Canon Surveys for 5D Mark III

[Z]

So I got my feedback request e-mail for the 5D Mk. III from Canon today. Thought a couple of questions were interesting. Firstly:

How desirable would it be for you to have the following features in your future digital SLR? Please rank your first, second and third most important features:

1. Higher resolution (more megapixels)
2. Higher dynamic range (shadow/highlight detail)
3. Faster shooting speed
4. Bigger buffer memory
5. Wider ISO speeds
6. Larger/brighter/more shooting information in viewfinder
7. Faster Auto Focus (when shooting by viewfinder)
8. More accurate Auto Focus (when shooting by viewfinder)
9. AF performance (when shooting by liveview)
10. More Auto Focus points

Second interesting question:

How desirable would it be for you to have the following features in your future digital SLR? Please rank your first, second and third most important feature.

1. More compact & lightweight
2. Built-in Flash (with wireless flash control)
3. Vari-angle LCD screen
4. GPS
5. Touchscreen LCD
6. Wireless communication function
7. Better weather resistance
8. Performance of LCD (size/resolution)

I guess it's Canon sussing out the perception of the competition, but it might give some idea as to the future of the 5D. Make of it what you will.

 

[RLPhoto]

All I'd want is alittle more DR and the blink AF point fix soon.

Everything else is perfect on the MK.3. Can't complain. Its almost the perfect camera.

 

[ablearcher]

How about "A reasonable price"? :

 

[Ricku]

I want all of it, of course.

But if I can pick only 1 thing from the list, it is more DR! (and not just a little).

 

[Zlatko]

I guess it's Canon sussing out the perception of the competition, but it might give some idea as to the future of the 5D. Make of it what you will.

My sense is that people always want more of everything. More features, better quality, greater durability, better sealing, faster speeds, etc. Improving anything requires greater investment by a manufacturer — in employees, research, development, materials, testing, manufacturing, quality controls, etc. — and of course charging accordingly. But when a manufacturer introduces the improvements that people said they wanted, there is inevitably much complaining — even outrage — about the price. "How dare they raise the price!?" It's as if we forget that all of the extra things we ask for actually cost money.

The 5DIII is the perfect example of this. Canon improved and upgraded just about every detail of the 5DII, as per many photographers' requests. Then there was no end to complaints about the price.

 

[Axilrod]

How about "A reasonable price"? :

Plenty of people have picked them up brand new for under $3k and as low as $2700-$2800, I think that's incredibly reasonable, about the same as the 5D2 was. I paid almost $3800 for mine after tax and I still think it's a great camera, although I wish it hadn't dropped in price that quickly.

 

[sheedoe]

I guess it's Canon sussing out the perception of the competition, but it might give some idea as to the future of the 5D. Make of it what you will.

My sense is that people always want more of everything. More features, better quality, greater durability, better sealing, faster speeds, etc. Improving anything requires greater investment by a manufacturer — in employees, research, development, materials, testing, manufacturing, quality controls, etc. — and of course charging accordingly. But when a manufacturer introduces the improvements that people said they wanted, there is inevitably much complaining — even outrage — about the price. "How dare they raise the price!?" It's as if we forget that all of the extra things we ask for actually cost money.

The 5DIII is the perfect example of this. Canon improved and upgraded just about every detail of the 5DII, as per many photographers' requests. Then there was no end to complaints about the price.

Don't completely agree with this. Technology improvements are expected from one revision of a product to another, but it doesn't mean it should increase the price everytime an improvement is made. Look at other manufacturers, like Apple that introduces an ipad almost every year with improvements while keeping the price the same. A more relative example would be the Nikon D700, which had an introduction price of $2999 which is the same as the D800, while Canon increased their price of the 5D3 from the 5D2 about $700!

 

[Chuck Alaimo]

How about "A reasonable price"? :

Define reasonable price? I guess it needs to match d800 prices? I guess canon has to think they are nikon, or, maybe with that line of logic canon should cut costs by firing a ton of people in accounting because canon's price/margin expectation should be set by nikon?

Canon is much larger than nikon, nikon is doing all it can to catch up. The way I see it, the price of the d800 should actually match the price of the mk3. Why doesn't it? I can only see 2 reasons - either nikon is saving enough $$$ on the sensor because they are outsourcing sensor's, or, they are selling at a lower margin in order to make a big splash in the market. If it's the latter, then everyone who buys into the nikon system now will be vconfronted with higher costs down the road (like a freaking crack dealer would do...here a little bit for cheap, you'll be back for more). And if its the former, then nikon is dependent on sony which is great as long as sony keeps caring about the DSLR war (and sony has their hands in so many cookie jars with what they do that they don't need to keep a commitment to sensor R&D).

So is the price reasonable? Well, the answer to that is really very subjective. It all depends on what you do with your photography. If you do this as a business, then its really a matter of will the new item enable you to grow your business and keep more clients happy. If its a hobby though, there is no way to quantify a reasonable price for you hobby. how many smiles is product X worth? When it comes down to it, most working photographers have no issues with the price of most things ----even here on this forum, its the features that are under debate. If there was a 5ds with 30 MP, 7d AF, 4 fps,13 stops of DR, and much improved IQ at ISO 100-800 then that would take care of the worries from working pro's who NEED that kind of camera. But, back to the hobbyist? When there is only a non tangible feel good factor ... the I want, well that never ends will it? If canon put out a 75 MP monster that had a max ISO range of 100-400, I am betting that even that would not fill the wants from the want crowd ....the want crowd will want 75 mp, 15 fps, a giant buffer, ISO range of 25-2,000,000 and better than MF image quality for $2000.

Hasn't that topic been beaten to death??????

 

[Zlatko]

I guess it's Canon sussing out the perception of the competition, but it might give some idea as to the future of the 5D. Make of it what you will.

My sense is that people always want more of everything. More features, better quality, greater durability, better sealing, faster speeds, etc. Improving anything requires greater investment by a manufacturer — in employees, research, development, materials, testing, manufacturing, quality controls, etc. — and of course charging accordingly. But when a manufacturer introduces the improvements that people said they wanted, there is inevitably much complaining — even outrage — about the price. "How dare they raise the price!?" It's as if we forget that all of the extra things we ask for actually cost money.

The 5DIII is the perfect example of this. Canon improved and upgraded just about every detail of the 5DII, as per many photographers' requests. Then there was no end to complaints about the price.

Don't completely agree with this. Technology improvements are expected from one revision of a product to another, but it doesn't mean it should increase the price everytime an improvement is made. Look at other manufacturers, like Apple that introduces an ipad almost every year with improvements while keeping the price the same. A more relative example would be the Nikon D700, which had an introduction price of $2999 which is the same as the D800, while Canon increased their price of the 5D3 from the 5D2 about $700!

You're right, not every improvement needs to increase the price. But many do. It just depends on the improvement and how much it adds to production costs. Apple products have much greater sales volume than cameras like the 5D3, so they can take advantage of greater economies of scale. And I'm guessing production is very different and labor costs are lower than for high end cameras.

I'm not sure that the D800 is as radical an improvement on the D700 as the 5D3 is on the 5D2. I'm honestly not familiar with the differences between those Nikons, other than that the D800 has a much higher res sensor. But I do know that the 5D3 is an upgrade on the 5D2 in just about every detail. The 5D3 is closer to the 1D series in quality, speed and features — and likely costs significantly more to build.

 

[Chuck Alaimo]

I guess it's Canon sussing out the perception of the competition, but it might give some idea as to the future of the 5D. Make of it what you will.

My sense is that people always want more of everything. More features, better quality, greater durability, better sealing, faster speeds, etc. Improving anything requires greater investment by a manufacturer — in employees, research, development, materials, testing, manufacturing, quality controls, etc. — and of course charging accordingly. But when a manufacturer introduces the improvements that people said they wanted, there is inevitably much complaining — even outrage — about the price. "How dare they raise the price!?" It's as if we forget that all of the extra things we ask for actually cost money.

The 5DIII is the perfect example of this. Canon improved and upgraded just about every detail of the 5DII, as per many photographers' requests. Then there was no end to complaints about the price.

Don't completely agree with this. Technology improvements are expected from one revision of a product to another, but it doesn't mean it should increase the price everytime an improvement is made. Look at other manufacturers, like Apple that introduces an ipad almost every year with improvements while keeping the price the same. A more relative example would be the Nikon D700, which had an introduction price of $2999 which is the same as the D800, while Canon increased their price of the 5D3 from the 5D2 about $700!

You're right, not every improvement needs to increase the price. But many do. It just depends on the improvement and how much it adds to production costs. Apple products have much greater sales volume than cameras like the 5D3, so they can take advantage of greater economies of scale. And I'm guessing production is very different and labor costs are lower than for high end cameras.

I'm not sure that the D800 is as radical an improvement on the D700 as the 5D3 is on the 5D2. I'm honestly not familiar with the differences between those Nikons, other than that the D800 has a much higher res sensor. But I do know that the 5D3 is an upgrade on the 5D2 in just about every detail. The 5D3 is closer to the 1D series in quality, speed and features — and likely costs significantly more to build.

Thank you.... Cell phone market is much much different from DSLR market. Apple is a great example --- the 'thinkinkers' are the bulk of the US employees. But, how do these phones get assembled - low wage chinese workers. http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/06/world/asia/china-apple-foxconn-worker/index.html They had to install nets to keep the employees from jumping!@!!!! Canon employs similar strategies for their lower end products, but SLR's are assembled in Japan by skilled workers --- As i think we'd all rather have on a pro grade piece of equipment!

 

[etg9]

I got the same survey and had to put a bunch of notes in mine because I just don't like where they are going. It feels very consumer-y. They seem to be looking at features that look cool. on a little symbol on the outside of the box at Best Buy.

My Answers were:

2,8,10 with a note that I would like better auto focus and metering.
7,2 with a note that I don't want an included flash just an included flash controller. GPS, WiFi and all those other functions waste battery and raise the price.

Next all the talk about pricing in here shows that people don't really understand how pricing works. especially on computers. DSLRs are not computers and cannot be priced as such. Computers (iPads, phones, etc.) are made out of silicon parts. As processes get smaller they can extract more parts from the same amount of material. As the process matures they can more efficiently manufacture these parts.

The new iPad has many more transistors than the 1st gen iPad but uses less silicon to do so. 35mm sensors don't change sizes, cost the same (silicon is actually up a little over inflation) so the cost of those is only going up. The Digic chips may be about the same however. Magnesium Alloy, Weather Sealing, Mirror, Motor, Shutter, Prisim, ect. should all be going up in price too especially if quality of such things rises too. Generally in parts costs for performance increase are not linear with the performance increase itself. a shutter that lasts 50% longer will cost more than 50% more to make as quality has to rise significantly. Lastly, as others have mentioned scale. iPads are sold by the millions and DSLRs are not pricing comes down with volume and usually efficiency can improve in manufacturing.

 

[sheedoe]

I guess it's Canon sussing out the perception of the competition, but it might give some idea as to the future of the 5D. Make of it what you will.

My sense is that people always want more of everything. More features, better quality, greater durability, better sealing, faster speeds, etc. Improving anything requires greater investment by a manufacturer — in employees, research, development, materials, testing, manufacturing, quality controls, etc. — and of course charging accordingly. But when a manufacturer introduces the improvements that people said they wanted, there is inevitably much complaining — even outrage — about the price. "How dare they raise the price!?" It's as if we forget that all of the extra things we ask for actually cost money.

The 5DIII is the perfect example of this. Canon improved and upgraded just about every detail of the 5DII, as per many photographers' requests. Then there was no end to complaints about the price.

Don't completely agree with this. Technology improvements are expected from one revision of a product to another, but it doesn't mean it should increase the price everytime an improvement is made. Look at other manufacturers, like Apple that introduces an ipad almost every year with improvements while keeping the price the same. A more relative example would be the Nikon D700, which had an introduction price of $2999 which is the same as the D800, while Canon increased their price of the 5D3 from the 5D2 about $700!

You're right, not every improvement needs to increase the price. But many do. It just depends on the improvement and how much it adds to production costs. Apple products have much greater sales volume than cameras like the 5D3, so they can take advantage of greater economies of scale. And I'm guessing production is very different and labor costs are lower than for high end cameras.

Well apple is just an example. What I mean is Electronics in general will have improvements while keeping the price relatively steady or even declining. I'm talking about time in relation to technology. If the 5D2 and 5D3 were released in the same time periord, I would totally understand the price difference. But we're talking about 4 years of techology advancements! If this trend continues, we are looking at the 5D4 for over $4k and the 5D5 for about $5K!

 

[ishdakuteb]

How desirable would it be for you to have the following features in your future digital SLR? Please rank your first, second and third most important features:

1. Wider ISO speeds (Note: If it is capable to produce clean noise, otherwise what is the point to increase it.)
2. These following should false into same category (Find the way so that we do not have to use AFMA and kinda fast focus in low light situations):
a. Faster Auto Focus (when shooting by viewfinder)
b. More accurate Auto Focus (when shooting by viewfinder)
c. AF performance (when shooting by liveview) <-- Donot really care about this since I personally don't use it.
3. Higher dynamic range (shadow/highlight detail)

Second interesting question:

How desirable would it be for you to have the following features in your future digital SLR? Please rank your first, second and third most important feature.

1. Better weather resistance
2. Wireless communication function (Something like build in pocket wizard)
3. Performance of LCD (size/resolution)

IMPORTANT: One thing that Canon forgot to ask which it AF point need to be speaded out to corner of its frame and this is VERY VERY important IMO

 

[ablearcher]

I guess it's Canon sussing out the perception of the competition, but it might give some idea as to the future of the 5D. Make of it what you will.

My sense is that people always want more of everything. More features, better quality, greater durability, better sealing, faster speeds, etc. Improving anything requires greater investment by a manufacturer — in employees, research, development, materials, testing, manufacturing, quality controls, etc. — and of course charging accordingly. But when a manufacturer introduces the improvements that people said they wanted, there is inevitably much complaining — even outrage — about the price. "How dare they raise the price!?" It's as if we forget that all of the extra things we ask for actually cost money.

The 5DIII is the perfect example of this. Canon improved and upgraded just about every detail of the 5DII, as per many photographers' requests. Then there was no end to complaints about the price.

Following this logic, if Canon (hopefully) continues to make improvements to their DSLRs then in a few years it will be perfectly fine to charge $10K for the next 5D body. Yeah, we get improvements on top of improvements and it is perfectly fine to price them up - new price on top of the old one. I am sure there will still be people with enough cash and professionals who can pay for this cam after one shoot. Great strategy.

To Chuck: I see a reasonable price as a price which can survive for a fair amount of time (like close to a year) and still sell the product without a massive outcry regarding the price and without all the crazy price fluctuations just months after the release. I suppose a $750 discount by an authorized dealer moving over 800 units in just a couple of days does tell us something about the price here. I am not saying Canon needs to follow Nikon in everything, but if you think 5DMKIII exists in a separate universe from D800 (marketwise, at least) then we are probably speaking two different languages. I agree this price topic is already beaten to death and my initial remark on the topic was done mostly as a joke, but hey, what else is as exciting as Canon's prices lately =))

Take it easy guys ;-)

 

[K-amps]

I guess it's Canon sussing out the perception of the competition, but it might give some idea as to the future of the 5D. Make of it what you will.

My sense is that people always want more of everything. More features, better quality, greater durability, better sealing, faster speeds, etc. Improving anything requires greater investment by a manufacturer — in employees, research, development, materials, testing, manufacturing, quality controls, etc. — and of course charging accordingly. But when a manufacturer introduces the improvements that people said they wanted, there is inevitably much complaining — even outrage — about the price. "How dare they raise the price!?" It's as if we forget that all of the extra things we ask for actually cost money.

The 5DIII is the perfect example of this. Canon improved and upgraded just about every detail of the 5DII, as per many photographers' requests. Then there was no end to complaints about the price.

True... CR is full of Whiners.


But it could have been Priced at $2600

 

[ishdakuteb]

CRers... we are kinda off the topic and need to get back in order to get more improvement on our future gears

 

[ahsanford]

Great question. I've loved my 5D3, but there are a few niggly bits that could be addressed above and beyond the obvious better/faster/more DR stuff that everyone will certainly want:

• Deeper button reconfiguration options - only some buttons can do certain things, this should be expanded
• Rating photos should be recognized by vanilla handler programs like iPhoto (I know -- Apple could fix this, too)
• Would love to see the electronic level (the lesser used in-viewfinder one) automatically toggle on when shooting vertically as I don't use a grip. This is simple enough to enable as they already have accel/gyro support for separate horizontal and vertical AF point selection, right?
• As I shoot a lot in the dark, the -3EV AF capability of the new 6D would be a nice pickup, but I am assuming that this is all hardware and off the table. But here's hoping -- even with F/1.4 glass my 5D3's AF can hunt in very low light.
• More useful auto ISO options for aperture, shutter speed, etc. I like the thought of Auto ISO but feel a bit limited by what I can/can't set for acceptable boundaries.

Little stuff said, I love this camera. I think the sensor is the only (even remotely) weak link of the 5D3. DR would be my #1 improvement.

- A

 

[Zlatko]

Generally in parts costs for performance increase are not linear with the performance increase itself. a shutter that lasts 50% longer will cost more than 50% more to make as quality has to rise significantly. Lastly, as others have mentioned scale. iPads are sold by the millions and DSLRs are not pricing comes down with volume and usually efficiency can improve in manufacturing.

Excellent point about the shutter. Cameras are not just computers or electronics; they are also mechanical. Small improvements in shutter life, shutter lag time, mirror black-out time, autofocus acquisition and accuracy, etc., may have long development times, added material costs, added production costs, etc. So improving a $100 part by just 50% may turn it into a $250 part.

And scale is a big factor. This is partly why Leica cameras and lenses are so much more expensive. They may make something like 50 cameras and 50 lenses per day (just a guesstimate). All of their costs have to be recouped from a smaller batch of products. Canon obviously has much higher production volume than Leica, even for expensive items like the 5D3 and 1DX, but not nearly on the scale of the iPad or iPhone.

Well apple is just an example. What I mean is Electronics in general will have improvements while keeping the price relatively steady or even declining. I'm talking about time in relation to technology. If the 5D2 and 5D3 were released in the same time periord, I would totally understand the price difference. But we're talking about 4 years of techology advancements! If this trend continues, we are looking at the 5D4 for over $4k and the 5D5 for about $5K!

There is no trend. The 5D was $3,300. The 5D2 was $2,700. The 5D3 was $3,500 (at introduction) and is $3,300 right now, and some sellers have offered it for under $3000. The 5D2 was a modest improvement over the original 5D, and came in at a lower price. While we were happy with the lower price, it seemed that many complained that it wasn't enough of an improvement over the original 5D. More resolution, but same old autofocus, same old sluggishness, etc. So Canon built the 5D3, executing on a long list of requested improvements and making a very noticeably upgraded product.

But it could have been Priced at $2600

But it will be. Just give it time.

 

[ishdakuteb]

because of this? do we have economist in house? sorry, the crowd is dragging me off the topic

 

[JR]

I would pick more DR hands down. (aka better sensors)