5DII to cannibalise 1DsIII sales.  They retained the 1DsIII as a flagship for the small niche market that really needed its features, while the 5DII has been selling like hotcakes.  I don't think it would hurt Canon to make the 5DIII be very close in feature set to the 1DX - provided the price is right for it to sell in high volumes, but there is enough differentiation to ensure that high end users do not totally abandon the 1DX.  Assuming that the sales volumes of 5D series cameras are possibly an order of magnitude or more higher than 1 series cameras, Canon stands to recoup development costs faster on a 5D series camera, even at a lower price.  If a lot of components are shared, that even allows the 5D series to bear a lot of the development costs of the 1D series. - This would be a bit more like the auto manufacturing approach of building around a platform - where for instance the Audi TT and VW Golf share the same platform, but target very different markets and sell at very different prices.  The TT, on its own, could not justify the platform development costs however.

... Just my speculation.

[Meh]

@gmrza good analogy from the auto sector... well put

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Another mention of 22mp resolution came in, as well as a “pro level” autofocus system. That bit of info comes from a known source.

The 5DIII as relly an almost baby-1D X?  I'll play devil's advocate to my own viewpoint, and ask why not?  Canon has to have a flagship, a truly top of the line pro camera.  But they merged the 1D and 1Ds (or eliminated the 1Ds and made the 1D a FF camera, if you prefer) - still having a flagship, but not two of them.  I have no doubt that the 5DII made them more profit than the 1DsIII and 1D IV combined.  So, why not combine the 1-series, which they did, and not expect to make a hefty profit from that line.  Make the 5DIII a significant improvement over the 5DII by giving it an excellent AF system, forget about 'cannabalizing' 1D X sales, the 5DIII is the real profit engine, so make it as good as possible.

I can say this, though - if they release a 5DIII with 22 MP and a “pro level” AF system (e.g. recycle the 1DsIII AF), leaving the main differentator from the 1D X as the frame rate (still 4 fps, even), I'd be quite interested - perhaps enough to get the 5DIII instead of the 1D X.  Don't worry, Canon    the money saved will go toward lenses....

+1

I've kinda always expected that the next edition of the 5D would have the 7D like features.  The features are very popular, and, like the 5D MK II, the 7D is said to have surpassed its sales estimates by a large margin.

I would expect a 5D X with 7D AF features to be extremely popular.

[neuroanatomist]

Specs: Another mention of 22mp resolution came in...

What if they just use the same sensor as in the 5DII in a new 5DIII?  No one seems to be complaining about the performance of that sensor - so why not leave it alone and improve other features?  This rumor of a 22 MP sensor?  Note that the 5DII already has a 22 MP sensor, with 21.1 MP effective pixels.  Check the specs...