News 

The range includes two new digital SLRs, six digital compact cameras, 10 printers and all-in-ones, and three projectors.

Top of the tree is the new flagship professional digital SLR camera, the EOS IDs Mk III. Packing an astonishing 21 megapixels, Canon is hoping the new model will expand its market by luring studio photographers away from their traditional tethered medium-format digital backs.

Lower down

ADVERTISEMENT

the scale is the replacement for EOS 30D, the company's 'advanced amateur' SLR offering. As predicted in internet rumours circulating for several months, the EOS 40D doesn't bring any great increase in pixel resolution, but packs a hefty new body whose design borrows heavily from the professional 1D and 1Ds series.

It also sports a new live preview mode, where the camera's mirror locks up and gives a digital compact-style scene preview on the impressively large 3in LCD monitor.

Conspicuous by its absence was any hint of a refresh of the consumer-level EOS 400D. Also unaffected by today's launch - and getting old by Canon standards, having been around for two years - is the semi-pro EOS 5D.

But amazingly, these gaps may possibly still be filled before Christmas; Alessandro Stanzani, the company's head of consumer imaging said, "We still have four months to go until the end of the year, so who knows what's coming next?"