Seriously, we’ve been hearing about the EOS 7D for well over a year now, with the chatter predictably heating up before every major trade show — and with just over a month before Photokina, it’s happening all over again. Hopefully Canon actually has this semi-legendary $1,899 full-frame DSLR to show us this time — the 5D is getting pretty ancient. We have no way of knowing if this image is real or not, but anything is possible

Thanks to the strong performance of new models such as the D40 and D80, Nikon edged out Canon for the top sales position in the Japanese DSLR market in 2006 according to a report by market research firm BCN. As of December 2006, Nikon had a 47% share of the Japanese DSLR market compared to Canon’s 35%. Read more.

DSLR sales percentage for Japanese market:

1. Canon EOS Kiss Digital X      27.3% (400D/Rebel XTi)
2. Nikon D80     16.3%
3. Nikon D40     15.5%
4. Nikon D200      9.1%
5. Sony A100      6.3%
6. Pentax K10D      5.3%
7. Nikon D50      4.8%
8. Canon Kiss Digital      3.3% (350D/Digital Rebel XT)
9. Pentax K100D      2.9%
10. Canon EOS 30D      2.5%