Extended M series

Blue II wrote:

Photato wrote:

Blue II wrote:

Photato wrote:

Now that we are just days away from the new M50 announcement and rumors suggest it would be something new about the sensor, I wonder if Canon will introduce with this camera a higher tier model based on a new enlarged sensor. I say higher tier because contrary to what the model name suggest, there is almost no room for a model in between the M6 and the M100.

Granted, such sensor won't be Full Frame, but larger than the current APS-C, enough to cover the 3 most common aspect ratios. 3:2, 16:9 4:3. A more efficient use of the image circle.

Canon used to have a sensor between APS-C and FF. It was an APS-H with a 1.3 crop factor. I don’t see them bringing it back.

Why not?
Canon has made in the past custom sensor sizes like the 1.5" for the Powershot G1 X II using the same oversize concept.
One reasonable question would be of economy of scale and that model proves that Canon has no problem running relative small quantity of sensor production.
This oversized sensor looks to me like a very reasonable way to improve the image quality and functionality of the M series without the need of any sophisticated technology and a boost for EF lens sales.

The one big problem would be lack of wide angle lenses. The affordable 16-35 would be affected by the 1.3x (or whatever they were to go with), not being truly wide angle and the EF-S 10-18 etc aren’t usable because the image circle wouldn’t be big enough.

Nope, there are absolutely no compromises or limitations by increasing slightly the M sensor size. It totally fit in the mount and it is a win-win proposition. You actually gain wider or taller field of view with every lens, depending of the aspect ratio chosen. The best part is that with EF lenses you actually gain higher image quality because it would be capturing now a higher resolution image over a larger area. No new EF / EF-M lens adapter is needed either.

There’s the ultra expensive 11-24 but it’s more than a lot of people can/want to spend on a lens.

Again, there is absolutely no need to reconsider lenses.
In fact the EF-M 11-22 becomes even wider (~9mm at wide end) when capturing at 16:9 aspect ratio with the corresponding increase in horizontal pixels. At 3:2 the captured image would be the exact same as the current M5/M6 can produce (24 mpix).