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Memory CardsCanon Rumors is (again) convinced that a crop sensor-equipped body will ooze out of Canon one of these days. It gives the rumor a truthfulness likelihood of “fact.”
Now, it doesn’t know which sort of crop camera might come out: the much-vaunted 7D-type camera that was a wildlife shooter’s workhorse, or the M mount sort of crop camera that emphasizes cuteness and variously compatible color schemes.
When Canon’s Japanese headquarters introduced the M mount cameras years ago, Canon USA was so unimpressed with it that it opted to not even import the bodies into the U.S. For years, you had to purchase one indirectly from out of the country. As that system advanced, Canon USA relented and started carrying the cameras as pocketable travel cameras.
When Canon introduced the RF mount as its primary mirrorless full frame mount system, its design suggested that the M mount would be short lived. The physical dimensions of the two mounts disallows an adapter from one to the other.
If Canon is to produce crop cameras in the RF mount, a big question will be whether or not it will produce smaller, cheaper lenses that will cover a smaller image circle. Canon is still in the midst of fleshing out its RF line, and still hasn’t put out a large number of traditional prime focal lengths with professional-grade apertures. Dividing lens design and – particularly – manufacturing resources across two types of lenses seems to make little sense at this point.
One idea floated among forum-dwelling wags has been to release a crop sensor camera that has a built-in speed booster, which takes the larger image circle from full frame lenses and concentrates that light on the smaller sensor, effectively making it a larger effective aperture lens. This would make the RF 600mm f/4 into a 600mm f/2.8 on a crop sensor, which would make the knees of wildlife photographers shake in ecstasy. Notably, it would make the 800mm f/11 DO lens into an 800mm f/8, which – coupled with a smaller body – would make a killer travel wildlife kit.
