Yet, I totally disagree with your downplaying of the importance of the continuous autofocus in video mode. It’s an absolutely critical feature and the lack thereof renders the camera’s video mode completely useless. The reason being not just my reluctance to manually focus during the shooting, but the physical impossibility of simultaneously playing with the lens’s focal distance (zoom) and adjusting the focus with the same hand (at least, with the anatomy of an average human being).

In a camcorder where you change the zoom with your right hand’s fingertips while your left hand is free, the need to manually focus would have been less of an issue. With the 7D, though, it is technically impossible to gradually zoom in or out and stay in focus and this is simply unacceptable!

I do agree with Ben Fienieg that it’s unrealistic to expect a DSLR to completely replace a dedicated camcorder, and this is exactly why I have recently bought both Sony CX520 and Canon 7D. Yet, I do believe that a certain percentage of the money I’ve spent on 7D has paid for the video feature and I have hard time accepting the fact that this part of the investment has gone down the drain. The lack of some super sofisticated feature would have been fine by me, but here we’re talking about the most basic video feature, an absolute must found even in the cheapest and most primitive video cameras. What a shame!

P.S. Let this not give you an impression that I’m not happy with my 7D. I absolutely love it, it’s an incredible stills camera! It’s just that with the current crippled video spec Canon shouldn’t have even mentioned having a video capability in this camera.

Regards,
Ben Fienieg

Nikon D300s was introduced july 30, 2009 (basically beginning of august). Canon 7d was introduced sept 1 2009.

The D300s is NOT near the end of it’s lifecycle. Double check the press releases.

The cameras were introduced just over a month apart.

For the past three mid range models, canon has waited exactly a year between models. I held off on the 50d knowing the 7d would come out in september of this year based on their cycles.

Neither Canon nor Nikon are definitively ahead. I assume both of them will have updates for their full frame lines sometime in the first half of the new year (successors to the d3x, d700, 5d mark ii, and 1Ds). As usual, they will all be fantastic cameras. As usual, canon and nikon freaks will moan about which is better.

@everyone – Thanks for the fact check guys. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ve updated the reference to Nikon CLS to note that the D5000 doesn’t include a Commander mode (rather than the D90).