http://www.dpreview.com/articles/5301008561/cp-2015-canon-interview-every-day-im-saying-speed-up
Interesting answers
Interesting answers
Interview: Masaya Maeda of Canon Japan
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DPReview had a chance to interview Canon’s Managing Director and Chief Executive of Image Communication Products Operations, Masaya Maeda.</p>
<p>A couple of the answers below touch on constant conversations and criticisms of Canon. While they keep saying they’d use another manufacturers sensor if they deemed it better, they have yet to do so in any DSLR product. It’s good to see Canon acknowledge they move quite slowing, even for a giant multinational corporation. I think all of us would love to see some exciting innovations more often than every 3-4 years.</p>
<blockquote><p><strong>Hypothetically, if Sony made an APS-C or full-frame sensor that you considered to be the best possible sensor for a camera that you wanted to bring to market, would you use it?</strong></p>
<p>If another company made a sensor that we believed to be truly the best quality, we would not hesitate to use it.</p>
<p><strong>Quite often, one of the criticisms leveled at Canon is that the company is a little slow to produce innovation compared to competitors. There’s definitely a perception that Canon goes carefully, and slowly. Is this true? </strong></p>
<p>Personally, I think we’re slow as well. Every day I’m saying ‘speed up, make it faster!’. One of our themes now as a company is upon developing a new technology, to shorten the time between development and when that technology is introduced into a product. We need to shorten that time. That’s our goal.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.dpreview.com/articles/5301008561/cp-2015-canon-interview-every-day-im-saying-speed-up" target="_blank">Read the full interview at DPReview</a></p>
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Bigger companies definitely seem to get bogged down with many layers of very conservative managers, and are slow at adopting new technology.
Top level managers do want things to happen quicker, but the devil is in the details.
The flat out best manager I've worked for was Alan Mulally (Now Ford CEO). Alan approached the issue by assuming that everyone in the company knew best how their job could be improved from quality to inefficiencies. He saw his job as a facilitator to help them develop a plan to get it done as quickly as possible. It was a refreshing approach, and since most managers emulate their boss, the philosophy spreads quickly. Those few who did not buy into the philosophy got to retire with zero notice.
Top level managers do want things to happen quicker, but the devil is in the details.
The flat out best manager I've worked for was Alan Mulally (Now Ford CEO). Alan approached the issue by assuming that everyone in the company knew best how their job could be improved from quality to inefficiencies. He saw his job as a facilitator to help them develop a plan to get it done as quickly as possible. It was a refreshing approach, and since most managers emulate their boss, the philosophy spreads quickly. Those few who did not buy into the philosophy got to retire with zero notice.
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Mt Spokane Photography said:
I am one of the ultimate Ford fanboys and I love hearing about Mulally's management style. He did such brilliant work turning the Blue Oval around and giving it a new direction under One Ford. You can tell he streamlined every aspect of the company.
Thanks for sharing, and yes... Canon needs some of that.
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Personally, I'm GLAD that Canon is sticking to making their own sensors. I hope they don't suddenly start worshipping at the altar of DXO Mark the way everyone else is. The supposed DR "issues" are very tiresome and I've yet to see an example that wasn't pushed to ridiculous levels to make the "point." Sure more low ISO DR might be nice--but it's never been the big "deal breaker" issue that Sony/Nikon fanboys want to make of it. Regardless of whether the next Canon sensor is loved or loathed by DXO Mark, I won't ever see them as being the nonpareil arbiters of sensor quality.
Oh, and before someone slags me for saying this is in reference to a DPReview interview, rather than a DXO Mark one, thank you, of that I am very aware. Nonetheless, the notion that Canon is "so far behind Sony" springs from DXO Mark scores and is thereafter "used" by a variety of other review sites.
Oh, and before someone slags me for saying this is in reference to a DPReview interview, rather than a DXO Mark one, thank you, of that I am very aware. Nonetheless, the notion that Canon is "so far behind Sony" springs from DXO Mark scores and is thereafter "used" by a variety of other review sites.
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Canon Rumors said:
I seem to recall reading that the sensor in the original 1D was not made by Canon.
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takesome1 said:
As well I seem to recall reading that Canon has used Sony sensors in their P&S cameras.
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Canon Rumors said:
Wow...that's kind of whacked!
Of the six major car manufacturers whose cars I've owned and/or driven, Ford is a pretty distant 6th. All the ones I've owned were maintenance nightmares (went through eight times the cost of the extended warranty in warranty repairs on one, and five differentials in 40,000 miles on another) and all the new ones I've rented drove like a school bus with broken shocks.
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Canon Rumors said:
Alan used to pull off his white shirt and tie, and put on a sweater or ordinary shirt, and go into a tavern like the Whistle Stop Tavern in Renton after work. It would be filled with factory workers, and he would have a beer with them and listen to them tell what was wrong about their jobs. He was not in a position at the time to change anything major, but he did not forget that these guys knew how to do the job right and for a lot less cost. When he moved to a upper management position, he stepped into the middle of a labor dispute, and knocked a few HR heads together and settled the strike. IMHO, the HR managers were embarrassed by someone using common sense, and this led to his eventually being passed over for CEO. Its probably the best thing that ever happened to him, since he stepped in as CEO for a company (Ford) that badly wanted someone to help, and he not only helped them turn things around (They knew what needed to be done, they just needed someone to tell them to do it), he convinced employees to take lower wages in exchange for a plan that rewarded Ford employees according to profits. They have been getting nice bonuses every March, and the rest of the industry has followed the practice. Seems like common sense, work hard and smart, and when your company makes more money, you get a cut of it.
I've attended a lot of his meetings, and the theme was always the same. He reported on the results and status of the employees plan, urged them to implement their plan. It was never "Implement the Company Plan", it was always implement "Your" plan. It worked too.
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I found parts of the interview to be disingenuous. How they listen to photographers - previously they only listen to photojournalist and what they want. Perhaps Canon is willing to give up the landscape market to Nikon.
I think Canon is suffers from a serve case of NIH (Not Invented Here) and as they got a bad reputation following the stories of poor AF on the 1D2N I suspect that they circled the wagons.
I think Canon is suffers from a serve case of NIH (Not Invented Here) and as they got a bad reputation following the stories of poor AF on the 1D2N I suspect that they circled the wagons.
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In your opinion, what kind of mirrorless camera would sell best in the USA?
To be honest I don’t really know - I’m not that close to the US market so I can’t speak from first-hand experience. However I get the feeling that users in the US don’t really take a liking to small cameras. That’s just my sense.
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Could it be that American's in general have larger hands, and thus would prefer a slightly larger body than the tiny ones being offered?
Might a Leica sized (excuse me, Canonet size) body be more appropriate? Say with an EF mount? And an EVF?
To be honest I don’t really know - I’m not that close to the US market so I can’t speak from first-hand experience. However I get the feeling that users in the US don’t really take a liking to small cameras. That’s just my sense.
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Could it be that American's in general have larger hands, and thus would prefer a slightly larger body than the tiny ones being offered?
Might a Leica sized (excuse me, Canonet size) body be more appropriate? Say with an EF mount? And an EVF?
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dilbert said:
DxO puts a lot of emphasis on an extremely narrow set of use cases. If you are not interested in those specific use cases, you can easily ignore DxO without any issues. If the DxO measured DR perspective is what you are alluding to, then for every step above ISO=100 the DxO perspective becomes less relevant. Not everyone (by a long shot) shoots everything at ISO=100, tries to lift shadows 4 stops, etc.
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I normally don't read these, but I found it interesting:
- A
- It's very easy for a leader to look like he's not the problem with speed-to-market on the back end of what one could call an epic 12 months for Canon -- many many big-ticket items recently got released or announced: 7D2, 5Ds (x2), 11-24L, 16-35 F/4L IS, 100-400L II, 400 DO, etc. Regardless of which company's sensors you think are better, Canon has unloaded a ton of higher end gear on us this year and no one recently responded with a similarly high MP FF body -- so Canon still has the spotlight to some degree. So the chief seems to be taking a victory lap on the product development front, and the 'let's go faster' might read more on his desire to keep up momentum on all the product releases.
- I agree with those that believe that the chief would never use another company's sensor. Canon may have done so in the past, and may again on lesser products (superzooms, P&S, etc.), but I think it would never happen again on a pro/higher-end product. Take all the vociferous fighting in forums over sensors -- where both sides have their strengths -- and then dump the pride that comes at running one of those companies into it. You'll never convince that person until sales dry up, which has not happened.
- Surprised to hear the lower ISO limit explanation for the 5Ds rigs vs. the 7D2. He did not correct the interviewer on his assumption, so he's all but conceded the 5Ds sensors will get the same pixel-level performance as the 7D2. That should be a field day for the competition, right?
- As much as we lament for a great mirrorless offering, it's fascinating that he backs the EOS-M3 in North America, yet (1) doesn't know why it isn't being offered there and (2) he knows little about our market. Does Canon USA develop its own products or something? Should he not know the wants and needs of the North American market?
- Flip-flopping on product positions with 4-5 year lifecycles is a loooooot easier than flip-flopping in politics. #megapixels
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TAF said:
That entire passage pissed me off. Please correct me if I have this wrong, but his organization designs all the products we use, correct? Canon USA doesn't design and build their own products, right? So would he not have to interface with his Canon USA counterparts to peg what their needs might be?
So I think he can only offer three believable answers to the USA mirrorless question:
1) Canon USA would rather sell SLRs in USA right now because they better serve their customer's needs (speed, responsiveness, selection of lenses, etc.) at the present.
2) We still need to grow our mirrorless ecosystem (cough: small lenses, integral EVF, DPAF cough cough) before it will look attractive enough to the USA market to consider mirrorless over SLR, which is an already comprehensively supported ecosystem.
3) We make a ton more money on SLRs than we do on mirrorless products.
But the Managing Director and Chief Executive of Image Communication Products Operations should not say "Maybe it's because of your huge hands!" or "Ask Canon USA -- that wasn't my call" implies uncertainty and blame avoidance. Again, I'm not looking for blood (consider: EOS-M sells well where it is sold) so much as an explanation.
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I could be wrong, but I have a feeling it would be really nice if whoever it is who is heading up Canon's lens development program just took over the entire camera division and they dumped off the body/sensor development/chief head/MBA market planning executives. Promoted some techie engineer types to management and brought in some serious photographers/videographers into management as well so it's not just all 100% disconnected MBA types, just mix in a few of the other sort.
It feels like it's just run by MBA types with out much connection to/passion for actually doing photography/video or deep technical connection.
It feels like it's just run by MBA types with out much connection to/passion for actually doing photography/video or deep technical connection.
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