dSLR Dad

Photography Bay is reporting that Canon Europe is sending out a press invitation for an event to be held on March 26.  The scuttlebutt appears to be an expected introduction of the Canon 500D.  The Internets are all a twitter over a potential 15-Megapixel, HD-video recording, Rebel-series dSLR.

The timing of this announcement makes sense.  Canon normally ships their Spring cameras around April, so it’s perfect timing.  Also, thanks to Sony entering the dSLR market after purchasing Minolta, Canon has switched to a yearly model update cycle on the consumer side.  We now see the EOS 50D dSLR release in the fall and the XXXD/Rebel released in the Spring.  As far as potential specifications? Well, the 5D Mark II introduced the DIGIC 4 image processer combined with a CMOS sensor capable of HD video recording, expect that to carry over to all future models.

What I think will be most interesting is the actual price.  Currently trading around 98 Yen-to-the-dollar, and after briefly touching 87 not too long ago, the falling Yen has created extreme pricing pressure for all Japanese consumer electronics companies.  Both the 450D/XSi and 400D/XTi cameras had an MSRP of $799 ($899 with the zoom kit lens) when released.  If Canon is not able to keep their costs down with this new model, they may be forced to raise the price.  However, if they can keep the price consistent, they will put more financial pressure on Nikon, Pentax, and Sony.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 at 6:19 AM and is filed under Canon dSLR Cameras, News & Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.