French proverb: on ne peut avoir le beurre et l'argent du beurre.
(You can't have the butter and the money for the butter).
A compact shape could (will?) lead to a compact battery.
I've had the good fortune to occasionally visit the US states of Vermont (home of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream and proud VT dairy farmers) and Wisconsin (sometimes known as America's Dairyland or something like that). Great dairy products from VT and WI both.
I have visited France exactly once. For one week.
That one week was enough for me to proclaim the following:
the butter in France is unsurpassed. My oh my...I'm not a 'foodie' but the butter in France is to die for. (I know there are Germans who read CR. Fire away!).
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As for even more 'innovation' from Canon and R/RF...
In the United States, for at least a couple of decades, Best Buy was and remains (probably) the #1 home electronics etc. retailer. There are currently more than 1,000 Best Buy locations in the USA.
Until the past few years, virtually every Best Buy store had prominent camera displays, including literally dozens of point-and-shoot models, and, for Canon's ILCs, everything from the lowest Rebels through at least the XXD models...and occasionally a 7D (5D?) could be found. A handful of lenses were in stock as well (no L lenses, I think), along with batteries, camera bags and consumer-grade tripods. For the past several years, M format gear was present as well.
Last month I spent a few hours in Best Buy stores in the St. Louis MO and Chicago IL metropolitan areas. To no one's surprise, things have changed as far as camera and photography offerings are concerned.
Specifically, the line of demarcation between standard Best Buy stores and Best Buy 'Magnolia' stores has additional significance for CR readers in that the Best Buy store closest to where my mother-in-law resides (in suburban Chicago), last month, had GoPro cameras in stock...but no other standalone cameras. None. This very location, 5-10 years ago, had it all as far as APS-C Canon ILCs and lenses etc, to say nothing of Canon point-and-shoots. There are no camera lenses for sale at this location, a 'standard' Best Buy store.
The Best Buy Magnolia stores are the 'high-end' BB retail outlets...and these stores
do have Canon ILCs in stock and on display (along with 'real' home theater showrooms etc). My sense of things is that the standard Best Buy stores outnumber the Magnolia versions by at least 4 to 1 nationwide...in Chicago's western and northwestern suburbs, the BB website lists 15 store locations. Of those 15 locations, camera lenses are in stock (in numbers more than one or two) at exactly two stores. I presume these are classified as Magnolia stores.
The point is this: 5-10 years ago Canon was everywhere at Best Buy (jeepers I haven't even mentioned camcorders). Now they are not. Most Best Buy stores do not have Canon ILCs displayed and do not have Canon in stock. This is the USA retail world that Canon sees in the US today...when they have how many R models? Including the R7 APS-C and the R8 full-frame (I may have this wrong, but the poster here who says this isn't confusing never taught organic chemistry
).
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I spoke at length with the store manager at my mother-in-law's Best Buy. He was highly informative--the BB Magnolia store in Schaumburg IL (not his store), during the holiday season, can move product at the rate of a million dollars a day. His own store does not match that. One-third of his store is big-screen TVs...and one-third computers. Significantly, Apple has a real presence in most if not all of Best Buy's retail outlets (including his). I mention that because Canon, with its restrictive R lens policy, is sort of trying to mimic Apple--not a bad model (perhaps).
It turns out that Sony's fabulously-sounding soundbar/subwoofer/(wireless) surround package (approaching 2K in cost) is fantastic when auditioning the Sony 'test tape'...but works best with Sony's own TVs!
The store manager demo-ed the Sony soundbar after I asked him about the lack of home audio gear in his store. Like camera gear, his store's in-stock home audio offerings are slim. I recall the days when an entire wall of receivers/AV receivers was complemented by literally dozens of speakers...mostly two-channel. There is but one side of a short aisle at his Best Buy stocke with A/V receivers and floor-standing speakers...things change.
The camera market is constantly changing, too. Inspection of the Canon gear in the signature below reveals my Canon tendencies and speaks for itself.
But that does not mean that I believe that Canon never makes mistakes. They do. Their foray into consumer-level desktop wide-format (13x19) dye printers, judging by the
years-long giveaway of the PIXMA Pro-100 and unbelievable year-end giveaways of the 13x19 paper that fits those printers, suggests that they manufactured thousands (tens of thousands!?) more printers (and paper) than they could sell.
And it appears that their foray into whatever the M/EF-M market is called...that was a failure, too. If it wasn't they would keep it going.
What I find curious is that some who post here, some really really smart people, post their views that seem to come from a place where a necessary assumption is that Canon never makes mistakes. And they can be quite nasty in tone.
Seems like an odd perspective, a foolish perspective, on a rumor site that is supposed to be fun.
My two cents. Back to packing my gear for an upcoming trip. My M gear...and one EF lens.
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A postscript of sorts: MicroCenter is another US-based retail chain that, years ago, had a full range of Canon ILC gear...including 5Ds and L lenses. I visited a St. Louis-area MicroCenter in December 2022--not a camera in the store (except for GoPros). I wonder where unsophisticated US first-time camera buyers will be able to get their hands on new Rs.
www.fujirumors.com
