All is Quiet, but the Good Stuff is Coming

[Mikehit]

Neuro being the sad Canon apologist as always, we have already decided 8fps is an entirely artificial bullsh!t 'limit', all bodies should get 10fps as a minimum.

At what point do you need to 'beef up' the shutter for the added workload? 7fps? 8fps? 10fps?
how many people someone buying a 6D need 10fps?
Why not add 10fps to the 1200D lest they need it? Or 80D?

I am not apologising for Canon at all, just putting into context what you think a camera should have

 

[ahsanford]

Please don't mistake my comments -- I fully respect Canon's gamesmanship here. There is a craft to nerfing to protect high priced items just as there is to putting something juicy into a midline product to pull someone up, and Canon is terrific at it.

I just think a few of their nerfing calls are a little giggleworthy. It's not about claiming the company is unfair and throwing a YAPODFC tantrum nearly so much as rolling my eyes publicly amongst those who understand.

And that's one of many reasons why I come here, folks.

- A

 

[hbr]

I am not buying all this talk about "crippled" Canon cameras. It's just a load of BS. Canon has several target audiences with price points that Canon believes that people will purchase. When the 6D was introduced, it was an attempt to get enthusiasts and amateurs to upgrade to a Full Frame camera who otherwise could not afford or would not buy the 5D III and at the same time sell a lot more EF lenses. This was a gamble for Canon that worked out quite well for them. It surely worked for me. I have purchased quite a lot of "L" lenses after purchasing my 6D that I never would have bought if I had stayed with my Rebels. A lot of people purchased the 6D as a second body for their 5d IIIs. The 11 point AF system was indeed the 6D's weakness, but remember that it was released in 2012. The 9 point and 19 point AF systems were in most of Canon's cameras at the time, even the 5D II had a 9 point AF system.
The term, "crippled" only works from a top down view vs a bottom up view point. In other words, I want all the features of the latest and greatest at half the price. That makes no business sense. But if I own a $1,000 Rebel, would I spend double that to get a much better camera? I did. Would I spend 4x the price to get a few extra features that I would never or seldom use. In my case, no, I would not.
If Canon made their design decisions solely based on the comments of this forum, the engineers would all go insane and quit trying. I guess what is needed to satisfy us is a modular body. Want 2 card slots? Have the salesman add one. Don't want a tilty / flippy screen. Have the salesman pull it out, etc.
I don't believe that Canon intentionally withholds features to protect another, more expensive camera, but rather makes good business decisions to offer the features at a specific price point that they believe will sell and make profits for them.

 

[rrcphoto]

Please don't mistake my comments -- I fully respect Canon's gamesmanship here. There is a craft to nerfing to protect high priced items just as there is to putting something juicy into a midline product to pull someone up, and Canon is terrific at it.

it's more than that, they also have the protect the 6D Mark III in this case and segment the profitability of the camera over it's lifecycle.

can't really expect that canon doesn't create camera bodies in a vacuum and hopes like hell they'll have something okay in 3-5 years to update it with.

obviously firmware changes wouldn't "cost money" but the rest .. we have seen with the 5D Mark IV that nearly half of the cost of the camera goes to the distributers (Canon USA and retailers), and Canon Japan only gets around 50% of the value. So when you're talking about a $2000 camera, canon japan has to roll a profit on that at around $1000, all of a sudden every dollar counts especially when we certainly don't know how much a full frame DPAF sensor is "costing" canon to shove into the camera body.

 

[rrcphoto]

I don't believe that Canon intentionally withholds features to protect another, more expensive camera, but rather makes good business decisions to offer the features at a specific price point that they believe will sell and make profits for them.

common sense and logic have no bearing in here

 

[Keith_Reeder]

Neuro being the sad Canon apologist as always

Assuming that you're not missing a smiley in there somewhere - taking over from Dilbert and AvTvM, are you?

This "anyone not b1tching about Canon all the time about everything they do is an easily-pleased fanboy/shill..." schtick is cheap, and old.

It is actually quite possible to be perfectly happy with Canon's offerings without being any of the above...

 

[ahsanford]

It is actually quite possible to be perfectly happy with Canon's offerings without being any of the above...

But how on earth can you find happiness in life when other companies' spec sheets have bigger numbers and more stuff?

- A

 

[K]

So, Canon should just include all features on all cameras, right?

This is the straw man argument most apologists work off of. I'm not suggesting that in the slightest.

Instead, I observe what is reasonable implementation and expectation in a price range. Nikon has no problemo putting their 51pt system in the D750 which for that generation was a flagship level AF. Same with the dual slots.

For a $2,000 body, it isn't unreasonable to expect at the very least, a 45pt AF system, dual slots and 6 fps. It's 1/2 through 2017 already....

If Canon can't deliver on those specs at a minimum - wow. That is pretty sad. Will it sell? Oh sure. It will sell great. Thanks to so many people committed to the Canon system with NO choice. If they want a newer FF sensor on the cheap, this is it. Oh what? going to liquidate thousands of dollars in glass to switch? Nope. Suckas. Canon says eat it. And they'll go for it, even with 2010 or worse specs elsewhere...Meanwhile, the rest of the industry will laugh.

This is giving Canon a big break too. In reality, they should meet or beat all specs of the D750 from 2014. Not even asking for that - yet taking heat by the fan boys. Insanity.

But we know the reason why...a 6D2 that meets or beats a D750 will cannibalize the 5D4 easily. You know it, I know it.

Therefore, in reality - on specs, the D750 is more of a competitor to the 5D4. This is proof positive that Canon is not giving its users the value it should. This is regardless of profits, and all the other red herrings and irrelevant statements.

It's not equal to the 5D4, but it is closer to it than it is to the speculated 6D2, and miles away from the 6D. It's not far back at all from the 5D4. But a normal person (not an zealot Canon fanboy) would then wonder why does a $1,500 - $1,800 Nikon nearly match a $3,300 one from Canon? Meanwhile, the D750 is on backorder it is selling like crazy at the price of $1,500.



My goal as a consumer is to get the most for my money, not to needlessly enrich a corporation for shorting me on value. Nor is it to come to a forum, and act as a Canon rep and defend them against all reason, fact and logic - most of the time against my own best interests.

Complete and total defense of Canon and all out apologetics is self defeating. Remember, extremists who show high degrees of bias self-marginalize themselves. Level headed folks see through it and the message is lost.

 

[bdunbar79]

I don't know how else to put this. But NO, Canon should not do what you are saying. Nikon and Sony should NOT have made those cameras so feature-rich, because...it didn't work out for them. Instead of gaining popularity and market share, they actually lost market share. I think that is the major point you are missing badly. You think because two companies foolishly make their cameras overly feature-rich then they should. No, they shouldn't and it is Canon laughing all the way to the bank, yes. If you want the specs you say in a 6D2 body for that price point, then yes you had better switch brands.

Do I wish the 1Dx sometimes hit focus better than it already does? Or the DR were better at high ISO sometimes? Or there was more resolution than 18 MP? Heck yes. But I'm also not an idiot.

 

[ahsanford]

But we know the reason why...a 6D2 that meets or beats a D750 will cannibalize the 5D4 easily. You know it, I know it.

[truncated]

My goal as a consumer is to get the most for my money

'Better than D750' is not the bar the 6D2 needs to clear to threatens 5D4 sales. Prospective 5D4 buyers are overwhelmingly already in the Canon fold and don't give a whip about Nikon offerings. So I see this more as a topline simple read of the speclist:

30, 7, 61. Those are the 'horsepower specs' for stills. 30 MP, 7 fps, 61 AF points.

We all know there's a ton more to a rig than that, but Canon will make sure the 6D2 does not match/surpass any of those three metrics and the 5D4 will remain at a higher perch prestige-wise, and that will protect its sales, price, etc. (They'll take other things away from the 6D2, of course.)

As for your second point (quote above), I'll stop you right there. Besides Leica, I can't think of a worse brand to pray at the altar of from a 'bang for your buck' perspective than Canon. If that is your goal, you need to leave the brand immediately. Sony, Pentax, and even Nikon are better 'camera spec sheet value proposition' companies than Canon, and that will stay that way until the market turns dramatically in the ways I enumerated previously.

- A

 

[K]

I don't know how else to put this. But NO, Canon should not do what you are saying. Nikon and Sony should NOT have made those cameras so feature-rich, because...it didn't work out for them. Instead of gaining popularity and market share, they actually lost market share. I think that is the major point you are missing badly.

I think you should familiarize yourself with the statement: Correlation does not imply Causation.

This is just a derivative of the "canon makes a bajillion dollars, they are right" argument. It comes in various forms.

No one argues Canon isn't the market leader. No one argues that Canon isn't profitable. These are all other topics.

You guys are something else. I'm trying to wrap my mind around your defense of Canon, and agreement with holding back features for their profitability against your own consumer interests.

This same phenomenon in other industries would lead to this:


"I'm happy that Toyota left out bluetooth enabled sound system and power windows, yet sell their cars for the same money - I want them to be more profitable at my expense, I don't need bluetooth and I can roll up windows manually"

"Intel should keep the price of their i7 CPU's at $300 starting, but lock the multiplier and clock them down 1ghz. This will lower their waste for CPU's that don't test reliable at high clock speeds and they'll make more money off of me. I can just wait longer for things to get done on my computer, no biggie"

 

[Mikehit]

My goal as a consumer is to get the most for my money,

Strange. My goal is to get a camera that does what I need it to.

Nor is it to come to a forum, and act as a Canon rep and defend them against all reason, fact and logic - most of the time against my own best interests.

Nor is mine. But at the same time I can see why Canon do what they do and I know I have a choice.

Complete and total defense of Canon and all out apologetics is self defeating.

You are making a classic mistake - you are assuming that people who take time to understand why Canon (or any company, or any individual person) do something is tantamount to complicity. It is a facile argument, as bad as blind obeisance.

Remember, extremists who show high degrees of bias self-marginalize themselves. Level headed folks see through it and the message is lost.

Level headed folks have no problem understanding what is going on and understand the options.


The 6D was an experiment for Canon and it was remarkably successful. At the time it gave users or the xxxD and xxD lines an option: go for the 7D for a cut-price sports camera or go for the 6D for a cut-price landscape/studio camera. Market differentiation - something Canon is being panned for seemingly.
Technology has moved on and now both lines are converging again.

Time and again a Canon model comes out and people are underwhelmed with the spec sheet...then people start using them and the mood changes significantly. Some look at their success and call it marketing hype - well marketing hype only lasts so long so Canon must be doing something right in terms of providing the needs of the market. Something that passes you by. Which brings us back to the start of the quotes in this post...

 

[Mikehit]

"I'm happy that Toyota left out bluetooth enabled sound system and power windows, yet sell their cars for the same money - I want them to be more profitable at my expense, I don't need bluetooth and I can roll up windows manually"

Straw man.
People care about bluetooth for communicating. People care about automatic windows because they are so easy to instal and all decent cars have them. Ditto central locking. Then again there are dozens of car manufacturers out there to force them to do it.
From the trinkets you describe in your list of wants,none (and I mean none) are a deal breaker for me. Tilty-flippy is nice to have. More AF points on my 6D are nice to have (I have the 7D2 for when I need more AF points).
What I do have are access to an unparalleled range of lenses - you know, the things that define image quality.


In DSLR there are Canon, Nikon and Pentax. Where is the pressure for those trinkets you want?
In cameras in general add: Sony, Olympus, Panasonic and Fuji. None of them have the kudos of Canon. None of them make 'pro-looking' DSLRs. All of them are relatively new to the scene and not built up a power base yet.

So is Canon abusing its position? That is one (equally valid) way of looking at it. Are their products any more expensive for what I want them to do? Nope. I have access to models that allow me to do what I want and the occasional inconvenience for the things I do occasionally do not matter to me enough. And, from speaking to non-enthusiast photographer friends and family it doesn't matter to them either.

 

[Loswr]

Neuro being the sad Canon apologist as always

Assuming that you're not missing a smiley in there somewhere - taking over from Dilbert and AvTvM, are you?

Suggesting he's in the league of dilbert and AvTvM is really hitting below the belt. Except that belts aren't needed in dilbertland or the AvTvM Universe, because they use Canon camera straps to hold up their pants there, those being the only useful items in the boxes after discarding the useless chunks of metal and plastic in there for shipping ballast.

If PBD wants to borrow my Big Animated Winky Emoticon, all he has to do is ask...

 

[ahsanford]

The 6D was an experiment for Canon and it was remarkably successful. At the time it gave users or the xxxD and xxD lines an option: go for the 7D for a cut-price sports camera or go for the 6D for a cut-price landscape/studio camera.

This. Canon isn't directly competing against anyone other than themselves right now. When you lead the market, gaining share is less important than mix-shift of existing customers to higher priced items, which is exactly what Canon is doing. Forget the 6D line vs. D610 or D750 -- it's about getting an 80D user to jump to a 6D2.

This same phenomenon in other industries would lead to this:

"I'm happy that Toyota left out bluetooth enabled sound system and power windows, yet sell their cars for the same money - I want them to be more profitable at my expense, I don't need bluetooth and I can roll up windows manually"

If Canon was in a pure value-proposition business like automotive, yes, this would make sense. But a car is standalone purchase that has everything onboard. Effectively, buying a new car is not unlike a complete camera system migration to a new system with a single purchase. But buying a camera body is not.

That distinction is critical here. The unwritten dagger on all Canon spec lists is that it works natively and flawlessly with the EF portfolio, something no other manufacturer can claim. That's a massive, entrenched competitive advantage that allows Canon to not give two effs about keeping up with the body specs of Sony, Nikon, etc.

- A

 

[bdunbar79]

I don't know how else to put this. But NO, Canon should not do what you are saying. Nikon and Sony should NOT have made those cameras so feature-rich, because...it didn't work out for them. Instead of gaining popularity and market share, they actually lost market share. I think that is the major point you are missing badly.

I think you should familiarize yourself with the statement: Correlation does not imply Causation.

This is just a derivative of the "canon makes a bajillion dollars, they are right" argument. It comes in various forms.

No one argues Canon isn't the market leader. No one argues that Canon isn't profitable. These are all other topics.

You guys are something else. I'm trying to wrap my mind around your defense of Canon, and agreement with holding back features for their profitability against your own consumer interests.

This same phenomenon in other industries would lead to this:


"I'm happy that Toyota left out bluetooth enabled sound system and power windows, yet sell their cars for the same money - I want them to be more profitable at my expense, I don't need bluetooth and I can roll up windows manually"

"Intel should keep the price of their i7 CPU's at $300 starting, but lock the multiplier and clock them down 1ghz. This will lower their waste for CPU's that don't test reliable at high clock speeds and they'll make more money off of me. I can just wait longer for things to get done on my computer, no biggie"

I'm not defending Canon. It's just hard to read through your posts, proclaiming that "because Nikon did it, because Sony did it." What you don't understand is that Nikon and Sony consistently offer whatever "features" you are complaining about, over Canon, time and time again, and yet, for some odd reason, they are not making anywhere near the money Canon is. They have nowhere near the market-share Canon does. Maybe they're doing something wrong? Hmmm, there's a concept. Besides, did you decide that Nikon or Sony have the "golden standards" of what should go in a camera? I'm not going to do anything the same that a company is doing that is also losing in the market. Personally, I think the D750 is a good camera. It's asinine to think that is some standard all should follow as an example.

Maybe...there's...something...wrong...

Canon could easily offer those "features" for much cheaper and make razor-thin margins. But why would they?

"Correlation does not imply Causation."

Who cares? Nikon and Canon have common goals. According to you, Nikon provides better value for the consumer's money. Their cameras have much better specs and they sell for less. Nikon is losing and the margin gets worse every year. There's not really much else to conclude other than nobody gives a crap about any of the specs you complain about. And further, nobody cares that you are complaining. Nikon and Canon have common goals and one is meeting those goals and one is not. I'd love a 1Dx-performing MILC FF rig to shoot sports events but I'm not so ignorant to think that Canon owes me that. I'm a consumer. If I want that and some other company offers that then I am free to sell all my Canon gear and switch brands.

 

[K]

That distinction is critical here. The unwritten dagger on all Canon spec lists is that it works natively and flawlessly with the EF portfolio, something no other manufacturer can claim. That's a massive, entrenched competitive advantage that allows Canon to not give two effs about keeping up with the body specs of Sony, Nikon, etc.

- A

No doubt the EOS system is great. But is anyone still buying EOS lenses from 1987 through the 1990's? Canon has updated just about all of them in the last 15 years...makes the compatibility advantage moot.

Nikon has backward and forwards compatibility issues. But we're talking using ancient glass with newest bodies, or ancient bodies with the newest glass.

Who buys a $2,000 DSLR to then use their 1970's lens? LOL. Or worse, who is using a 1st gen DSLR with a $2,500 lens?

Maybe someone, but there's zero value in that. If anything, they are losing value in either the body or the lens when the potential can't be reached.

 

[K]

The 6D was an experiment for Canon and it was remarkably successful. At the time it gave users or the xxxD and xxD lines an option: go for the 7D for a cut-price sports camera or go for the 6D for a cut-price landscape/studio camera.

This. Canon isn't directly competing against anyone other than themselves right now. When you lead the market, gaining share is less important than mix-shift of existing customers to higher priced items, which is exactly what Canon is doing. Forget the 6D line vs. D610 or D750 -- it's about getting an 80D user to jump to a 6D2.

- A

On this, we agree. But I would say that it isn't only because they are market leader - but because people are stuck in a system. Captive consumers.

Not a nice way to treat them, given that other companies like Nikon offer much better values for upgrading to their existing customers.


A D7200 owner does NOT give up their AF performance to go to a D750.

Why does an 70D or 7D owner give it up to go to a 6D ? (keeping generations equal here)

 

[ahsanford]

No doubt the EOS system is great. But is anyone still buying EOS lenses from 1987 through the 1990's? Canon has updated just about all of them in the last 15 years...makes the compatibility advantage moot.

Off the top of my head, EF lenses released in the 90s that are still in production include the 50 f/1.4, 85 f/1.8, 135 f/2L, 400 f/5.6L, the 70-200 f/4L.

You're right, no one buys those anymore. :

- A

 

[Mikehit]

Not a nice way to treat them, ...

Sorry - are you trying to bring some sense of ethics into a marketing decision? If canon are not being 'nice', where are the complaints from the general public?
A car manufacturer produces cars with poor quality engine and complaints are rife on the internet
An airline treats its passengers badly and it hits the headlines

A camera manufacturer does not put 45-point AF in their newest camera, or does a poor imitation of 4K....and who gives a crap apart from someone who likes to think they are getting value for money? Until that changes, until you (and thousand s like you) tell Canon you are changing brands because they are not giving you what you think you deserve, they will keep doing what they have been doing.

Have you ever considered that by staying within the Canon environment, by buying more bodies and more lenses you are as much an apologist as anyone else who buys their stuff. You are telling their marketing guys 'Hey, you did not put 4K and 45-point AF in your next camera but I don't care'. It is telling them that despite their technological shortfalls, the are doing other things that make up for it. Which is precisely my view.

I have no problem with you saying what you would like, but don't complain about Canon's approach and then keep buying their stuff.