ecka said:
Not everyone cares about 4K or 1/8000 sec shutters, dual card slots, or high end features of a 5 Series camera. Many find it too heavy.
Which is exactly why it makes sense to keep selling older model cameras at lower prices, instead of producing new expensive inferior ones.
I disagree with this. I care WAY more about a lot of the features that are not top-line, that have to do with modernization of technology, ergonomics improvements, and creature comforts than I do about 4k or 1/8000 shutters (neither of which I would use, even once). Like, wifi liveview RAW/JPEG splitting, Bluetooth shutter, articulating screen.
Features like these aren't on older models, and will never be, which is why I'd much rather use an 80D than use a 6D, or 5D3 -- or even 5D4, especially considering the price difference. Since weather sealing is only marginally important to me (most of my shooting is in ideal weather or in studio), I find the articulating lens is almost a "must have" feature. I would trade it for 4k or 1/8000 any day, because it makes it easy, for example, to put a camera at the top of an articulating arm tripod, point it down, and snap a photo of an object laying flat on the ground. Or, mount the camera on an arm and take a photo of a diorama from an of angle, such as just beneath a spotlight.
Product differentiation is a good thing. If I can buy a $2000 camera that gives me everything I want, why would I want to buy a $3,300 camera? Even if getting rid of the $2000 camera could drop the next model up down to $3,000, that would still be a lot more to pay, for $1000 of extra features that I either don't care about, or don't care enough about to pay $1,000 more. But for those people who want those features, good on them, please do by the $3,300, or $7,500 camera.
Same thing for lens: I like the 3-4 tiered system, where you have entry level, enthusiast, and then 1-3 levels of pro lenses (like the variants of 70-200L). I like that, if I am buying glass that will always be in a studio, I won't care about IS or wide aperture and don't have to pay for them, and can instead purchase a lens at a lower cost that will give me the same IQ for my purposes. And if it's for farting around taking weekend photos of birds and raccoons, I'm perfectly happy with a mid-range enthusiast lens.
I think that the number of options/segments should decrease as you get to the highest end camera, because there are a small number of buyers for those (1DX). As you drop down to FF, there needs to be at least a couple of price point, feature and weight options, because 5D4 is not appealing to everyone. When you get to APSC, and sub-$1,500, and especially sub $500, Canon can support a lot of options, because there are tons of buyers out there.