Canon Will Announce Their First Full Frame Mirrorless in 2018 [CR3]

[ahsanford]

no no, I see lots of understanding FOR Canon's profits. And even some CONCERN about those profits not being high enough. That's what really puzzles me. Why some (many?) Canon CUSTOMERS here in this forum don't fervently request better products and/or lower prices from Canon, but defend Canon's decisions all the time. At least implicitly, by saying "Canon could/should/will not sell their stuff for less money". Well, heck no, if even their customers in internet fora don't ask for it.

To me this behaviour displayed by some fellow forum members seems as strange as if an assembly of union representatives would say "we should not request any wage increases, company profits are very low at only 15% EBIT ratio, they might go out of business otherwise." And guess what their constituency would say ...

You got me. I'm a bot for Canon.

OR

You've mistaken a statement I made of how Canon operates as defense of the motherland or something. But think about that: I have no skin in the game here. No Canon stock, no hatred of Sony, no sick desire to pay more, etc. It's just a statement of how Canon operates.

And from that statement, I have logically surmised that Canon would be unlikely to roll out a gravy train of bargain basement FF cameras just because it would be awesome, 'it would stick it to Sony', 'people demand more', 'canon would win', etc. Because being awesome, sticking it to Sony, 'Winning on AvTvM's terms' or giving us more bang for our buck is not a goal of the company. They simply want to be profitable and they believe they've found a better way to do that.

Yet somehow, bringing this to your attention gets you calling out "some fellow forum members" like we're enemies of the state. Please stick to your product ideas. We'll stick to talking about them. But questioning our intentions when we've so plainly laid out our rationale for why the idea isn't happening just gets silly.

I don't think your idea is going to happen, and that doesn't make me a corporate shill or hate dreams. It's just not a sound business idea, IMHO.

- A

 

[3kramd5]

Yet somehow, bringing this to your attention gets you calling out "some fellow forum members" like we're enemies of the state.

I don't think your idea is going to happen, and that doesn't make me a corporate shill or hate dreams. It's just not a sound business idea, IMHO.

- A

+1

I imagine I’m included amongst the maligned “canapologists” despite discussing canon’s products, technology, and speculating about canon’s strategies dispassionately.

Please stick to your product ideas. We'll stick to talking about them. But questioning our intentions when we've so plainly laid out our rationale for why the idea isn't happening just gets silly.

The shark was jumped when cameras whose AF location indicators don’t match the actual size of the sensors (read: all cameras with AF location indicators) were labeled as sh*t, and a suggestion that what might be better is AF indicators in proportion to the frame size labeled as canopology. That genie doesn’t go back in the bottle.

 

[Don Haines]

Personally, I want to see Canon making a decent profit. When a company isn’t, one of the first things to suffer is the R+D division which gets cut to save money in the short term..... and without it, the company really is doomed!

Healthy profit is necessary for innovation, and is necessary for stability. And before you start calling me a shill for Canon, I hope that Nikon, Sony, Olympus, and the others can also make a healthy profit because Canon also needs competition to help drive the need for that R+D

 

[3kramd5]

Personally, I want to see Canon making a decent profit. When a company isn’t, one of the first things to suffer is the R+D division which gets cut to save money in the short term..... and without it, the company really is doomed!

Healthy profits is necessary for innovation, and is necessary for stability. And before you start calling me a shill for Canon, I hope that Nikon, Sony, Olympus, and the others can also make a healthy profit because Canon also needs competition to help drive the need for that R+D

Sometimes it has the opposite effect. In the 1980s when Kodak was making 80% net margin on color film, they chose to not enter the digital camera market, which they could have owned, [notkodakpology]for fear it would have hurt their recurring sales[/notkodakpology].

Oops.

 

[ahsanford]

And before you start calling me a shill for Canon, I hope that Nikon, Sony, Olympus, and the others can also make a healthy profit because Canon also needs competition to help drive the need for that R+D

100%. We need healthy competition or those Canon profit margins will only get bigger, product lifecycles will get longer and my 50 f/nooneknows IS USM is never gonna happen. :'(

- A

 

[unfocused]

Canon should have pre-empted the Sony A7 with an FF MILC similarly priced and at least as well specced. Innovative Canon should have been able to do that, no?

A pretty good case can be made that Canon pre-empted the Sony A7 with a FF ILC called the 6D. While exact sales figures are not available, it's pretty easy to extrapolate from what is available that the 6D far outsold the A7. Canon, Nikon, Sony, etc., don't really care about mirrored or mirrorless. They care about selling cameras and Canon did that better than anyone else.

 

[takesome1]

Personally, I want to see Canon making a decent profit. When a company isn’t, one of the first things to suffer is the R+D division which gets cut to save money in the short term..... and without it, the company really is doomed!

Healthy profit is necessary for innovation, and is necessary for stability. And before you start calling me a shill for Canon, I hope that Nikon, Sony, Olympus, and the others can also make a healthy profit because Canon also needs competition to help drive the need for that R+D

Well good news.Canon, Nikon and Sony all are making a profit on their imaging business. One just has to look over their year end reports to see it.

 

[scyrene]

I’m gonna hold my breath until I GET.

I wish he would. If you'e holding your breath, you can't also moan. Although I guess you could continue typing... for a minute or two.

 

[Don Haines]

Personally, I want to see Canon making a decent profit. When a company isn’t, one of the first things to suffer is the R+D division which gets cut to save money in the short term..... and without it, the company really is doomed!

Healthy profits is necessary for innovation, and is necessary for stability. And before you start calling me a shill for Canon, I hope that Nikon, Sony, Olympus, and the others can also make a healthy profit because Canon also needs competition to help drive the need for that R+D

Sometimes it has the opposite effect. In the 1980s when Kodak was making 80% net margin on color film, they chose to not enter the digital camera market, which they could have owned, [notkodakpology]for fear it would have hurt their recurring sales[/notkodakpology].

Oops.

That was a case of not recognizing that a disruptive technology was on the way.... Kodak did have a huge research department, but it was mainly based on chemicals. Obviously, they failed to listen to their electronics people....

I remember when the Kodak DC20 came out. I had one. I thought that it was revolutionary and would change photography. Yes it was a poor substitute for a decent SLR, but it pointed to the future.... and that future is an internet full of cat pictures


(Image from 1996 with a DC-20 from Kodak)

 

[bwud]

but now that I think about it I'm not sure exactly how helpful that would be. 50mm x10? Hand holding would be awful for trying to focus at 10X, I think. I'm imagining that it would feel like trying to hold a 500mm lens still to focus... jumping all over the place.

With IS enabled it’s fine.

Point taken from CFB -- 10x may be a bit ambitious for handheld work.

But really, it’s fine. I used it with lenses as long as 400mm. The combination of ILIS and IBIS is quite compelling. I wouldn’t zoom in the EVF before finding the subject, but if you find it, then engage IS, you can MF quite effectively with the magnifier. Short focal lengths are no problem at all.

My experience has been very different. Maybe you are running FF. I don't know. On a M43 camera the crop factor is x2 already. You might have very steady hands. Some of us don't. 400mm at 5x or 10x, sorry, I have trouble believing you had sharp results handheld with it zoomed like that through the viewfinder. Maybe you did, but I don't believe it. It wasn't easy and fine, anyway. You keep talking about IS or IBIS. Remember, a Canon mirrorless body probably WON'T have IBIS. So forget about that. Fine with IBIS? Maybe. MF lens with no IS and no IBIS? Not. Tripod required. Then, when zoomed 10X... how do you know your composition is correct? With a short focal length, it seems like composition would be even more critical.

Not trying to argue, but I cannot imagine trying to compose a photo on a 400mm lens or even 50mm lens at a 10X zoom while looking through the viewfinder and hand held. It's bad enough in live view on a tripod. At least then, though, I know my composition is correct before zooming.

I agree with 3kram5d. With image stabilization, focus magnification is a wonderful feature. Here is a quick example. I am hanging the camera from a strap, balancing it on my stomach (since I lack sufficient hands to record myself shooting normally), not holding my breath, defocusing, and then and focusing with 1 finger magnified from a 400mm lens at close to minimum focus distance.

video link

When it stopped the video, I used my left hand to press the shutter release. Attached is what I got.

Using the viewfinder and two hands, it's even better. This isn't a scientific test, and ordinarily I'd try to shoot 400mm at faster than 1/100, but for the purposes of discussion this is good enough. I have no doubt Canon can accomplish a similarly useful focus zoom.

Forgive the state of my lawn :'(

 

[3kramd5]

Personally, I want to see Canon making a decent profit. When a company isn’t, one of the first things to suffer is the R+D division which gets cut to save money in the short term..... and without it, the company really is doomed!

Healthy profits is necessary for innovation, and is necessary for stability. And before you start calling me a shill for Canon, I hope that Nikon, Sony, Olympus, and the others can also make a healthy profit because Canon also needs competition to help drive the need for that R+D

Sometimes it has the opposite effect. In the 1980s when Kodak was making 80% net margin on color film, they chose to not enter the digital camera market, which they could have owned, [notkodakpology]for fear it would have hurt their recurring sales[/notkodakpology].

Oops.

That was a case of not recognizing that a disruptive technology was on the way.... Kodak did have a huge research department, but it was mainly based on chemicals. Obviously, they failed to listen to their electronics people....

The absolutely recognized the disruptive potential.

It was a case of intentionally protecting said chemical business because of its high net profit. If they’d been making pennies on the dollar rather than 80%, they likely would have pushed into digital in the early 90s (they had the design in 1989) and the market could be very different.

In 1989 Sasson and Robert Hills made the first DSLR camera, which wasn't a jury-rigged prototype, but one similar to the ones on the market today. It used memory cards and compressed the image.

Kodak's marketing department, however, resisted it, according to the Times. Sasson was told they "could" sell the camera, but that they wouldn't, for fear it would cannibalize film sales. At the time, Kodak made money off of every step of the photography business. Why give that up?

Ringing up profit margins of around 80%, film drove the company’s expansion. Leo J. Thomas, senior vice president and Kodak’s director of research, told the Wall Street Journal in 1985: “It is very hard to find anything [with profit margins] like color photography that is legal.”

Many say film’s profitability contributed to Kodak’s demise. “I believe the single biggest mistake that Kodak made for two decades or more was the fear of introducing technologies that would disrupt the film business,” Glocker says. “There were excellent scientists and engineers at the bench level and through several layers of management who generated some of the world’s leading innovations. The company, however, was almost never willing to risk the high film margins by introducing them.

This is obviously not the same thing as mirrorless versus mirror, just a note on profit as a paralyzing effect rather than a driver of R&D innovation to market.

 

[Ozarker]

On a side note, Sony's first commercial product was a rice cooker.

Sony's first commercial product is a small transistor radio, Model TR55. Sony has never been in rice cooker business.

Before the name was changed to Sony... the company made a rice cooker. Same company, different name. https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2010/09/sonys-first-failure-the-1945-electric-rice-cooker/

"...a prototype now sits ensconced in glass at the Sony Archives in Shinagawa."

But it was such a failure it was never released commercially.

Arguable, since the Rice Cooker is 1945 and TTEC was established in 1946.

https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/CorporateInfo/History/SonyHistory/1-01.html

LOL. Not arguable if Sony says so. Go argue with Sony.

 

[takesome1]

On a side note, Sony's first commercial product was a rice cooker.

Sony's first commercial product is a small transistor radio, Model TR55. Sony has never been in rice cooker business.

Before the name was changed to Sony... the company made a rice cooker. Same company, different name. https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2010/09/sonys-first-failure-the-1945-electric-rice-cooker/

"...a prototype now sits ensconced in glass at the Sony Archives in Shinagawa."

But it was such a failure it was never released commercially.

Arguable, since the Rice Cooker is 1945 and TTEC was established in 1946.

https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/CorporateInfo/History/SonyHistory/1-01.html

LOL. Not arguable if Sony says so. Go argue with Sony.

LOL click the link and read. Sony says so.

Tokyo Telecommunications Research Institute invited the cooker.

When Masaru Ibuka invented it he had not yet founded the company that would one day be Sony.

Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation founded in 1946 eventually turned in to Sony.

The article you read was internet fake / twisted news.

 

[Ozarker]

No, the proposal is perfectly sound and fine. Try to take a PAYING CUSTOMER's PERSPECTIVE for once, will ya? instead of trying to just defend Canon's mega profitability [13% EBIT on imaging revenues is more than healthy. It is "oligopoly level". I and anybody in their right mind believes in "MY WALLET FIRST", rather than in "make poor Canon great again".

It really is one of the most extreme forms of "Can-apologism" [sorry, but it is the only appropriate word for it] to always think like you were Canon Chief Financial officer or their main shareholder. Heck, no! We are all Canon customers. We have every right to and should be constantly demanding MAXIMUM BANG FOR OUR [HARD EARNED] BUCKS. If that means slimmer profits for Canon, so be it.

I'm not defending their profitability as just, I'm just pointing out the obvious: profitability is their goal. I never said it was honorable or fair. We'd all love to pay less.

But accept the fact that the market will pay Canon's prices for what they offer. That reality seems constantly lost on you. Until the market bucks on Canon's asking prices, Canon will continue to stick to their MO. It's not apologism, it's capitalism! Your caps lock rants shouldn't aimed at Canon or a forum: they really should be aimed at the market that (apparently) values things differently than you do.

- A

But Canon's profits are just.

 

[Don Haines]

On a side note, Sony's first commercial product was a rice cooker.

Sony's first commercial product is a small transistor radio, Model TR55. Sony has never been in rice cooker business.

Before the name was changed to Sony... the company made a rice cooker. Same company, different name. https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2010/09/sonys-first-failure-the-1945-electric-rice-cooker/

"...a prototype now sits ensconced in glass at the Sony Archives in Shinagawa."

But it was such a failure it was never released commercially.

Arguable, since the Rice Cooker is 1945 and TTEC was established in 1946.

https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/CorporateInfo/History/SonyHistory/1-01.html

LOL. Not arguable if Sony says so. Go argue with Sony.

LOL click the link and read. Sony says so.

Tokyo Telecommunications Research Institute invited the cooker.

When Masaru Ibuka invented it he had not yet founded the company that would one day be Sony.

Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation founded in 1946 eventually turned in to Sony.

The article you read was internet fake / twisted news.

None of this matters....

The important thing is that it was mirrorless! And even more important, Canon introduced their first mirrorless camera in 1937!

 

[Ozarker]

but now that I think about it I'm not sure exactly how helpful that would be. 50mm x10? Hand holding would be awful for trying to focus at 10X, I think. I'm imagining that it would feel like trying to hold a 500mm lens still to focus... jumping all over the place.

With IS enabled it’s fine.

Point taken from CFB -- 10x may be a bit ambitious for handheld work.

But really, it’s fine. I used it with lenses as long as 400mm. The combination of ILIS and IBIS is quite compelling. I wouldn’t zoom in the EVF before finding the subject, but if you find it, then engage IS, you can MF quite effectively with the magnifier. Short focal lengths are no problem at all.

My experience has been very different. Maybe you are running FF. I don't know. On a M43 camera the crop factor is x2 already. You might have very steady hands. Some of us don't. 400mm at 5x or 10x, sorry, I have trouble believing you had sharp results handheld with it zoomed like that through the viewfinder. Maybe you did, but I don't believe it. It wasn't easy and fine, anyway. You keep talking about IS or IBIS. Remember, a Canon mirrorless body probably WON'T have IBIS. So forget about that. Fine with IBIS? Maybe. MF lens with no IS and no IBIS? Not. Tripod required. Then, when zoomed 10X... how do you know your composition is correct? With a short focal length, it seems like composition would be even more critical.

Not trying to argue, but I cannot imagine trying to compose a photo on a 400mm lens or even 50mm lens at a 10X zoom while looking through the viewfinder and hand held. It's bad enough in live view on a tripod. At least then, though, I know my composition is correct before zooming.

I agree with 3kram5d. With image stabilization, focus magnification is a wonderful feature. Here is a quick example. I am hanging the camera from a strap, balancing it on my stomach (since I lack sufficient hands to record myself shooting normally), not holding my breath, defocusing, and then and focusing with 1 finger magnified from a 400mm lens at close to minimum focus distance.

video link

When it stopped the video, I used my left hand to press the shutter release. Attached is what I got.

Using the viewfinder and two hands, it's even better. This isn't a scientific test, and ordinarily I'd try to shoot 400mm at faster than 1/100, but for the purposes of discussion this is good enough. I have no doubt Canon can accomplish a similarly useful focus zoom.

Forgive the state of my lawn :'(

:'( My gosh guys, I thought Mr. Sanford and myself were talking about adapting legacy glass that is manual focus without IS (and no IBIS on Canon) to a FF Canon mirrorless camera and using through the viewfinder magnification (5x or 10x?) to get focus right. :'( What the heck? It's nice that you got the lamp post right. Do it with a MF 200-400mm lens on a perched bird (where you've got to be quick), through a magnified viewfinder, with no IS or IBIS... That was kinda the point. Please go back and read the beginning of the conversational sidebar. You guys keep throwing IS and IBIS in there.

BTW: What was your magnification factor on the lamp post? 10X looking through the viewfinder? Looks like you were in "Live View" at 6.2X to me. Not the same. Not what we were talking about. Through the viewfinder, sir. Handheld. No tripod, No sandbag (tummy). lol

I'll see what I can do tomorrow with a 200mm lens (to simulate 400mm FOV) on my Olympus. At 10x through the viewfinder would it be like sighting through a 4000mm lens? All I can imagine is lots of movement magnified. I could be very wrong and would be happy to admit it if true. Wide open (Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 200mm f/4 in this case) on a bird or squirrel or 1 year old. Through the viewfinder and IBIS off since Canon probably won't have IBIS.

 

[takesome1]

On a side note, Sony's first commercial product was a rice cooker.

Sony's first commercial product is a small transistor radio, Model TR55. Sony has never been in rice cooker business.

Before the name was changed to Sony... the company made a rice cooker. Same company, different name. https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2010/09/sonys-first-failure-the-1945-electric-rice-cooker/

"...a prototype now sits ensconced in glass at the Sony Archives in Shinagawa."

But it was such a failure it was never released commercially.

Arguable, since the Rice Cooker is 1945 and TTEC was established in 1946.

https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/CorporateInfo/History/SonyHistory/1-01.html

LOL. Not arguable if Sony says so. Go argue with Sony.

LOL click the link and read. Sony says so.

Tokyo Telecommunications Research Institute invited the cooker.

When Masaru Ibuka invented it he had not yet founded the company that would one day be Sony.

Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation founded in 1946 eventually turned in to Sony.

The article you read was internet fake / twisted news.

None of this matters....

The important thing is that it was mirrorless! And even more important, Canon introduced their first mirrorless camera in 1937!

How many MP is it.
How about DR?

In the 90's I bought a Victor Victrola at a garage sale. With it I bought a whole box of 78's.
My kids who were 6 and 8 would bug me to death to play this new CD player.

 

[3kramd5]

but now that I think about it I'm not sure exactly how helpful that would be. 50mm x10? Hand holding would be awful for trying to focus at 10X, I think. I'm imagining that it would feel like trying to hold a 500mm lens still to focus... jumping all over the place.

With IS enabled it’s fine.

Point taken from CFB -- 10x may be a bit ambitious for handheld work.

But really, it’s fine. I used it with lenses as long as 400mm. The combination of ILIS and IBIS is quite compelling. I wouldn’t zoom in the EVF before finding the subject, but if you find it, then engage IS, you can MF quite effectively with the magnifier. Short focal lengths are no problem at all.

My experience has been very different. Maybe you are running FF. I don't know. On a M43 camera the crop factor is x2 already. You might have very steady hands. Some of us don't. 400mm at 5x or 10x, sorry, I have trouble believing you had sharp results handheld with it zoomed like that through the viewfinder. Maybe you did, but I don't believe it. It wasn't easy and fine, anyway. You keep talking about IS or IBIS. Remember, a Canon mirrorless body probably WON'T have IBIS. So forget about that. Fine with IBIS? Maybe. MF lens with no IS and no IBIS? Not. Tripod required. Then, when zoomed 10X... how do you know your composition is correct? With a short focal length, it seems like composition would be even more critical.

Not trying to argue, but I cannot imagine trying to compose a photo on a 400mm lens or even 50mm lens at a 10X zoom while looking through the viewfinder and hand held. It's bad enough in live view on a tripod. At least then, though, I know my composition is correct before zooming.

I agree with 3kram5d. With image stabilization, focus magnification is a wonderful feature. Here is a quick example. I am hanging the camera from a strap, balancing it on my stomach (since I lack sufficient hands to record myself shooting normally), not holding my breath, defocusing, and then and focusing with 1 finger magnified from a 400mm lens at close to minimum focus distance.

video link

When it stopped the video, I used my left hand to press the shutter release. Attached is what I got.

Using the viewfinder and two hands, it's even better. This isn't a scientific test, and ordinarily I'd try to shoot 400mm at faster than 1/100, but for the purposes of discussion this is good enough. I have no doubt Canon can accomplish a similarly useful focus zoom.

Forgive the state of my lawn :'(

:'( My gosh guys, I thought Mr. Sanford and myself were talking about adapting legacy glass that is manual focus without IS (and no IBIS on Canon) to a FF Canon mirrorless camera and using through the viewfinder magnification (5x or 10x?) to get focus right. :'( What the heck? It's nice that you got the lamp post right. Do it with a MF 200-400mm lens on a perched bird (where you've got to be quick), through a magnified viewfinder, with no IS or IBIS... That was kinda the point. Please go back and read the beginning of the conversational sidebar. You guys keep throwing IS and IBIS in there.

It was not clear to me that you were meaning exclusively non IS glass on a non IS platform; I may have read that quoted line out of context. That being said, I’m not convinced canon will never make in body IS.

 

[canonographer]

People keep asking what's the benefit of a mirrorless camera. That's the wrong question. The right question is, what is the benefit of a DSLR?

Fast startup time, long battery life, more responsive viewfinder with higher dynamic range, dedicated AF sensor... just to name a few.

I shoot plenty sports in dim gyms, so I need AF that can handle such scenes. So far haven't seen mirrorless which is even remotely close to my 1DX. That's my biggest reason for keeping 1DX in the bag. For the studio stuff, it's different completely, so mirrorless could fit that realm very nicely.

OVF is still way better in my mind, but I'm sure in some near-ish future the EVF is close enough that the other improvements make it better in general.

I would have to guess that neither of you has tried the latest generation of Sony cameras, because your examples of DSLR benefits are outdated.

Don't get me wrong there are still reasons not to buy into Sony's ecosystem, but the reasons you list above aren't among them.

AF performance, battery life, dynamic range, EVF superiority to name a few, all fall within the Sony column. I would put the focus tracking of my A7 III up against the 1DX any time. That's with a $2K camera, let alone the $4,500 A9 w/ 20 fps, no blackout shooting 693 focus points that cover most of the sensor. I'm telling you, this stuff just works, and it works like a charm.

For Canon's sake, I hope they come out with something competitive. I'm just not convinced they're up to it anymore. They seem to be more focused on diversifying than on dominating a diminishing market.

 

[takesome1]

For Canon's sake, I hope they come out with something competitive. I'm just not convinced they're up to it anymore. They seem to be more focused on diversifying than on dominating a diminishing market.

Wow, you seem genuinely concerned about Canon's financial well being and future.
I am sure they appreciate that.