Revenant

It's not just about the development costs. Surely it's more costly to assemble and quality control a device with mechanical and optical parts, that needs to be precisely aligned?

There is also much more to Canon than just cameras, but in most of the markets where Canon and Sony are active, they aren't competitors. The camera market is one of the few markets where Canon and Sony are direct competitors, and in that market Sony currently is not "eating" Canon.

Sony eats both of them? What fantasy world are you living in? Canon is doing better in the camera market than Sony is, unless you're judging commercial success by technical spec sheets. Canon has almost 50% of the system camera market, while Sony has 12%.

It's no longer listed as a current model on Nikon's website, so it's likely discontinued.

Yes, done right, I think the DL series could have been a success for Nikon.

CIPA battery ratings follow a strict protocol that involves images taken at a 30 second interval with flash used for every other shot (if the camera has a built-in flash), reviewing images on the LCD, turning the camera off and on after a specific number of shots etc. The number they arrive at is completely irrelevant for use cases that involves burst shooting.

The FF market is a small part of the market. The fact is that Sony did lose market share by switching to mirrorless. They recently published a 12% global market share in ILC (DSLR + mirrorless), which is less than they had back when they only made DSLRs. So they basically replaced DSLR sales with mirrorless sales, but not quite. That they are successful in the FF part of the market in certain countries doesn't change the overall picture.

Canon is simply broadening and diversifying its business. I see no indication that they are ditching photography as long as it's profitable for them, and as long as they are the market leader by a healthy margin.

Archimedes did some of his best work in the bathtub.

Yes, Canon's camera business is declining, but their market share have increased recently, more than any other company's; they have almost half of the interchangeable lens camera market. This means that they aren't declining as fast as their competitors, especially Nikon.

Do we really know that Sony is #2 in the camera market? All I've read is that Sony claims to now be #2 in the US full-frame ILC market, based on data from January-February 2017.

There are several qualifiers in that claim: a specific region (US), a specific product category (ILC), a specific subcategory (FF), and a very short time frame (two months). If Sony had data that supported a grander claim than that, eg. being #2 in the global camera market or ILC market, then surely they wouldn't hesitate to announce that fact.

Canon is used to being doomed. We've heard about their imminent demise for over a decade now.

Solid demand for G series compacts, and yet Nikon cancelled the DL series because they didn't think demand would be strong enough.

The NEX-7, A77, A77II, A99, A99II, A6500, A7 series, all of them were claimed beforehand to be game changers, DSLR killers, CaNikon killers, and so on. Now people are saying the same about the A9. I think that very few products live up to that kind of hyperbole and hype, no matter how good they are.

I'd think, that most prospective buyers for any of these high-end bodies, would be sufficiently knowledgeable to know which body suits them best. For example, are people really making buying choices between the D5 and D810, or between the 1DX II and 5Ds?

Are you suggesting that if DPR doesn't have the resources to cover every current camera in this way, then they shouldn't cover any camera at all? And doesn't your reasoning also apply to other kinds of coverage, eg. reviews?

Yes, but the product description says "This camera was discontinued before it was released". I guess DPR must have some reason for keeping them in the database.

Sony's semiconductor division is simply a provider of sensors and other components to many other companies, one of which happens to be another company within the Sony Corporation. The revenue that Sony Corporation as a whole would lose by only selling sensors to its own camera division, would have a larger impact on their financials than what little competitive edge they would gain against other camera makers by doing so. The sensor business is much more important to Sony than the relatively small camera business.

I'm thinking that surely there must be a more concise and reader-friendly way to get across whatever argument you're trying to make.

Consistency of colour and exposure is crucial for a lot of video work, so it requires more advanced tools for monitoring those things than stills photography does.