Sep 1
New DSLR from Canon
A couple of weeks ago Canon announced a whole pile of new products, including a Powershot G11 and S90. There was no SLR in the announcements but I guess they wanted to release it separately so people would pay more attention – so enter EOS 7D! It’s a follow-up to 50D (and here I was thinking it would be called 60D, duh) which means that it’s the camera that I would potentially upgrade to (my plan is to hop over every second release). So I pored over the specifications but the first thing I saw put me off immediately – 18 MP. 18?! For a sensor that is only marginally larger than on my 40D. Forget it. That’s almost as crazy as 15 MP on the G10, and Canon seems to have realised that and jumped off the megapixel race and reduced the pixel count to 10 MP in the G11. So one would hope that they would’ve been equally smart with the 7D, but apparently they plan to cater to an un-educated audience who think that more pixels is better.
So I’m disappointed to say the least. But as I continued reading the specs, I was kind of relieved to find nothing of any interest to me. HD Video is there, of course, but for the life of me I can’t think of any reason why I would want it. Just something extra I’ll be paying for, no thanks. It’s probably too much to hope for a non-video alternative in the future.
However, it’s not all that bleak. The new camera has weather sealing! Yes, after years of waiting, it’s finally there. But during all those years of waiting I’ve learned to photograph in inclement weather without weather sealing and I’ve never had a problem, so ironically, I don’t really need the sealing now.
And the best news of all – since the 7D is definitely not for me, I can save my money for something useful. Like a MacBook Pro!
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DP Review has a hands-on preview of 7D.
5 comments
It is quite common to skip version number six actually. One example would be in the world of operating systems… (trivia: windows 7 is actually version 6.1)
Or maybe Canon wanted to avoid confusion with D60… it was apparently not a very good camera.
According to dpreview this is not a replacement for 50D, more of a big brother (or sister
and direct competitor to D300. I like the new viewfinder, af system and weather sealing. It’s a pity they kept on with the bulky vertical grip design though.
The pixel count raises questions though, as you say. This is an “agile” camera with 8 fps and a practical video interface, thus meant to capture action. You really would like to see good high-ISO performance. But I’ll wait for the test-results before I judge.
Maybe they will come up with something like a FF 15mp EOS 3D to counter the Nikon D700. I mean, who wouldn’t like 3D pictures…
Aha I mis-read that part, I thought it was following up on the x0D series. I always expected that something called 7D would be a follow-up to 5D… but I guess the next one in that line is Mark III. Confused? A little bit.
I saw some pictures taken with the pre-production unit on Rob Galbraith’s page. The high ISO pictures, not impressed at all. Looks exactly what I would expect from my 40D, although I’m not 100% – I never use high ISO on the 40D.
So maybe we’ll have a 60D anyway. Without HD Video and max 12 MP…
3D on the other hand… I read a tutorial a few days ago on how to create 3D pictures with a 2D camera.
Blargh…18Mpix on DX-sized sensor, sounds like dead born idea
You take much too good pictures with 50D, so you can safely skip this one -your pictures won’t get any better by changing camera 
If you gonna change system, move into FF, it opens whole new world to you in digital (well, not exactly new to you or me, back into basics more or less as we are children of the slide generation). I cannot dream of any better camera as my D700 is, it is an overkill to my skill level as it is now. Well, ok, bigger viewfinder would be nice 