What’s next from Canon?

[bf]

Lens: a response to z800pf; probably a DO lens!
Crop: RF-s 22f2, 11-22, and 55-200 sound like low-hanging fruits.
EOS M6-Mkiii with Digic X: a most have IMO!

 

[bergstrom]

Zero point in making it most affordable if its most restricted. R6 is still WAY too expensive, with so many complaints about it. My switch to mirrorless will hang on the R2 or RP2. It / They should have no recording limit, or increase it to 60-90 mins at least, proper full uncropped 4k and get rid of that Goddam LP E17 and no overheating. And maybe, just maybe introduce new security features, passcode or something , in case its stolen.

 

[bergstrom]

... and Design of R5. Current design of the R7 is a disappointment, as was the R too. Why all that? Ergonomics of the R5 and R6 is ideal. Never change working system! By the way, that should be called R90 and not R7. Too bad I won't buy this camera.

These 2 crop cameras are just redundant

 

[blackcoffee17]

I think we'll see an R5 Mark II and R6 Mark II sooner rather than later. The R and RP will possibly be discontinued, we'll probably see the R5 and R6 Mark 1 remain in production and moved to a lower price point, with the R6 Mark 1 being priced competitively as an RP replacement.

With modern photography becoming increasingly reliant on computational power, the need for regular upgrades with faster CPUs, more internal RAM, etc, is likely to move to a faster refresh cycle than the traditional 3-4 year cycle for DSLRs.

I think they'll also follow Sony's trick and keep the Mark 1 R5 and R6 in production simultaneously for a long time. No point in developing new lower-cost cameras when you already have a production line set up for an existing model. Maybe the R and RP will struggle on even longer if they can't get the R5 and R6 down to a low enough unit cost.

But the R5 won't simply become cheaper to manufacture just because Canon will release an updated model.

 

[blackcoffee17]

These 2 crop cameras are just redundant

Redundant, why? The R7 is not perfect but for that price is great and the best sports/wildlife camera many will be able to buy.

 

[unfocused]

RP/R sucessor must have IBIS and dual slot but where the cripple hammer will hit to protect the R6 and R7?

Nope. Maybe IBIS (50/50 chance). Hard no on dual slot.

 

[gregedwards69]

Showing Ef-m a little love would be nice. Unlikely, but one can hope.

 

[unfocused]

I think we'll see an R5 Mark II and R6 Mark II sooner rather than later. The R and RP will possibly be discontinued, we'll probably see the R5 and R6 Mark 1 remain in production and moved to a lower price point, with the R6 Mark 1 being priced competitively as an RP replacement.

With modern photography becoming increasingly reliant on computational power, the need for regular upgrades with faster CPUs, more internal RAM, etc, is likely to move to a faster refresh cycle than the traditional 3-4 year cycle for DSLRs.

I think they'll also follow Sony's trick and keep the Mark 1 R5 and R6 in production simultaneously for a long time. No point in developing new lower-cost cameras when you already have a production line set up for an existing model. Maybe the R and RP will struggle on even longer if they can't get the R5 and R6 down to a low enough unit cost.

I disagree with almost all of this.

Has Canon ever kept an older version in the lineup once a newer version is released? Maybe on Rebels and they may have done that with the XX series for a limited time, but not on X series cameras.

As @blackcoffee17 said, cameras don't become cheaper to manufacture when a new model is released.

There is no way Canon will reduce the price of the R6 to RP territory.

Update cycles aren't driven by technology, they are driven by revenue strategies. In a shrinking market one can argue that refresh cycles might get longer, not shorter, to give Canon more time to recover costs.

I could see substantial rebates offered on the R and RP to bring down the cost of entry into the full frame system. It is plausible that they would do that rather than introduce new budget models as a temporary strategy.

 

[unfocused]

... and Design of R5. Current design of the R7 is a disappointment, as was the R too. Why all that? Ergonomics of the R5 and R6 is ideal. Never change working system! By the way, that should be called R90 and not R7. Too bad I won't buy this camera.

Well, since your avatar says you have switched to medium format, you probably were never in the target audience anyway.

 

[sanj]

By the time the R1 arrives, it will be another step further behind the competition's flagships...

Noo

 

[jd7]

But the R5 won't simply become cheaper to manufacture just because Canon will release an updated model.

I'd be very surprised if manufacturing cost is very relevant at all to Canon's asking price for an R5. For an item like that, any manufacturer wants to be pricing on demand, not cost.

 

[Jethro]

Would love to see a camera that is rough and ready for all kinds of conditions but isn't going to cost a fortune.

And whenever I see a goose, I look under it for a golden egg.

 

[Michael Clark]

R7 II ? .... with higherend body, BSI sensor without rolling shutter etc... please!

Well, the 7D Mark II was what the original 7D should have been. So there is that precedent to uphold.

 

[Jethro]

I could see substantial rebates offered on the R and RP to bring down the cost of entry into the full frame system. It is plausible that they would do that rather than introduce new budget models as a temporary strategy.

I always saw the R and RP as temporary fixes (based on old sensors and specs from the 5D IV and 6D2). It makes sense to me for newly designed lower-priced FF bodies to soon be introduced to take over the price points the R and RP filled. There were multiple rumours last year of >1 new FF body coming, and maybe supply-chain issues have delayed them.

 

[David - Sydney]

As @blackcoffee17 said, cameras don't become cheaper to manufacture when a new model is released.

You are correct that new model don't make existing models cheaper except for:
- shared production steps
- shared parts where higher volumes are ordered

What does change when new models are released is that existing models would have moved into volume production/cash cow phases

Cameras (and other manufactured products) go through a product/cost lifecycle where there are:
- up front R&D costs
- initial production with higher costs for:
- manufacturing until the production process is bedded down and
- parts are ordered in smaller quantities and generally that means higher prices
- volume production with larger batch runs (lower setup costs per unit) and parts ordered in higher volumes
- cash cow phase where R&D costs have basically been amortised and production efficiencies are implemented
- discontinuation with higher costs when (generally) the volumes sold are lower, more inventory on the shelves and last time part orders are made

 

[David - Sydney]

The roadmap is a bit of a furphy as it is a combination of recently released lenses and additions after the fact.
The RF5.2 dual fisheye was never forecast and only "rumored" a couple of days before release.
The 18-45mm wasn't in a RFs list
There is no RF300mm prime which should be an obvious lens in the forecast

Except for the RF18-45mm (which I think it should be removed now that the RFs 18-45mm has been released) and the RF24/1.8 macro, they are all specialty/high cost lenses (TS-E, f1.2/1.4 super tele, super wide).

So let's revisit the RF roadmap and see where the gaps are between EF and RF now. The obvious one for me are pancake lenses

Canon (besides the 800/1200) have added extra features to their RF versions vs EF equivalents to justify their price premium which indicates that they are happy to have 2 price points of RF and adapted EF lenses as long as people want to buy them. Over time (a long time?), EF lenses will be discontinued in favour of RF but which ones first?

 

[john1970]

The Canon R1 arriving in 2023 makes perfect sense to me. It provides Canon ample time to obtain feedback on the R3 and incorporate feedback into the R1. Honestly, as someone who exclusively uses the R3 I am sort of glad that the R1 is not being rushed. Let Canon take the time and work out all the details on the flagship camera. I suspect that we will have a R1 announcement within a year. If Canon ships a R1 in Q4 2023 that would basically be four years since the 1Dx Mk3.

 

[jd7]

I disagree with almost all of this.

Has Canon ever kept an older version in the lineup once a newer version is released? Maybe on Rebels and they may have done that with the XX series for a limited time, but not on X series cameras.

As @blackcoffee17 said, cameras don't become cheaper to manufacture when a new model is released.

There is no way Canon will reduce the price of the R6 to RP territory.

Update cycles aren't driven by technology, they are driven by revenue strategies. In a shrinking market one can argue that refresh cycles might get longer, not shorter, to give Canon more time to recover costs.

I could see substantial rebates offered on the R and RP to bring down the cost of entry into the full frame system. It is plausible that they would do that rather than introduce new budget models as a temporary strategy.

I don't have a view about whether Canon is likely to start keeping older models on sale after a newer version is released (although as you say, Canon hasn't been in the habit of doing that), and I don't expect to see an R6 for an RP price any time soon. However, there are a couple of points in your post where I disagree (FWIW! ).

First, I would be very surprised if camera gear, at least anything above the very cheapest entry level models, are priced on cost. I am confident they are priced primarily on demand, ie what will the market pay. So I doubt the fact that cameras don't beceome cheaper to manufacture just because a new model is released is particulary important in itself. Canon is simply trying to sell camera gear for as much money as it can, so ideally it will push consumers towards higher profit models (generally, higher end and/or newer models, I expect). If you assume a new model will command a price premium and hence will be more profitable, keeping an old model around may not be a good idea (assuming a sale is less profitable) if it means too many buyers opt for the old one. Equally though, assuming the newer model really is better than the old one and if the cameras can be in two different price classes (eg what Sony has done with the A7IV relative to the A7III), keeping the old model on the market at a relatively low price may make a lot of sense to target different groups of buyers without going to the trouble of developing another model.

Second, I think it is a fallacy to think Canon needs or necessarily wants to recover the costs of a model before introducing a new model. Canon wants to sell camera gear as profitably as it can. If that means retiring a model and replacing it, so be it. (The statements you so often see on the internet where someone claims Canon (or some other manufacturer) is not doing something because they don't want to cannibalise sales of their other products drive me crazy. Yes, manufacturer's engage in product differentiation to try to increase their overall profitability, but primarily a manufacturer cares that you buy one of its products rather than someone else's product, and whether you buy the manufacturer's product X or product Y is much less significant. Further, I expect many costs are shared across multiple models to some degree or another, so I doubt it is easy to allocate all costs to a model specifically in any event. For example, I am sure a lot of R&D goes into AF systems and the AF system which ends up in a particular cameras is both an evolution of the AF system in earlier cameras and part of the development process which will lead to the AF system in future cameras. I think you can see that quite clearly in the mirrorless era, where newer model cameras (eg Canon R7, Sony A7IV) inherit AF systems similar to those in much higher end cameras (eg Canon R3, Sony A1). AF functions such as eye-tracking are heavily software dependent, so (I expect) it is cheaper for a manufacturer to have one code base and deploy it in all cameras, rather than developing separate sofware just because cameras are in different classes in other respects. And, of course, that doesn't mean the lower end cameras will necessarily have the same AF performance as a higher end camera, given that inevitably there will be hardware differences. As someone else (Neuro, I think from memory) has pointed out in a recent post on CR, the R3 has a sensor with a higher readout speed than the sensor in an R7, which allows the R3's AF system to receive information more quickly, which at least theoretically should allow the R3's AF system to perform better than the AF system on an R7, despite other similarities between the AF systems on the two cameras.

 

[Quarkcharmed]

But where's the high-megapixel R5S?
They've mirrored basically the whole DSLR line, but not the 5DS.

 

[unfocused]

I don't have a view about whether Canon is likely to start keeping older models on sale after a newer version is released (although as you say, Canon hasn't been in the habit of doing that), and I don't expect to see an R6 for an RP price any time soon. However, there are a couple of points in your post where I disagree (FWIW! ).

First, I would be very surprised if camera gear, at least anything above the very cheapest entry level models, are priced on cost. I am confident they are priced primarily on demand, ie what will the market pay. So I doubt the fact that cameras don't beceome cheaper to manufacture just because a new model is released is particulary important in itself. Canon is simply trying to sell camera gear for as much money as it can, so ideally it will push consumers towards higher profit models (generally, higher end and/or newer models, I expect). If you assume a new model will command a price premium and hence will be more profitable, keeping an old model around may not be a good idea (assuming a sale is less profitable) if it means too many buyers opt for the old one. Equally though, assuming the newer model really is better than the old one and if the cameras can be in two different price classes (eg what Sony has done with the A7IV relative to the A7III), keeping the old model on the market at a relatively low price may make a lot of sense to target different groups of buyers without going to the trouble of developing another model.

Second, I think it is a fallacy to think Canon needs or necessarily wants to recover the costs of a model before introducing a new model. Canon wants to sell camera gear as profitably as it can. If that means retiring a model and replacing it, so be it. (The statements you so often see on the internet where someone claims Canon (or some other manufacturer) is not doing something because they don't want to cannibalise sales of their other products drive me crazy. Yes, manufacturer's engage in product differentiation to try to increase their overall profitability, but primarily a manufacturer cares that you buy one of its products rather than someone else's product, and whether you buy the manufacturer's product X or product Y is much less significant. Further, I expect many costs are shared across multiple models to some degree or another, so I doubt it is easy to allocate all costs to a model specifically in any event. For example, I am sure a lot of R&D goes into AF systems and the AF system which ends up in a particular cameras is both an evolution of the AF system in earlier cameras and part of the development process which will lead to the AF system in future cameras. I think you can see that quite clearly in the mirrorless era, where newer model cameras (eg Canon R7, Sony A7IV) inherit AF systems similar to those in much higher end cameras (eg Canon R3, Sony A1). AF functions such as eye-tracking are heavily software dependent, so (I expect) it is cheaper for a manufacturer to have one code base and deploy it in all cameras, rather than developing separate sofware just because cameras are in different classes in other respects. And, of course, that doesn't mean the lower end cameras will necessarily have the same AF performance as a higher end camera, given that inevitably there will be hardware differences. As someone else (Neuro, I think from memory) has pointed out in a recent post on CR, the R3 has a sensor with a higher readout speed than the sensor in an R7, which allows the R3's AF system to receive information more quickly, which at least theoretically should allow the R3's AF system to perform better than the AF system on an R7, despite other similarities between the AF systems on the two cameras.

I don't think anything you said conflicts with my comments. I certainly agree that actual manufacturing costs are a small factor in pricing decisions.

But, I was reacting to the suggestion that Canon would reduce the price of the R6 and sell it as a replacement for the RP. I do doubt that an R6 could be manufactured and sold at that price point (especially since there would still need to be sufficient markup for retailers to make some profit) And even if they could, I doubt that they would, if for no other reason that almost everyone who bought the R6 at the original price would suddenly become disgruntled Canon customers. Certainly manufacturers, including Canon, do reduce the price of older models, but not by more than half and they generally don't keep the product in their lineup after they have cut the price.

I suppose it is possible that Canon might introduce a new model before recovering the cost of a previous model, but that's clearly not a sustainable strategy. The OP was suggesting that the pace of technological change would drive Canon to permanently shorten the refresh cycle of its bodies. A permanent shortening of the refresh cycle would necessarily require that Canon can recover its costs and make a profit in a shorter time period. They only way to make more money in less time is to either sell more units or increase the per unit margin. No one on this forum has access to the data to make an intelligent guess whether that is possible or not, but I am highly skeptical that Canon could afford to permanently shorten the refresh cycle in a shrinking market where DSLR sales have plummeted and Mirrorless sales have basically flatlined. (See the Chart below from @dolina.)