What Now For The Rebel……? Canon’s Grand Plan.
When Nikon launched their mirrorless 1-System they made a clear decision not to interfere with their DSLR sales by going with a smaller sensor even than M4/3 , approaching point and shoot size. Canon have decided to put a variant of their latest 18MP APS-C sensor in the EOS-M lineup though and you have to wander what this will do for the Rebel lineup. For your average consumer when they see both of these cameras alongside each other in Best Buy , both with a 3″ touchscreen and both with the same size 18MP sensor, but one is half the size and cheaper, it will clearly impact sales of the larger Rebel brother.
I put to you a crazy idea….
Canon is rumored to be introducing a lower priced full frame camera in the not too distant future. They also introduced a huge firmware update for the 7D recently. My initial reaction was that they were extending the life cycle of the 7D for some reason. There would seem to be no good reason to add those features to a camera which by Canon’s usual timelines would be due for replacement within the next few months. Maybe Canon sees the future of APS-C sensors in the EOS-M lineup only ? Perhaps we will see a gradual move to full frame cameras in all their DSLRs ? The 1.3x crop sensor has already been phased out and from a consumer point of view it would be far simpler to have crop sensors in physically smaller cameras. It is something that the consumer can easily understand and relate to. Small camera, small sensor. Big camera, big sensor. Keep it simple.
We used to have an XXD camera , the 7D , the 5D and the 1D. But the 5D Mark III did blur the lines more than some people may have realized when it added the AF system from the typically sports oriented 1D series. I used to recommend the 7D to people who wanted to use a smaller camera for sports, but now I recommend the 5D Mark III instead. It has superior AF, decent FPS and a much better sensor. A lower priced full frame camera could be a combination of the XXD and 7D line giving us a complete DSLR lineup of full frame cameras.
But what will XXD customers buy you say ?? Well it is clear to me that the EOS-M lineup will also feature a ‘Pro’ model with a viewfinder in the not too distant future. If this first EOS-M will replace the Rebel , what camera would be replaced by a more fully featured ‘Rebel’ that still has an APS-C sensor ? Yep, you got it, the XXD line. There is no way that Canon can introduce two new cameras with APS-C sensors and interchangeable lenses without culling something from their current lineup. Something has to give because the consumer typically doesn’t want to have such a broad range to choose from, especially when on paper to them several of the cameras appear to have identical features.
