Canon's Lineup Restructuring?

[PhotographyFirst]

With the release of the new 5D models, and the competition from the D750, I think Canon is going to make the following moves.

The next Canon Rebel will move slightly up market in terms of price, and way up in terms of features. A top LCD, wheel lock, and rear wheel are pretty big pluses that made the existing Rebels a little cumbersome in quick use.

Canon 80D will be slightly better specs than the next Rebel but with an emphasis on video functions over the next Rebel. Focus systems will be similar. Canon is smart to get entry users of Rebels accustomed to the control layouts of a top LCD and rear wheel, thus making the move up to a 80D or 7D2 much easier.

The 7D2 will remain where it is for now.

The 6D2, will move down market in terms of price and build quality. It is not quite down to "super rebel" standards yet. I think there is a large market for a bare-bones full frame model that can entice people to move up from crop. Current 6D prices are pretty good, but maybe Canon can get the next model even lower? They would be silly not to give it a Rebel form factor with the articulating touch screen. A near $1000 FF model like this would fly off the shelves.

The 5D4 will improve slightly in specs and might add better video. Most importantly, it might move down market in terms of cost to compete with the D750, which is a beast of a machine for the price. Still up in the air if they would be brave enough to add a tilt screen. Personally, as someone who has done wedding and journalism work in the past, a tilt screen can be super handy when you can't just push your way around through people. (unless you're a jerk wedding photographer, LOL) It will get Dual Pixel AF for video and if it comes with a tilt screen it will make shooting much faster and more accurate.

The new 5Ds models will take on the feature and price segment of the D810. Canon would be wise not to price it above the D810, if they plan on getting market share back that was lost to Nikon.

I think this makes sense and could be a very real possibility given the way the market is changing right now. I also think Canon is going to push harder over the next 5 years to crush the competition in lens advancements and offerings. It is cheaper than trying to crush the competition on sensor or AF performance alone. Their new line if STM lenses out out of this world for image quality at the price. I got a 55-250 STM which is honestly right up there with my 70-200l F4 IS on a crop camera. L quality is working its way down into the cheapest lenses Canon offers.

That is all. Any thoughts?

 

[DWM]

First I don't think they can crush the competition with lenses. They better have a body that can produce competitive images. What I believe will happen with the release of the new 5ds line is as the price between that camera and the 7d close in the 7d will loose market share. With the in camera crop factor of the new 5ds we may never see a 7d3. The 80d line will move up and fill that space. The current 70d has already matched or passed the 7d1. Eventually I believe they will also drop the 5d4 once it gets old if the 5ds line makes big sales. A lot of this depends on what the competition does in upcoming years. Who know what will happen. This is all a guessing game.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Canon is going to keep being Canon. While features always move downward when new models come out, that does not mean a model is moving up scale.

Certainly, the rebels will get new features, but they will not change in price, when compared to the introductory price of the model replaced.

The price of new models will be held down by the market and in the USA, the strong dollar is pushing prices of imports down. Canon is forced to drop prices due to the low cost of gray market cameras. In Europe, the Euro is not going up in value, so prices will be more stable.

 

[tculotta]

First I don't think they can crush the competition with lenses. They better have a body that can produce competitive images. What I believe will happen with the release of the new 5ds line is as the price between that camera and the 7d close in the 7d will loose market share. With the in camera crop factor of the new 5ds we may never see a 7d3. The 80d line will move up and fill that space. The current 70d has already matched or passed the 7d1. Eventually I believe they will also drop the 5d4 once it gets old if the 5ds line makes big sales. A lot of this depends on what the competition does in upcoming years. Who know what will happen. This is all a guessing game.

At 10 fps, my 7D2 will still get plenty of work even after the new 5D is added to the stable.

 

[IMG_0001]

I'm notre sure that canon will (or should) try to match any competitor lineup. I think they are targeting specific markets rather than trying to to see what the others do and react. Moreover, wouldn't it be wiser to try to differentiate their products from the competition's instead of mimicking them?

 

[c.d.embrey]

That is all. Any thoughts?

A lot of wishful thinking. The Low End is dead, never to return. The casual non-gearhead photographers have switched to Smart Phone. Take a look at all the gearhead sites (SonyRumors, 43Rumors, FujiRumors, NikonRumors, etc) and everyone is talking about the latest high-end cameras. Canon 5Ds, Sony a7s, etc. Rebels and D3300 not so much.

 

[privatebydesign]

That is all. Any thoughts?

A lot of wishful thinking. The Low End is dead, never to return. The casual non-gearhead photographers have switched to Smart Phone. Take a look at all the gearhead sites (SonyRumors, 43Rumors, FujiRumors, NikonRumors, etc) and everyone is talking about the latest high-end cameras. Canon 5Ds, Sony a7s, etc. Rebels and D3300 not so much.

Do you not think that is because the only people hat frequent rumoured sites are gear heads?

When the low end really dies we are all in the the sh1t, it is the low end that pays the bills, and always has.

 

[[email protected]]

Regarding the low-end of the dslr market... The low end of the dslr market has been made up of three components:
1- A lot of people who have every good intention of coming up to snuff in knowing the exposure triangle, mastering settings so as to be able to make the occasional switch or two depending on changing shooting circumstances, etc. But they never seem to actually do so. They suffer through the complexity of a dslr because it's like eating their spinach: they think it'll be worthwhile eventually. Let's call these people the "aspirationals."
2- People who want interchangeable lenses, but are on a budget. We can call them the "lensers." They appreciate that if you want to do macro, landscape and birds in flight, a single superzoom will be pretty lame.
3- People with specific applications where they think image quality is important, such as new parents, parents of sports-playing kids, backyard birders, etc., and they perceive an entry-level dslr to put them a notch above anything in more compact classes of cameras. You can refer to them as the "mementors."

The low end has been bleeding customers from the dslr category in different ways for different components of the market:
1- The aspirationals find that they never really get to the mastery they hoped. A more simple camera, a more petite camera, or a camera that just happens to run on their smartphone winds up being more present, so gets use. That use gives them an "ah ha" moment that makes them not so enamored of the big dslr and its complexity.
2- The lensers are finding that they now have more flexibility with micro 4/3s, super zooms and other camera formats that didn't really exist 5 years ago. Interestingly, while a lot of them went to non-dslrs in the past few years, my impression is that these alternate formats have not delivered on the lens diversity (or value) promises that have been implied, and the lensers who defected may be ripe for returning, if the value/$ were right, and in some cases, if the form factor of the dslr were adequately small.
3- The mementors are the most fickle of the lot. They tend to jump into the market at one moment in time, doing brief web research, relying often on somewhat random advice from friends. This makes them vulnerable to the existing trend of the day. Interestingly, they are also often turned off by the larger size of the camera, especially parents. They don't want have the self identity of the guy who lurks at events with a big camera around his neck, but rather the casual participant who has something sleek in his hands. It's the difference between driving a minivan and a "crossover" vehicle. You can roll your eyes, but they're going to go buy the crossovers.

So Canon's done two things I can see that fit smartly into working this market environment.
- They introduced the SL-1 to give a cute, sleek option on the dslr low-end. (Personally I love this as a back-up camera, simply because it's so easy to actually take with you, and it's essentially a t5i in terms of IQ.)
- They appear to be about to release a major upgrade to the low end to increase the value/$ ratio. This has the added benefit - as mentioned in a previous post here - of introducing low-end dslr users to certain functions and controls that can be exploited even more in the mid-range dslrs, pushing more upgrades.

I think the cost to Canon of having the low end take on much mid-range functionality is pretty small - essentially they may lose some sales for people who would otherwise buy the second 7d2 or the 70D as a crop to complement their 5d3, etc. That's not a lot of cannibalization relative to the benefit of getting people hooked on the entry level drug. Once you boondoggle them into buying their second and third lens, then you have them by the nose.

As for the mid range and high end, I think that Canon appears to be recognizing that the pace of improvement has picked up quite a bit, and that they need to be in front of it at least in several categories. This means more features, improvements, etc.

Where I think Canon is botching this is on the lenses. Third party lens makers are challenging them like never before, especially in the L-quality crop arena. The image quality you can get by picking up an SL-1 for $400 and sticking the Sigma 18-35 Art at the end of it for another $800 is unprecedented IQ/$. The canon recent answer to this, with the full frame 16-35 L lens is 2.3 stops slower than the Sigma and 20 percent higher price. That they're about to introduce a super-wide for $3k that isn't even f/2.8 makes me think that they're deliberately trying to make f/4 the new "fast." Here's the crux: they are not doing much to hook the low-end dslr markets to buy those second and third lenses that would hook them into the Canon ecosystem for decades. I love Canon lenses and think they're doing a bang-up job on the long end, but if they want to manufacture new dslr life-long Canon customers, they need to be the ones making the equivalent of the Sigma 18-35 f/1.8 and the $500 Tokina 11-16 f2.8, and not the seventh entry into the 400mm lineup. Better still, they should stop bundling the 18-50 piece of junk that eBays for $25 if you're lucky, and bundle these entry level dslrs with at least the 18-135, which is a fantastic low-end lens. When someone who doesn't know good photography takes pictures with the 18-50, they don't notice much improvement over the superzoom their spouse has, or even perhaps their iPhone. Canon needs to make the move from dslr to camera phone hurt in the IQ department, and right now it doesn't very much - not because dslrs don't take much better pictures, but because the lenses that get bundled with them cost $20 to manufacture, and it shows.

 

[preppyak]

Canon is going to keep being Canon. While features always move downward when new models come out, that does not mean a model is moving up scale.

Certainly, the rebels will get new features, but they will not change in price, when compared to the introductory price of the model replaced.

The price of new models will be held down by the market and in the USA, the strong dollar is pushing prices of imports down. Canon is forced to drop prices due to the low cost of gray market cameras. In Europe, the Euro is not going up in value, so prices will be more stable.

Yep, and really, if this is nothing other than Canon answering Nikon, the models align pretty well

5dr = D810
5dIV = D750
6d = D610
7dII = ?

Kind of amazing to consider the turnaround...I think a year ago most Canon users were probably frustrated...and now, well, they would seem to have among the most versatile of DSLR options

 

[c.d.embrey]

Do you not think that is because the only people hat frequent rumoured sites are gear heads?

When the low end really dies we are all in the the sh1t, it is the low end that pays the bills, and always has.

For the most part on most rumor sites, the people you find there are fanboys/gearheads. Canon Rumors has a better spread from fanboys to pros.

Yes, I agree, the large number of low-end users supports the small number of high-end users. And the world is about to drastically change -- just hope that the Doctors and Lawyers continue to buy high-end cameras.

 

[Diko]

The 6D2, will move down market in terms of price and build quality. It is not quite down to "super rebel" standards yet. I think there is a large market for a bare-bones full frame model that can entice people to move up from crop. Current 6D prices are pretty good, but maybe Canon can get the next model even lower? They would be silly not to give it a Rebel form factor with the articulating touch screen. A near $1000 FF model like this would fly off the shelves.

Did you forgot about this?

Aside from that. DSLR segment is shrinking and the trend will stay that way for sure until 2020 (sensors):

Taken from here

Also check this trend

I don't like this whole thing with Canon new-good-old-segmentation SPORT vs STUDIO, but hey they've gotta make some profits. More than 60% of their business is related to cameras so to speak. And its market is quite shrinking and competitive.