Canon EOS M5 Coming Before Photokina [CR3]

[Orangutan]

Orangutan: That looks irrelevant. Nobody wants them to stop doing what they do. They can continue, AND expand sideways, delivering what more people want.

You're making two assumptions: (1) that you know how much it costs to provide the product: in addition to R&D, there's also tooling, distribution, support, etc. (2) that you know better than Canon how many people are willing to buy those "expand sideways" products at a profit.

The key point is this: Canon knows these things better than anyone on this forum.

Canon has a nose for profit, so if there were a worthwhile profit to be made in "sideways" products, Canon would be right there to do it. Consider the XC10/XC15: those are "sideways" products; while many of us scratch our heads, apparently Canon has sold enough of the XC10 to build an XC15. Canon has not, up to now, been all-in for mirrorless because, up to now, the market has not been there, regardless of what a vocal minority say.

 

[Orangutan]

Orangutan: That looks irrelevant. Nobody wants them to stop doing what they do. They can continue, AND expand sideways, delivering what more people want.

As rrcphoto suggested - it takes some development and stuff. One half they actually have, but not sell, the other half should be "easy" to expand. 3% of the total market is enaugh to hire 5 more engineers in the development! It would pay back soon with 3%.

The pertinent question is, why do you - with no special knowledge of the actual costs, the internal workings of Canon, or evidence from the camera industry at large - assume you know better than they do?

+100

 

[Loswr]

Internet whining from people with less business acumen than a bowling ball. :

 

[crashpc]

Orangutan: That looks irrelevant. Nobody wants them to stop doing what they do. They can continue, AND expand sideways, delivering what more people want.

As rrcphoto suggested - it takes some development and stuff. One half they actually have, but not sell, the other half should be "easy" to expand. 3% of the total market is enaugh to hire 5 more engineers in the development! It would pay back soon with 3%.

The pertinent question is, why do you - with no special knowledge of the actual costs, the internal workings of Canon, or evidence from the camera industry at large - assume you know better than they do?

I didn´t assume I know more. Again, irrelevant question. It often takes more or different things than just knowledge. The same as I don´t develop and sell electronics by myself - I can clearly do that, but I have other reasons not to do that. I would like what are Canons reasons.

 

[Orangutan]

You know it´s not because they don´t meet only MY needs. They don´t meet needs of many users. Some are arguing, some moved on ad bought DSLR for no other choice, some jumped already. There is no serious mid-range, nor high end MILC from Canon. That´s the topic, if you didn´t notice.

i consider it a shame for an "industry leader"

Let's say you take out a large loan to open a business, perhaps a bakery. You have a special bread you love to bake, and which a few loyal customers love; however, most of of your customers want mundane breads.

What products would you make? As an artisan baker, you would ignore the masses, bake what you want and enjoy the patronage of your small group of loyal customers. But you have expenses: your business loan, rent or mortgage on your home, feeding your family, etc.

An artist or artisan is more free to make what they want to make; a business must make what the customers will buy at a profitable price. Canon, and all other camera companies, are not artists nor artisans; they are businesses. Their job is to repay their debts, meet monthly payroll, and return dividends to shareholders. To do otherwise would be stupid.

The second key fact is that Canon knows far better than you, or anyone else on this forum, what their customers will pay for.

By this point, AvTvM is trolling. Maybe he believes what he says, maybe it's partly or wholly a persona (the 'stupid Canon' thing has become his motto). Patiently trying to explain reality is of no use, especially the hundredth time it's been done, though I salute you for trying.

I think you're right, he's soft-trolling. I'm no longer writing for him, but for others who may be lured by his self-important nonsense. Neither he nor others like him get this basic point: even the most ardent Canon fanbois want improvements in tech, features and variety. Some of us just have a better grasp of the underlying business principles that drive all of this.

 

[AvTvM]

insults and ad-personam attacks from Neuro. As always, when he is out of arguments.
And the usual Canon Defense league players in full action.
Oh so concerned for Canon and their balance sheet! And so gullible, that Canon "knows it all" and is nearly or 100% INFALLIBLE! We have all seen many blunders Canon committed.

What are you anways, you Canon Defense League posters? Just naive fanbois or paid by Canon PR? All day whining about poor Canon's profitability .. as if it were too low ... or as if it were hurt by producing a freaking awesome EOS M5 and a freaking awesome mirrorless FF system.

Me? I am a Canon customers who demands the very best possible gear for my money from my gear suppliers! I don't give a damn about Canon's balance sheet, what I care for is my gear and my wallet.

 

[Orangutan]

Orangutan: That looks irrelevant. Nobody wants them to stop doing what they do. They can continue, AND expand sideways, delivering what more people want.

As rrcphoto suggested - it takes some development and stuff. One half they actually have, but not sell, the other half should be "easy" to expand. 3% of the total market is enaugh to hire 5 more engineers in the development! It would pay back soon with 3%.

The pertinent question is, why do you - with no special knowledge of the actual costs, the internal workings of Canon, or evidence from the camera industry at large - assume you know better than they do?

I didn´t assume I know more. Again, irrelevant question. It often takes more or different things than just knowledge. The same as I don´t develop and sell electronics by myself - I can clearly do that, but I have other reasons not to do that. I would like what are Canons reasons.

That's an easy question to answer: profit. They have a good idea what will generate profit, and they do that. They also know what's not likely to make profit, and they don't do that.

It's entirely OK to say you would like a particular product or feature -- we all do that. It becomes silly when people proclaim that they know what will sell and make profits based on their limited personal experience.

 

[crashpc]

Orangutan: That looks irrelevant. Nobody wants them to stop doing what they do. They can continue, AND expand sideways, delivering what more people want.

You're making two assumptions: (1) that you know how much it costs to provide the product: in addition to R&D, there's also tooling, distribution, support, etc. (2) that you know better than Canon how many people are willing to buy those "expand sideways" products at a profit.

The key point is this: Canon knows these things better than anyone on this forum.

Canon has a nose for profit, so if there were a worthwhile profit to be made in "sideways" products, Canon would be right there to do it. Consider the XC10/XC15: those are "sideways" products; while many of us scratch our heads, apparently Canon has sold enough of the XC10 to build an XC15. Canon has not, up to now, been all-in for mirrorless because, up to now, the market has not been there, regardless of what a vocal minority say.

I don´t do these assumptions. You rather read better who is posting these.
1) I know part of it. Yes. What you miss is that there is more price to it than just body, camera development and distribution.
There is price of ruining competition and ruling the market.
There is hidden price in people buying into that product and buying LENSES and accessories. There might be even more. to it. For example development and debugging. It is best way to hone your product if you send it to the people to try. If you don´t do that massively, your development is weak.

2)Where did you get that? It was rrphoto, who suggested some percentage of market share. These are all irrelevant responses to me.

 

[Orangutan]

Oh so concerned for Canon and their balance sheet!

Error: we're not concerned about their balance sheet, but we know they are.

that Canon "knows it all" and is nearly or 100% INFALLIBLE!

Error: no one has said that. We say only that they know MUCH MUCH MUCH more than you do.

Me? I am a Canon customers who demands the very best possible gear for my money from my gear suppliers!

As am I, with one exception: I accept the reality that a multi-billion $ company doesn't take much interest in my personal demands. My choices are to buy or not buy. Canon, Nikon, Sony, et. al. don't care about my opinion...or yours.

I don't give a dman about Canon's balance sheet, what I care for is my gear and my wallet.

Same for me, with one exception: I understand that Canon does care about their balance sheet, so I don't go off into conspiracy-theory land about why Canon ignores their customers. Nikon and Sony would do the same if they could.

 

[Orangutan]

I don´t do these assumptions. You rather read better who is posting these.
1) I know part of it. Yes. What you miss is that there is more price to it than just body, camera development and distribution.
There is price of ruining competition and ruling the market.
There is hidden price in people buying into that product and buying LENSES and accessories. There might be even more. to it. For example development and debugging. It is best way to hone your product if you send it to the people to try. If you don´t do that massively, your development is weak.

These may all be true; however, (1) the big camera makers know these factors better than anyone here;(2) Canon has a long history of making the correct decisions. While this is not a guarantee that it will continue to work, we do know they're working on newer technologies. I think it's presumptuous to believe any camera makers are not taking these into account.

 

[crashpc]

I don´t do these assumptions. You rather read better who is posting these.
1) I know part of it. Yes. What you miss is that there is more price to it than just body, camera development and distribution.
There is price of ruining competition and ruling the market.
There is hidden price in people buying into that product and buying LENSES and accessories. There might be even more. to it. For example development and debugging. It is best way to hone your product if you send it to the people to try. If you don´t do that massively, your development is weak.

These may all be true; however, (1) the big camera makers know these factors better than anyone here;(2) Canon has a long history of making the correct decisions. While this is not a guarantee that it will continue to work, we do know they're working on newer technologies. I think it's presumptuous to believe any camera makers are not taking these into account.

Well, things are not black and white. But decisions are. Who knows how close they were to "do that" instead of "don´t do that". They did their calculations, and maybe found it would be worth straight money wise on 98% instead of 100.... Or they might miscalculate few %.
And that would be, I believe, wrong behavior and bad message to the customer.
And Customers are these who the company relies on, not the shareholders. Rather both, but customers first.
THAT one is imagination and assumption....

 

[overniven]

Seems to me that any large company that needs to support an existing infrastructure of users/systems/lenses is in many ways at a severe disadvantage when it comes to innovation. I'm sure there are hundreds of people inside these large companies that would love to build an amazing mirror less system. Supporting an existing user base is a huge PITA, especially one that you demand thousands of dollarsEuroYen etc from for your product. Had The other manufacturers had the same success in their previous generations that Canon and Nikon did, they'd be having the same issues, and you'd all be complaining about them. That being said everyone users/competitors/trolls need to keep holding Canon/Nikon's feet to the fire so they continue their slow path towards change. Competition is good. So many choices. It's an amazing time for photo equipment.

 

[scyrene]

I don't give a dman about Canon's balance sheet, what I care for is my gear and my wallet.

Same for me, with one exception: I understand that Canon does care about their balance sheet, so I don't go off into conspiracy-theory land about why Canon ignores their customers. Nikon and Sony would do the same if they could.

Come on now, Orangutan, you are clearly a lackey paid to infiltrate these forums. As am I. And everyone else he disagrees with! :

 

[AvTvM]

These may all be true; however, (1) the big camera makers know these factors better than anyone here;

Please show me broad-based, hard data and evidence for your opinion. ;D

Until then I consider it erroneous. Definitely as a total forum community, we understand A LOT more about camera market demands than any camera maker. They could not possibly afford a sample as huge, as global and as knowledgable as this forum community.

 

[Loswr]

Definitely as a total forum community, we understand A LOT more about camera market demands than any camera maker. They could not possibly afford a sample as huge, as global and as knowledgable as this forum community.

I was wrong. Some on this forum have even less business acumen than a minuscule bit of cat feces rolled flat by that bowling ball, which already had no understanding of business and markets.

Conservatively, Canon sells about 5 million ILCs per year. If just 10% of those people register their purchases, that's data on demographics, buying practices, and other gear owned for 500,000 customers per year. Plus the surveys they conduct. Plus the 3rd party market research they contract out.

There are ~12K members on this forum, and if you ignore those who've never posted, it's far less. If you ignore those who are complete idiots, that number goes down even further.

But I do understand that to you, the only opinion that matters is that held by one person, who happens to have even less business acumen than bacertia growing on flattened cat feces.

 

[AvTvM]

Definitely as a total forum community, we understand A LOT more about camera market demands than any camera maker. They could not possibly afford a sample as huge, as global and as knowledgable as this forum community.

I was wrong. Some on this forum have even less business acumen than a minuscule bit of cat feces rolled flat by that bowling ball, which already had no understanding of business and markets.

Conservatively, Canon sells about 5 million ILCs per year. If just 10% of those people register their purchases, that's data on demographics, buying practices, and other gear owned for 500,000 customers per year. Plus the surveys they conduct. Plus the 3rd party market research they contract out.

There are ~12K members on this forum, and if you ignore those who've never posted, it's far less. If you ignore those who are complete idiots, that number goes down even further.

But I do understand that to you, the only opinion that matters is that held by one person, who happens to have even less business acumen than bacertia growing on flattened cat feces.

Neuro, may I ask you to tone your responses down a bit. We are not discussing feces here or anybody's business acumen. We have an interesting internet discussion on whether there might be any wisdom at all in Canon withholding a kick-ass mirrorless camera from the market for so many years. Even with an APS-C sensor, not to mention FF sensored.

Sales data for past mirrorless Canon cameras - all of them clearly sub-par compared to competitive offerings - are not much of a predictor for what market potential "really right" and great mirrorless Canon EOS cameras might have. The only thing that counts from your statement above are ... SURVEYS. And that's where my previous statement comes in: I said, Canon could never ever afford a survey with a sample as large, knowledgeable, diverse and global as this forum community. Not to mention ALL photography gear related forum/internet communities around. And even if they could pay all 12k members on this forum and not only a few ... they could never ask all the right questions to arrive at as deep an understanding of what their customers and the market demands as you get by reading our postings.

On aggregate, people do know MUCH BETTER ... than politicians and corporations, including *infallably stupid* ;D Canon. Seriously! 8)

 

[Otara]

Yes people as a group do often know what they want much better than 'experts'. You dont even seem to realise you're actually arguing against yourself.

 

[Hector1970]

It's a pity the tone on the forum gets so confrontational at times when all people are doing is expressing opinions.
Some people need to realise they are not always right and other opinions if they differ does not mean they are stupid.
People make exaggerated claims or claims not fully supported by facts even so sometimes they are valid.
I've no doubt Canon are clever and know their customers.
No company though is 100% sure about the future.
Often what worked in the past suddenly doesn't work anymore.
There are lots a big companies who fall apart because they don't move with the times.
Canon have an advantage because their lens are so good.
They don't need to push the boat out too far on their cameras, they just need not to lag too far behind.
It's worked so far but the mirrorless sector is a threat to Canon.
There are always newer generations coming up.
A mirrored full frame DSLR will look like an old Betamax to them.
Thankfully for Canon their ownership base is older and heavily invested in their glass.
There is no compelling reason for them to move yet.

 

[Orangutan]

On aggregate, people do know MUCH BETTER

Now this makes some sense; however, this forum -- even all the camera forums in the world -- are not the "aggregate" that knows much better. The "aggregate" is the total of the camera-buying public. So far the "aggregate" continues to buy digital reflex cameras, and continues to not buy mirrorless in large numbers. That applies to MFT, Sony's high-end, or the well-reviewed and reasonably priced Fuji XT series. That's what the "aggregate" of people have to say on the subject.

To repeat, yet again: you are entitled to your opinions, and even entitled to try to persuade others to agree with you. But your opinions are not objective facts.

 

[JamesD]

I am going to reply to this best practice business debate only once because first and foremost it is totally off topic. The people on this forum do not make up a majority of camera end users by any stretch of the imagination.

I would say 90% here on a regular basis are people who either want to turn this into a hard core hobby, those that already have, and those who use cameras professionally. There is a very good reason you cannot buy a full frame camera in Wall-Mart, granddad, grandmother, mom, dad, sister, brother, boyfriend, and girlfriend do not buy them for special days spent with each other.

The number of full frame cameras is trivial when compared to models with C, 4/3, and smaller sensors and its because the people that buy those smaller simpler cameras make up the majority of the market by a wide margin. It is that simple.

I want my perfect camera just as much as anyone. Due to its current price The Sony A7 would be it if it had in camera image stabilization. The Fuji would if it had a full frame sensor with an A7 price. Same for the Canon M3, same for the Nikon V1, or one of the Panasonic, or any other name brand small camera.

We all want more because we know what might be possible. Now getting what I want in a body only camera for 1200.00 or less is not something that is out there right now. It is flat out not made by anyone.

But every one of the major camera companies is getting closer each year. With all this being said, I am not going to waste any more of my time or yours complaining about what I can't get, instead I am going to enjoy and learn how to use what I have and can get.