Second, Sony sensors are not improving, they plateaued, indeed their highest performing sensor when measuring DR is two generations old, this rather contradicts the point that Sony are better at R&D.
the main focus of the A9 was speed not image quality.
i don´t say sony can do miracles.
but you only saw the start of this technology yet. the sony A9 was the first camera of this kind (FF camera, lets ignore the sony RX 100 Mark IV).
it is correct that sony had to go a step back because of miniaturization issues. but canon is not there at all.
today you can´t cramp more and more features into the sensor (faster and more accurate AF etc) and at the same time enhance image quality (well you could but it would be expensive).
but this technology will enhance. and faster than traditional cmos sensors.
Third, the technologies you mention have not been proven to scale well. BSI made a huge difference to small sensors, FF sensors not so much.
image quality or dynamic range is only one part of the equation.
from DR to readout speed canon is not able to compete (head to head) and i fear what the next generation of sony sensors can do.
will the image quality difference be so huge that it will make a difference in real life?
as the article says, for many the current canon sensor technology is good enough.
and a sensor does not make a camera.
but sony also learns to make better cameras. thought slower than they learn to make good sensors....
5D MkIV when developing the two RAW files contained in the single dual pixel RAW format, which rather destroys the argument the Canon can't compete. They lead!
that again is misleading. sony could also just start to stack images.
not the same as reading both halves and on half of the dual pixel and combining them.
i know... but there are ways to increase DR with sonys new quad pixel sensor design.
i own the 5D Mk4 and i never really used this feature. i played around with DPRSplit and other tools but never made real use of DP raw.
also you can gain 0.8-1 stop if i am not wrong. that would make it barely equal to sonys best sensor.
the inherent advantages of BSI and stacked sensors are not something you can talk away.
it is correct that smaller sensors benefit more from BSI than bigger sensors. when we talk just about image quality.
but that is kind of missing the other benefits of stacked sensors.
readout speed for example is already an issue for canon sensors i guess.
don´t forget the A9 sensor is not the end of it, it is the start.
as fast as the A9 internally is (~20 times faster datatransfer than the A7r II) they still need some shortcuts to get that fast readout speed.
for example the banding issues could be fixed with the next generation (it´s because of how the readout works. it is not optimal yet).
prototypes with bigger and more enhanced dram caches already reached nearly 1000 frames a second.
and that is already old news.
it was a 19.3M pixels sensor and could produce 960 fps FHD (1,920 x 1,080) super slow motion video. (120 FPS for all pixel readout).
thought it´s useless when you have no fast storage medium.
i am not saying canon is doing nothing.
far from it. canon is patenting stuff like crazy for decades.
but sensor R&D sure is more expensive for them.... or lets say less profitable.
it´s good that they opend up to other customers, selling sensors to other companys. they had too.
ps:
i don´t want to come around like a sony fanboy.
i own a A6000 and it´s a nice travel camera. but my heart belongs to canon.
but i also don´t stick my head in the sand and ignore certain facts.