Dear Santa...

As camera reviewers, we still always get excited when a manufacturer gets in touch to brief us about a new model. Occasionally it can end up being a bit of a letdown, but more often than not these days, we get to see some clever new technology a couple of days before the camera is launched (or if we're really lucky, a couple of weeks). It's a great perk of the job to be told all this before it becomes public knowledge, so that we can write it up for the benefit for you, our valued readers.

Like other enthusiast photographers, though, we're anything but immune to drawing up our own personal wish lists of what we'd like to see on those new cameras we think might appear on the market next. Having used pretty much every camera around, we know both their strengths and what could be improved. This year, though, we thought we'd jot our musings down on paper, rather than leave them confined to the four walls of the AP office.

We can't stress strongly enough that we have no prior knowledge of the cameras that we're speculating about here. Indeed while we're pretty confident that some of these models will appear for real sooner rather than later (although again, we genuinely don't know what form they'll take), we've also invented a few that we'd simply like to see, but have no serious expectation of them actually being made. Without further ado, here's what we'd love to see in 2018.

The EOS 7D Mark II is Canon's top APS-C DSLR

Canon EOS 7D Mark III

Timeline Canon EOS 7D Mark II, September 2014

IT'S AMAZING to think that three years have passed since Canon refreshed its popular EOS 7D series with the EOS 7D Mark II. Although there's a five-year gap between the original EOS 7D and Mark II, it's possible that 2018 might be the year we see an EOS 7D Mark III arrive, possibly around the time of Photokina in September.

So what might this camera bring to the table if it does turn up? To take a wild guess, I'd expect it to shoot continuously at no slower than 12fps with a notable buffer improvement to rival the mighty Nikon D500 – something that could be made possible by potentially pairing two DIGIC 7 image processors. To differentiate it from its predecessor, resolution could take a jump to 24MP or even 30MP, but it's a significantly improved noise response at high ISO that most wildlife and sports photographers are crying out for. I would love to see the EOS 7D Mark III deliver low noise at ISO 6,400 and 12,800, and not see shadow detail deteriorate as low as ISO 3,200 as it currently does on the EOS 7D Mark II. At the rear I wouldn't be surprised to see it adopt the same vari-angle touchscreen