In my opinion!
These are some of the highs and lows for Canon in 2008. Agree or disagree, it was a year that sparked a lot of conversation.
*Note: Some things may have been announced in late 2007, but didn't reach mass market until 2008.
Best New DSLR Camera 2008
1. 5D Mark II (* The firmware will fix the issues.)
2. Rebel XSi/450D
3. Rebel XS/1000D
The 5D Mark II is producing fantastic images (black dots aside) and the movie mode is quite spectacular. A worthy upgrade from the 5D.
Worst New DSLR Camera 2008
1. 50D
I don't think it was much (if any) of an upgrade over the 40D. Canon needs to seriously rethink the xxD line.
Best Point & Shoot Camera of 2008
1. G10
2. SX110 IS
3. SD790 IS / SD990 IS
I'm not all that excited about Canon's P&S offerings in 2008. The G10 is a very solid camera, but isn't a great camera. It's coming to the time where Canon needs to step up in this market as well. My favourite P&S on 2008 was infact the Panasonic LX3, I only wish it was larger in size.
Worst Point & Shoot of 2008
1. E1
What the heck were they thinking? Grossly overpriced, no special feature set and frankly one of the ugliest cameras ever created. It will sit nicely next to your TX1.
Best New Lens of 2008
1. EF 200 f/2 IS
2. EF 800 f/5.6 IS
3. EF-S 55-250 IS
The first 2 are probably tied for first. Everything I've seen from the 2 lenses is remarkable. The 55-250 shocked me with its image quality, it's a great budget telephoto zoom.
Worst New Lens of 2008
1. EF-S 18-200 IS
It costs a lot and has below average build quality, no USM and mediocre image quality (A trait of most superzooms). It has a list price of $699 and is being dumped by retailers at $499 now. That tells us it isn't selling.
Best Third Party Lens of 2008
1. Sigma 50 f/1.4
2. Carl Zeiss ZE 85 f/1.4
3. Sigma 200-500 f/2.8
I love the first 2 lenses (if you get a good copy of the Sigma), both produce some great images. I only put SigZilla on because it's just cool. I've never used one!
Worst Third Party Lens of 2008
1. Tamron 18-270
Maybe I just hate superzooms. =D
Best New Feature of 2008
1. 1080p Movie Mode in the 5D Mark II
Worst New Feature of 2008
1. Continuing the more megapixel nonsense in DSLR's and more annoyingly in compacts.
cr
43 Comments
I agree with most of the original article’s best and worsts EXCEPT for the 5D MkII. Best camera? Definitely not!
A flawed product that should have been much better given the amount of time since the launch of the amazing-at-the-time 5D. I wasted money on getting the 5D MkII and am still waiting on ‘firmware’ to fix image banding and black spot problems. Like most, I never use the video feature (I’d use a real video camera set up if I needed video). As for the increase in resolution, there are 12MP camera pros I work with printing excellent large format work – so the extra MPs amount to less disk space, with little in return for me.
Come on Canon, less of the marketing nonsense, and more of the innovation in 2009 please!
Why is there any discussion between 50D and 40D. Canon is producing MTF-Diagrams witch 30 lines per mm. So lets have fun with a 5D or 350D. Why do anyone expect better pictures if Canon says 30 lines per mm is all Canon is interested in? Zeiss is showing MTF with 10, 20 and 40 lines per mm, what is even not fitting the 450D.
If you want to have a lens with less distortion (for art by example), there is no hint by canon what lens to buy. The support also don’t know anything about that. They can tell you all about the weight an the color of the surface of the lens instead (mostly black).
If canon is coming up with a new 50mm F/1.4, they should really come up with detailed MTF (10,20,40 and 80 lines per mm) and diagrams of distortion and vignetting like zeiss do.
Running after high pixel count thus creating marketing gimmick is Canon’s chronic disease that they are unlikely to recover from despite clear evidences of its uselessness and demerits.