awinphoto said:
If the still part of the camera suffered because of the inclusion, then I would understand the anger, but in the end, if you dont need it, if you dont want it, if you dont like it, then dont click record while you are in live view (or press the record button) on the 7d.
Well, that is the crux of the issue, does the still part of the camera suffer? Unless one is a project manager at Canon it is really hard to say for sure what effect exactly the inclusion of video has on the still camera. But in general including a feature like that does not come 'for free'.
The big unknown is what the (opportunity) cost of inclusion of video is when weighed against the cost savings of unified product lines and increased sales.
On the one hand, including video does increase the cost of development, there is just no way around this. It is more firmware, more hardware, more capabilities that need to be tested, more exposed UI elements, design decisions that need to be balanced against each other, etc. If the same design resources were thrown at a pure still camera it would produce a better still camera then the hybrid design would.
However, we get a savings from an undifferentiated product line through reuse of design. There are many things that you only have to do once and then can be applied from the 1000 line up through 1Dx. There is also the increased sales one gets out of a hybrid device rather then something specialized, thus resulting in a larger initial design budget.
As outsiders, we do not know which of those two competing pieces outweighs the other. Neither side should be dismissed though since in such design nothing is 'free' in either direction. It is quite possible that including video results in a better still camera, but it is also possible that including video is resulting in a degraded still camera. We are unlikely to find out from Canon since right now 'video in everything' is the industry orthodox and careers can be broken by going against such a powerful meme.
