Opinion: This patent identifies my ongoing issue with Canon

[Anon]

Fuji makes high end APS-C cameras and lenses. They have <6% share of the global camera market, so clearly high end APS-C is a niche market. Canon knows this.

But why not let someone else take the risk then? Letting Sigma bring their APS-C prime and 2.8 trinity to R-mount costs them nothing and I would guess that it would not even cannibalize their sales, as customers buying high-end APS-C would not buy the affordable RF-S stuff and vice versa.

With the R7 we already have a very capable crop MILC, but using it with something like the 18-45mm or 18-150mm as the only native standard zooms seems a bit of a waste. For sure there are other reasons which I don't know, but for me that would be a cool setup (or even with the R10/R50).

 

[Dragon]

But why not let someone else take the risk then? Letting Sigma bring their APS-C prime and 2.8 trinity to R-mount costs them nothing and I would guess that it would not even cannibalize their sales, as customers buying high-end APS-C would not buy the affordable RF-S stuff and vice versa.

With the R7 we already have a very capable crop MILC, but using it with something like the 18-45mm or 18-150mm as the only native standard zooms seems a bit of a waste. For sure there are other reasons which I don't know, but for me that would be a cool setup (or even with the R10/R50).

Canon cannot let 3rd parties into the game without providing support and that support does not come free. We don't know the whole story with respect to 3rd parties. Canon has said the system has been opened up, but we haven't seen any meaningful results. That may simply be because the third parties don't want to pay to play. Note that there are quite a few RF mount manual lenses available, so the issue is not the mount, per se, but rather the subtlety of the electronic protocol which includes AF, IS, and image warping (which is tied in with IS). It is not a simple protocol. Further, don't forget that the two most likely candidates are connected to competitors. Sigma is part of the L alliance and Tamron is partially owned by Sony. When you realize that the consequence of "success" would be to maybe take a bite out of Fuji's market (which, including medium format is 6% of the camera market ), you are talking about a lot of work for 1 or 2% share. Not a very compelling PowerPoint at a board meeting. Probably easier to just convince that part of the market to move over to the "new, small, and light" FF line.

 

[neuroanatomist]

But why not let someone else take the risk then? Letting Sigma bring their APS-C prime and 2.8 trinity to R-mount costs them nothing and I would guess that it would not even cannibalize their sales, as customers buying high-end APS-C would not buy the affordable RF-S stuff and vice versa.

Costs them nothing?

It costs them sales, and the revenue and profit that follow. It’s not that Canon doesn’t offer high-end lenses, just that they don’t offer them with a smaller image circle than full frame. They want APS-C users seeking better image quality to buy the higher-end full frame lenses, and then subsequently buy full frame cameras, to take better advantage of those lenses.

That was one aspect of the shift to the M series that didn’t sit well with me, the lack of an easy upgrade path from crop to FF. With RF and RF-S, Canon has restored that upgrade path and made it even easier.

 

[Anon]

Costs them nothing?

It costs them sales, and the revenue and profit that follow. It’s not that Canon doesn’t offer high-end lenses, just that they don’t offer them with a smaller image circle than full frame. They want APS-C users seeking better image quality to buy the higher-end full frame lenses, and then subsequently buy full frame cameras, to take better advantage of those lenses.

That was one aspect of the shift to the M series that didn’t sit well with me, the lack of an easy upgrade path from crop to FF. With RF and RF-S, Canon has restored that upgrade path and made it even easier.

Maybe it brings them additional camera sales? Hard to say... Sony and Fuji offer high end APS-C stuff, so there is definately some money to make there. Not to mention that the higher priced stuff often has a higher margin. I know, 50% market dominance and all that, but maybe it could be 60%

As for the upgrade path: I find it quite funny that we are chasing a century old size format as the holy grail. I blame the camera manufacturers for drilling this "upgrade path" into everyones heads. Now that the manufacturing costs for sensors have come down, where is the upgrade path to medium format? After all, FF is also only a crop. I think it might be time for the next big thing to chase: let's name it RF-M (for RF-MAX). Maybe Canon can sqeeze a 100MP medium format sensor into the mount. If I would have to guess, I would say that Sony will be the first one to offer a brand new mount with a medium format sensor, since they already produce them.

Personally I found my perfect balance of size, cost and IQ to be the M-series. My personal "unicorn" cam would be a EOS M5 II with the 32MP sensor, modern AF, 4K and all that (and maybe even IBIS). Paired with a nice set of higher quality lenses in the spirit of the 11-22mm, 22mm and 32mm. To bad it will never happen

 

[Walrus]

[...] It is not a simple protocol.

But at the same time I can buy for less then 50$£€ a third party RF to EF converter from third parties (Meike, Viltrox, Comlite, etc, you name it) that enables any EF lens (third party EF included) to work flawlessly on R cameras.
So creating electronic stuff with electronic contacts that enables AF, IS (limited on 2 axis), etc, on R bodies seems pretty simple, and also allowed.
So I still don't see any reason for them (third party gang) not to make a RF mount lens with RF contacts (what an adapter is, and Canon allowed them since day one or so without any issue), but with EF protocols; they certainly are threatened by Canon in some way if they don't do it.

I can see Sigma or Tamron maybe wanting to bring to the market their top game lenses, having access to RF specific functions, like 1/8th stop control for video aperture, 5-axis-control for IS, etc, but I find very strange that smaller lens manufacturer like Viltrox and Samyang haven't already flooded the market with RF lenses with RF mount and contacts, with EF instructions...it's like adapting an EF lens with a third party adapter, with the difference that you do it directly on the lens barrel and of course take advantage of the shorter flange to use mirrorless optic schemes. They can call, brand and market them as "EF-R", or "AF-R" lenses, or whatever they want, if writing "RF" anywhere on the barrel and/or the box and the instruction manual is protected and forbidden.

Maybe RF is not a simple protocol, I don't know, but certainly there's another protocol, EF, that works wonders on R bodies, and Canon is certainly not going to cut the EF-on-R support tomorrow (or I would say EVER); so why don't use it? You can do EF lenses, you can do RF to EF adapters, just mix them and call it wather you want but RF.

 

[neuroanatomist]

Maybe it brings them additional camera sales? Hard to say...

Maybe, but Canon has stated on a few occasions that lenses bring in more profits than bodies. We can hypothesize all day, but so far Canon has seen fit to block others from entering RF territory, no doubt they have their reasons.

As for the upgrade path: I find it quite funny that we are chasing a century old size format as the holy grail. I blame the camera manufacturers for drilling this "upgrade path" into everyones heads. Now that the manufacturing costs for sensors have come down, where is the upgrade path to medium format?

Indeed. I do sometimes ask those who deride APS-ac users for not upgrading to FF why they themselves aren’t shooting MF.

I think it might be time for the next big thing to chase: let's name it RF-M (for RF-MAX). Maybe Canon can sqeeze a 100MP medium format sensor into the mount. If I would have to guess, I would say that Sony will be the first one to offer a brand new mount with a medium format sensor, since they already produce them.

I’m sure the big three are watching to see how well Fuji does. A few years ago, a senior Leica exec estimated the medium format market size, not theirs but the whole market, at <7000 units per year. Unless that changes dramatically, I’m not sure I see any of the major manufacturers going down that road.

Personally I found my perfect balance of size, cost and IQ to be the M-series. My personal "unicorn" cam would be a EOS M5 II with the 32MP sensor, modern AF, 4K and all that (and maybe even IBIS). Paired with a nice set of higher quality lenses in the spirit of the 11-22mm, 22mm and 32mm. To bad it will never happen

Personally, that balance is FF but cost is a less important parameter for me…it’s more about performance and lens selection. What would be a good birding lens for MF?

Still, I do really like the M system. The M6II is great for travel, and last year I had my M6 converted to full spectrum, which has been fun to play with.

 

[Dragon]

Costs them nothing?

It costs them sales, and the revenue and profit that follow. It’s not that Canon doesn’t offer high-end lenses, just that they don’t offer them with a smaller image circle than full frame. They want APS-C users seeking better image quality to buy the higher-end full frame lenses, and then subsequently buy full frame cameras, to take better advantage of those lenses.

That was one aspect of the shift to the M series that didn’t sit well with me, the lack of an easy upgrade path from crop to FF. With RF and RF-S, Canon has restored that upgrade path and made it even easier.

The M series was conjured up the PowerShot group, which I think has been mostly disbanded with the drop-off in compact camera sales. It made sense as a stand-alone concept, but didn't fit in the mainstream once the SLR group decided they needed a bigger mount to get the most out of mirrorless. Worth note that they could have kept the M mount and had at least as good a system as the Sony E mount, but decided to suffer the pain of killing M to do it right for the long term and the extra connection bandwidth is as much of the deal as the bigger physical mount (if not more).

 

[David_B]

Several FF RF lenses do that as well. Sony and Fuji have done the same for longer than Canon.

Everything is a compromise. The RF 14-35/4L at 14mm after the required distortion correction gives IQ as good as the EF 11-24/4L at the same focal length, and the latter needs no distortion correction. The 14-35 is small, light, goes to 14 and still takes 77mm filters. The RF 10-20/4 is significantly smaller and lighter than my EF 11-24. To me, all of those are worthwhile compromises.

When light waves are converged onto a smaller area, there's some amount of resolution lost that cannot be overcome. It may be that other properties of the light waves traversing the glass interfere with the resolution of the more spread out image but that needs detailed data to understand.

To extrapolate Canon's position, if a new lens produced an image that was half the height of the sensor and used firmware magic to convert that back intoa full heigh image, is any IQ going to be lost that will be notcied by the customer. If that meant a big lens would be smaller still with weight and cost savings, is it defensible to sell it as being a full frame lens?

The "stretch the image is ok" camp is essentially green lighting Canon to use lense that produce APS-C image circles for full frame sensors because the firmware can fix the image to make it full frame. Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit there, but that is your future, an ever decreasing image cicle.

 

[David_B]

In 2022, Canon topped the BCN ranking for mirrorless. I suspect the pruning then discontinuation of the M line was the reason they slipped back in 2023.

I wonder what portion of Canon sales are to Russian and other militaries for drone use...

https://www.reddit.com/r/Military/comments/u0ks13

Russia doesn't really need Iranian drones - Asia Times

Washington says Russia has taken delivery of the first shipment of drones from Iran and that the Russians plan to purchase hundreds of them. Russia

asiatimes.com

Nevr heard of other brands, only Canon in Russian and Iranian drones. Not saying Nikon/Sony don't but never heard of it. Yay Canon, favored camera by communists and terrorists. That'll have kept the sales numbers high.

 

[Anon]

Indeed. I do sometimes ask those who deride APS-ac users for not upgrading to FF why they themselves aren’t shooting MF.

Wonderful Gear snobs are IMO the worst part of the community.

I’m sure the big three are watching to see how well Fuji does. A few years ago, a senior Leca exact estimated the medium format market size, not theirs but the whole market, at <7000 units per year. Unless that changes dramatically, I’m not sure I see any of the major manufacturers going down that road.

That is indeed a very low number. That market is probably already well divided between Leica, Fuji, Hasselblad, Phase One etc.

What would be a good birding lens for MF?

I've got just the thing for you (portability might be an issue though):

 

[David_B]

Obviously a full frame lens can be used on an apsc camera
you must have small coat pockets...

EF-S isn't full frame.

 

[neuroanatomist]

When light waves are converged onto a smaller area, there's some amount of resolution lost that cannot be overcome. It may be that other properties of the light waves traversing the glass interfere with the resolution of the more spread out image but that needs detailed data to understand.

The point is that resolution in the corners is lost when the image is stretched with glass elements in the lens, or with algorithmic correction of geometric distortion. Canon (and the other manufacturers that do this) are trading one for the other. Empirically, it’s really not a big deal. Some folks just like to make a big deal of it because they don’t understand the optics or they just like to complain.

To extrapolate Canon's position, if a new lens produced an image that was half the height of the sensor and used firmware magic to convert that back intoa full heigh image, is any IQ going to be lost that will be notcied by the customer. If that meant a big lens would be smaller still with weight and cost savings, is it defensible to sell it as being a full frame lens?

That’s not extrapolation, that’s reductio ad absurdum.

The "stretch the image is ok" camp is essentially green lighting Canon to use lense that produce APS-C image circles for full frame sensors because the firmware can fix the image to make it full frame. Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit there, but that is your future, an ever decreasing image cicle.

What will you extrapolate next, that Canon will start selling APS-C cameras calling them full frame because they’re just rounding the sensor measurements?

We’re talking about image circles that don’t quite fill the corners without distortion correction. There are EF L lenses with 4-5% barrel distortion, the RF lenses that require distortion correction to fill the frame typically have 6-8% barrel distortion.

I guess you’re part of the “make mountains out of molehills” camp.

 

[P-visie]

I wonder what portion of Canon sales are to Russian and other militaries for drone use...

Yay Canon, favored camera by communists and terrorists. That'll have kept the sales numbers high.

What a ridiculous comment to make about a company. Allegedly, there is a Nikon camera in the recently launched North Korean spy satellite. What does that say about Nikon? Are they now an accomplice of the North Korean regime?

 

[scyrene]

I think some of you need to know - these kinds of posts are what Craig wanted me to do when I came on board, that and patents. he wanted me to purposely stir things up, hit controversial elements, and so forth. Canon is a fantastic imaging company. I'm happy that I have in some way over the last 7 years contributed to the community via CanonNews and now here. But if my bitchfests can cause even a slight change of direction in someone in canon's thought patterns I think I've done good and helped serve the community by doing so. Having a larger audience, and I'm sure there are folks at Canon that DO read Canonrumors maybe just maybe we can convince them to smarten up a bit.

With respect, I would suggest the purpose of these threads is to drive traffic on this site; you cannot reasonably believe Canon will change its approach based on them.

 

[John Wilde]

But if my bitchfests can cause even a slight change of direction in someone in canon's thought patterns I think I've done good and helped serve the community by doing so.

You "forgot" to post your opinion piece in Japanese. That's where Canon's decisions are made.

 

[koenkooi]

The M series was conjured up the PowerShot group, which I think has been mostly disbanded with the drop-off in compact camera sales. -[…]

Was it really? My understanding is that the M and M2 were very much EOS, as can be seen with the M-to-EF adapter and the firmware. The interwebs imply that the powershot group was absorbed a bit later and their first model was the M3, which
had horrendous firmware and very un-Canon like colours.
I’m not convinced that the powershot people created the original M, it was too much camera for that.

For all the different M models I have owned, I only kept the M and M6II

 

[AlanF]

What a ridiculous comment to make about a company. Allegedly, there is a Nikon camera in the recently launched North Korean spy satellite. What does that say about Nikon? Are they now an accomplice of the North Korean regime?

Japanese sabotage!

 

[Del Paso]

What a ridiculous comment to make about a company. Allegedly, there is a Nikon camera in the recently launched North Korean spy satellite. What does that say about Nikon? Are they now an accomplice of the North Korean regime?

Nikon equips the famous "Jewish Space Laser"
If you don't believe me, ask MTG...

 

[scyrene]

Canon refuses to split out MILC sales from all the other stuff they sell. When market numbers come out (such as the recent Japan overall market numbers), they show Sony leading Canon in MILC sales.

Is that sound I hear the moving of goalposts?

 

[scyrene]

I wonder what portion of Canon sales are to Russian and other militaries for drone use...

Nevr heard of other brands, only Canon in Russian and Iranian drones. Not saying Nikon/Sony don't but never heard of it. Yay Canon, favored camera by communists and terrorists. That'll have kept the sales numbers high.

Is your aim to appear ridiculous to other forum users? Because this is a good way to go about it.