Busy morning for Canon

[Paul Smith]

Whole raft of announcements this morning from Canon.

Top of the list is the new 60D, 18mp APS-C all singing all dancing video and a swiveling articulated screen. I'm sure there'll be some interesting reviews of this over the next few days. There are rumours it's made of 100% plastic which may be a downgrade for the xxd series and there's no mention of the in camera flash control of the 7D which is a shame. Might also use SD cards instead of CF. Will be interesting to see what people make of this. I can see the articulating screen being very popular.

Acording to dpr

Higher resolution sensor (17.9MP vs. 15.1MP)
Accepts SD, rather than CF memory cards
No flash sync socket
Wireless Speedlight control
Articulated 3:2 high resolution LCD screen
Plastic body shell (8% weight saving)
Standard ISO range extends to 6400, rather than 3200
User-definable Auto ISO upper limit
HD video recording 1080p20/25/24 or 720p60/50
New features: in-camera raw conversion, ambience settings, creative filters etc
No joystick, no multi-flash support, simplified top plate & info panel, only one Custom mode
Slightly reduced customization options
Redesigned control layout with slightly fewer buttons
Lower burst rate

and they want £1100 for it body only, don't think so somehow. Anything over £1k is 7D territory. I expect the 550D to drop a little and this to slot into the £800 - £900 area within a few months.

To compliment this there's a tonne of new lenses and toys.

New 1.4 and 2 x teleconverters
8-15 f4L
70-300 f4-5.6L IS (seems very slow for an L?)
300 f2.8L IS
400 f2.8L IS

they've also announced they're developing new 500 f4 L and 600 f4 L replacements that should be on display at photokina in September.

[Barrie Harwood]

....and so the money making carousel goes on. It's the same with Nikon.. they've also brought out loads of new lenses that duplicate existing focal lengths with no obvious improvement in mechanical performance or image quality. They just re-badge to justify increased costs and to create a market.

Camera bodies are slightly different in that they do tend to offer better chips and image processing software however there are also lots of other gizmos that are just that... gimmicks to justify a new model being launched.

The time gap between new model releases does seem to be getting smaller and smaller

[Eifion Williams]

I agree, it does seem to be a bit of a money making exercise.

Seems that the new Canon 60D does take SD cards instead of Compact Flash ( WHY ) surely the people who are going to buy this camera have had an earlier D model and will now have to buy new cards adding to extra cost.

Models seem to be launched every 6 months, accelerating the depreciation of your investment.
I sound like a grumpy old git ;)

[Photo Imaging]

Yeah..but you're our grumpy old git..

[Paul Smith]

poor eif :)

the 50d was two years old and badly outdated when compared to the 550D and the 7D. Trouble is this doesn't replace the 50D, probably should have just retired the xxD line tbh.

[markcarline]

SD cards are becoming the norm now - i think its just about impossible to buy a laptop now without it having an SD card reader.

I would be very surprised if theres a massive difference between the current II 1.4x and 2x extenders and the new ones just released.

It seems to me that there isnt much between the 7D and the 60D which seems odd.

Anyway the good thing is that with all this new year being released means that theres alot of people who want to upgrade which means that the 2nd hand market gets an influx of gear :)

I personally always use new bodies and 2nd hand lenses - you can pick up some amazing 2nd hand lens bargains if you hunt around. And the amazing thing is that they are almost as good as they day they where made (I have a 20 year old 500mm F8 Tamron Adaptall-2 lens which works great on my 5d Mark II).

[Paul Smith]

New 300 is £7499 current one is £3599.

New 400 is £11499 and current one is £6479.

:crazy: Someone's been doling out the wacky baccy at Canon UK again. And they wonder why people import. The teleconverters are £600 now, they've gone insane.

[Barrie Harwood]

Bloomin' heck.. now that is very silly money