New 4K ILC Series coming from Canon in 2018?

A new rumor from CR suggests that Canon may be coming out with a new 4K ILC series of cameras. We found this patent a while back that seemed to suggest that Canon was looking at solving some problems with the EF mount and a device that looked very similar to the XC series camera bodies.

CR suggests;

We’re told that a new line of EF ILC video oriented camera capable of 4K is coming from Canon in 2018. We’re told that it won’t fall under the Cinema EOS banner.

We’ve seen patents related to such a camera in the recent past, but this is the first time a known source has mentioned the camera.

This camera could appear ahead of NAB in April. The next Cinema EOS camera is scheduled to be announced after the NAB show, which isn’t an unusual thing for Canon to do.

The source was confident it would be a new series of camera, and if it goes well, there’s a possibility of a whole series of cameras under the new umbrella.

A few more thoughts on this.

There's alot of moving parts unless Canon stays with the 1" sensor. However with a 2.7x crop factor - one wonders what would be the point of an EF mount. Most of the EF lens catalog would be rendered to telephoto.

Another option is to use a super-35 sensor such as what is featured in the Canon CINI cameras. This would have a little bigger crop than Canon's APS-C sensors (1.5 crop factor instead of 1.6 crop) and may also point to patents such as this where Canon is looking at APS-C / Super-35 Cini capable zooms from the UWA to the standard zoom range of focal lengths.

Frankly I really fail to see the requirement of every DSLR to have high end video capablities. While there's a small niche that sees a synthesis between still and video there's little compelling evidence that it's necessary on every last stills camera - especially DSLR's where the ergonomics aren't that suited for video.

Making another line that can break the stills camera ergonomic models and start off in a fresh new direction away from Canon stills and more into video makes alot of sense.