Lee Jay said:
Why would they provide quality video and 4k in a $3k 5DIV or sub $2k 7DII when they can get $20k for it in a C500?
That depends how many C500s Canon sells. I've done some professional video work but am not plugged in enough to know how many C500 units Canon moves relative to the competition.
My suspicion is that Canon would earn greater profits if it were to provide 4K at more aggressive price points. An expensive product such as the C500 isn't necessarily more profitable than a cheaper product. It might be more profitable
per unit but C500 sales volume will never come anywhere near Canon's prosumer DSLR sales volume. For the strategy that your question suggests to make sense, Canon's C500 margins would have to be
insane.
It all depends on margins and sales volumes. The potential markets for the next 5D and the new C100 are both much, much bigger than the potential market for the C500. Seems to me that Canon could maximize these potentially large prosumer markets by catering to demand for 4K content under $10,000 (let alone under $5000, which is where I really think Canon should be looking within the next 12 months). Granted, I think Canon might be most concerned with establishing its brand in Hollywood-- a short-term concern that momentarily displaces margins and volume as the reigning considerations. Plus, from what I hear and read, the C500 is a role player in Hollywood, so Canon's decision to ignore maximized sales volume might have been a miscalculation in the first place.
I know not everyone in this forum shares in the demand for 4K. Some are happy with HD, some consider themselves photographers with littler interest in video. That's fine. But consider this: More and more content is being consumed through screens that aren't TVs, and more and more of these screens come with greater-than-HD pixel density. It doesn't matter that most people don't have 4K TVs, at least not to the extent that some people pretend. You think there's some overlap between the sort of person who might spend $3500 on a well-configured version of Apple's new 5K iMac and the sort of person who might spend $3-5K on a DSLR or C-series camera with 4K? You bet there is. And the 5K iMac is only the most extreme and recent example. Very, very soon, Intel, Microsoft, Apple and many others are going to be pushing greater-than-HD screens in virtually all mid-to-high end laptops, tablets and all-in-one desktops. I work in the media in the tech industry, and this is coming straight from the horse's mouth. The longer Canon lags on resolution, the more exposed its relatively soft video will be on mid-to-high level new computers-- and for an increasing number of people (especially millenials), those computer screens are more important than TVs.
All the above said, one wild card here is the new processor. Canon stuck some relatively ancient tech in the first round of C-series cameras, and it's possible the C100 Mark II produces a materially better images than its predecessor-- all while offering improved autofocus and refined ergonomics. If you're making money on jobs today, this new camera is a viable option-- especially since if you're making money, you'll be able to upgrade to a new camera when the time is right. But for the enthusiast market, or even prosumers who expect even a small degree of future-proofing (e.g. will the new C100 be lamentably dated in two years? Yes, it will), Canon's not trying all that hard.
