Rumor: Canon To Upgrade Menu

CanonRumors indicates it heard from multiple sources that Canon intends to upgrade its menu system when launching a new camera in 2021. Canon’s menus have traditionally been considered among the best systems for navigating professional-level cameras, with a relatively intuitive three-level hierarchy of categories.

But with the improved resolution of screens and viewfinders, other brands – particularly Panasonic – have added an additional level of hierarchy to the menu system, allowing for a cleaner organization of even more complicated features.

Sony, whose menus were widely considered the most confounding among the major brands, upgraded its menu system with the last couple of body launches, and the major improvement was the addition of another level of menus.

A major menus complaint among almost all brands of cameras today is the now more complex set of direct relationships between one camera setting and the capability to use other camera settings. For instance, when using flicker control on Canon and Sony cameras, certain features become unavailable. When attempting to set those other features, some cameras are better than others at indicating exactly why the item might be grayed out.

Like all the other manufacturers, Canon allows users to re-map buttons to customize their functions, but Canon is the most stingy in the precise options made available for each one. It will often give one button the capability of serving one of 40 customizable functions, but another button a choice of only a half dozen functions.