Rest well Canon EOS 7D series [CR2]

[AlanF]

My headmaster (principal) arranged when I was a schoolboy a lecture from the member of the Flat Earth Society to broaden our experience. I think the lecturer is now an active member of CR.

 

[AlanF]

Maybe. I'd like to see something other than "I was at X and four out of five people have switched to the D500." Given Nikon's rather anemic sales overall, I'm skeptical of such claims.

I have seen scores of D500s on my regular bird photo outings. How many bird photography events and expeditions do you go to? Tell us the sales figures for D500s.

 

[IslanderMV]

I am seeing a silver lining in this conversation. I use the ORIGINAL 7D. I also have a Canon full frame and lots of amazing glass. I use the 7D for wildlife. I live on an island so about 80% my shooting is in a salt water environment. All those years of rugged use are starting take their toll on my ancient 7D . I am looking foreward to picking up a new 7DII at a fire sale price!

 

[EduPortas]

Rumos rumors rumors!

There is NO way Canon will launch a high-performance "R" model with current EVF technology. There's still a noticeable lag.

That's the main advantage of the 7D series: fast response! Always has been. Good OVF, fast burst shooting, great lens selection.

Come September, everyone will be talking about Canon finally catching up on (maybe even surpassing) Nikon's D500.

 

[Durf]

Thank you for taking the time and effort to answer my question - I appeciate it. However, you had missed what I had written earlier.

I use Spot AF on my 5Div and 5DSR and it is much smaller than the smallest AF square on my M5, and I want to know whether Canon can do the equivalent on the R series.

My 6D MKii actually has Spot AF (and it does actually make a difference in some situations)

 

[unfocused]

I have seen scores of D500s on my regular bird photo outings. How many bird photography events and expeditions do you go to? Tell us the sales figures for D500s.

Amazon DSLR Listing: D500 is #74, 7DII is #87. Neither one is exactly burning up the charts. Top 10: Eight Canons and two Nikons. Everything below $600.

 

[unfocused]

I am seeing a silver lining in this conversation. I use the ORIGINAL 7D. I also have a Canon full frame and lots of amazing glass. I use the 7D for wildlife. I live on an island so about 80% my shooting is in a salt water environment. All those years of rugged use are starting take their toll on my ancient 7D . I am looking foreward to picking up a new 7DII at a fire sale price!

You may be the smartest person on this forum.

 

[Durf]

IMO if Canon scraps the 7D Series without offering an up to date alternative Pro Wildlife/Sports/Action APS-C Camera "DSLR" Body, they have obviously decided these types of shooters are not a high priority in their targeted marketing strategy going forward....
I use a 80D with a Sigma 150-600mm Lens for my wildlife and birding shooting, etc., and it works pretty well for me in the right conditions. I was looking forward to getting the 7Diii in a couple years from now, but I reckon the 90D will have to do. It's a bit insane to me to just change systems over a few features, I can improvise and make what I have work (and always do).
It does amaze me to hear so many are capable of dumping 10 or 20 grand every couple years to switch systems for a few new features!

 

[Otara]

I agree conceptually, if not semantically. I was surprised by the elimination of the ‘upgrade path’ of users buying FF lenses while using an APS-C camera, facilitating their eventually buying a FF camera. But Canon has years of data with millions of data points (i.e., product registrations) to inform on just how common that is...and decided to make RF lenses incompatible with the M-series body anyway.

The did decide to make the M series separate from the R series, but ‘orphaned’ is the wrong connotation. It’s like saying the 50 year old billionaire who’s parents just died was ‘orphaned’. The APS-C market remains far larger than the FF market.

THE APS-C market does yes - but do they see the future APS-C market as essentially EF-M only? As you say thats the data we dont know - it was done when EF was still selling rather well, in both APS-C and Full frame, and the focus seemed to be on a smaller alternative rather than as the future of APS-C.

I agree it definitely isnt orphaned from a sensor perspective and more standalone is probably better as a term overall, Im more focussed on any 'non-compact' APS-C camera - in that if you buy one in EF-M mount, you cant put anything over 250mm on it going forward.

I dont see that happening, and FF is still a 'jump'. Either large APS-C cameras are dead, or its going to be RF, or some very surprising things are happening with EF-M going forward. I see 2 as most likely in that it reverts to what we had with EF/EF-S/EF-M.

 

[masterpix]

Just a guessing.... a R-mount 7D would mean APS-C and the rumored high speed body.... well, this may all make sense to me...

Only problem is that the specs mentioned, are 1D replacement. Why put APS-C sensor when you can put FF sensor and get a much better result? Mirrorless cameras are all about the electronics. So is you have a 30MP FF or 30MP APS-C sensor, it is (as far for anything else) the same electronic solution (design). So why taking the R camera, and place an APS-C sensor it in for? you already have the R camera with 30MP sensor in it.

To satisfy the 7D customers, you only need to make 7Dmark3, not downgrade the R to APS-C sensor. People (as me for example) bought the 7D not because we like APS-C sensor, we bought it cause we wanted PRO camera and we could not afford the 1Dx (which is about three times as much). The lenses people having the 7D's are mostly L lenses, not EF-S. So the whole concept of R system with APS-C sensor seems a bit wired to me.

 

[masterpix]

IMO if Canon scraps the 7D Series without offering an up to date alternative Pro Wildlife/Sports/Action APS-C Camera "DSLR" Body, they have obviously decided these types of shooters are not a high priority in their targeted marketing strategy going forward....
I use a 80D with a Sigma 150-600mm Lens for my wildlife and birding shooting, etc., and it works pretty well for me in the right conditions. I was looking forward to getting the 7Diii in a couple years from now, but I reckon the 90D will have to do. It's a bit insane to me to just change systems over a few features, I can improvise and make what I have work (and always do).
It does amaze me to hear so many are capable of dumping 10 or 20 grand every couple years to switch systems for a few new features!

I might add, that most of the new features are those one will hardly ever use. My 7D produce wonderful pictures, this one for instance, was printed on 20X30inch paper and it looks amazing.

 

[AlanF]

Amazon DSLR Listing: D500 is #74, 7DII is #87. Neither one is exactly burning up the charts. Top 10: Eight Canons and two Nikons. Everything below $600.

I get a different set of figures. The D500 is 35th best selling and the 7DII is 118th DSLR body on Amazon.com whereas they are 14 and, 19 on Amazon.co.uk. Whatever, the D500 outsells the 7DII on Amazon you will have to agree. Now please answer the rest of my question about how many bird photography outings do you go on to have any first hand knowledge of the occurrence of the D500 in the field.

 

[degos]

Are we approaching a point where consumers no longer put much faith in the "perceived reach advantages of the 1.6 crop factor," thanks to education and experience?

Why would we be? A 32MP APS-C sensor in the 90D will still have more 'reach' through density than any other Canon camera, even the fabled 70MP RS.

 

[koenkooi]

Why would we be? A 32MP APS-C sensor in the 90D will still have more 'reach' through density than any other Canon camera, even the fabled 70MP RS.

For people like me, reading this before their second coffee on the morning: 32MP on APS-C multiplied twice by 1.6 comes out at 82MP.

 

[miggyt]

Canon should really release a version of their DSLRs with EVF and maybe with a more updated dual pixel sensor. and then call it a day. too many people love Canon DSLR ergonomics and are already heavily invested with EF lenses. bonus: replace the flippy mirror with an ND filter. i think a lot of people will love that.

 

[Michael Clark]

It is certainly an interesting situation. The fact that the 7D II moves lenses suggests that that's what they want out of moving it to the R mount. Canon may need to get more people buying into that system as quick as possible to keep it moving. Canon has aggressively priced the R and RP, likely to get more mounts into the wild which need lenses. I wouldn't be surprised if both the R and RP were loss leaders considering the cost of comparable DSLR release prices in the Canon ecosystem.

Here's an idea - if the spiritual successor to the 7DII was a full frame R camera with a (somewhat) lower resolution sensor, maybe they could release that alongside an EF mount adaptor with a built in teleconverter. The R can focus at f/11, so with a 2x version you could effectively turn the 100-400 into an autofocusing 200-800 on a full frame with improved light collection. Releasing a full frame camera with a somewhat lower resolution to allow a much faster burst rate combined with a EF adapter/teleconverter would could tick a lot of those boxes the 7D II was filling while giving better light collecting power, and provide a better vehicle to move those with interest in crop sensors to move up to full frame and start buying RF glass. Who knows what something like that would cost, but if the 90D is moving up market I would expect the 7D II successor to do the same. Crazy ideas, I know, but if Canon's objective is to get more people buying into RF glass then moving the camera which sells the most glass to the RF mount could be one way to do it!

The lenses of consequence that the 7D series sells are all 70-200mm and upwards. The attractiveness of an APS-C body with premium telephoto lenses is the pixel density of the cropped 20+ MP sensor that still gives fast frame rates. The 7D Mark II has the same pixel density as the 5Ds, but can go at 10 fps instead of 5 fps, and for many more frames before hitting the limits of the buffer. Much of what is shot with the 7DII is in dim to low light: night sports, gym sports, dawn/early morning or late afternoon/dusk wildlife, etc. Using a TC to remove the need to crop with a low density sensor would cost too much in terms of shutter speed.

What Canon is going to learn is that instead of moving to the R mount and much more expensive lenses, 7D shooters are going to move to the Nikon 500D and its successors. Or the Olympus E-M1x if that proves successful and Olympus comes up with some impressive fast glass in the 80-320mm range (equivalent to 100-400mm on 1.6X APS-C).

The only logical explanation for this is that Canon has no idea if they are ever going to be able to develop a sensor with fast enough readout to do AI Servo AF off the main imaging sensor at 10+ fps. This they are conceding the entire market niche filled by the 7D series to Nikon, Olympus, and Sony.

 

[Michael Clark]

I think quite a lot of them have EF-S 15-85.

I've never shot anything shorter than a 70-200 on my 7D Mark II. That's what my 5D Mark III is for. I haven't used an EF-S lens (or third party APS-C only lens) apart from at-home testing in at least eight years.

The only crop lens I currently own that isn't (semi-permanently) loaned out to an APS-C only friend/relative is my Tamron SP 17-50mm f/2.8 Di II that I've had forever and can't part with due to its sentimental value as my first constant aperture zoom when I was shooting with a Rebel XTi.

The lens sales that 7D series cameras generate are in the 70-200mm range and up, not EF-s lenses.

 

[Michael Clark]

Yes. If you want to shoot wide angle to normal on a 7DII, it makes much more sense to use an EF-S lens. The 15-85, 17-55 2.8 and 10-22 are all popular lenses.

Those are popular lenses, but I see them on the Rebels and x0D cameras. I don't often see them on the 7D Mark II.

 

[Michael Clark]

... the 90D.

Except everything is pointing to the 90D having the same 45-point AF system as the 80D, which is a definite step down from the 7D Mark II, and not just in terms of the higher number/wider spread of AF points.

 

[Kit.]

I've never shot anything shorter than a 70-200 on my 7D Mark II. That's what my 5D Mark III is for.
...
The lens sales that 7D series cameras generate are in the 70-200mm range and up, not EF-s lenses.

Are you saying that you, an owner of a 5D series body, would not be buying the same lenses if you didn't have a 7D series body?