So is the 90D actually a merge of the 7D Mark II and 80D?

We have seen a lot of rumors that the 80D and the 7D Mark II are merging into the 90D. Now that we’ve seen the 90D specifications thanks to Canon Australia, we can now look at it and decide, is this really what was mentioned, the fabled merge of the two systems back into one camera?

The first thing we noted from the video, was the weathersealing.  The weathersealing for the body relies on mechanical seals, without any sealing material.  The 7D Mark II at the time was considered one of Canon’s best-sealed cameras non 1 series cameras, especially from Roger Cicala that ripped one apart to see if it met its claims, and it did. 

From the tech sheet, we could inspect more of what the camera had in terms of ergonomics and this is what we noticed;

• The top panel right buttons are clearly identified as 80D buttons, and not the dual use 7D Mark II (and what is also on the 5D series).  This could have been done by Canon without increasing the size or cost of the camera so it’s omission is noticeable.
• We also notice that the mode dial only has C1 and C2 setting modes, which is far under what the 7D Mark II with its 3 mode settings C1, C2 and C3.  This again could have been done without increasing the size of the camera.  The mode dial also has more consumer modes than what the 7D Mark II had on its mode dial.
• The LCD panel is smaller, however, this is more dictated by the size of the area that the LCD panel can fit it, to put a more 7D style panel would increase the size of the camera.

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• The back of the camera is much simpler, as we noted in the past, to add a joystick to the 80D, some buttons would have to either move or simply not exist anymore.  The 90D goes down to 7 buttons accessible from the back, with the 7D ergonomics sitting at 11.   Some of these are important to the 7D such as the rating button.  That is not present on the 90D.

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Other elements we noticed were lacking from the 7D included;

• Single SD card slot.  This is an important feature of the 7D that is missing.  In theory, this wouldn’t necessarily increase the size of the camera, but it may slightly.  7D users would certainly wish for dual card slots for redundancy.  In this era, not having dual card slots is a designation of a professional versus consumer use camera.
• The viewfinder is certainly from the 80D with a 100% view and a .95x magnification versus the 7D’ larger 100% viewfinder and 1.00x magnification.  While this doesn’t make a considerable amount of viewing, not having the larger pentaprism and viewfinder will save some size and weight to the camera.

So is the 90D really a 7D replacement? It honestly looks from the ergonomic standpoint, and also the elements that Canon could have brought back from the 7D but chosen not to, simply an 80D replacement.  Does that mean a 7D is coming? It’s hard to say, Canon may have opted just to ignore the 7D altogether, and simply do a 90D as one of the last prosumer DSLRs that they’ll do before transitioning off the EF mount.  They have certainly left the door open to make another 7D DSLR or to transition it to the RF mount.