*UPDATED* Here's an Updated 2017 Canon Roadmap

[douglaurent]

Re: Here's an Updated 2017 Canon Roadmap

11-24 f/4L - could use IS and is a bit outperformend in sharpness between 12-16mm by the Sigma Art
16-35 f/4L IS - ok, that one can stay
24-70 f/2.8L II - urgently needs IS
24-70 f/4L IS - could be a bit sharper
24 f/2.8 IS - could be a bit sharper like the 35/2 and be f2
28 f/2.8 IS - could be a bit sharper like the 35/2 and be f2
35 f/1.4L II - excellent and best 35 on the planet, but no IS

Surely, you recognize that Canon won't put IS on everything, or if it does, it might be two updates from now (i.e. 10-20 years depending on the lens).

Given how important IS is for you, you'll likely find more joy with an IBIS-based platform than waiting for Canon to value IS as much as you do.

- A

Does anybody who owns a stabilized lens turn off IS aside from tripod use?
Probably not. This means IS should be useful on any lens.
Third party companies like Tamron show that it's possible and helpful for EF-mount glass, like with the 15-30/2.8 or the 35+45+85/1.8

It also makes no sense that there are 16-35 and 24-70 f4 zooms with stabilization, but not for the f2.8 versions.
It's just an incomplete lineup. With the 85/1.4 IS Canon is giving a good sign in 2017, but it would be ridiculous to release the other 10-30 lenses who deserve IS spread over the coming 20 years. We live in faster times now. Some people want to experience obvious features as long as they are still alive.

 

[ahsanford]

Re: Here's an Updated 2017 Canon Roadmap

11-24 f/4L - could use IS and is a bit outperformend in sharpness between 12-16mm by the Sigma Art

Did you read the same reviews as I did? The Sigma Art is not up to the canon. And who need IS @11mm? landscape photographers use tripods, the rest can easily hold 1/10 s.

IS helps every lens if the subject is not moving. We don't always carry tripods with us.

Imagine handholding a U-UWA lens for 2-3 seconds with a good keeper rate -- for casual landscape shots and travel shots, you could reel in a decent waterfall shot.

Or imagine shooting a scene where @ f/8 you need ISO 6400 at 1/10s shutter speed to properly expose it. IS lets you walk that down to ISO 800 or so, which will net you considerably better IQ.

Or imagine (perhaps with a longer lens, say a 50 f/1.4 :) that a darker shot can only be exposed appropriately at 1/50s at f/1.4, but you've got three people in the frame at 10 feet away and they aren't standing in a convenient line. With IS, you can stop down to f/4 and still put everyone in field without posing them and ruining what you saw before your camera came out.

IS is really useful for what I shoot. I'll take it on everything.

- A

 

[douglaurent]

Re: Here's an Updated 2017 Canon Roadmap

But an update could make it a too expensive 17.000 buck lens like Nikons. And at 800mm, in many cases the atmosphere starts to avoid you get crystal clear images. Most of the subjects will have extreme bokeh anyway, so corner sharpness of the 800/5.6 is not an issue. Instead of an 800, the 600II+1.4 extender will also do it. Aside from that, for these focal lengths I would use the Sigma 200-500/2.8 with its 2x extender anyway - mainly because of its weight, which makes it much more stable outdoor situations.

So your rationale is that an updated Canon 800/5.6L IS II would be too expensive, but you prefer to use the $26K SigZooka instead. That makes sense, thanks.

I bought a Canon and a Nikon version of the Sigma 200-500/2.8 approx 5 years ago for approx $8000 each new. This lens will never cost anywhere near its fantasy list price if you search a bit or negotiate.

 

[douglaurent]

Re: Here's an Updated 2017 Canon Roadmap

But an update could make it a too expensive 17.000 buck lens like Nikons. And at 800mm, in many cases the atmosphere starts to avoid you get crystal clear images. Most of the subjects will have extreme bokeh anyway, so corner sharpness of the 800/5.6 is not an issue. Instead of an 800, the 600II+1.4 extender will also do it. Aside from that, for these focal lengths I would use the Sigma 200-500/2.8 with its 2x extender anyway - mainly because of its weight, which makes it much more stable outdoor situations.

So your rationale is that an updated Canon 800/5.6L IS II would be too expensive, but you prefer to use the $26K SigZooka instead. That makes sense, thanks.

When subtlety fails, choose SigZooka.

- A

I probably read every funny comment that was made about this lens. I invite everybody to set up a Canon telezoom on one tripod, and the Sigma on another tripod in an outdoor scenario (which is obviously what it was made for). Let's see who's laughing then, when you realize that the weight of the Sigma makes it much more stable than the other tele zooms, giving you more room regarding shutter speeds on top of the f-stop advantage it has. I also didn't see too many people handhold a Canon 400/2.8 or 800/5.6, so a tripod is needed for all these lenses anyway.

 

[douglaurent]

Re: Here's an Updated 2017 Canon Roadmap

It doesn't matter if Sony, Olympus, Panasonic do release a new model every month or every 4 years, as long as their models have important features [1] that Canon doesn't have or will have only years later.

At the moment it's actually okay if you just buy a new Sony or Panasonic model every 4 years, as long as they are 2-5 years ahead of Canon in certain areas.

In spring of 2014 the GH4 with 4K 2 years before the 5D4 was a great investment, and releasing a GH5 in spring 2017 is a healthy 3 year-cycle.

A Sony A7RII or A7SII will most likely have at least a 2.5 year product cycle [2], and to date I haven't found any design flaw aside from the fact that I need 5 seconds longer each shooting day to switch batteries compared to a Canon DSLR.

No clue anywhere why these competitors products are not well thought through. Instead it seems that the Canon marketing people have too much time to think in their 4 year product cycles, and unnecessarily use the time to move existing technologies to camera releases in future years [3].

Probably the lens people at Canon say: hell, we can't sell stabilized bodies, why should anybody buy an expensive stabilized 70-200 over a cheaper non-stabilized 70-200 then?

[1] - and we keep coming back to what you mean by 'important updates'. My guess is your definitions bear little resemblance to the definitions used by a vast majority of Canon purchasers.

[2] so again you are criticising Canon based on an assumption you have no idea is true or not. The key thing about the Olympus E-M1 and the Panasonic GH4 is that, yes, they came out with products that leapt ahead. But the reason they leapt ahead is because they were far advanced in specific ways and the new models are not significant upgrades in practical terms. In other words no different to Canon's upgrades really and that 'great leap forward' is being eroded while still maintaining Canon's product range.

[3] - alternative interpretation is that Canon have different priorities based on their knowledge of the market. You seem totally unable to gasp this point.

If the people at Canon would know the market and be good in knowing what their consumers want, they would have predicted that their mass consumers will flee from DSLRs, and have started to build smartphones some years ago. They also would have reacted with products to all those former Canon consumers, who bought Sony and Panasonic cameras instead. Canon's absolute sales numbers are going down since years, nobody at Canon will throw champagne parties because the market share still looks good.

 

[douglaurent]

Re: Here's an Updated 2017 Canon Roadmap

No clue anywhere why these competitors products are not well thought through. Instead it seems that the Canon marketing people have too much time to think in their 4 year product cycles, and unnecessarily use the time to move existing technologies to camera releases in future years [3].

[3] - alternative interpretation is that Canon have different priorities based on their knowledge of the market. You seem totally unable to gasp this point.

I see it very simply. Canon has turned the crank on endless permutations of their business plans and determined they make the most money on a (depends on the brand/level) ~ 4 year update cycle. They've endlessly run the numbers, and:

1) If they refresh too soon (say 2-3 years), they'd make less profit. They would fire up the base Canon faithful into thinking 'lots of new' is coming, Canon is really responsive and listening to us, etc. and get a slight bump in sales from that approach. But, huge capital costs get involved in component fabrication, sensor build, assembly of camera bodies, testing, etc. and if you are turning the crank more often, that equipment is churning out less units over its lifespan. In other words: refresh too quickly and the burden of front-end capital investment is not recouped to the same degree and profits suffer.

2) If they refresh too slowly (say 5-6 years), they'd also make less profit. Sure, for the opposite reasons as above, they'd be completely maximizing the return on their capital investment by getting significantly more units out than with a 4 year cycle, but there comes a point the product is no longer competitive or the Canon faithful leave the fold for other companies' gear because they've given up on waiting for a refresh.

I'm not saying 4 years is the categorical magic number. In some cases -- let's say a Rebel -- there's 'less new' to make breakthroughs on as the line is often the recipient of pricier products' innovations trickling down to them. In other cases, the photography market is contracting due to cell phones, which has a global gravitational effect to slow everything down. In other cases (the 7D immediately comes to mind), the niche status of a 'pro APS-C' camera (with, at the time, no direct Nikon rival) led Canon to push a mid-cycle refresh via firmware to extend the service life of the camera to 5+ years. The right time depends on the brand.

But Canon -- much like Nikon -- have been at this forever, they know the market like none other, and they are planning, planning, planning their pants off. There will come a point that such a conservative business model will end up seeing people leave the fold. But guess what? That's in their plan, too, and they'll make adjustments to that plan before that happens.

- A

Canon and Nikon and its employees are as imperfect as Lehman Brothers or Volkswagen - because large corporations will always have lots of flaws. This is why Canon didn't foresee the smartphone boom and also had no answer to it.

Nikon and Canon had a good plan until a few years ago, but now the pace of the planet and the developments in camera products mean that most aspects of former decades are not valid anymore. It's very unlikely that Canon will see growth instead of decline, the way they acted the last 2-4 years.

 

[douglaurent]

Re: Here's an Updated 2017 Canon Roadmap

11-24 f/4L - could use IS and is a bit outperformend in sharpness between 12-16mm by the Sigma Art

Did you read the same reviews as I did? The Sigma Art is not up to the canon. And who need IS @11mm? landscape photographers use tripods, the rest can easily hold 1/10 s.

No need to read the reviews as I own both and can test them myself. But I checked and you can see the charts over at Digital Picture, which show exactly what I said.

Regarding IS: it helps at any focal lengths. You can still see micro shakes when you zoom in in live view. Cameras with 50MP like the 5DsR need shorter shutter speeds so you really get tack sharp results at these resolutions. Anything that makes it steady is welcome, although the effect between 16-24mm of course is more visible. Probably this is why Canon themselves didn't cut the IS below 24mm in their 16-35/4 IS lens.

 

[AvTvM]

Re: Here's an Updated 2017 Canon Roadmap

Know-it-all Canon market research says: "All we need to do is continue bringing marginally improved iterations of our tried and tested mirrorslappers. No need whatsoever to put anything mirrorless on our 207 roadmap."

http://www.dslrbodies.com/newsviews/how-bad-is-it.html

Let’s look at the just-announced Jan-Oct CIPA numbers for the past few years for a moment:

DSLRs fell to half their previous sales level in just four years. Mirrorless is running 11% under its peak. Since Canon and Nikon essentially own the DSLR market they’re under extreme stress; particularly Nikon, where a majority of their business is cameras.

So as we get to the close of another year, I’d have to argue that “nope, we haven’t hit bottom yet.”
That’s where things get really scary. If this is just a constant state of decline, DSLRs will fall below 3m units by 2021, which is about where mirrorless is now.

hehehe. Now who's delusional?

Punishment by "me and millions of other not buying customers" is brutal. ;D

 

[privatebydesign]

Re: Here's an Updated 2017 Canon Roadmap

But an update could make it a too expensive 17.000 buck lens like Nikons. And at 800mm, in many cases the atmosphere starts to avoid you get crystal clear images. Most of the subjects will have extreme bokeh anyway, so corner sharpness of the 800/5.6 is not an issue. Instead of an 800, the 600II+1.4 extender will also do it. Aside from that, for these focal lengths I would use the Sigma 200-500/2.8 with its 2x extender anyway - mainly because of its weight, which makes it much more stable outdoor situations.

So your rationale is that an updated Canon 800/5.6L IS II would be too expensive, but you prefer to use the $26K SigZooka instead. That makes sense, thanks.

When subtlety fails, choose SigZooka.

- A

I probably read every funny comment that was made about this lens. I invite everybody to set up a Canon telezoom on one tripod, and the Sigma on another tripod in an outdoor scenario (which is obviously what it was made for). Let's see who's laughing then, when you realize that the weight of the Sigma makes it much more stable than the other tele zooms, giving you more room regarding shutter speeds on top of the f-stop advantage it has. I also didn't see too many people handhold a Canon 400/2.8 or 800/5.6, so a tripod is needed for all these lenses anyway.

The Canon 400 and 800 primes are easily used on a monopod, which is how many of them are used, the Sigma lens is tripod only, so a vast difference in usability. If you want the stability the weight the Sigma brings just put some sandbags/bean bags over any lens on a tripod and you get exactly the same result, mass induced stability. Of course the bean bags with beans will cost you $25,000 less

 

[Chaitanya]

Re: Here's an Updated 2017 Canon Roadmap

Not sure what has Adone done to lightroom, but its getting more and more buggy each time out. Sonce the June update Lightroom has been crashing for no good reason at all. Even going from Develop module to Map module crashes lightroom. I dont think Adobe is serious about Lightroom anymore also their CC is crap I want good old lightroom back or else its hello On1 goodbye LR.

 

[privatebydesign]

Re: Here's an Updated 2017 Canon Roadmap

Not sure what has Adone done to lightroom, but its getting more and more buggy each time out. Sonce the June update Lightroom has been crashing for no good reason at all. Even going from Develop module to Map module crashes lightroom. I dont think Adobe is serious about Lightroom anymore also their CC is crap I want good old lightroom back or else its hello On1 goodbye LR.

Adobe don't care about you and never have, say goodbye and don't look back.

I just downloaded the latest LR 2015.8 and was playing with the new 'Reference View' in the Develop Module, absolutely love it, and best of all is the cursor gives two readings, one from the reference image and one from the image being developed. This is a feature I know I will use a lot and wonder how I did without it.

 

[ahsanford]

Re: Here's an Updated 2017 Canon Roadmap

Canon and Nikon and its employees are as imperfect as Lehman Brothers or Volkswagen - because large corporations will always have lots of flaws. This is why Canon didn't foresee the smartphone boom and also had no answer to it.

There is no answer to smartphones other than excelling where they don't -- true (not software synthesized) small DOF, low noise at high ISO and night and day better longer-than-28mm focal length options.

The only answer to smartphones is to be part of their success and sell components to their manufacturers. Did you expect Canon or Nikon to start selling cell phones?

- A

 

[douglaurent]

Re: Here's an Updated 2017 Canon Roadmap

But an update could make it a too expensive 17.000 buck lens like Nikons. And at 800mm, in many cases the atmosphere starts to avoid you get crystal clear images. Most of the subjects will have extreme bokeh anyway, so corner sharpness of the 800/5.6 is not an issue. Instead of an 800, the 600II+1.4 extender will also do it. Aside from that, for these focal lengths I would use the Sigma 200-500/2.8 with its 2x extender anyway - mainly because of its weight, which makes it much more stable outdoor situations.

So your rationale is that an updated Canon 800/5.6L IS II would be too expensive, but you prefer to use the $26K SigZooka instead. That makes sense, thanks.

When subtlety fails, choose SigZooka.

- A

I probably read every funny comment that was made about this lens. I invite everybody to set up a Canon telezoom on one tripod, and the Sigma on another tripod in an outdoor scenario (which is obviously what it was made for). Let's see who's laughing then, when you realize that the weight of the Sigma makes it much more stable than the other tele zooms, giving you more room regarding shutter speeds on top of the f-stop advantage it has. I also didn't see too many people handhold a Canon 400/2.8 or 800/5.6, so a tripod is needed for all these lenses anyway.

The Canon 400 and 800 primes are easily used on a monopod, which is how many of them are used, the Sigma lens is tripod only, so a vast difference in usability. If you want the stability the weight the Sigma brings just put some sandbags/bean bags over any lens on a tripod and you get exactly the same result, mass induced stability. Of course the bean bags with beans will cost you $25,000 less

It's not the stability of the tripod. It's the wind that's going to shake the front and end of a tele lens. So good luck putting sand bags directly on top of your Canon tele zoom to make it heavier and more sturdy.

 

[douglaurent]

Re: Here's an Updated 2017 Canon Roadmap

Canon and Nikon and its employees are as imperfect as Lehman Brothers or Volkswagen - because large corporations will always have lots of flaws. This is why Canon didn't foresee the smartphone boom and also had no answer to it.

There is no answer to smartphones other than excelling where they don't -- true (not software synthesized) small DOF, low noise at high ISO and night and day better longer-than-28mm focal length options.

The only answer to smartphones is to be part of their success and sell components to their manufacturers. Did you expect Canon or Nikon to start selling cell phones?

- A

Nikon is too small for cell phones, but why shouldn't Canon have started to get a foot in that door? There were times when nobody would have expected that Nokia or Apple will sell phones. Phones are manufactured in asia, the operating system can be licensed, and the sales driver has been display and camera technology. It would have been more logical or at least as likely that a company like Canon instead of Apple came up with phones.

 

[Mikehit]

Re: Here's an Updated 2017 Canon Roadmap

If the people at Canon would know the market and be good in knowing what their consumers want, they would have predicted that their mass consumers will flee from DSLRs, and have started to build smartphones some years ago. They also would have reacted with products to all those former Canon consumers, who bought Sony and Panasonic cameras instead. Canon's absolute sales numbers are going down since years, nobody at Canon will throw champagne parties because the market share still looks good.

Interpreted as:

I have a view that says Canon is a crap company, crap at predicting things, crap at knowing what their clients want and crap at delivering anything useful and above all crap because they are more useless than anyone else because they don't deliver what nobody else delivers either. I will therefore twist any information I see to fit that jaundiced irascible viewpoint.

But I will still use Canon over any other marque.

 

[jolyonralph]

Re: Here's an Updated 2017 Canon Roadmap

Make a low-end camera with a phone-size touch screen on the back, android OS, so that you can install all your favourite social media apps on it, take photos and upload them directly from your camera. I know samsung tried a phone/camera hybrid thing a while back, but no-one's yet done this properly with an ILC.

It won't be the camera for most of us, but it will be what a lot of (younger) people would prefer. Right now every single time I've tried to link a camera to an iphone to share photos it's been a nightmare and usually not worked. This is important stuff. People want to share their photos straight away. If their camera can't do this, they'll use their phone, and soon forget why they bothered to buy a camera in the first place.

 

[Loswr]

Re: Here's an Updated 2017 Canon Roadmap

If the people at Canon would know the market and be good in knowing what their consumers want, they would have predicted that their mass consumers will flee from DSLRs, and have started to build smartphones some years ago. They also would have reacted with products to all those former Canon consumers, who bought Sony and Panasonic cameras instead. Canon's absolute sales numbers are going down since years, nobody at Canon will throw champagne parties because the market share still looks good.

Interpreted as:

I have a view that says Canon is a crap company, crap at predicting things, crap at knowing what their clients want and crap at delivering anything useful and above all crap because they are more useless than anyone else because they don't deliver what nobody else delivers either. I will therefore twist any information I see to fit that jaundiced irascible viewpoint.

But I will still use Canon over any other marque.

Indeed. Yet another hypocritical forum dweller who knows better than Canon how Canon should spend their money. In this case with a leavening of 20/20 hindsight thrown in, along with a sprinkle of I'm special 'cuz I own lots of expensive gear on top.

What most of these CHWAC posts amount to is a justification for why Canon should make the gear on that poster's personal wish list (in some cases a ridiculously long personal wish list).

Funny how these self-appointed experts – and the millions of people they claim think just like them – seem to have radically different, and in some cases diametrically opposed, 'knowledge' about what Canton must do to avoid certain doom. For example, one CHWAC says that Canon must update every single one of their dSLRs and most of their lenses with features 'their competitors have offered for years' (despite those competitors' continued loss of marketshare to Canon), while another CHWAC says that Canon should stop making dSLRs altogether, and instead switch over to making only mirrorless cameras, with an entire new line of lenses to go with the FF versions.

Clueless.

 

[Orangutan]

Re: Here's an Updated 2017 Canon Roadmap

Know-it-all Canon market research says: "All we need to do is continue bringing marginally improved iterations of our tried and tested mirrorslappers. No need whatsoever to put anything mirrorless on our 207 roadmap."

http://www.dslrbodies.com/newsviews/how-bad-is-it.html

Let’s look at the just-announced Jan-Oct CIPA numbers for the past few years for a moment:

DSLRs fell to half their previous sales level in just four years. Mirrorless is running 11% under its peak. Since Canon and Nikon essentially own the DSLR market they’re under extreme stress; particularly Nikon, where a majority of their business is cameras.

So as we get to the close of another year, I’d have to argue that “nope, we haven’t hit bottom yet.”
That’s where things get really scary. If this is just a constant state of decline, DSLRs will fall below 3m units by 2021, which is about where mirrorless is now.

hehehe. Now who's delusional?

Punishment by "me and millions of other not buying customers" is brutal. ;D

I think you're misinterpreting your data. Here's a table of DSLR ("mirrorslapper") sales as percentage of total ILC sales.

Considering all the mirrorless advances (and opportunities for advancement) in the last 4 years, I'm shocked that the percentage has declined only 8%. And the smallest drop in the last 4 years was the most recent year. This very strongly supports the hypothesis that there is NO great demand for mirrorless over mirrored. Please look deeper into the data before pronouncing conclusions. Your data do no support your conclusion.

Edit: embedded image didn't post, see attached image below.

 

[jeffa4444]

Re: Here's an Updated 2017 Canon Roadmap

Know-it-all Canon market research says: "All we need to do is continue bringing marginally improved iterations of our tried and tested mirrorslappers. No need whatsoever to put anything mirrorless on our 207 roadmap."

http://www.dslrbodies.com/newsviews/how-bad-is-it.html

Let’s look at the just-announced Jan-Oct CIPA numbers for the past few years for a moment:

DSLRs fell to half their previous sales level in just four years. Mirrorless is running 11% under its peak. Since Canon and Nikon essentially own the DSLR market they’re under extreme stress; particularly Nikon, where a majority of their business is cameras.

So as we get to the close of another year, I’d have to argue that “nope, we haven’t hit bottom yet.”
That’s where things get really scary. If this is just a constant state of decline, DSLRs will fall below 3m units by 2021, which is about where mirrorless is now.

hehehe. Now who's delusional?

Punishment by "me and millions of other not buying customers" is brutal. ;D

I think you're misinterpreting your data. Here's a table of DSLR ("mirrorslapper") sales as percentage of total ILC sales.

Considering all the mirrorless advances (and opportunities for advancement) in the last 4 years, I'm shocked that the percentage has declined only 8%. And the smallest drop in the last 4 years was the most recent year. This very strongly supports the hypothesis that there is NO great demand for mirrorless over mirrored. Please look deeper into the data before pronouncing conclusions. Your data do no support your conclusion.

Edit: embedded image didn't post, see attached image below.

A virtual 50% decline in DSLR sales since 2012 is equally nothing to shout about for the industry. The decline in mirrorless is smaller as a % but its certainly not growing either. At their peak SLRs biggest year total was 8.8M but averaged was around 6.8M the level we see DSLRs at in 2016 YTD.
However you read the figures smart phones & tablets have taken a huge chunk of the photographic market which not only affects camera sales but everything around them such as cases, batteries, memory cards, filters, tripods etc.

 

[AvTvM]

Re: Here's an Updated 2017 Canon Roadmap

well orangutan, you may want to discuss it with Thom Hogan. I quoted his conclusions on CIPA data. As far as I am concerned, I am in full agreement with the facts & data as well as the conclusions.

Re. 11% decline in mirrorless ... oh wonder! Only #3 market player offers FF mirrorless. Nikon and Canon with combined 80% market share are empty-handed on FF MILC, they have nothing to sell, so there are no sales. Hardly a surprise.

Even for APS-C mirrorless there are only 3 players: Sony [good bodies, but only sub-par or too expensive lenses] , Fuji [expensive & retro stuff] and Canon [decent lenses, but nerfed bodies]. Samsung ... departed. Leica .. of yeah ... "be dumm, pay premium!"

Oly/Pana ... mFT dwarf sensors anyone? Nikon 1 ? give me a break. Pathetic.

My conclusion: mirrorslappers are dying even faster than I expected. Mirrorless is not where it ought to be, because of lack of compelling systems.

In essence: MILC market share is absolutely and solely a SUPPLY side problem, not a market DEMAND issue.