Canon Interview-We Don't see The Smartphone As An Enemy

[Don Davis]

Revealing interview with Canon executive.  I am not encouraged about the future of Canon products after reading this.  Your thoughts?

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/2097339172/cp-2014-canon-interview-we-dont-see-the-smartphone-as-an-enemy

[BernardLanguillier]

Thom Hogan seems to be concerned also, but is the translation accurate?

Any link to the original in Japanese language I could listen to?

Cheers,
Bernard

[Don Davis]

I checked the source, DP Review, but they only admit that a translator was used without providing the original in Japanese.

[BJL]

Some of it could be simply that no one gives away new product plans in such interviews (so for example, no talk of innovations in sensor technology coming in future models), but I do see incongruities:
1) There is much talk by Canon (and everyone else) of still-video convergence, and
2) every half-decent hand-holdable video camera can be used with an eye-level viewfinder (EVF), rather than forcing use of a rear-screeen LCD, but
3) Canon does not offer EVFs on any of its stills+video interchangeable lens cameras --- not even the mirrorless EOS-M models or the EOS-1D C billed as a cinema EOS camera. (To be fair, there are 3rd party EVFs for the EOS-1D C, from Zacuto etc., but for a camera promoted as a compact hand-holdable professional grade video camera, lacking a built-in EVF seems strange.)

Nice to see more confirmation of why mirrorless cameras have so far sold better in Asia than in North America:

Americans also seem to prefer bigger cameras. Sales for the Rebel SL1 have not been as great as we expected in America, for example. We've received some complaints about it being too small. But in Japan and Asia we don't see any complaints about that.

[barryfitzgerald]

Thom seems overly concerned about smartphone software.
Smartphones are not the choice of enthusiast photographers, nor will they ever be. So there is little point talking about software or in camera gimmicks (we've plenty of those anyway)

Compact makers got lazy churned out the same tiresome pinhead sensor tat they have year after year with a few more "tricks" and pixels and it's fallen on it's face.
Solution is to make compacts with notably bigger sensors and better IQ, to a level where smartphones can't compete because they have size limitations.
Not everyone will buy a compact if they have a phone with a camera, but you have to give people a reason to look at them and bigger sensors/better IQ is at least one

The DSLR v Smartphone debate isn't one. The last wedding I was at I had people looking at my images asking why I'm taking much better shots than they are.
No tiny LED light on a smartphone can yield good indoor images, so let's bury that one right now.

[BJL]

The DSLR v Smartphone debate isn't one.

And no one says elsewise: it is camera-phones vs compact digital cameras that is a battle, as the Canon people say in the interview:

Obviously smartphones have taken some of the compact camera market away, but there are certain domains in which the smartphone cannot compete. For example applications that require zoom. Even compact cameras aren't beaten by smartphones in some respects.

When it comes to DSLRs versus smartphones, they don't compare.

P. S. Editied to fix quotations.

[Telecaster]

The DSLR v Smartphone debate isn't one. The last wedding I was at I had people looking at my images asking why I'm taking much better shots than they are.
No tiny LED light on a smartphone can yield good indoor images, so let's bury that one right now.

Technology developments have a way of running this sort of complacency through the shredder. Don't make the mistake of assuming the future will be just more of the present.

-Dave-

[barryfitzgerald]

Technology developments have a way of running this sort of complacency through the shredder. Don't make the mistake of assuming the future will be just more of the present.

-Dave-

How many users are going to be fitting a powerful flash bounced off a high ceiling with their smartphone?
Technique is one major factor. I got better shots because I knew what to do in this lighting. There won't be a shredder because you can't do the impossible

[powerslave12r]

How many users are going to be fitting a powerful flash bounced off a high ceiling with their smartphone?
Technique is one major factor. I got better shots because I knew what to do in this lighting. There won't be a shredder because you can't do the impossible

Quoted for posterity. J/K

[BJL]

How many users are going to be fitting a powerful flash bounced off a high ceiling with their smartphone?

As a sheer fantasy: since there are already all kinds of add-on lenses for the iPhone, might there someday be add-on bounce-flash units for phones too? An Apple version could have the two-color auto-white balance "True Tone flash" feature pioneered in the iPhone 5s.

More realistically, what I hope for is further improvements in sensors and compact yet bright lenses to let me avoid using flash even more than I strive to avoid it now.


P. S. I am behind the times; there are already these efforts, some of which have wireless control, allowing use off-camera to bounce:
http://petapixel.com/2013/07/26/iblazr-is-a-synched-external-flash-unit-for-smartphone-and-tablets/
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joewalnes/nova-a-slim-wireless-flash-for-better-iphone-photo
http://www.gadgetsboy.co.uk/student-takes-mobile-photography-to-another-level-with-portable-external-flash/

[Misirlou]

Personally, I see a "convergence" coming with smartphones and cameras.

Smartphones definitely suffer from packaging limitations relative to cameras, but what of it? I have sold photos I took and processed completely with an iPhone (usually stiches of 6 to 20 captures). Sure, I can do a lot more with my DSLRs. But, I could do more still with my 4X5s, and that never kept me from buying the DSLRs. I don't shoot with flash very often, so that's not as big a deal for me as focal length choice, but everyone will have different needs. Though I still think almost any imaging device is useful for some photographic task or another.

But the computing power in the phone/tablet is highly useful as well. Most of them enjoy frequent OS and app updates that DSLRs will never be able to match. So why not use the camera for what it does best (capture), and the phone for wireless control, processing, and transmission? I'm already doing that with the iPhone app for my 6D. It's terrific. I can put the camera on a tripod in a corner where I can't physically go myself, and still have full control. Or even some little nook that is only large enough to hold the camera itself. As the phone/tablet tech improves, there will be more and more tasks that can be handled in the field, rather than waiting to get back to a PC.

I can imagine a really superb sensor mated to an exceptional lens, with no finder of any kind, designed to be used in conjunction with a phone or tablet exclusively. There are already a couple of Sony low-end versions out there now, and more coming from other manufacturers within the year. That might eventually end up being as big a trend as EVF cameras.