Topics

16

Pricewatch Deals / Australia: coming lower prices for Canon equipment?

« on: November 13, 2012, 06:55:21 AM »

I don't know what Canon equipment David Jones sells but from this story:

http://www.brw.com.au/p/sections/fyi/david_jones_plays_global_game_f7qnrKLFlwBwILSqlCeXeL

In its “Lower Everyday Prices” program, David Jones has cut prices up to 50 per cent for hundreds of products from brands such as Estee Lauder, Clinique, 7 for all Mankind, marc by marc jacobs, Guess, Scanpan, Canon and Bose.

The price reductions are the result of months of negotiations with international suppliers to bring local prices into line with the global market since the company announced a cost price harmonisation program in March.

... I wonder if those negotiations and price reductions will be seen at other retailers?

17

Canon General / Does Minimum Advertised Price apply to auctions?

« on: October 19, 2012, 07:20:01 PM »

I can't help but feel Canon's move here is in response to both Beach and Adorama selling a lot of 5D Mark III's for a substantially less price than they normally do. This would quite likely led to lots of calls from Canadian (r)etailers bitching about how they are being undersold and can't do a thing about it.

It could also be that Canon (USA) is planning to reduce the cost of certain items to further selling more of them but this seems unlikely.

Be that as it may, I can't help but wonder if "MAP" applies to auction websites such as eBay and if it doesn't then there's a backdoor here that is still wide open.

18

Canon General / How to work around Canon shipping restrictions at B&H

« on: October 19, 2012, 05:39:31 PM »

There are already workarounds in place for other countries that companies in America won't ship to and they're called forwarding addresses..

19

Site Information / "Awaiting approval"???

« on: October 19, 2012, 03:55:37 PM »

I don't think I've seen that on new threads before, is this something new? How/why?

20

Canon General / DxO: Current phone-cameras beat 5 yr old digital still cameras

« on: October 11, 2012, 07:48:54 AM »

http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/News/DxOMark-news/Smartphones-beat-5-year-old-DSCs

Be aware that the DxO Mark Mobile score is not the same as the DxO Mark Sensor score for digital stills cameras. For example, They normally rate the Nikon D7000 as "80" but for comparing with mobiles, they rate it at 95.

21

Canon General / DxO: 650D sensor not as good as 600D...

« on: October 11, 2012, 07:42:44 AM »

http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/Publications/DxOMark-Reviews/CANON-EOS-650D-Strictly-Status-Quo/Comparisons

Enjoy!

22

HDR - High Dynamic Range / HDR with LR 4...

« on: September 22, 2012, 11:51:22 AM »

Highlights that you thought were unusable are easily rescued with Lightroom 4.

These three images are all from the same base image that I was going to use as part of a set of 5 for HDR because of problems with highlights.

The three images are - "from_camera.jpg" (this is the image imported into Lightroom, without any adjustments being applied). "lightroom_process_2010.jpg" is the best I could get with Lightroom v3.6. Maybe I could make it a bit better but going further requires messing around with tone curves and is quite tricky. Lastly, "lightroom_process_2012.jpg" is what I get with Lightroom 4.2

Of the three, it is the one from Lightroom 4.2 that looks the most natural and as can easily be seen, a lot of detail is recovered from the clouds whilst a little bit of saturation fills out the colours with some body.

23

Software & Accessories / Does LR4 do away with HDR for you?

« on: September 21, 2012, 09:34:39 AM »

I've been working with a bunch of images that I previously took for HDR purposes and I'm finding that with LR4 and "process 2012", I can normally work with one of the more over exposed images and achieve the look I want a lot easier. it's like earlier versions of Lightroom (and DPP too!) are hiding a lot of highlight detail.

What about others?

24

Canon General / Is it time for the "CEO" of Canon's DSLR division to resign?

« on: September 18, 2012, 08:06:32 AM »

The revealing of the 6D has got to be one of the biggest anticlimaxes in Canon's recent DSLR history. Never has a camera wasted so much potential to score well. If Canon were alone and the only manufacturer producing a cheaper DSLR then it would probably be doing better amongst the Internet forums but unfortunately for Canon, there is the Nikon D600, alongside which the 6D appears as a "huh?"

The 5D Mark III also suffered a lot, primarily because of the rise in price without a commensurate rise in IQ. Again, if you took away the Nikon D800, it doesn't appear too bad but again, there is nothing exciting about it.

Now that all of Canon's cards are on the table for this year, you're left wondering what were they thinking? That Nikon and Sony would just stand by and not enter the market? Or did Canon simply underestimate what they've been able to do in CMOS sensor development?

The 1DX is out there by itself. It is a remarkable piece of equipment, tailor made for its target audience. And perhaps that's where Canon's problem is: it doesn't really know who the audience is for the 5D3 and 6D. Why wouldn't it know that? Because so many people bought the 5D Mark II, it became impossible for Canon to understand all the details of who was using it, how and why.

Thus the success of the 5D Mark II may have actually killed Canon in multiple ways. First they've become complacent because they've thought they could just tweak it a little here and a little there, increase the price and everyone would fall over themselves in love. That hasn't happened, in part because of the price and in part because it was just tweaking. In the second, as above, the camera has had such wide appeal that it became impossible for them to fully grasp why it succeeded and thus they didn't know how to repeat that success. This is likely just an accident of history as much as anything else. Thirdly, in not knowing who to listen to or why the 5D Mark II was such a success, they've ended up listening to the wrong folks about what camera Canon would need to succeed.

Thus given what the 5D3 and 6D have revealed to be, I think that the only option for Canon is remove the people who made the final decisions about which features should be in/out and the price for the camera. I think it is more than evident that they targets for both cameras simply wasn't high enough and thus Canon has underperformed.

25

Canon General / Memo from Canon HQ to Canon DSLR

« on: September 13, 2012, 06:36:50 PM »

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/full_frame_war.shtml

26

Third Party Manufacturers / New Pentax K-5 IIs - no AA filter!

« on: September 11, 2012, 07:48:35 AM »

Another manufacturer is now offering a DSLR without the low-pass AA filter - Pentax.

Nikon was first with the D800e and now Pentax with the K-5 IIs.

Will Canon offer us the option?

27

Lenses / New: Canon CN-E15.5-37mm T2.8 L S/SP

« on: August 29, 2012, 08:29:09 AM »

Along with the C100, Canon has announced a new wide angle lens that comes in at 15.5-47mm.

Now that's a lens I could really do with on a DSLR!

Except that at $24,500, it's a bit out of my reach.

Canon, why can't you give us a photography version of this lens?
With autofocus and no (or very little) field curvature?

28

EOS Bodies - For Stills / 5D3 - AFMA similar to 5D2 or 1DX?

« on: August 17, 2012, 08:51:11 AM »

Does the AFMA in the 5D3 work in a similar fashion to that of the 5D2 (one setting per lens) or does it work like that of the 1DX where it is possible to have two settings for zoom lenses?

29

EOS Bodies - For Stills / 5D3 review: If you don't own Canon, buy the Nikon D800

« on: August 09, 2012, 08:11:47 AM »

From a local newspaper:

Verdict: This is a wonderful camera. If you hvae Canon lenses and want to move into the blissful realm of full-frame capture, then the 5D Mk III is for you. But the MkII is just as good for stills and costs $1600 less. If you already have a 5D Mk II (as we do), there is no pressing reason to upgrade. If you are starting from scratch with nothing invested in lenses and accessories, then look at the Nikon D800. It has superior ergonomics, a more luxurious feel and higher resolution sensor, and produces uncompressed video. And it is several hundred dollars cheaper.[/u]

30

EOS Bodies - For Stills / DxO Sensor data: 5D Mark III sensor is better than 5D Mark II

« on: August 05, 2012, 12:54:58 PM »

This guy uses the raw sensor data from DxO (remember, they're worthless!) to create some different measurements:

http://www.sensorgen.info/

Model	QE	Min Read Noise (e-)	Max Saturation capacity (e-)
5D2	33	3.2	64600
5D3	49	2.4	67531
D800	56	2.6	44972

This table also makes the 60D better than the 50D and 7D.