More Mentions of a Canon Mirrorless Announcement Ahead of Photokina [CR1]

Michael Clark

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Apr 5, 2016
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This isn't a fair comment at all. Higher DR can occasionally save an image that would have been unusable otherwise. I'm sure event, wedding and photojournalists can definitely benefit from having higher DR. As humans, we are not infallible, and we may very well not be in the correct setting in the heat of the moment. Will I be proud of pulling 6-7 stops out of an image? Probably not, but delivering an image > telling them I missed the shot.

PJs are on such tight time constraints these days that they rarely shoot raw. If you push it to the wires 15 minutes after it happened someone else has already beaten you to the punch and everyone has already picked up that earlier image. That's really nothing new, it's just that the time frame has gotten shorter.

Consider that Neil Leifer's iconic color photo of Ali standing over Liston was basically ignored by the wire services because John Rooney's gritty, B&W image from a worse angle was on the wires hours before his image was.

http://www.slate.com/articles/sport..._true_story_behind_neil_leifer_s_perfect.html
 
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Hardly doomed but it is a risky strategy by Canon to be slow to the mirrorless full frame market.
It's only anecdotal and not reflective of the market as a whole but a friend of mine works in a camera shop and he's finding alot of Canon and Nikon users trading in to switch to Sony Mirrorless. They are starting to get overstocked in 2nd hand gear. The A7R III has alot of interest in my circles which is serious amateur as opposed to professional.
Part of it is looking for something new and better and no solid word from Canon on a new full frame mirrorless doesn't help. If I were them I'd seriously hint at something while they are getting organised on actual dates. That's what Nikon are doing with the teasing trailers.

LOL
 
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I really hope it’s impressive and rivals the A7RIII and D850 in specs and pricing. Canon have an excellent opportunity to reshape the past three years of bad press.

It’s not all bad but the 6DII, 5DIV pricing and video features and the M50 have not been as welcomed as Canon or many of their users had hoped.

Sales >>> press
 
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I do not get people defending canon here. If you are in the market looking for a FF camera, Canon is the last brand that comes to mind. No camera they are offering is up to par with their peers. They are lagging behind about 3-5 years, which is huge. In the last five years DR has improved by up to 5 stops, autofocus like eye-AF and no black out while continious shooting have come along. Dont get me started on Canons take on 4K video. For the same money of the 5D Mark4 you can get a Sony A7III with a lens, which exceed the 5D in every way possible besides resolution.

I love Canon, but I am close to jumping ship. Every time I get back from a portrait session with my original 6D and I see a focus miss, because of recomposing, I am thinking: With Eye-AF that might have been a keeper. And every portrait photographer knows, how awful it feels to sort out a picture with perfect expression, because of missed focus! Just like every landscape photographer knows the pain of not enough DR in a critical moment.

Its no joke that you see every youtuber on the planet switching to sony. If your camera breaks today, what would you buy? Sony has earned the trust of a lot of people to give you the newest and most advanced technology in every iteration. Nikon at least tries to keep up. But Canon lost a lot of trust. They released cameras which they crippled on purpose so you have to spend more money. Why would you want to stay with a company like that?

LOL
 
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Some people are too lazy to bring a reflector or too impatient to wait for a cloud because they believe higher DR with "local adjustments" will make the job. It usually won't.

LOL. I can only imagine you do a very narrow range of photography if this is your attitude. I think the DR-obsessed shadow-lifting evangelists overstate their case, but some shadow lifting is appropriate sometimes. I'm not sure of any wildlife photographers (or candid street photographers, landscape photographers, sports photographers, or architectural photographers) who use reflectors. They must be bad at taking pictures!
 
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Oct 26, 2013
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Alright so then follow up. If Canon's new latest and greatest Mirrorless came out in October (and you're in the market for a new mirrorless, coming from a dslr), and it was lower in specs than say the a7iii, but cost more than the a7iii, would you still choose the Canon ML over the Sony? Only benefit I can personally see is Canon's customer service. If I'm missing something else, please point it out to me.

I'm just curious as to why someone would stay with something that costs more and at least spec sheet wise, isn't as good, except for brand loyalty and cs?

I own an Olympus as well as a Canon, so brand loyalty has nothing to do with my decision. I bought and tried the first two generation Sony A7 cameras with the intent to replace my Canon 6D. The spec sheet, as you say, seemed more impressive. I returned each Sony and compared to the 5 or 6 digital cameras I have owned, the Sonys were by far the worst. Taking the same shots with both the Sony and Canon, I found many to be comparable, but overall none of the Sony shots were preferable and many of the Canon shots were. These were all landscape shots in daylight (which I shoot most of all) and the additional DR of the Sony was never noticeable. While obviously subjective, I found the tonal curves of the Canon shots to be better in terms of mid range contrast. Color, as far as I am concerned is a big plus for Canon. One of the Sonys underexposed by a full stop, the other by almost 1 1/2 stops - by far the worst exposure metering from any cameras I have owned. The EVF was poor - worse than my Olympus E-M1. And the ergonomics are terrible. All my opinions, of course. And not being able to afford more expensive lenses, I bought the kit 28-70 (I believe) zoom. (Not cheap either, by the way). These less expensive lenses for the Sony system do not have the same type of design that the more expensive lenses do to compensate for the short flange distance of the Sony FF, thus have very poor performance away from the image center. When I realized that I would be keeping the Canon 6D, I then considered keeping the Sony and selling the Olympus E-M1. But when I compared those cameras, I kept the Olympus and returned the Sony.

So, in short, the spec sheets didn't tell me that the color was poor, the exposure was bad, the lenses were inadequate, and the ergonomics very uncomfortable compared to both my Canon and my Olympus.

Now, it is quite possible - and most reviews seem to mention - that improvements have been made in Sony generation III. But even if the Sony were equal to Canon in reliability, weather-sealing (where they are really awful) and ergonomics, I would still choose Canon because of their superior color and overall IQ. The photos look better to me, and that is the deciding factor when I compare cameras and actually take the shots myself.
 
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"Playing with shadows" shouldn't require 5+ stops of adjustment if you shot it/lit it correctly. Part of being a photographer, as opposed to a camera holder, is recognizing when a scene is appropriate for the equipment you're using and the display medium you intend to use.

It's a pretty large leap to go from equating "shoot it right to start with and don't underexpose by 4-5 stops" to "you shouldn't ever need to 'play around with the shadows."

It's also a pretty large leap to say that a camera that can "only" recover 4 stops in the shadows is "out of date garbage" but a camera that can recover 6 stops in the shadows is the "greatest thing since sliced bread."

Ah, I think I know what you were trying to say; I haven't been talking about people who have missed the exposure and need to push the exposure up 5 stops due to wrong settings and save the image (although being able to is always helpful in a pinch, when I talk about playing with the shadows, it's about exposing for highlights as much as possible (ettr, as I would with my canon), but being able to pull the shadows up also afterwards. In my uses, my 6d isn't flash at this. I'll often need to throw out the highlights/overexpose the brighter details in order to keep some detail in the shadow without heavy noise/banding.

For what I shoot (landscapes and widefield astro usually), I'm not in a position where I can light the subject, so I rely on a system that can capture as much dynamic range as possible, and I'll often push shadows and pull highlights a fair amount, and an extra 2-3 stops is often significant. I wouldn't call the 5dmk4 out of date garbage, it's not as good for that spec as some other cameras but it doesn't band or have heavy noise in shadows like my 6d does
 
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Jul 21, 2010
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I wouldn't call the 5dmk4 out of date garbage, it's not as good for that spec as some other cameras
With DP RAW, the 5DIV can deliver more DR in a single shot than Sony or Nikon's best. But I wouldn't call the a7RIII or the D850 out of date garbage, even though they're not as good for that spec as the 5DIV.
 
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With DP RAW, the 5DIV can deliver more DR in a single shot than Sony or Nikon's best. But I wouldn't call the a7RIII or the D850 out of date garbage, even though they're not as good for that spec as the 5DIV.

I'd only caught up with the dual pixel raw file use when it was first starting to work - how much of a benefit does it give now? It was still about 1/2 a stop less than the sony and nikon dr when I read about it but excellent if they're improved it to be beyond those
 
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Jul 21, 2010
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I'd only caught up with the dual pixel raw file use when it was first starting to work - how much of a benefit does it give now? It was still about 1/2 a stop less than the sony and nikon dr when I read about it but excellent if they're improved it to be beyond those
One stop. It's always been one stop, because one subframe has half the exposure of the other subframe. There's less than a one stop difference in DR between the 5DIV and the other top models (without considering DR RAW). The math is simple, but what adds up to 'the most DR available in a single shot' to some apparently adds up to 'not quite out of date garbage' to others.
 
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dcm

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Based on many years of product R&D experience, there's a bit more to a spec sheet than what's discussed here. A common model is FURPS: Functionality, Usability, Reliability, Performance, and Supportability. There are variations with more -ilities.

When companies specify a product, they identify the full set of specifications to satisfy a customer profile (not all customers). Each category may contain Musts, Wants, and Wows.

Musts are required, but the customer seldom articulates them. They are assumed to be there and will be missed if they aren't. They are Product Killers.

Wants reflect the current marketplace and what customers will articulate, often because they are in competitors' products. Marketing often provides this list and no product has all of them. This is the Customer Scream-o-meter.

Wows are features your customer never thought to ask for, but are blown away when they appear. R&D provides these and protects them with patents. Wows are a significant competitive advantage. These are Disruptive Innovations.

Over time Wows become wants and Wants become Musts. Most forum discussions seem to focus Wants for Functionality and Performance. But that is an incomplete picture as some forum posters point out.

Products underperform or fail when the company does not achieve the right balance in their FURPS. I once challenged my management team with 3 rolls of pennies when I felt our balance was wrong. I asked them to allocate one roll of pennies to show our investment, one for our chief competitor's investment, and one for the customer's spending on the FURPS categories for our product. Eyes opened.

Canon, Nikon, and Sony each have different investment profiles in FURPS. Not all customers have the same profile - that's why you have different products. Some companies do a better job of matching the customer profile(s) than others - they are the market leaders.

If a product that sells well seems under spec’d to you, it might be that you aren't looking at the full picture or you aren't close to the customer profile for that product.
 
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Based on many years of product R&D experience, there's a bit more to a spec sheet than what's discussed here. A common model is FURPS: Functionality, Usability, Reliability, Performance, and Supportability. There are variations with more -ilities.

When companies specify a product, they identify the full set of specifications to satisfy a customer profile (not all customers). Each category may contain Musts, Wants, and Wows.

Musts are required, but the customer seldom articulates them. They are assumed to be there and will be missed if they aren't. They are Product Killers.

Wants reflect the current marketplace and what customers will articulate, often because they are in competitors' products. Marketing often provides this list and no product has all of them. This is the Customer Scream-o-meter.

Wows are features your customer never thought to ask for, but are blown away when they appear. R&D provides these and protects them with patents. Wows are a significant competitive advantage. These are Disruptive Innovations.

Over time Wows become wants and Wants become Musts. Most forum discussions seem to focus Wants for Functionality and Performance. But that is an incomplete picture as some forum posters point out.

Products underperform or fail when the company does not achieve the right balance in their FURPS. I once challenged my management team with 3 rolls of pennies when I felt our balance was wrong. I asked them to allocate one roll of pennies to show our investment, one for our chief competitor's investment, and one for the customer's spending on the FURPS categories for our product. Eyes opened.

Canon, Nikon, and Sony each have different investment profiles in FURPS. Not all customers have the same profile - that's why you have different products. Some companies do a better job of matching the customer profile(s) than others - they are the market leaders.

If a product that sells well seems under spec’d to you, it might be that you aren't looking at the full picture or you aren't close to the customer profile for that product.

Exactly. In this context, one of the ongoing issues is how much the internet buzz generators reflect consumer interests and/or shape sales. Or, whether Canon is, in fact, finally doomed.
 
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That is precisely what Canon does NOT do with their premium models.
That is also why Sony annoys a few of its users when they release a new camera a year later solving the problems that the previous model should not have had in the first place.

yea... while the other sony users are just happy the big S gave them something new to buy this year...
 
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Thats why Ansel Adams never dodged or burned. He as a master never had to.

I hope you are being ironic. He admitted he did a lot of post-shoot adjustment and even quipped "Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships."
I think it was the Yosemite shot where he totalled over 300 different dodge/burns.
 
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dcm

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dcm, thanks for that, it was interesting. Too bad many CR viewers can't comprehend it.

Jack

Thanks Jack. Lived on the other side for a long time.

It's interesting / amusing to see the points of view on the forum. Not that different from the corporate wide internal and external idea submission processes I handled for several years at a large company. Many started with "I have an idea that will make a billion dollars..."
 
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Michael Clark

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Okay, I get that big lenses are a reason for Canon. I respect that. But what about photographers who do not need big lenses like portrait, wedding, event, architecture and landscape photographers? Maybe Canon is the most reliable camera manufacturer with the best repair sites, but I think that does excuse them for not innovating on the technological site.

I am not saying that their cameras are bad at all. I love them and I love the ecosystem, but I am frustrated, because there is no camera with the spec list I want and which I would see fit for 2018 by Canon. If I did not care about Canon, I would not be writing here. I would just buy from another manufacturer and be done with it. You can critizise me and tell me that I should be able to manage with Canon gear. But no camera Canon is offering is something I could buy without feeling betrayed because I spend a lot of money for lackluster technology.

I know that no camera will make me a better photographer, but they can make it a lot easier to at least prevent technical failure. Tell me autofocus for instance does not help you take better pictures? Of course you could manage with manual, but the keeper rate would go to shit! In some situations, like time sensitive landscapes dynamic range can make or break the image.

Yeah, because architecture and landscape photographers would never find a tilt/shift lens with free rotation between the tilt axis and the shift axis useful at all, would they?

Have you even compared Canon's five TS-E L-series lenses to the competition? There's no comparison to what Canon has done with the TS-E 17mm, TS-E 24mm II, TS-E 50mm Macro, TS-E 90mm Macro, and TS-E 135mm Macro. How can you not consider those lenses innovative?

The same architecture crowd would probably have no use for a truly rectilinear 11-24mm FF lens that is very sharp, either, would they?

Have you ever looked around at weddings and events and seen how many white 70-200/2.8 lenses there are working that sector? Why do you think they are so popular?

Hint: It's not because they're so cheap. When one needs a lens that can absolutely, positively get the job done consistently from shot to shot, the L series 70-200mm lenses are many professionals' choice.

As far as portraiture goes, the best performance on a flat test chart measured at closer distances than anyone in their right mind would ever shoot a human being doesn't always mean a lens is the best for portraiture. The same correction for field curvature that improves lenses' edge to edge sharpness when imaging a flat test chart will make a lens' bokeh busy and/or harsh.
 
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