7D 7D mkII 4K recording?

roxics

roxics

Veteran
The rumors are swirling that we will see a 7D mkII announced by August. The rumors also state they will be releasing a new STM lens along with. STM is for video, which if both are true seem like a good indication that the 7D mkII will have a certain video focus to it. Which makes sense to me considering the original 7D was the first Canon camera to feature their full video capabilities (24/30fps 1080, 60fps 720, mic jack) which eventually became a standard across their entire line.

My question now is, will the 7D mkII debut the next generation in Canon DSLR video capabilities? Will we see 4K? If so will it be internal or external recording? Will we see 1080/60, a headphone jack, less moire, higher bitrates, a flip out LCD screen?

Considering the original 7D was released in 2009, that is a five year refresh cycle for this camera. If Canon intends to continue that cycle, it would seem strange to me to not include 4K or it will quickly become dated. Especially with the GH4 and A7S on the market. It would also seem strange to not include internal recording for 4K since within the next year or two I imagine all of these cameras will have internal 4K recording. It will become as common as HD is now. Remember we already have two smartphones on the market that internally record 4K as well.

What do you think?
 
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Canon has still not announced development of their new 4K codec if they have one. It's the one thing missing in all this. Mjpeg is all they have right now which to be honest wouldn't be a wise choice in a 7DMK2.
 
Maybe they'll just implement H.265. It's about time we start seeing that codec. It can support 4K and even 10bit.
 
It definitely suggests Canon is working on the next gen codec it will need for it's new products. Even with the XF300 Canon announced the codec first as NLE's will need to be able to recognize the codec for smooth transition. Until then they have 180 60P avchd 2.0 finally, took a while but it's happening in both video and stills.
 
We know that Canon can deliver if they want to.

There are a lot of features in the C100 - C300 - C500 series and 1DC that could easily "trickle down" into lower end systems, especially 2 years after those were released.

The question is how quickly we get trickle down, and how they mange the transition. The "problem" for us is the relatave success and higher margins in the Cinema series.

All of these companies have to carefully manage their product lines. The companies that have been losing money for 7+ years are very aggressive, because it is do or die for them (and likely die anyway for many of them.)

Within a large company like Canon, the demand is to maintain market leading sales and sales volume across every class of product. And they are particularly risk adverse in some ways. Which usually leads to very solid products, but they also aren't going to rush out something that is not thouroughly tested.

I think the positive is that Canon right now has a lot of incremental expertise in the video arena, as they reach to compete with Alexa, Red, etc.

Now, how long will it takes before we can afford a 14 bit 4-4-4 C770 camera with 4 Digic XV, processors for under $1,000 ..... ??? :)

Sorry, nothing concrete to say about the 7DII yet .....

Canon Rumors expects an August 18 announcement, which was about the date of the 1DsII announcement 10 years ago.

Hopefully Canon gets it right. :)


Michael
 
Even the EOS M was released with an STM lens so this does not necessarily mean that 7D will have as advanced video features as GH4. It will probably have continuous AF for video. I guess a flip out screen is improbable with a weather-proof body. Let's keep our fingers crossed for a moire-free picture, focus peaking, zebras and a decent codec. I'd rather have raw HD recording than 4k on-board.
 
Being DR-obsessed, I wouldn't be too optimistic about the 7D2. Canon may have everything ready for 4K, or maybe not. They may have made a fast sensor capable of delivering a clean image without aliasing/moire, or maybe not. But they have a DR disadvantage because of their sensor tech, and though the 7D2 could be the camera to end that, it would be a major development. Unlikely.

To put it in more practical terms: even if the 7D2 shoots 4K RAW with no aliasing/moire and all the DR that Canon sensors usually have, I'd still prefer the a7s. Probably.
 
I Think. No 4K, Minimum Moire, Yes Headphone jack, Yes clean HDMI out, New video features like zebras, Focus peacking. Econo $ 2000 body. Let's see
 
^ That would be an APS-C version of the 5D3, with some ML goodies provided directly by Canon. Highly likely.
 
My guess is that the 7D2 will primarily be a pro level sports camera and carry the price tag to match. Video will be improved and have dual pixel AF.
 
I hope it's not just a bunch of features that we already have with magic lantern... 1080p or 2k raw up to 60fps (120 would be even radder) would be more than enough to make me happy.
 
Canon is less likely to pioneer 4k in consumer cameras till they feel the pressure, I expect Nikon to lead as they don't have a pro line to protect. Also sony hase been more aggressive and we might see something from them first.
 
I've given up on my eos lens collection. Sorry....and canon as well. While very happy with Panasonic, I'm considering the a7s and a metabones, or maybe just the a6000. There's rumors of a 5n styled ff . Sony and Panasonic are so far ahead . Because the video market is so small and canon still sells well, it's most likely not to respond to this segment. I really doubt if the new 7d will have specs and image quality that undercut the c100. As has been it's model, it will offer the absolute minimum it can get away with...in it's consumer dslr's. And truthfully....who wants another traditional dslr anyway. It would have to be revolutionary to get my attention.
 
A thought that occurred to me is that since the 7D is intended as a sports camera, it will need a high data transfer capability to shoot fast raw stills sequences. This would make it a good candidate to handle either raw video or a larger resolution like 4k. As a DSLR, it's still not really competition against the c100 since a lot of the appeal of that camera is in the full functions and ergonomics of a true video dedicated camera. I'd expect the 7DII to debut around the price of a 5D3, or around $2000-$3500.
 
I've dreamed for affordable 4K from Canon for a while, but I don't think it will come with the 7D MKII. I don't think much of anything else in video features will come with the 7D MKII. While I love Canon and have been using them since I first started working with DSLRs, their business model pushed me away. I can't blame a company for attempting to keep money segmented where they need it. That's just how the world of high end manufacturing works. Canon simply feels that since people are already paying the $5,000 for a C100 (which is a very nice camera) there is no reason to trickle these high end features down to the DSLRs. So for me, I personally would rather work with a company attempting to tailor to the user. Thats why I switched to the GH4.

Dave Dugdale explained my exact thoughts and some info about the direction of Canon's next DSLR in his GH4 review. (Video starts at 41:16, talking about the Canon philosophy.)
 
I think some of you are underestimating Canon, which is fine. Maybe you should. Maybe we all should.
But supposedly this new camera will have a new sensor in it. Something based on a newer technology. I don't think Canon develops a ton of new sensors, so I think they try to reuse the same sensor in multiple cameras. As we've seen with the Rebel line, 7D and 60D. So My guess is this new sensor will be 4K capable with enough power to push out at least 30fps in 4K and 60p in 1080.

My bet is the new camera will be 4K with H.265 encoding and their new AF system that usese STM lenses. Bare minimum.

The bigger question is, will it have all the fancy video features we may want, like: peaking, mic(and heaphone jack), less moire, higher bitrates, reduced rolling shutter, greater dynamic range, flip-out LCD, hybrid EVF/OVF, unlimited recording time, multiple 1080p framerates, clean HDMI out and so on? Those may be saved for the C line. Although we may get a couple of them.
 
I also think it will be 8bit and they will move their entire C line to 10bit.

So what I'm saying is, just adding 4K is not going to be the biggest difference between their DSLR line and their Cinema line. Resolution isn't everything. If it was, the stills resolution of the Rebel line wouldn't come close to the 7D or 5D series. There are plenty of other things they can add to the C line to differentiate it.
 
Based on my understanding of Canon policy, I very much doubt that Canon will ever be adding a huge number of video features to their DSLR's such as peaking, waveforms, etc. They didn't add them to the 1DC and that was actually positioned as cinema camera. I don't think Canon has much of a staff for adding video features to DSLR's. Also, I doubt they will add any aggressive video capture features like higher bit rates or frame rates unless they can feel they can market them to photographers in some way. Every video feature that they add for the relatively small group of low end videographers causes them to piss off and lose sales among their much larger photography base. Photographers want great autofocus and metering systems and sensitivity. Anything that aids in manual focusing or complicates the camera just annoys them. And since Canon and Nikon are the big players in the photography market, I think that is why you are seeing Sony and Panasonic adding features trying to pick up the relative crumbs of the DSLR videography market. It's not that Canon is trying to screw over videographers with overpriced cinema cameras, they are just trying to protect their DSLR market by not focusing on video.
 
In the future Canon will be going 4k all the way. They were waiting for the consumer part i.e. uhd televisions to catch up.
 
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