Talk of a 5d mkiii with an AF system as good as the 7d making the 7d redundant leads me to ask the question...
Where do people see the 7d in the Canon range... Is the DSLR range to be viewed as a linear heirarchy? Or do people see the 5d and 7d on a step below the 1d series on a pyramid? Isnt the 5d mkiii being higher up the range (so to speak) meant to be better than the 7d?
I dont see the 7d being made unnessessary by a 5d with good AF. The 7d is cheaper and non full frame. Cheaper than the 5d mkiii will obviously help keep it selling and so will the extra reach given by it not being full frame. Okay so it may make people less likely to feel the need to buy a 7d to go with their 5d as the 7d but how much of a market is that?
It seems to me that people are focusing a lot of keeping Canons DSLR all in order and nicely separated in terms of features and specs but I hope Canon are paying as much attention to the competition as they do balancing their own range.
The point of Canon not wanting to damage sales of the more expensive 1dx by making the 5d mkiii in any way close to it seems a bit strange. Surely a lot more money is spent on glass than bodies? Especially amongst wildlife and sports shooters.
We speculate about what Canon and Nikon are going to do and to how they will react to announcements by each other, I am thinking mainly here of the D800 affecting the 5d Mkiii, but do you think that Canon and Nikon have a more reliable idea of what is going on in each other camp than we on the outside do?
I have decided to wait rather than buy a 5d Mkii but that could change any moment
the more the suggestions come that the 5d mkiii will not be a huge stretch from the 5d mkii in any particular area makes me think that I'll end up taking an option that wasnt even a thought for me before... I may just wait untilt he 5d mkiii is announced and then buy a 5d mkii instead.
One thing I find a little puzzling though is that if the 5d mkiii is going to make 22mp then its going to be a completely new sensor... Okay so it may have an increased iso range and dynamic range. It seems an awful lot of cost and logistical effort to develop and manufacture 2 new sensors with only a 4mp difference between them.
And a final though...
Ive heard say on these forums how we are all like kids on Christmas Eve speculating about our presents... well the problem there is that with Christmas Eve at least you know that the goodies are coming the next day. At least Christmas has a fixed date...
Perhaps a better analogy is that we are kids in the backseat and Canon is daddy driving... "Are we there yet?" says we... "No just shut up and stop asking" says Daddy