How soon should Canon update the 7D Mark II

[RGF]

The Nikon D500 is a great camera topping the 7D M2 in many ways.
The Canon 80D is also a great camera, again topping the 7D M2 in many ways.

Are these competitors sufficient to justify Canon accelerating the development cycle of the next 7D model (7D Mark III?)

Should Canon have its top of the line crop camera launched about the same time as the top of line full frame camera (i.e., 1Dx M2)

Love to share thoughts on this.

My observation (from afar) is that Nikon does a much better job taking the goodies from their FF top of the line camera and making it available in their APS top of the line camera. Canon does not do this well.

Wish Canon did this better.

 

[Orangutan]

My observation (from afar) is that Nikon does a much better job taking the goodies from their FF top of the line camera and making it available in their APS top of the line camera. Canon does not do this well.

I think they do this as well as they want to do. Canon has no trouble selling APS-C DSLRs, so there's no business reason to incorporate higher-end features. It would be nice for me if they did (I may buy a 7D3), but I don't think it's an issue of doing it well -- they probably just choose not to do so.

On the other hand, Nikon is under considerable market pressure, and probably feels compelled to make their cameras as attractive as they can on the spec sheets.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

It will be updated according to the long established pattern for higher level models, about every 4 or more years. The tiny differences between various brands and models are pretty irrelevant.

 

[ajfotofilmagem]

I do not think Canon designed the huge time gap between the original 7D and 7D Mark II. The famous (and hated by many) 18 megapixel APS-C sensor was reused in many different cameras, because the new technology was delayed because of the earthquake in Japan.

So I believe, without any major earthquake, the 7D Marl iii will be launched with a 3-year interval.

 

[Orangutan]

I do not think Canon designed the huge time gap between the original 7D and 7D Mark II. The famous (and hated by many) 18 megapixel APS-C sensor was reused in many different cameras, because the new technology was delayed because of the earthquake in Japan.

So I believe, without any major earthquake, the 7D Marl iii will be launched with a 3-year interval.

I think the delay was influenced more by the lack of an APS-C competitor from Nikon than it was by the earthquake.

 

[9VIII]

Canon could pump out a quick update that would be mostly worthwhile, but I would probably still feel like the product as a whole is somewhat lacking.

The 7D2 as we have it today is actually somewhat gimped because it doesn't have wi-fi or a touchscreen. Canon could just shove that and their new chip in it, but that would probably still feel half-baked to a lot of people.

The market as a whole is still waiting for solid 4K recording in a consumer level device, everything out there today has downsides of some sort, all Canon has to do is get one really good implementation of 4K recording on one of their cameras and it will be a hit. Of course the 7D3 would be the natural choice.

I'm also not convinced that they're getting as much performance out of the new chips as they should, it'll probably be a few more years before we see any significant gains out of it. The 80D basically gets you the same IQ as before, with a little extra low ISO DR, pretty underwhelming.
We've seen that Sony and Nikon can get cleaner images out of this sort of tech, I have to assume Canon will improve IQ in the next few years. They should wait until the second or third generation of this sensor before putting one in the 7D.
Put another way, I'm not confident that they can match the D500 right now, it'll take a year or two to accomplish that.

Nikon's bluetooth connection app sounds fantastic, I would love to see something similar. As has been discussed many times, Canon needs to make a seamless process to get pictures off the camera and onto your machine of choice.

 

[Otara]

The Nikon D500 is a great camera topping the 7D M2 in many ways.
The Canon 80D is also a great camera, again topping the 7D M2 in many ways.

My observation (from afar) is that Nikon does a much better job taking the goodies from their FF top of the line camera and making it available in their APS top of the line camera. Canon does not do this well.

Wish Canon did this better.

They took how many years to release the d500 after the d300s?

Updateswise the main thing Nikon did was offer a better sensor until now. In general, the 7D II had a ton of features you couldnt get close to with a recent Nikon APS-C as a package. It also had some rather nifty things you couldnt even get in top of the line Canons.

The 80D is great value for money and I have one, but again its main advantage is sensor and a tilt screen.

I want a 7D III yesterday, but this isnt a good argument for it.

Edit they already have NFC instead of bluetooth in the 80D. Works beautifully.

 

[Don Haines]

I am happy to wait out the 4 or 5 year cycle. That way, it should be enough of an improvement to justify getting it.

 

[K]

7D3 will probably come in about 2 years. The 5D4 and 6D2 and possible new model comes first.

The 7D was surpassed in several ways by other cameras in its day. It lingered on and on without update. Could be for many reasons. Part of it was no competition from Nikon and an industry speculation that high-end flagship crop camera was a dead concept. Especially with all the focus being on more affordable, lower level full frames being released for several years.

Another reason why an update will take a long time is because few people are going to jump systems for a flagship crop. There's the security and safety of knowing there won't be too many defectors because of investment in glass. Both manufacturers rely on this quite a bit.


From a practical perspective - there's no real difference between it and the D500 and several other cameras. The quality the 7D2 puts out will be superb for many years to come.

However, from a tech point of view - and for those who place big emphasis on each advancement - yes, the 7D2's sensor is a major weak point.

The D7200, 80D, D500 all have superior crop sensors. The 80D of course being the same brand but lower tier
camera. The D500 being a direct competitor on specs.

The 7D2 is a world-class camera with a mediocre sensor.

A 7D3 doesn't need a whole lot other than the newer sensor tech with on-chip ADC for better dynamic range.

Only if they can keep the 10fps, it would be nice to see a jump up to 22mp with no AA filter. More rez and no AA would be very welcome for this type of camera. Wildlife and sports shooters are not too concerned about, nor run into moire that much.


Keep the rest of the camera mostly the same. Maybe a slight size reduction while keeping the same build quality and weather sealing. That would be a hot camera. Canon wouldn't even need any tilt screens, touch screens or any of that.


Nikon's D500 with their new budget super zoom is a formidable combo. Again, I don't think there will be any major defections or whatnot. Except for those people who are hard-core wildlife or bird shooters that are basically owners of one camera body and one long lens and nothing else. Example, 7D2 with the 400mm 5.6. If that's all one has, they aren't heavily committed to a particular system. And if they are serious enthusiasts of that kind of photography - it may be worth it for them to switch systems and some absolutely will. But these are a small, small percentage of the buyers out there. Probably more Nikon shooters dumped Nikon and moved to Canon for Nikon's lack of a serious flagship crop for so many years than Canon owners going to switch to Nikon.

The defectors migrating to Canon had to, as they just didn't have a body that could do what they needed. It just didn't exist in their platform. Whereas, Canon owners have great glass and while their camera body is a little behind to a just released new model, it is is good enough. There's little to no necessity for switching. It would be only for trying to take advantage of what in the bigger picture are, minor advantages.

 

[Aldec9]

The Canon 7D MK I served a 6 years life span in which obviously sensor technology and video recording move one quite fast but that didn't hurry Canon to release the MK II.

Other than perhaps 4K video recording , what else for a Pro APS-C DSLR do you expect Canon to bring that Nikon masters nowadays so well ?

 

[Don Haines]

Only time will tell for what is going to happen, but as someone who makes their living in R+D, I can pretty well assure you that the target release date is already set and that most of the hardware is already set. By this point, the big push is on software and then once the hardware samples come rolling in, integration. Odds are that the production contracts for the various chips, modules, and assemblies are already in place. It is very doubtful that they would be able to speed up their schedule as software almost always takes longer than estimated and throwing more people on a problem quite often slows development down.... and there WILL!!!! be bugs found in the integration and testing phase......

 

[abcd1234]

Canon does not need to hurry the development of a new 7D up, certainly not because of the Nikon D500.
Even when Nikon's cameras look better on sheets, history consistently proves that Canon's counterparts are far better and reliable in the end.
Canon DSLRs are polished and refined tools for photography. Everything about their cameras just come together. They deliver. And that's why pros and serious photographers use Canon.
Nikons are more like toys for amateur and casual people. And the D500 certainly looks like a toy. Remind me of the design of the RC cars I used to play with when I was 8 or 9.
And do I need to remind you that there's a embarrassing "made in Thailand" underneath the Nikon?

 

[unfocused]

...The tiny differences between various brands and models are pretty irrelevant.

Canon does not need to hurry the development of a new 7D up, certainly not because of the Nikon D500.
Even when Nikon's cameras look better on sheets, history consistently proves that Canon's counterparts are far better and reliable in the end.
Canon DSLRs are polished and refined tools for photography. Everything about their cameras just come together. They deliver. And that's why pros and serious photographers use Canon.

These are the most correct statements on this thread.

In real world use, the 7DII is very competitive against any camera on the market. The 7DII sensor is seriously good. I shoot with both the 7DII and now the 1DX II and while the 1DX II (which is now been identified as the class leading sensor for full frame cameras) is slightly better (about 1 stop at higher ISOs) the 7DII is still very competitive. Up to ISO 3200, with proper exposure and processing, the 7DII can hold its own against even the 1DX II.

...My observation (from afar) is that Nikon does a much better job taking the goodies from their FF top of the line camera and making it available in their APS top of the line camera...

Obviously you are too far away. Canon pretty much took everything of significance from the 1DX and put it into the 7DII and they did it nearly two years before Nikon, which sat on the D300 for 6 1/2 years (and the truth is the D300 was a dinosaur when it was released in comparison to the original 7D).

The 7D2 is a world-class camera with a mediocre sensor.

Have you used the 7DII? I would hardly call the 7DII sensor "mediocre."

I think it is pretty clear that Nikon had a D400 planned but scrapped it...

Let's see some evidence of that. You are just pulling stuff out of thin air (or perhaps out of some waste-eliminating orifice in your body.) By all accounts, most industry experts believed Nikon had abandoned the APS-C professional market. It's much more plausible that they only decided to return to the market after they saw Canon's success with the 7DII and realized that in the stagnant DSLR market, they needed to play in this niche.

While the D500 offers some slight improvements over the 7DII, that's unsurprising given that it was announced 1 1/2 years after the 7DII.

I expect that with Nikon now re-entering this market, Canon will return the 7DII to a more normal refresh cycle and may even shorten it slightly. With Canon now once again offering the industry-leading sensor, they may want to get an APS-C version into the 7D series sooner, rather than later. If the 6DII comes sometime in the first quarter of 2017, I would expect Canon could announce a 7DIII around Sept. 2017 – a three-year refresh.

 

[Orangutan]

...
Let's see some evidence of that. You are just pulling stuff out of thin air (or perhaps out of some waste-eliminating orifice in your body.) By all accounts, most industry experts believed Nikon had abandoned the APS-C professional market. It's much more plausible that they only decided to return to the market after they saw Canon's success with the 7DII and realized that in the stagnant DSLR market, they needed to play in this niche.
...

And you believe that Nikon produced the D500 from scratch in the 1.5 years after the 7DII?

Prototypes and test units are likely in constant cycle to exercise the new components as they evolve. It's possible, even plausible, that there was a D400 planned, but that doesn't mean much. Unless they had already tooled-up to manufacture and market the D400 you can't really assert that there was definitely a D400 that was scrapped.

 

[Sabaki]

I'm less interested in when they upgrade the 7Dii and more interested in what they will incorporate.

Like Don Haines said, let the upgrade happen when it does and let the technology warrants the update.

From my personal experience, the 7Dii is an overall success but a failure on smaller levels. Poor copy variance, overstated performance and perhaps not the architecture to back up the desired delivery.

What I want more than anything else in a 7Dii:
* BIG battery to drive the lenses faster and just plain old better
* Dedicated chipset for ITR, ala the 1DX

Charge me $2500 for what I ask for above but give me a camera that delivers what the expectation is.

 

[AdamBotond]

Like many of you guys, I'm expecting the 7D successor to be released around late 2017 or so.
There are few things that make refressing the 7D series legimit:
1. Canon has improved in sensor tech over the last 2 years. Some nice touches (touch screen, etc) has showed up, as well.
2. The notorious soft image and AF inconsistency problems, variable copies. Canon has never addressed the issue, and most likely never will, but there are more than a few people with their 7D IIs suffering from those symptoms, they are all over the forums. I think that MANY are discouraged by those issues, including myself. When you are photographing action whether it is wildlife, sport or anything else, you cannot afford a camera that is not reliable. I would be a happy 7D III buyer, as long as Canon can get rid of those issues.

 

[Otara]

My point perhaps wasnt well stated. The gap between both the D300 and the 7D/2 is large enough that clearly they're doing updates when they think it has marketting value. Neither company seems to have been urgently competing with the others models in this area, nor rushing to keep it updated vs its previous model.

Which makes any release predictions of little value in my opinion. While the 80D has some DR improvement, its of little use for the 7D2 given it vanishes after 200 ISO. Nor are the claimed copy variance/softness/AF rumours likely to be the big deal that people on forums like to think it is as a marketting issue that needs to be fixed with a new model.

So far they've tried to build on everything from the previous model- af, memory, DIGIC, sensor, FPS, video. Nothing to do with the kinds of negative issues discussed above.

 

[Sabaki]

[[/quote]

A test unit comes very late in the piece - that's what is shipped off to "the select few." At that point it is a done deal.

Prototypes are produced in accordance with a plan to deliver a real product. These are companies that are looking to make profitable products, not just invent something random. For DSLRs, those plans span multiple years.

These test units are calibrated by a master technician, which standard production models aren't. I'm not quite sure why a master tech is qualified as such or if he has access to higher precision calibration software and machines, but for me, production line models just cannot compare.

 

[Orangutan]

A test unit comes very late in the piece - that's what is shipped off to "the select few." At that point it is a done deal.

I think we're using our terminology differently: when a new component is developed it's probably first bench-tested. Then it's put in whatever current body will accept it to see how it does in the real-world. To me that's a test unit. A prototype, to me, is a test unit that is mostly new components, and uses existing components only where new components are not yet available. The "select few" would receive prototypes, not early test units. Maybe this industry has different terminology. My basic point is that R&D occurs continuously, so you can't really say that the next gen product was cancelled unless significant movement toward production had occurred.

 

[Don Haines]

A test unit comes very late in the piece - that's what is shipped off to "the select few." At that point it is a done deal.

A test unit is very early in the cycle. It usually consists of a bunch of un-mounted assemblies spread out on a workbench, hooked up to test equipment, and bears little resemblance to a camera.

Once the operation of the components is verified, it gets packaged into a prototype and now looks like a camera.

The prototype is field tested, usually with an OS that is logging performance data, and any problems found are either debugged on the prototype or if hardware related, on the test unit.

Once the prototype is stable enough, production orders are placed.

Then demo units are produced and given to given to select users to further debug, addressing any flaws found along the way.

Then the camera is released.