A Rundown of EOS 7D Mark II Information

[jrista]

What concrete evidence do you have that the Canon marketing department had "them" do anything? That makes no logical sense. I've worked for a number of very large companies, and dealt with marketing people. NOT ONCE has a marketing person EVER told me what to do. The politics in most large companies simply won't allow that kind of thing to happen. Such a demand would have to go through umpteen channels, up then down then up again when the demand steps on someone elses turf and gets kicked back.

Well it depends upon what exactly you mean by the marketing term.
I just mean as opposed to the engineers.
I seriously doubt any engineer would think oh gee I better remove this MFA I just spent this time perfecting from the 40D. Or gee I better make sure to limit the fast min shutter speed in the 5D3 AutoISO Av shutter speed to happen to be just low enough to not really be useful even though it would have taken, if anything a few seconds less time, to have not put the limit in at all.

I seen and heard tale of all too many times where the whole MBA/manager/marketing types just come in and force the engineers to muck it all up. Or keep saying, no not yet, not yet, not yet, gotta milk more, gotta milk more.

And they do come up with all sort of schemes to calculate how they can minimize what they give without quite pushing people over the edge of leaving, which can be very annoying to those trying to push tech forward.

It's a totally different mindset.

From what I've found and read about MFA in older cameras (40D, 30D), it was something that may have been designed just for service center use. Assuming that's the case, then the functionality was included in the 40D, but not as a consumer function. As someone who has used BackyardEOS, an astrophotography software tool, for about six months now, I can attest to the fact that Canon includes a LOT of functionality in their firmware that is not directly accessible by menu options in the camera. When you dig into the Canon APIs, you learn that a whole range of awesome things are possible using it.

from what I heard it didn't seem to be that sort of thing at all, but basically what they put in the higher level cam and later the 50D

You can hook into that functionality via the API and do cool things...but then your on your own, as you rightly should be. So sorry, don't buy and never will buy the line that Canon Marketing is the sole reason that certain features of their cameras are disabled. That kind of thinking steps from a mentality steeped in anticoproration crap, and I honestly cannot stand that sort of thing. It's naive. Go work in a large company like Canon for a year...the politics and turf and dominions wars will make your ears and eyes bleed...

How is it naive, as you just said, it will make your ears and eyes bleed (at least if you are in engineering).

Maybe you are reading too much into my use of marketing, thinking I mean a single person who is preparing some ad campaign or a few reps who go to trade shows. I was casting a very, very wide net with how I was using the term.

You seem to have only "heard", I am guessing third hand, about these "things" that "must" occur in companies like Canon. I've worked for some very large corporations in the past, and no one guy or no one group in one division has ultimate veto power over another division. You don't have a marketing group (and, BTW, most major companies have exactly that, a marketing group that puts together the companies entire public image) trumping the engineering group for ANY reason. The management team of the engineering group simply wouldn't allow it. Your throwing FAR too broad a net over "marketers" if your definition is that broad. You seem to simply mean "business people", and that is just plain and simply too general to be meaningful, and I am guessing that's the intent.

"Marketers" don't rule Canon. They aren't dictating to the engineers what to or not to put into or take out of a product. Product engineers are going to decide that, and they will usually be part of the overarching engineering teams, R&D, etc. In my experience, higher ups, upper management and executive types, don't want to know all the specific little nuanced details about the work that is being done. They often don't want to know the details at all. They want to know that they have a solid product that will sell. Those executives rely on other levels of management to manage all the details, who they themselves will usually rely on other levels of management to handle different groups of details, and they in turn will usually rely on other levels of management to actually handle the people making the details happen. There isn't some evil force at a company like Canon snickering in a corner office somewhere, saying: "Meheheheeee. Let's....REMOVE AFMA from the 40D! Yeah! That'll keep em coming back to the 50D!! Yeah! That'll sell us some more cammies!! MEEEHEHEHEHEHEEEE!"

Sorry...that's just ludicrous. It's backasswards economics. It's backasswards marketing. It's backasswards management. It's just plain backasswards period. That's not how the organisms that are big companies think. That kind of thinking is BAD for business. Maybe that kind of thing worked a few decades ago, but customers are savvy people these days. Corporate juggernaughts like Google can't even slip by clever snaky wording in their EULA's any more, because you have EULA hawks EVERYWHERE picking those things apart. You can't accidentally serve a hair in a salad at any high end restaurant and hope to survive anymore, because you have scathing eaterie reviewers out there who hunt around for just that kind of thing. And all of these people blog, or are journalists, or something...the majority have twitter, and they all use those internet outlets to call out companies when they are REALLY caught doing something nasty like that. Companies aren't going to pull the wool over their customers eyes anymore. The internet has changed the game, customers have far more power today to stop underhanded tactics like that, simply by being vocal, and secondarily by voting with their wallets when people at large are vocal about something particularly underhanded done by one company or another.

So sorry, but nah. Office politics PREVENT some unit, say "marketers", from dominating the rest of the company. The management staff of an R&D unit or other engineering unit aren't just going to lay down and say "Aww, oh, ok, fine."...they FIGHT! I've seen some crazy office politics and hardcore inter-departmental fights in my time. Everyone has their domain, their turf, and they don't just let people walk all over it for no good reason. I don't believe anyone at Canon is purposely forcing engineers to "muck it all up", forcing them to delay features, etc. Canon may have certain rules about features that they intend to keep "premium", such as AF-point linked metering. That's a simple business decision, not some evil plot to milk their customers for all they are worth, based on the simple fact that, given it's been over a decade, and people buying Rebels and xxD's plain and simply don't seem to care. Owners of the 7D and 5D lines have been a little vocal about getting that feature, however I only know of a handful of people who complain about it a lot. AF-point linked metering falls into like 12th place after a long line of other things people would prefer Canon improve (including, apparently, the addition of a touch ui to all pro-grade DSLRs), all of which come after improved sensor IQ. Maybe someday Canon implements better metering...but my suspicion is the first thing they are going to invest time and money into is the thing people ask for most by a significant margin. If Canon was purposely gimping features for some underhanded purpose, either in an effort to be anticompetitive or somehow "keep customers coming back for more" (although how that would possibly work, when the digital camera market place is chock full of heated competition meaning most consumers, who are the vast bulk of the bottom line, can just jump ship and move to another brand on a moments notice when a bunch of reviewers tell them to...I don't know), someone would have gathered up a bunch of evidence and outed them by now. I mean, for christ sake, your saying Canon has purposely been withholding features for the express purpose of milking their customers for all their worth...for a decade. The internet would have destroyed them for that by now, if it was actually indeed occurring.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

You seem to have only "heard", I am guessing third hand, about these "things" that "must" occur in companies like Canon.

Wrong. First and second hand as well as third hand.

Your throwing FAR too broad a net over "marketers" if your definition is that broad.

As I said I did cast a pretty wide net with the term.
And many who are not strictly in some official marketing department make marketing-type decisions all the time.

There isn't some evil force at a company like Canon snickering in a corner office somewhere, saying: "Meheheheeee. Let's....REMOVE AFMA from the 40D! Yeah! That'll keep em coming back to the 50D!! Yeah! That'll sell us some more cammies!! MEEEHEHEHEHEHEEEE!"

actually there can be and no it is not ludicrous

That kind of thinking is BAD for business.

it can be in the long run, many are too driven by the short term, or make calculations and decide they can weather this and that and despite negative reactions it won't hurt in the end etc.

companies are far from always perfectly and ideally run, big players become small players, companies disappear

I don't believe anyone at Canon is purposely forcing engineers to "muck it all up", forcing them to delay features, etc.

Stuff like that has happened at Lucent at times. It happened at Atari and CBM and on and on and on and on. (specifically being careful to mention companies that are no longer around or not in any remote form as they used to be just to keep it safe)
You must be kidding if you think management never tells engineering to sit on stuff and hold off.

Canon may have certain rules about features that they intend to keep "premium", such as AF-point linked metering. That's a simple business decision, not some evil plot to milk their customers for all they are worth,

it depends upon the specifics and how you see it

 

[justaCanonuser]

You seem to have only "heard", I am guessing third hand, about these "things" that "must" occur in companies like Canon.

I don't believe anyone at Canon is purposely forcing engineers to "muck it all up", forcing them to delay features, etc.

Stuff like that has happened at Lucent at times. It happened at Atari and CBM and on and on and on and on. (specifically being careful to mention companies that are no longer around or not in any remote form as they used to be just to keep it safe)
You must be kidding if you think management never tells engineering to sit on stuff and hold off.

Don't forget to add Kodak to this list. Their engineers invented digital photography, they had a trump in their hands to shape the future, but their management gambled it away.

 

[Ivar]

.. The lenses are truly to die for.

Canon lenses are indeed above else (well with some minor exceptions e.g. Nikon 14-24, some Zeiss stuff).

Now as a Nikon owner I feel even primes are not that good. Lack of 1.2 aperture in the choice, 35mm 1.4 there should be much less distortion for that kind of lens. The Nikon 70-200 is breathing a lot at the long end and the locking distance is 5m rather than 2.5m etc.etc.

I still keep watching Canon's advancements though I feel there is less and less excitement going on (for me).
Nevertheless Canon seem to be doing fine and is a good choice for many.

 

[jrista]

You seem to have only "heard", I am guessing third hand, about these "things" that "must" occur in companies like Canon.

Wrong. First and second hand as well as third hand.

Your throwing FAR too broad a net over "marketers" if your definition is that broad.

As I said I did cast a pretty wide net with the term.
And many who are not strictly in some official marketing department make marketing-type decisions all the time.

There isn't some evil force at a company like Canon snickering in a corner office somewhere, saying: "Meheheheeee. Let's....REMOVE AFMA from the 40D! Yeah! That'll keep em coming back to the 50D!! Yeah! That'll sell us some more cammies!! MEEEHEHEHEHEHEEEE!"

actually there can be and no it is not ludicrous

That kind of thinking is BAD for business.

it can be in the long run, many are too driven by the short term, or make calculations and decide they can weather this and that and despite negative reactions it won't hurt in the end etc.

companies are far from always perfectly and ideally run, big players become small players, companies disappear

I don't believe anyone at Canon is purposely forcing engineers to "muck it all up", forcing them to delay features, etc.

Stuff like that has happened at Lucent at times. It happened at Atari and CBM and on and on and on and on. (specifically being careful to mention companies that are no longer around or not in any remote form as they used to be just to keep it safe)
You must be kidding if you think management never tells engineering to sit on stuff and hold off.

Canon may have certain rules about features that they intend to keep "premium", such as AF-point linked metering. That's a simple business decision, not some evil plot to milk their customers for all they are worth,

it depends upon the specifics and how you see it

The only time I've ever heard management ever tell an engineering team to hold off on anything, was when a scheduled production or RTM date was in jeopardy. Most of the time, it's the other way around, management is always pushing for more, better, faster, better! It's a hypercompetitive world out there, not just on a domestic scale but now on a global scale. Any company, particularly one in a position like Canon, would be suicidal to purposefully limit the functionality of any product FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF "trying to keep their customers coming back for more in future models."

That's what I'm arguing against...the notion that Canon is holding back features to attract customers to future product releases. That is what I find excessively naive. There may be LEGITIMATE business reasons why Canon might delay a feature. The largest of those, in my humble yet educated opinion, is when a product release date may slip. It's one thing to hold off on tertiary features to make a release, and another thing to hold off on critical or essential features. The 1D X was delayed not because they were specially adding AF-linked metering to it...it was delayed because they were working on the AF system, a fundamentally critical system of the camera. Ultimately, if getting the AF system working period in a reasonable timeframe after their "paper announcement" meant holding off on making AF-linked metering to work, I'm sure Canon would have made that decision. But that would be a BUSINESS decision, one that affects the health of the company and their reputation in general...it wouldn't be some snivling underhanded attempt to pre-garner future sales on the 1D X II. That's just a ludicrous, backwards way of thinking about things.

Now, can management teams make bad decisions? Certainly! You named a few companies that had plain and simple bad management, little foresight, a poor competitive edge, and ultimately failed because of it. Amiga is an excellent example of a company that just had crappy management...people who did not know how to formulate a product line that would compete in a changing market. At least, they didn't figure it out until much too late in the game. A significant part of that problem was developing the AmigaOS...there were difficulties in developing that for the RISC platform, which lead to very long development cycles, ultimately resulting in AmigaOS falling far behind Windows on the PC. The other problem with Amiga was the simple fact that it WAS built on RISC processors...Motorola RISC processors specifically. When Motorola left that market, Amiga was left high and dry. The only other real option a the time was PA-RISC, but given the difficulties in developing AmigaOS in the first place, a move to PA-RISC ultimately never occurred. Amiga management missed their window of opportunity, their product was selling extremely well in Europe until the bottom simply fell out, and they never really got a solid foothold in the US. Amiga management did not take the PC competition seriously until it was too late, then they were too inflexible, because of processor architecture, poor product design, etc. to be able to compete with the lightning pace at which the PC evolved from the late 80's/early 90's through the early 2000's.

However, failing to be competitive because you built a rigid system architecture and did not really recognize your most significant threat until it was too late, is different than purposely gimping your products to "bring your customers back for more in the 'next release' of Product X". The former is just bad management...and that does happen. The latter is just plain idiotic and terribly bad economic and business practice, and is GUARANTEED to ruin your company. It would take the most incompetent of management staff to come up with an idea like that, to purposely withhold features in a COMPETITIVE MARKETPLACE with the unproven hope that you'll somehow keep your current customers and bring them, as well as new customers, back for more with the next round of releases. In reality, the exact opposite is going to happen...a competitor is going to leverage your idiocy for their own benefit, and steal all your customers away.

To be strait up, I DO NOT believe that Canon management is incompetent on that level. If they were, they wouldn't be the world's top digital camera seller, and they wouldn't be raking in billions in revenue every year. I have no doubt that Canon knows what their primary competitive weaknesses are, and I have hopes that they have already addressed them, and I know for a fact that if they have not, they ARE addressing them (the multi-layered sensor patents, for example, are a good solid indication that Canon is innovating in the sensor market.) I think Canon is smart enough to know where they should be investing their resources, and I think they are smart enough to know what features they CAN "hold hostage" to a premium product model without losing customers over it. In that respect, clearly, AF-linked metering is one of the features that Canon currently believes they can keep as a premium feature only on the 1D line. That could very well change...Canon certainly changed their stance on f/8 AF by putting it in the 5D III...but there was a very vocal call for that first. I heard far more about getting f/8 AF on the 5D III than I've ever heard about people demanding AF-point linked metering.

As an action shooter who relies on the AF system heavily, I personally have never actually found a need for it, however I learned how to shoot from the pros....like Art Morris, Alan Murphy, etc. and when it comes to exposure, I control it. A couple very simple techniques make it a lot easier to nail exposure every time such that a meter isn't even necessary. In a context like sports in a stadium, you can just figure out your baseline and simply compensate from there, since artificial lighting illuminates the playing field from pretty much every angle. You can always reset to the same baseline, and adjust aperture/shutter as necessary for the DOF you want.

Canon isn't a petty corporation. They are not a corporation utterly driven by the short term (if they were, they wouldn't be one of THE MOST innovative companies in the world.)

I am pretty sure Canon knows what the competition is doing and where the competition is winning. The only question is WHEN will they address it. The 7D II will be the first major indicator of that, and after that, the 5D IV will be the final indicator. If Canon hasn't started competing on the sensor IQ front by the time the 5D IV hits...then I'll have to reevaluate my opinion of their management, because sensor IQ is by far, by orders of magnitude, more important to their customers than AF-linked metering or Auto ISO functionality. It is the single most verbalized issue with Canon's photographic products. Canon will either listen to their customer's collective voice (and they have done just that on many occasions in the past)...or they will ignore it. I don't think Canon is another Amiga...Amiga really had terrible management. However Canon may be too comfortable, they may just be riding the wave of past success...and that could be a problem. (However, that STILL doesn't mean Canon's management is sitting in their corner offices plotting ways they can keep their customers coming back for more by withholding features...that would be SUICIDE for them in the current market environment!)

 

[unfocused]

+1 to Jon's points.

I would only add that Canon is not some new tech startup that is trying to cash in on unrealistic market expectations. They are an innovative, but generally conservative company that has slowly, over decades, built themselves up to become the market leaders in a highly competitive and at times very crowded field.

I'm old enough to remember the days when Canon was just one of a dozen or more consumer SLR manufacturers on a par with Miranda, Mamiya, Pentax, Konica and many others. They methodically built their brand, first by replacing others as the chief competitor to Nikon for professionals.

They managed to outlive almost all of their consumer competitors, most of whom ended up going out of business and selling off the brand name to new investors.

They set about displacing Nikon as the top brand. To anyone who was alive in the late 1960s or early 1970s, the thought of Canon eventually outpacing Nikon seemed impossible. But they did it. Not overnight, but slowly and deliberately.

Comparing them to flash-in-the-pan tech companies that were conceived, born, lived and died in a fraction of the time that Canon has been around, is a gross underestimation of the skill that Canon's management has developed over the years.

 

[AvTvM]

They are an innovative, but generally conservative company that has slowly, over decades, built themselves up to become the market leaders in a highly competitive and at times very crowded field.

Canon has been innovative exactly 2 times in all of their history. They started out as a an utterly un-innovative japanese copy cat of german cameras and remained jist that for the first 30 years of their history.

The 2 innovative feats were:
* 1987 ... ditch the FD mount and bring a fully electronic , new mount: EF. they did not listen to theri ultra-conservative user base who were crying over their nice FD SSC lenses. Canon for once did, what was necessary: radically break with the past. Screw mechanical crap in the lens mount. Make it all electronic. Choose a good flange diostance and make the freaking hole large enough to enable all sorts of great lenese, including "still affordable" f/1.2 lenses and carry them into the electronic and then digital future. That move along with the parallel decision to put AF into the lens, not the body and quickly recover from their initial AF disaster [T80 anyone? ;-) ] and their ability to sell the advantages of that concept really well, got them to trump Nikon and become market leader.

* 2003 - digital Rebel - first truly affordable DSLR ... under 1k €/USD. Preceded since 2000 by the decision to use CMSO sensors, when everybody else thought of CCDs to be a way better solution for imaging sensors. Agaion preceded by the unrewarding mucking around in the 1990 with Kodak (all that DCS crap) -... which convinced Canon that they needed full control over the entire digital camera stuff, including their own sensor fabs. Those desicions got Canon massive market leadership in the first half of the 2000's decade.

Unfortunately bold, true innovation has ceased quite rapidly after after that and Canon today is an arrogant, fat, bloated japanese corporation run by a typical geriatric ward. Risk-averse down to theri last toenail. Slow, bureaucratic and encrusted. It will take quite some pain (= a copule of catastrophic balance sheets) to bring them to their senses and back onto the innovation track. Abandon DSLRs (except 1 series for people who really need those to hammer nails into walls and drop behind behind enemy lines and use 600/4 superteles handheld all day long) and fully embrace mirrorless. One great APS-C lineup - good EF-M lenses are there and the EOS-M has the right size and just needs a good upgrade and expansion (EVF, AF, battery charge). Plus ditching of the EF mount and a new, kick-ass Sony A7 killing compact line of ultra-capable FF mirrorless bodies and new native lenses. The desicion does not take that many guts as the one back in 1987, since the flange distance wil be shorter this time round, so cheap adapters without any optical elements will suffice to ease the transition. ;D

 

[Lee Jay]

EF mount and the Rebel line are the only innovations you can think of?

How about image stabilization, ultrasonic motors, a relatively inexpensive full-frame digital body, and high-def video in SLRs?

How about eye-controlled focus, and diffractive optics?

 

[Loswr]

EF mount and the Rebel line are the only innovations you can think of?

How about image stabilization, ultrasonic motors, a relatively inexpensive full-frame digital body, and high-def video in SLRs?

How about eye-controlled focus, and diffractive optics?

How about DPAF? Etc.

I think AvTvM's definition of innovation means making the exact specific camera he wants...

 

[AvTvM]

EF mount and the Rebel line are the only innovations you can think of?
How about image stabilization, ultrasonic motors, a relatively inexpensive full-frame digital body, and high-def video in SLRs?
How about eye-controlled focus, and diffractive optics?

reasonable Video capabilities (5D II) really only happened to Canon. It was definitely not their innovation. Magic Lantern were the innovative ones, if anybody.

Image stabilization ... no Canon invention.
Ultrasonic AF drive .. no Canon invention.
Hi-def video in DSLRs .. hardly much of an innovation. Those who need it shall buy proper video cams. Should not be forced on regular DSLR buyers.

Eye Controlled AF ... yes. very nice. but last seen 20 years ago. If Canon were so innovative to bring us a working v.2 ECF in all future cameras (with viewfinder) ... I'd definitely love it.

 

[DominoDude]

Oh, how glad I am that Canon isn't developing new items based on a way too narrow client base. I'm perfectly happy that not all Canon gear suits me, but that they have a broad portfolio so that (nearly) everyone can get what they like and need.

 

[Lee Jay]

Image stabilization ... no Canon invention.

"The Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM (Japan)[255] of 1995 was the first interchangeable lens with built-in image stabilization"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_photographic_lens_design#The_image_stabilized_lens

Ultrasonic AF drive .. no Canon invention.

"Canon was the first camera maker to successfully commercialise the USM technology."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_EF_lens_mount#Ultrasonic_motor_drive

Hi-def video in DSLRs .. hardly much of an innovation.

It practically created a whole industry over night.

Those who need it shall buy proper video cams. Should not be forced on regular DSLR buyers.

Show me a full-frame video camera at the cost of the 5DII when it was released. Forcing it on regular DSLR buyers reduces the cost of the bodies substantially.

And, diffractive optics.

 

[Lee Jay]

EF mount and the Rebel line are the only innovations you can think of?

How about image stabilization, ultrasonic motors, a relatively inexpensive full-frame digital body, and high-def video in SLRs?

How about eye-controlled focus, and diffractive optics?

How about DPAF? Etc.

I think AvTvM's definition of innovation means making the exact specific camera he wants...

Which, apparently, is a 300D.

 

[unfocused]

EF mount and the Rebel line are the only innovations you can think of?

How about image stabilization, ultrasonic motors, a relatively inexpensive full-frame digital body, and high-def video in SLRs?

How about eye-controlled focus, and diffractive optics?

How about DPAF? Etc.

I think AvTvM's definition of innovation means making the exact specific camera he wants...

He also skipped over the AE-1. Not the first SLR with auto-exposure, but the first one that was successful at it. Canon saw the future and put it into their cameras at a time when all the other major SLR manufacturers thought just having a meter in the camera was cutting edge.

 

[unfocused]

And, while we are on the topic of innovation, is there any other manufacturer making a flash with radio trigger built in?

 

[Marauder]

EF mount and the Rebel line are the only innovations you can think of?

How about image stabilization, ultrasonic motors, a relatively inexpensive full-frame digital body, and high-def video in SLRs?

How about eye-controlled focus, and diffractive optics?

How about DPAF? Etc.

I think AvTvM's definition of innovation means making the exact specific camera he wants...

He also skipped over the AE-1. Not the first SLR with auto-exposure, but the first one that was successful at it. Canon saw the future and put it into their cameras at a time when all the other major SLR manufacturers thought just having a meter in the camera was cutting edge.

Yeah and the A-1, the first camera with a P mode, that has become one of the constants on all modern cameras--although I'm sure that some snide comment about P mode being for "losers anyway" or something is in the offing. The rant about going all but exclusively to mirrorless tells me where the mindset is--and it's nowhere I want to go! Again, as I've stated before, I don't have anything against mirrorless--it's certainly an area Canon can and should explore. But the idea that mirrorless is the ONLY way forward for interchangeable lens cameras is patently absurd--and arrogant. At least IMO.

 

[Marauder]

EF mount and the Rebel line are the only innovations you can think of?

How about image stabilization, ultrasonic motors, a relatively inexpensive full-frame digital body, and high-def video in SLRs?

How about eye-controlled focus, and diffractive optics?

How about DPAF? Etc.

I think AvTvM's definition of innovation means making the exact specific camera he wants...

He also skipped over the AE-1. Not the first SLR with auto-exposure, but the first one that was successful at it. Canon saw the future and put it into their cameras at a time when all the other major SLR manufacturers thought just having a meter in the camera was cutting edge.

Yeah and the A-1, the first camera with a P mode, that has become one of the constants on all modern cameras--although I'm sure that some snide comment about P mode being for "losers anyway" or something is in the offing. The rant about going all but exclusively to mirrorless tells me where the mindset is--and it's nowhere I want to go! Again, as I've stated before, I don't have anything against mirrorless--it's certainly an area Canon can and should explore. But the idea that mirrorless is the ONLY way forward for interchangeable lens cameras is patently absurd--and arrogant. At least IMO.

Oh yeah, and the command dial. And the basic form for an SLR or DSLR that the T90 introduced, that then became the format for EVERY OTHER SLR and DSLR made subsequently. Yeah, but Canon's not innovative. Troll alert!

 

[Lee Jay]

Does anyone else have a full sensor full of dual-pixel phase-detection capable pixels?

 

[dtaylor]

reasonable Video capabilities (5D II) really only happened to Canon. It was definitely not their innovation. Magic Lantern were the innovative ones, if anybody.

Yes...the firmware is everything. The sensor and hardware mean nothing :

Image stabilization ... no Canon invention.

Canon advanced and deployed it faster then anyone else.

Ultrasonic AF drive .. no Canon invention.

Canon was first to market and advanced/deployed it faster then anyone else. It literally won them the pro sports market which they hold to this day.

If you use a narrow enough definition of "invent", most consumer technology is not "invented" by the companies that produce it. They can trace their work back to various scientific discoveries. Competitors are often close when it comes to R&D and file slightly different patents for the same thing. Not to mention companies buying one another, sharing patents, etc.

This is idiotic though because it's usually quite obvious when one company pioneers a new technology and gets it into the public's hands. I'm not sure who discovered the sonic motor configuration. But Canon very clearly pioneered its use in consumer photographic lenses. It wasn't until the late 2000's that Nikon started to deploy sonic motors to the degree that Canon had by the late 1990's!

Hi-def video in DSLRs .. hardly much of an innovation. Those who need it shall buy proper video cams. Should not be forced on regular DSLR buyers.

"It's not what I want so it doesn't count!" :

 

[jrista]

Image stabilization ... no Canon invention.

"The Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM (Japan)[255] of 1995 was the first interchangeable lens with built-in image stabilization"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_photographic_lens_design#The_image_stabilized_lens

Ultrasonic AF drive .. no Canon invention.

"Canon was the first camera maker to successfully commercialise the USM technology."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_EF_lens_mount#Ultrasonic_motor_drive

Hi-def video in DSLRs .. hardly much of an innovation.

It practically created a whole industry over night.

Those who need it shall buy proper video cams. Should not be forced on regular DSLR buyers.

Show me a full-frame video camera at the cost of the 5DII when it was released. Forcing it on regular DSLR buyers reduces the cost of the bodies substantially.

And, diffractive optics.

Totally agree. Canon has been a highly innovative company for decades. The simple fact that they were successful in making a diffractive optics lens is an amazing feat, given that they were pretty much a laughing stock among high end optics companies for even trying.

Even where Canon was not the first to innovate something, or the first to use it in SLR/DSLR/digital camera equipment, they were very often the first to make features viable and bring them to the masses at reasonable cost (i.e. AF with EOS.)

It's pretty amazing how one single thing, not having two additional stops of low ISO sensor DR, is all it took for everyone to forget all the other innovations, technological advancements, and general leadership in the industry Canon has made throughout their history as a photography company. :