Canon sows FUD

[nemophoto]

The other manufacturers may know that telling the world about a 120mp sensor without any other specs is meaningless?

Cheers,
Bernard

Doubtful. In the tech world, every manufacturer uses any chance they have to tell the world of their upcoming advances -- even if they don't necessarily see the light of day as a consumer product. (Note that the Canon 4 million ISO camera is marketed toward the security and surveillance industry.)

[BernardLanguillier]

Doubtful. In the tech world, every manufacturer uses any chance they have to tell the world of their upcoming advances -- even if they don't necessarily see the light of day as a consumer product. (Note that the Canon 4 million ISO camera is marketed toward the security and surveillance industry.)

Precisely, characterizing a future sensor as offering 120mp isn't at all an indication of it being a technological advance.

Using one of those great car analogies, Ferrari doesn't just announce that they are working on a new F1 able to reach 400mph because that would tell us very little about it's ability to win races nor why future road Ferraris would be better cars for their owners. The reason being that top speed is easy to advance if you forget about the need for a car to turn, be comfortable, safe,...

End of story, I can't explain it better.

Cheers,
Bernard

[nemophoto]

Precisely, characterizing a future sensor as offering 120mp isn't at all an indication of it being a technological advance.

Using one of those great car analogies, Ferrari doesn't just announce that they are working on a new F1 able to reach 400mph because that would tell us very little about it's ability to win races nor why future road Ferraris would be better cars for their owners. The reason being that top speed is easy to advance if you forget about the need for a car to turn, be comfortable, safe,...

End of story, I can't explain it better.

Cheers,
Bernard

I'm sorry. I don't feel the Ferrari analogy really applies. But, if you insist on using that, what do you think all the prototypes at the car shows represent? It represents the state of their technology, thinking and progress. Ferrari has presented many show cars that never saw the light of day. And while many show cars are fantastical, many represent versions of cars that are not far from the production line. And top speed is NOT easy to achieve. Otherwise, as you said about sensors, all companies could produce high speed cars.

If Canon already has a working sensor of 250MP, why is it so far fetched to think that they can't produce something closer to 120MP? While Canon's lead may have slipped some, remember which company, before they started down a more conservative road, was FAR ahead of everyone. Not alike many car companies which swing between aggressive and solidifying their gains. I guess I can't quite fathom why you feel a company with a very long history of technological advances might not be able to pull this off?

[eronald]

Bart,

 Hold your horses. Sony -as you say- churn through tech and models at a huge clip, spray and pray; Canon strategize, and slowly evolve their range, and have excellent service. BUT THIS IS THE COMPANY CULTURE, NOTHING TO DO WITH TECHNOLOGY.  Canon love their long term lens range plans, Sony love their proprietary connectors for add-on finders, microphones, screens  and their strange media formats. The thing is when push comes to shove, Sony has much the better semiconductor tech *today*, while Canon has a significantly better optics design department; and so neither can really score a quick knockout blow.

 When it comes to cameras, I guess a compact has a one year life - so Sony wins, and a mirrorless camera is somewhere between the longterm investment an SLR used to be, and a compact, so again it is a quick sell to anybody with money.   Apart from "Cooter", half the guys here don't care about the $3200 which an A7IIR costs, it's the price of an MF lens and what my dentist makes on a bad morning. And people who care about the price are not really buyers any more, it is more profitable to sell two cameras a year to a lawyer or a dentist than to sell one camera every 3 years to someone like me or you. Rich people are getting richer and they are getting flashier. The "replace your iPhone every year" trend is also one of Sony's mainstays, let's not underestimate the profit you make from selling a hundred million camera modules every year.

Edmund

Hi Edmund,

What (conveniently) seems to be ignored, is that a company like Sony depends on introducing new (relatively untested technology) at a rapid pace. This allows to fund their research, but also means short product life-cycles. Any forward looking statement (like the longer term vision expressed by Canon's frequent 'development', not announcement (!), press-releases) would threaten the chance of people buying in to the latest fad, instead of waiting for a more mature product or skipping a generation.

We've seen e.g. the A7R development with various issues like irreversible Raw compression artifacts, shutter shock, limited battery capacity, and service problems. Canon on the other hand, operating with a different marketing model, has no ill effects to be expected from disclosing what their future vision is. Canon first developed a new vibration reduction shutter mechanism, before introducing a new high resolution camera body, the 5DS / 5DS R. People will not postpone their next Canon purchase because of such vision statements, but rather see it as confidence building for the long haul. Canon's camera/lens service is a very useful feature for the long term use of their products. I've had 2 shutters replaced (out of warranty but for free, and with available replacement bodies) because they started showing issues too long before their rated operational life expectancy.

Given this completely different marketing approach, I still think that Michael's qualification of FUD is totally misplaced (besides being the wrong term), and not a (panic) reaction but a common procedure/tradition of sharing long term vision and all sorts of technology development reports, a long time before they are turned into White papers on actually announced/introduced products.

Again, a development report is not a product announcement. The latter is potentially a tactic called 'pre-announcement' if it takes a long time to actual delivery of production models. A pre-announcement is indeed intended to buy time, but that was not what the press releases were about.

Cheers,
Bart.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

My take on the Sony A7rII, after having it for three weeks and doing two weeks of travel shots is that it is a competent sensor in an attractive body. My best lens is the Sony 90/2.8G macro and it shows what the system can do. It is highly impressive.

With A-lenses focus is a bit slow, but very accurate. Probably no great predictive AF.

User interface is complex and documentation a bit thin.

So, it is a great camera in the best of worlds, at least for the static shooter.

Best regards
Erik

[eronald]

Hi,

My take on the Sony A7rII, after having it for three weeks and doing two weeks of travel shots is that it is a competent sensor in an attractive body. My best lens is the Sony 90/2.8G macro and it shows what the system can do. It is highly impressive.

With A-lenses focus is a bit slow, but very accurate. Probably no great predictive AF.

User interface is complex and documentation a bit thin.

So, it is a great camera in the best of worlds, at least for the static shooter.

Best regards
Erik

OK. One satisfied customer. And if you are getting paid in swedish money, and it is not a huge outlay, why demand more?

We need feedback on E lenses and Canon lenses.

"Net wages are a good indication of expendable income: a worker in Zurich will have almost 23 times the amount of money to spend than a similar worker in Kiev."

https://www.ubs.com/microsites/prices-earnings/edition-2015.html

Edmund

[Alan Goldhammer]

Again, a development report is not a product announcement. The latter is potentially a tactic called 'pre-announcement' if it takes a long time to actual delivery of production models. A pre-announcement is indeed intended to buy time, but that was not what the press releases were about.

As one whose working career was spent in the pharmaceutical industry, R&D announcements are customary and usually required by various securities laws.  There always is a disclaimer as there is with any public announcement from public companies.  Such announcements are usually made when the potential drug enters human clinical testing and it may be several years before it is known whether this compound gets licensed for use (the majority are never approved because they either do not work or pose significant safety issues that cannot be managed).  Many companies in other fields issue statements about R&D activities.  I see nothing wrong with Canon doing this and that such information be taken with a grain (or pound depending on one's expertise in the area) of salt. 

In the long run it is always better to have the camera of today than sit and wait for the camera of tomorrow to appear.  Many of us have only one system camera and we make the best of it using existing technology.  I overcome limitations of the D300 sensor by stitching which as already noted by Bernard something that has been around for a while!

[Torbjörn Tapani]

OK. One satisfied customer. And if you are getting paid in swedish money, and it is not a huge outlay, why demand more?

We need feedback on E lenses and Canon lenses.

"Net wages are a good indication of expendable income: a worker in Zurich will have almost 23 times the amount of money to spend than a similar worker in Kiev."

https://www.ubs.com/microsites/prices-earnings/edition-2015.html

Edmund

Zurich is in Switzerland.

[eronald]

Zurich is in Switzerland.

If you say so, I'll believe you. I live in Paris and I rarely go out.

Kiev is in Ukraine, Wikipedia informs me.

My point is that with a 23x expendable income multiplier,  a random male in Zurich is now the ideal customer for Sony, and he doesn't have the same long-range view of his investment as photographer in Kiev.

I am sorry, but the average pro (or non pro)  photographer in Kiev may be a real artist, a skilful and original technician, the author of several photo books, a valuable human being, and a good father, but he has no money, and in the eyes of Sony and Canon, he now counts about as much as a goatherd in Afghanistan when viewed by a US drone operator.  (come to think of it, maybe their lack of disposable income is what made Afghan goatherds disposable). On the other hand your average oligarch probably keeps the Sony Style shop going. Cameras are now consumables and fashion goods for the inhabitants of the richer countries, and the richer inhabitants of the poorer ones. Just like iPhones, when you think of it. And so Sony are justified in bringing out novelty cameras with zillions of features. Their strategy is commercially sound.  I have no doubt that the photographer in Kiev is proud of his somewhat older Canon gear

Edmund

[labirdman]

If you say so, I'll believe you. I live in Paris and I rarely go out.

LOL, Edmund. Thanks for injecting a bit of levity into an otherwise overly sober discussion.

[daws]

Back in the day (and I know many here will remember), when IBM was king, if another company started shipping a computer that was faster or in some way better than anything that IBM then had, they would quickly announce a new model that – on promise at least – blew the competition into the weeds.

At that time, the slogan in business and academia was "No one ever got fired for buying IBM".

Now we have Canon announcing that they are developing a 120 Megapixel DSLR and an 8K video camera. No anticipated date for delivery, just that they are "in development".

Does this now seem to anyone reminiscent of IBM's FUD strategy from years past?

Just say'n.

Michael

Sounds really familiar. Over on the entertainment media side, this game is played so often it's a tradition (Disney became notorious for it after Eisner took over in '85 -- he brought it with him from Paramount, and his successor team has honed it to a fine art in their theme park business). I don't know how it's played by Canon's management hierarchy, but the most eye-rolling part of it here in L.A. is how corporate management convinces themselves it's not a game -- these guys literally believe their own b.s.