Canon 7D MK iii

Geejay wrote in post #19187648
Don’t mean to be a dunce, but is the 7DIII dead in the water?

Is the 7DII the final hurrah for the 7D series?

I think the 1DXIII may be the last non low end DLSR we see from Canon.
I'd lay odds that the next 7 series is released as a mirrorless "R" just as the 5 and 6 were.

Kiss/Rebel Dslr? Sure maybe, but that seems about it.

What remains to question is;
- What they will do, how they will handle an APS-C that mirrorless that isn't "M"?
If you look at DSLR, APS-C makes up the vast majority of Canon's DLSR line up, in both models and sales. SL, XT, XTi, 90D, 7D, there's just so many. Whatever path these take in mirrorless is going to be the bulk of Canon's ILC sales.

- Will they just make them RF, similar to teh EF APS-C?

- Will they in turn offer RF-S APS-only lenses (which in this case, unlike with DLSR can actually be used happily on the Full Frame R bodies, so i can see the logic to this approach)

- Or will they figure out a way to keep APS-C Mirrorless as M series? (less likely, more compatibility issues, but it has it's appeal as well)

These are the big questions which really will dictate the future of Canon's roadmap. We'll have an inkling only when the next Mirrorless APS-C is released.

Thanks.

Just asking these questions out of curiosity. I’m not really looking to change any of my gear right now as it still seems to produce decent enough results for my needs. A couple of months ago we emptied the loft and having found it again, managed to un-jam the shutter on my old 50d (jammed during an Iceland trip in 2016 and nearly binned it), so that is still delivering too.

Geejay wrote in post #19187784
Thanks.

Just asking these questions out of curiosity. I’m not really looking to change any of my gear right now as it still seems to produce decent enough results for my needs. A couple of months ago we emptied the loft and having found it again, managed to un-jam the shutter on my old 50d (jammed during an Iceland trip in 2016 and nearly binned it), so that is still delivering too.

Nice surprise to be able to resurrect the 50D like that, cool!

Thanks. Yes it was.

The shutter jammed open with the top blade poking into the frame by a few millimetres. Tried a few things, but figured it would need a new shutter assembly. After checking out repair prices, the camera nearly went in the bin in 2016, but instead I took the batteries out and put it in a box in the loft and I ordered a 7DII.

At the end of last year I came across some videos on YouTube showing what was needed to fix the 50D shutter. This looked pretty hairy to me, plus there’s a need to calibrate the sensor position. Anyway this confirmed that it was beyond me to fix it myself. So, when we cleared the loft I was going to throw it away, but then thought ‘I wonder what will happen if I can carefully flick the blade with a probe? Will it slip back into place?’ So that’s what I did and it worked! Surprised and delighted at the same time. It has since worked perfectly well. Quite pleased I still enjoy using the 50D and it makes a decent enough back up to the 7DII.

Archibald wrote in post #18998111
Ya, traditionally different film/sensor sizes have had different mounts. That is fine with me.

With Sony/Nikon/Canon now all pushing FF mirrorless hard, it puts the APS-C format into a bit of a limbo. Lots of us still want a pro-level smaller format. We will just have to wait to see what develops.

1. If we look at the raison d'etre of the APS-C format, it was that FF sensors could not me made sufficiently economically and with sufficient manufacturing yield...APS-C was the only game in town.
   
2. Over the years, photographers found new reasons to WANT the smaller sensor:

   
   

   • 'reach';
     
   • reduced cost of shorter FL for same AOV;
     
   • cost advantage over FF bodies (and the longer FL lenses it need).
     

   
   

• In Japan the answer may be very different than Rest of World, as M is strong in Japan with 20% market share; Rest of World that is NOT TRUE and so many more photographers own EF and EFS lenses, and many fewer M lenses.
  
• Using a small number of M mount lenses on an R body via M-to-EF adapter is inherently less combersome in use compared to using many EF mount lenses on M body via EF-to-M adapter
  
• Using the much wider range of lenses found with EF mount makes the M mount horribly disadvantaged in selection; you would have to use an adapter for so many lenses found in EF but not available in M
  

Ah-keong wrote in post #19145093
R7 ?

and RF-S lens ?

oh my GOD ~!

I do not see a fundamental reason for RF-S to exist! EF-S came out only because the optical limitations in the EF mount force a lens with smaller image circle coverage AND light striking the sensor at a less oblique angle (to reduce chromatic abberations).
If I understand the RF mount correctly, it would be able to have the less-oblique light rays while covering FF area...so the need for EF-S short FL is gone in RF mount design. You simply have 10mm -800mm RF lenses that cover FF and which are mounted both on APS-C and FF mirrorless bodies?!

Geejay wrote in post #19187685
I’ve not used an EVF for years. How do they compare in low light to an optical finder?

Since the EVF can display the image at 'captured brightness' rather than the inherent scene brightness, it ought to be easier to focus and to frame with the EVF, vs. having to wait for your eyes to adjust to very dim ambient circumstances.

OTOH, I know (and having shot with dSLR and manual focus cameras) that there are a number of circumstances where I do not want to be 'blinded' by staring into a bright viewfinder, when the ambient is very dimly lit...it immediately destroys low light adaptation that can take 20 minutes to achieve! I have posed this question on POTN, yet have never gotten a response from anyone with a comment on how well/poorly the mirrorless handles this dichotomy...I cannot see to frame if EVF is left dim, I am biinded by a bright EVF when I can frame well...the issue is not how well focus is achieved by the camera!

Good points. If the EVF screen is OLED, that could make quite a useful improvement over a backlight screen I guess?

I don’t have an issue because my other eye gets me through and it doesn’t take long for my eyes to adjust. That will change with age though.

I am waiting to see if they come out with an R7.

My 90D at 32 mp has a FF equivalent of somewhere around 80 mp, I like that reach and cropability

If the potential R7 has the RF mount of the full frame models, then it will be fully compatible with the great RF lenses, but the R7 body won't be much smaller than the mirrorless FF cameras. In this case I would rather have an 80 MP FF model. There might be a price advantage though with the smaller sensor.

If the R7 has an M mount (with some contacts added), then that would be a wonderful extension of the M line but it won't be compatible with the RF lenses. An adapter won't be possible because the respective flange distances are too close. And that would be really limiting for an upscale M.

So maybe the R7 will have a brand new RF-s mount. It would have to have a really short flange distance, much smaller than the M flange distance, or it won't be able to accept RF lenses with an adapter. Not sure whether such a design would be practical. But a really compact R7 with a few native RF-s lenses might be quite attractive.

So from this, it does not seem obvious at all to me what an R7 might look like. I'm hoping for the latter if it can be done.

Archibald wrote in post #19195421
If the potential R7 has the RF mount of the full frame models, then it will be fully compatible with the great RF lenses, but the R7 body won't be much smaller than the mirrorless FF cameras. In this case I would rather have an 80 MP FF model. There might be a price advantage though with the smaller sensor.

If the R7 has an M mount (with some contacts added), then that would be a wonderful extension of the M line but it won't be compatible with the RF lenses. An adapter won't be possible because the respective flange distances are too close. And that would be really limiting for an upscale M.

So maybe the R7 will have a brand new RF-s mount. It would have to have a really short flange distance, much smaller than the M flange distance, or it won't be able to accept RF lenses with an adapter. Not sure whether such a design would be practical. But a really compact R7 with a few native RF-s lenses might be quite attractive.

So from this, it does not seem obvious at all to me what an R7 might look like. I'm hoping for the latter if it can be done.

It all depends on how good Canon wants to make it. The potential is very high; even compared to an 83MP R-series camera in crop mode. Rolling shutter could be very fast with a 32.5MP sensor; 8ms or even 6ms would not be unthinkable, and surpass the R5's 10ms in crop mode. As far as IBIS is concerned, an APS-C -sized sensor in a FF mirror-less-sized body has a lot more room to move the sensor around, and maybe with more control, since it is smaller and lighter. Burst speed could be higher than 20fps in e-shutter mode. These things are more challenging with crop mode in a FF sensor.

Of course, Canon may not want to make it too good, and cannibalize sales of other cameras, even though a good segment of the market for high-end cameras only considers an APS-C camera as a second camera for when they "need more reach", and/or "light is good" (their assessments; not mine), if they consider one at all.

With the continued decrease in revenue as of the numbers at the end on 2020, I don’t see canon making a new series/design of cameras. I can see them continuing to leverage the R5/R6 design however with different sensors, and depending on costs, which is cheaper? A higher resolution FF sensor or a high resolution crop sensor?

I would presume the latter. Also for those in the both FF/crop camp, they would have to buy two cameras this way.

I guess I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an Apsc sensor in an R6 body for some sort of R7 release. I just don't see Canon churning out newly designed bodies with wide variety sensors any longer. They will have to concentrate their efforts and "recycle" or reuse a majority of their existing designs. Lens prices will continue to be high, as well as their accessory prices like grips and new batteries.

John Sheehy wrote in post #19195641
It all depends on how good Canon wants to make it. The potential is very high; even compared to an 83MP R-series camera in crop mode. Rolling shutter could be very fast with a 32.5MP sensor; 8ms or even 6ms would not be unthinkable, and surpass the R5's 10ms in crop mode. As far as IBIS is concerned, an APS-C -sized sensor in a FF mirror-less-sized body has a lot more room to move the sensor around, and maybe with more control, since it is smaller and lighter. Burst speed could be higher than 20fps in e-shutter mode. These things are more challenging with crop mode in a FF sensor.

Of course, Canon may not want to make it too good, and cannibalize sales of other cameras, even though a good segment of the market for high-end cameras only considers an APS-C camera as a second camera for when they "need more reach", and/or "light is good" (their assessments; not mine), if they consider one at all.

The points in the emphasized text really depend on programming, not the sensor. Remember that a CMOS sensor is random access. One just needs to access the the "crop" portion of the sensor; If you were perhaps thinking of a CCD, the sub-image would need to be transferred off the sensor a pixel at a time causing little increase in readout speed; there would be a slight savings because the unused pixels aren't actually read but discarded. in a CMOS sensor, a programmer simply changes the starting and ending read points in the array in the same manner they use a pointer to access a different location in an array of data other than the start. As there is less data to read, it will be less challenging than reading the entire full-frame.

Changing the subject a bit, using crop mode on a full-frame sensor actually introduces another opportunity for stabilization which is probably best for video. Any jitter holding the camera steady would cause the image to move on the sensor, and we would see that in the video. Using one of the detection modes in reverse to resolve the background from a person or animal, the software could follow the jitter and maintain a cropped image thus stabilizing the video. Alternatively, use the eye/face/animal tracking to lead the moving object leaving the scene, and give the user a chance to move the camera to catch up.

What I hope for is an R7 with all the AF and IBIS of the R5 but with a 32 meg or higher APS-C sensor, but then again I still believe in Santa Claus...