Skiltron, the point is the average rebel user isn't an above average photographer... it's a person who goes to costco and see's a rebel as splurging... It's the realtor that would rather do their own photos rather than pay for a pro to do them for them and wonder why the photos dont look right... It's that soccer mom who wants to take the photos of little jimmy and dont give a rats butt about the horrid noise... Then they read in the manual that oh yeah, it has afma, and has NO clue how to do it, or dont even read the manual in the first place and dont even know it's there... then canon has to deal with the morons who buy the camera, reads about afma, and then calls them asking how to do it, and have their employees on the phone with the people for 10-15 minutes at a time trying to talk them through it, wasting their time and money... It's stupid... it's advanced... It's like getting a hyundai accent and complaining it has a stick shift saying it should have pedal shifters instead. It's more than enough camera for what that target market is aimed for.
awinphoto i tell you a secret!
MONEY has nothing to do with intelligence, artistic vision or knowledge about a certain topic.
but MONEY does have much to do with what people can AFFORD!
what i want to say, there are A LOT of people who could make very good use of AFMA but can not afford a body with that feature.
or they wisely chose to invest the limited budget they have in lenses not bodys.
as mentioned before by someone, AFMA is a feature to fix canons own shortcomings in the manufacturing process. it should be a standard feature!
Dude, what dont you get, AFMA is a pull through to get you to buy a better camera... done, simple, it is what it is... On my photography pricing, i have certain pull throughs to get people to pay a few more hundred dollars with me... IF canon wanted people to settle for a T5i rather than get a 70D or 7D or 5d3, canon would be broke. I hate to break it to you, but canon isn't going to offer professional features in a consumer product. It probably doesn't cost car manufactures anything more to install pedal shifters, but they still dont offer it on their ENTRY LINE CARS. Didn't know this was a big secret that i'm revealing...
Also, if there are pro's making a living with a rebel, wonderful... kudo's, they are in the vast minority. Heck, my 80 year old grandpa was a pro back in his day, he owns a rebel. It does everything he needs, granted he came back from the film and darkroom days and had to do everything manually as there was no AF then.
F1, yes, I have seen realtors do their own photos, i've known many real estate photographers go out of business because they are pinching pennies and doing it themselves... Quality has plumetted, but it is what it is. And yes, if you look objectively at the markets, 5d (wedding and general portrait semi pro-pro), 7d (sports semi pro-pro), XXD advanced amateur to semi pro, xxxd, amateur... xxxxd (paperweight)... okay the last one i'm joking, but really... it's not a secret... I've been a working pro long enough to know what certain gear is designed for.
In the end, Jeff Gordon could probably race the hell out of a dodge neon, but the dodge neon was not designed for his demographic in mind. end of story.