So where now, we have had our pickings from Panasonic, JVC and Sony with solid state camcorders but we might ask where is Canon. We have not had a sniff from Canon for ages, apart from the odd tweak here or there.

I think Canon are biding their time and will WoW us with a complete rethink and finally go solid state. Canon are not stupid they have seen how the market is moving and it’s all in their favor…why ?

Look at the Canon 5D Mk2 Digital SLR with it’s new firmware allowing manual exposure control including ISO, shutter speed and aperture. You don’t have to spend a lot of time with a digital SLR camera that is designed to take photographs to realize it’s short comings as a video camera.

I was told only today that the good old BBC have bought the first consignment of Panasonic Lumix GH1 cameras and you can be assured it’s not for it’s photographic qualities though I do despair that an organization renowned for it’s quality programming is going down this road. Maybe someone from the BBC will write to us as to why they are buying so many Lumix GH1 cameras.

Canon on the other hand have many facets not least the broadcast lens division, pro camcorder division and pro SLR camera division, you would think that Canon would realize a big gap in the market for a quality solid state camcorder with shallow depth of field, a camcorder that will take all their SLR lens range…am I dreaming, well it’s not everyones cup of tea but Canon would sell tones of these camcorders and first in the que would be Mr Bloom himself.

A word of caution Canon please do not be stupid enough to bring out expensive dedicated solid state memory card when we have SDHC cards that are cheap and great for archive.