Messages

31

Third Party Manufacturers / Re: D800 not so great afterall...it has its shortcomings too

« on: June 08, 2012, 12:15:05 PM »

Heh, that was a pretty good review.

Though it makes me wonder what the UV and IR performance of the two bodies are now.  If I recall correctly the 5D2 is considered the king of IR right now, while the NEX-5 has the best UV performance... but so few people shoot with the later getting comparative reviews is difficult (they rarely test Canon at all).

32

Third Party Manufacturers / Re: some may say its because of the D800.... MF gets cheaper

« on: June 08, 2012, 12:03:03 PM »

Actually, thinking about it... the real thing that could be a threat to them wouldn't be the high MF bodies, but instead of lower size manufactures start producing sensor packages with the same colour depth.  The bigger the sensor the longer the product lifecycle, the older the generation of technology going into it.  I could easily see Sony or Canon deciding to focus on how many bits per pixel they are getting out of the sensor and leapfrog over the 14 or 16 bit of MF.

For that matter if they get their MP up a bit more and have more bits, they could do some serious tricks with the CFA like baking ND into the array and getting some really impressive DR, which would take the MF sensor makers a while to catch up to.

33

Third Party Manufacturers / Re: D800 not so great afterall...it has its shortcomings too

« on: June 08, 2012, 09:43:38 AM »

You're right, these camera are in completely differnet markets just like sports cars and SUVs.  Canon evidently decided that they didn't want the business of the landscape/studio photographers that bought the 5D MkII, so they sat down and designed a camera to deliberately exclude them.  Nikon though, "screw all the chumps that bought the D700, what we need to do is to design a camera that they'll hate and try to pursue a completely different segment of the market". 

Why must you take such an extreme, black and white view of it?

Design is a process of compromise.  You don't go in saying 'let us screw these people, they do not matter', but you do prioritize based off which groups your marketing department feels are the best ones to target.  And yes, that means if you are building an upgrade you look at the current user base of the existing model which, if it is popular among certain groups you put more weight on the needs of those groups, even if there are other groups that also buy cameras in the same price range.

Either that, or they sat down and thought "what would sell an upgraded camera to current owners best?".  I wonder...

*headdesk* it is the same expletive thing.  See, there you go.... there are current users, they make up certain subgroups of the entire market segment.  There are other users that are interested in cameras in the same price range but do not use the current version.  It is your assertion about all users in the same price bracket being the same group that I have been arguing.

Which is why I originally was pointing out that comparing them is not productive because they were designed for different users, and the main reason people have been comparing them is that they came out about the same time at about the same price point.... and you came in saying that because they were around the same price they were for the same market segment.

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Third Party Manufacturers / Re: some may say its because of the D800.... MF gets cheaper

« on: June 08, 2012, 09:33:21 AM »

Same applies to DSLR and P&S, 4/3 etc - the bottom end ie 600D is so much better than the 400D for example. And so the MF will have to continue with improving their bottom end. The Pentax 645 must be due for a major revision soon - perhaps 60mps and 2fps?

*nods* that is where I was going with the idea of more choices causing issues for some companies.  When there are a few choices, most fit poorly, and many people go with something that is less then ideal but is as close as they can get.  MF manufacturers currently use this to get customers who are not really impacted by the best features of MF but need something that DSLRs do not have.

The same thing is eating into DSLRs from the other end.  Mirrorless cameras are not 'better', but as they start to overlap DSLR capabilities, people who were only using DSLRs because they lacked a better suited option will migrate to them.

Now, the real risk to some MF manufactures is their lack of diversity.   If you look at Canon/Nikon/Sigma/etc, they produce a range of cameras so if markets shift they can shuffle production... in other words they can cannibalize their own sales rather then have others eat into them.

Some MF manufactures can do this.. Sigma has a nice broad range of photographic cameras, Megavision has its scientific imaging and other specialty offerings.. but PhaseOne or Hasselblad? If the MF market shrinks then they shrink (though I could be wrong there in that I do not know if either of those two examples actually do have other markets)

35

Third Party Manufacturers / Re: some may say its because of the D800.... MF gets cheaper

« on: June 08, 2012, 09:27:02 AM »

I DID get a kick out of them saying they like the snob factor (my words) of them showing up with the Hassie cuz it makes them LOOK more professional. 

That is less 'snob factor' and more 'business factor'.  It is like showing up to an interview in a nice suit, if it is more likely to get you the job then you better well do it.

Now, going with a solution that is less likely to get you the job because you want to avoid the 'snob factor', that is what I would call pretty elitist.  'I am so twue that I am going to use equipment which is against my business interest and potentially loose (or fail to acquire) clients because being true to the hardware is more important to myself image then ability to get work'

36

Third Party Manufacturers / Re: some may say its because of the D800.... MF gets cheaper

« on: June 08, 2012, 12:15:10 AM »

While it is nice to see MF manufacturer trying to drop prices, they are going to have to reduce them a LOT more if they want to compete with the D800 and things likely to come after it.

Nomination for the joke of the evening:

D800 owners always put over the mps of the D800 as to why its IQ is so much better than the 5DIII

When a 80mb MF comes along they say the MF will struggle to compete.

Foot the boot other hurts when is on

Well, for starters, I am a 300D owner, not a D800 one.

Second the D800 is not going to take much of a chunk out of the high MP MF cameras, but the gap is getting smaller between the capabilities of the high end DSLRs and low end MF cameras.   MF cameras already operate on the law of diminishing returns, they cost a lot more for a marginal improvement.   As they get closer this ratio is going to get worse and worse.  As market shrinks they can only raise prices so much before it hurts their business.  It will not wipe them out, but will shrink them.

37

Third Party Manufacturers / Re: D800 not so great afterall...it has its shortcomings too

« on: June 07, 2012, 11:43:32 AM »

In the absence of any insider knowledge, I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this. 

Their meetings, no.. but I have been in many design meetings (and full cycle) for embedded systems for product lines that have multiple price points and use cases.  I am skeptical that Canon and Nikon somehow skip such a common and vital process or are somehow exempt from the pressures that lead to it.

You think that Canon and Nikon have tailored their products to different markets, I believe that differences in specification are more an outcome of decisions that they made to sell more units to the type of people that buy cameras at this price point.  Unless Canon and Nikon actually release the minutes of their design team meetings, I don't think we'll ever know what the exact decision making process was.

The thing is, there is no universal market of 'people who buy cameras at a particular price point' since people use cameras for different things.  Otherwise they would have produced cameras that were much closer in specification since neither team are dummies and they are not going to go 'well, people with X amount of money want Y, so we will make Z instead!'.

That is like saying 'there are people who buy cars at a specific price point' and then comparing a SUV to a sports car simply because they cost about the same amount.

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Third Party Manufacturers / Re: D800 not so great afterall...it has its shortcomings too

« on: June 07, 2012, 11:13:18 AM »

I doubt that the design teams deliberately sat down and said to themselves "let's make a camera especially for xxxxx photographers";

While probably not worded that way, yes, they likely did.  Design, while not quite a zero sum process, does involve deciding which groups you are going to focus on appealing to and which are not a priority.  There was already some split between the D700 users and 5D2 users and in looking at what the users of those bodies wanted out of a new one they implicitly focused on specific segments. 

You can not design a product that will have universal appeal in a domain like this, not at any sane price point (and not even then since allocation of design resources would still be asymmetric).... so yes you do sit down and decide which ones you are going to focus on and design a body prioritized to their use cases.

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Third Party Manufacturers / Re: D800 not so great afterall...it has its shortcomings too

« on: June 07, 2012, 10:33:03 AM »

Sorry, but I thing that people are comparing the two because they fill the same segment of the market in their manufacturers' respective product lines. 

Not.. really.  Similar price points but not the same market segments.   The 5D3 is geared for video, wedding, and sports.  The D800 is geared towards studio and landscape.  Like any high end DSLR they can be cross purposed and fill each other's roles pretty well, but they are really not optimized for the same segments, which is why the comparisons keep getting so flamey.

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EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Exposure consistancy across multiple bodies.

« on: June 07, 2012, 10:29:46 AM »

You will see some difference, but it should be less than 1/3 stop.  Canon can adjust and match your bodies if its critical.

Excellent, that is a range that should be fine.
Interesting that Canon can adjust to match them, though for this case I doubt it would be worth it.. esp since, as I said, they are modified bodies, so I suspect Canon would not touch them anyway ^_^

41

EOS Bodies / Re: New Full Frame Camera in Testing [CR1]

« on: June 07, 2012, 09:58:49 AM »

"Our Flagship model 1DX".

If its Canons "Flagship", then why is Canon adding more megapixels?

Shouldn't a "Flagship" cover all aspects if possible??

I thought the 1 series covered all aspects of photography as much as possible with the technology at hand?

They havent even delivered on their 1DX promise and already, there seems to be something better for landscape photographers? 

Generally no, 'flagship' shouldn't cover all aspects.  If you are only going to have one flagship product you make it excel at what your company is known for, even if other features suffer since their marquee value is lower.

If your company is more general purpose then you do what Canon does, have multiple 'flagship' offerings, each optimized for one feature set.  Thus both the 1Ds and 1D lines are considered 'flagship' since each is designed to be the best Canon can produce at the specific role it preforms.   Trying to make a single offering that is 'best' across the spectrum generally results in a device that doesn't do nearly as well in any specific domain. Design, while not strictly zero-sum, is always involves compromises.

Also, if you think back to the historical usage of 'flagship'.. flagships were rarely jack of all trade vessels (technically the designation went to whichever ship had a particular person on it, but commanders tended to use specific types of ships if they had the option).. usually they were the biggest baddest ships out in the field, but navel warfare has always had a bit of a rock-paper-scissors element to it.  If you went out in nothing but ships of the line, chances are you were going to be coming back with far fewer ships (if any).  This is esp true in modern fleets.  An aircraft carrier (a common flagship type today) is a sitting duck if not protected by multiple tiers of screen.

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Third Party Manufacturers / Re: some may say its because of the D800.... MF gets cheaper

« on: June 07, 2012, 09:44:44 AM »

I don't think there is a huge difference between the Nikon and the Hasselblad.

That was a really interesting comparison.
What I take away from this is that the D800 eats into some of the use cases that MF would normally be used for, but does not do well across the board.. so for situations where MF was not that great of a fit in the first place might find the D800 to be better.

So as is often the case, as you get more options, each option covers a smaller and smaller domain, but they rarely completely replace each other.

43

Third Party Manufacturers / Re: some may say its because of the D800.... MF gets cheaper

« on: June 07, 2012, 09:25:27 AM »

While it is nice to see MF manufacturer trying to drop prices, they are going to have to reduce them a LOT more if they want to compete with the D800 and things likely to come after it.

There are mechanical advantages to having that physically larger sensor, but they are becoming less and less important relative to the additional cost.  Sure there will always be people willing to pay a premium for small incremental gains (or for that matter, the additional cred you can convey to customers if they see one), but the number of people willing to do that will likely be slowly decreasing.

I know MF sensors, being larger, are more expensive to produce.. but they really need to find a way to bring that price down if they want to survive in any significant way.  Maybe they need to start looking at tiled sensors again?

44

Third Party Manufacturers / Re: D800 not so great afterall...it has its shortcomings too

« on: June 07, 2012, 09:16:55 AM »

That's one way of rationalizing it - doesn't explain why Canon made the 5d3 significantly more expensive than the d800 though, which seems to be the main grief about the "5d2 update that users wanted". Of course, $500 is little difference to people paying this amount of money for their gear, but it's a marketing statement anyhow.

If they are not even designed to handle the same use cases, comparing the price points is meaningless and people are only doing it because they just happened to be released in about the same timeframe.

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EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Exposure consistancy across multiple bodies.

« on: June 07, 2012, 09:13:31 AM »

Good question and I doubt I have an answer I just took some photos outside with 7d and 40d with same lens on the same tripod with same settings and the 7ds came out a tad brighter. Hard to say if it was slight difference in ambient light from the sun or the camera but I cant imagine it would be too different but  Id say try it and see.

That is a good sign.  I expect some small differences, but if it isn't on the order of 1 stop or greater (which is what I am expecting to see) then it shouldn't effect the comparison much.