New Rumor: The 7D Mark III is no more.

A new rumor surfaced about the fact that the 7D Mark II is the last of it's kind.

I'm not sure what to make out of this rumor.  Of course, it could be that I have a soft spot for the 7D series, having cut my teeth on Canon DSLR's coming up from the 20D, 40D,50D into the 7D series camera bodies like many of you.

We have mentioned in the past it would be difficult to merge these two camera lines (the 80D line and the 7D Mark II line) back together again given the nature of their ergonomics.  It could be that Canon's decision is just to drop the 7D line and its ergonomic flavor for the more popular 80D line. It’s the easiest decision if they are going to move them back into one camera.  Also the most painful for 7D users and us that grew up from the “old” nnD series camera bodies, as the 80D line just isn’t “quite” there in terms of haptic controls and build quality.

That would leave the Nikon D500 has the top APS-C DSLR in the market, which also would strike me as being a bit strange for Canon.  They are a company that usually does not leave a challenge go unanswered.

It could also be that Canon sees the future as being the RF mount and mirrorless and that a 7D Mark II replacement will end up with the RF mount.  This is a possibility, but I really feel that Canon will not do an APS-C RF mount camera for a long time. Right now Canon supports as their lens varieties;

• EF-S
• EF
• EF-M
• RF

Adding RF APS-C to the mix is simply too much for a company that while produces an insane number of lenses in a year, can only make around 6 to 8 new ones in a given year.  Just about all of Canon’s efforts right now are laser-focused on getting the RF mount up to speed in terms of lens ecosystem.

Of course, they could simply change the lens mounts and shells from the EF-M lenses and fabricate them for the RF mount.  The problem with that is that those lenses, while many of them excellent performers aren’t exactly the type of lenses, you’d use with a 7D RF mount camera either.  At the minimum Canon would have to create at least 2 or 3 RF APS-C lenses for one camera body and I simply can’t see them doing that – right now.

It could also be that with the EF-M getting more upscale with the "M5 Mark II", and the "90D" now being mentioned as getting more upscale, that there’s just not enough separation between those two cameras and a 7D replacement.  Perhaps Canon feels that the majority of users that would go with a 7D would either go to the 90D, M5 Mark II or some fast performing RF series camera body that may be made in the next couple of years.  It may be that it's just too much of a problem, and there will be unhappy people either way that Canon just decides the best solution is to drop it. There’s certainly should be a lot of choices available for those 7D users, just not the one they’d really want – which is a 7D Mark III.  

Way back when the RF mount first came out, we were one of the first to note that Canon has a real problem on their hands with the 7D Mark II replacement, and where exactly that camera would come out (EF-M, RF, or EF).  Nothing much has changed since then; they still do have a thorny problem with this camera body. 

I personally hope this rumor is not true.  I think it would the end of an era.  The 7D Mark II is the last of a line of amazing camera bodies starting with the 10D from Canon, as I would not call the 80D or it's successor part of the old nnD series camera body lineup.