unfocused said:
The pooint of all that is that the 'professional following' is really not important to Apple's bottom line, and it never has been. The same is true for Canon - revenue from Rebels and sub-$250 consumer lenses is far greater than that from 1-series bodies.
Comparing apples to oranges here. Nobody buys an iPhone because of Apple computers. But, there are plenty of people who buy Canon cameras because Canon has positioned itself well in the professional market.
Back in the '90s, even in the days when they were under sloppy management, Apple machines impressed the hell out of me. To put it simply, Apple machines seemed less hairy to many people; to me, the fascination probably was that here was a machine that was meant to have a sleeker design (though I laughed at the one button mouse) and which was not just a professional machine like a Windows PC, but a professionally artistic machine, as opposed to the business professional of Windows. They still play on this perception in the infamous Mac ads. Of course, I was very comfortable using a Wintel machine - though I quickly became respectful of their quirks and instabilities - which has always been my "home" OS. I would have been impressed somewhat less in Apple machines if I had known the gamma was nonstandard (with Apple allowing three different readings - see
here - of an appropriate gamma value for video display), but at the time (and to hear Ken Rockwell tell it), Apple machines of the pre-DVI, pre-DisplayPort era were OMG AWESUM!!1
In any case, associating success with top-tier professional work and so impressing the average user is a theory that many companies operate under. For many years Canon used the "Nature as Canon sees it" ads to show off a profile of the newest FD telephoto zoom (of course, now the lenses are nowhere to be seen, as they seek to focus more on the pure concept of Canon allied with wildlife, while letting the professional images speak for the quality of Canon cameras and lenses). Some managements will ignore the idea, and in their markets they may be right to do so; others will fixate on it to their detriment, too (I want to mention the Edsel...not sure it's the best choice of comparison). The idea is always to make money in the respective niches and never lose the biggest markets (either biggest sales through volume or through expensive items).
Computers and cameras seem a bit different in that, aside from software, computers generally refresh completely every few years; whereas with lenses the investment developing high quality lenses for pros makes in eventual improvements to consumer lenses has been more apparent (at least over the last decade or so, in areas like IS). Neither Apple or Microsoft has been lethargic in trying to create quality standards for the future; with Apple you had Apple Display Connector and Firewire, printers and monitors. The incompatibilities and pin shorting madness more common on Windows was mostly avoided. Of course, Microsoft banked more heavily on driver compatibility, business, and gaming, and overall they seemed to have made a better bet in those markets. At the moment, Microsoft clearly is far ahead Apple in terms of creating experimental, cutting-edge "software technology," some of which is useful for the average person, though I wonder if they aren't spinning their wheels still due to the sudden breakout of open source. Apple has bet better in other markets, obviously. Not a clear "win-lose" situation- Apple didn't really rake in users (only somewhere around 10% of the installed base of desktops around the late '90s to early '00s) but they remained relevant for many in professional editing (and many still stick to them for it).
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Okay, this "end of the megapixel wars" thing is interesting. I think that most people could easily see a selling point in improving ISO and dynamic range - sore points for most digital cameras, especially dynamic range - and leaving image size be for a while. But I think, despite what Lens Rental Guy says, that most lens makers are cautious to throw up the flag of surrender (even silently) because the sector still is very competitive.
What's been most remarkable about the last year or two from Canon is that they have been working much more on handling and ergonomics improvements than on sensors. There have been a whole raft of 18MP sensor cameras, but that doesn't mean the T3i is equal to the T2i, and especially not to the 60D or 7D. As time goes on, I find myself less interested in the technical sensor improvements, and more on improvements that give me more tricks to use in practical photography. To be sure, I shoot a lot of stuff at sunrise and sunset, but I also don't expect anything to come along
Somewhere or other there is a repetition of the old "retiring APS-C" rumor. I think plenty of good arguments can be made against this happening; why would Canon throw away the benefits of small sensor production pricing in volume for cameras they sell in the millions? For myself, I almost dread the thought of a changeover since Canon doesn't make enough affordable optics that are longer - and they flat-out don't produce anything like the 90mm f/2.8 in a 1.6 crop factor format, which I've gotten very used to using. To be sure, all you would need do on full frame is crop down a bit - but to have the same number of details in the cropped image that full frame sensor would have to be as densely packed as the APS-C one, so we're back to square one again. The improved dynamic range, better quality across an entire frame (less apparent magnification of flaws), and better wide angle options from going to slightly lower density full frame would be great, of course.
The Lens Rental Guy's argument about lens softness (which not surprisingly is showing up to be consistent, as that's how flaws are - accuracy and precision are NOT the same) just shows up that some lenses and bodies are being made to less-than-L standards. Thank goodness for manual focus is all I need say
