Where are all the new high-end crop-sensor DSLRs? Canon rolled out a string of full-frame DSLRs from $2,000 to $7,000 in the past year, along with sub-$1,000 consumer crop-sensor cameras. But its premier crop-sensor model, the Canon EOS 7D (now $1,300 street), is in its fourth year with no replacement in sight. Nikon is in the same boat: new full-frame DSLRs, new sub-$1,000 cameras, but no new high-end crop-sensor offering. Both are selling cheaper products with more features.

Compared to full-frame DSLRs, crop sensor cameras are smaller, lighter, give telephoto lenses 50-60% more reach, and have more than enough resolution. But even as most technology downsizes (laptops, cellphones, iMac bezels, car engines), the best crop-sensor cameras from Canon and Nikon are getting old. Users are justified in asking: Is the pro-level crop-sensor DSLR a dead-end for serious photographers, and was it a mistake buying crop-sensor-only lenses?

Canon introduced its first crop-sensor digital single lens reflex camera in 2002, and churned out a new premium model every 15 months on average through 2009. The current model, the 18-megapixel Canon 7D, arrived in September 2009, just 11 months after the Canon EOS 50D, which came 12 months on the heels of the EOS 40D. Since then: nothing for 39 months and counting.

Over at Nikon, its most recent premium crop-sensor DSLR, the D300s, came out in July 2009, and the D300s was effectively the 2007 Nikon D300 with video added. That’s 27 or 63 months with little new. Extreme Tech’s David Cardinal, a Nikon-carrying pro, says, “The Nikon D7000 is a really nice camera but is not at the same semi-pro level as the D300. The D5100 and D5200 (announced) are pretty darn cool, so at the lowish end Nikon is doing fine. At the pro-ish level, they’ve dropped the ball.”

Premium crop-sensor cameras are trapped in a three-way bind among affordable full-frame DSLRs; good-enough crop-sensor DSLRs under $1,000; and the growth of serious mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras, the best of which are currently not made by Canon or Nikon (it’s Sony). But hang in there, the companies claim, and you’ll see a new round of premium crop-sensor DSLRs.

“The 7D was ahead of its time,” says Chuck Westfall, a Canon technical advisor, by way of explaining the new-product black hole since the EOS 7D was announced. He says the 7D-level Canon is not dead at Canon.

Crop sensors: Two-thirds the size of full-frame, up to 18 megapixels

What is a crop-sensor DSLR? It’s a digital camera with Moore’s law applied. The standard for professional and serious amateur photography since the 1960s has been 35mm, with an imaging area of 24×36 mm (film or digital) and an effective film resolution of about 20-30 million pixels (others cite 10 to 50 million pixels; most artistes in the photo community will say “it’s too complex to answer” and then resume pondering Leica’s $8,000 monochrome-only camera). The first full-frame digital single lens reflex cameras of the 1990s had the same 24×36 mm image areas and used the same lenses as the film cameras, to provide an upgrade path. In fact, an early model was a Nikon F3 35mm film camera adapted with a digital back by Kodak.

Ten years ago, in the same smaller-faster-better-cheaper kind of advance that affects the rest of technology (i.e. Moore’s law), the first crop-sensor cameras arrived with CMOS sensors of about 23×15 mm. They’re also called APS-C cameras because the size was similar to the short-lived Advanced Photo System-Classic film format of 1996 with 25.1×16.7 mm images. The APS-C DSLR cameras were were smaller and weighed less than full-frame cameras, lenses weighed less, and resolution wasn’t far behind full-frame cameras. Best of all, a 200mm telephoto lens, for instance, had the same reach as a 350 mm lens (Nikon, 1.5X multiplier) or 380mm lens (Canon, 1.6X multiplier) on a full-frame camera. Canon and Nikon call their APS-C lenses EF-S and DX; the full-frame lenses are EF and FX.

If you define crop-sensor cameras by price, the consumer models are $500-$1,000 and the pro-level models such as the 7D are in the $1,400-$1,800 range.

Next page: What we need is real crop-sensor lenses