Canon's prosumer APS-C DSLRs the EOS 7D Mark II and the EOS 80D are both quite long in the tooth. Unfortunately, there has been very little information about their replacements.
Canon has mentioned that DSLR development will continue for the foreseeable future, which is good news for every Canon shooter that doesn't have interest in a mirrorless camera at this time. No new EF lenses are coming in 2019, but a few DSLRs definitely are.
Which new DSLRs are coming?
I'm not sure what to make of the recent bit of information we have received, but we're told that the APS-C DSLR lineup will shrink in model numbers and that the EOS 80D and EOS 7D Mark II cameras will be amalgamated into one DSLR body. The EOS 77D will remain the DSLR above the Rebels, and perhaps an update to the EOS 77D is also coming.
We've seen an amalgamation from Canon before, and that was with the release of the EOS-1D X. That camera took the place of the EOS-1Ds Mark III and the APS-S H specced EOS-1D Mark IV.
We're not sure what to make of this information, it makes a bit of sense on the surface. We just don't know how much 80D and how much EOS 7D Mark II would be in this new APS-C shooter. It would still have to be built really well, and shoot at a high framerate to please the folks looking to replace their EOS 7D Mark II. However, it can't reach a price point in which the EOS 80D shooter would balk at an upgrade.
Note the [CR1] rating and treat this information accordingly.
i would love to see a high-end mirrorless aps-c with 20 fps and great focusing for BIF.
Initially, you'd think they'd move 7D Mark II folks to mirrorless but Canon hasn't yet advanced their AF/FPS and sensor read speed to that level yet. At least, not at the profit margin they'd require so it'll be 4-5 more years of CLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACK for y'all.
The 7D line, however, is targeted towards action photographers, so I could understand it going one more generation. Maybe we'll see a well-built 7DIII with a better sensor and a flip screen? Improved Live-View, maybe a few ounces lighter, a little bit smaller, and a few hundred less than the initial price of the 7DII. Done.
It might be some time before an EVF is truly as good or better than an OVF for birds in flight and other fast action photography.
Meanwhile, 80D customers will be pushed to entry level FF RF bodies or to M series bodies.
At the moment APSC DSLR's are cheaper than their equivalent MILC counterparts, which makes no sense, a MILC should be cheaper to be produced. For this reason, it should be no problem to replace them by MILC's except loosing the "coolness surcharge", but this one will get lost anyways, as soon as all cool guys have spend their early adopters fee, or it will go to not loose the market to phones even more fast (as now the cheap DSLR's try)
Actually, a APSC DSLR makes not much sense, if paired with it's slow kit lens only, a G7 can do the same (smaller sensor but brighter lens) and is by far smaller. So this are powerfull small tools, which can be beaten only by big glass,
The cost of a prism (or mirror), a motor to flip it up out of the way, and some glass to show the image in the viewfinder is way less than the cost of the hardware needed to provide a high resolution small screen. The bodies of the smaller cameras need more expensive materials to keep them sturdy, and the cost of the material to actually make the shell of the body is fractions of a penny difference between a top of the line camera and a cheap one. I don't know why this rumor of how mirrorless is cheaper than DSLR's got started, but it's getting old. At some point that may be the case if high pixel count very small displays become a mainstream thing with augmented reality glasses but until that time they are niche.
Then also have some entry level APS-C mirrorless Cameras and drop the M series which no longer have a real future.
There is another way to look at that "amalgamation" — and it suggests that it wasn't an amalgamation as much as a reordering.
The 1Ds series was initially the slower-buy-highest-megapixel Canon DSLR series. These were great cameras whose features appealed strongly to photographers such as those doing certain kinds of studio work and to landscape photographers – where absolutely speed as a bit less important than highest possible image quality. The 1Ds provided full frame sensors with then state-of-the-art high MP numbers. All other Canon DSLR cameras at that time used 1.3x or 1.6x cropped sensors
With the advent of the 5D series, which was (and arguably still is in some ways) a lower-level camera system in the Canon line-up, something interesting happened. Many (I don't have numbers, but I'd guess "most") photographers who had used the 1Ds bodies for their higher image quality potential realized that they could get the same image quality from the 5D series at a much lower price, and that for most of them the supposed disadvantages (lesser AF capability, smaller body, etc.) were not worth that added cost of the 1Ds models.
The 1Ds disappeared not because Canon "merged" it with the faster-and-lower-MP version of the 1-series cameras (though that was Canon's marketing line) but because buyers of the high MP systems mostly didn't see value the the 1Ds series provided over the 5D series cameras. Those users did not (at least not in significant numbers) shift from the 1Ds to the newer "amalgamated" 1Dx — they moved to the 5DII, 5DIII, 5DIV, and — especially — the high MP 5DsR.
What we currently in the Canon line-up, insofar as the cloudy picture begins to clear a bit, is less about downsizing the number of "serious" camera bodies and more about managing a multi-year transition from DSLR models to highly capable mirrorless camera systems. Clearly, Canon cannot instantly delete the entire DSLR line-up and equally quickly boot up a full, viable mirrorless line-up. This is a transitional process that is likely to take a period of years. And during that period we can expect to see a trajectory that diminishes the number of DSLR options as it increases the number of (and capability of) the replacement mirrorless models.
G Dan Mitchell
That would be good news for Nikon as thay are currently only selling one Nikon for every 2 Canon DSLRs.
If the amalgamation happens, I'd expect to see something like:
Of course, I would rather see and use a true 7D Mark III that would go more head-to-head with the D500, but with the impending switch to the RF mount, Canon might feel that they need to go in a different direction.