Canon rush to reassure investors as camera profits plunge
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Why can't I do light editing and post to Instagram directly from the camera? Why can't download the photos directly to a phone? Why can't I charge from a micro-USB/USB-C cable?
I get it that pros don't need these features, but how hard are they to implement? The camera is already $1000+ dollars, how much more could adding a touch screen, a SIM card and a beefier CPU cost, when you have $100 phones with these features?
A lot of influencers would buy these cameras if they had a simple auto-mode (which disables most buttons and hides advanced menus) and upload to instagram feature. The workflow for using a DSLR to post to instagram is terrible, SD-cards, WiFi adapters, laptops, ... Not to mention that you need a lot of technical knowledge to hook everything up. No wonder few bother with the pain.
It's ridiculous that the most expensive cameras in the world can't connect to the number one place in the world where pictures are posted.
annd pretty much every camera has an Auto-mode...
You can on some cameras (e.g. Canon 80D), but it’s somewhat cumbersome and eats batteries at a fantastic rate because the camera hosts its own WiFi access point.
Adding what amounts to an entire smartphone to every DSLR is simply madness - the kind of person who spends >$1000 on a bulky and complex camera is almost certainly the kind of person who has an Adobe Creative Cloud account; they're not going to post-process an image on the back of their camera through choice.
> the kind of person who spends >$1000 on a bulky and complex camera
I'm talking about opening up a new market - instagrammers, who already spend money on ring lights, tripods for their phones, but who don't want to learn all the intricacies of using a DSLR camera + adapters + laptop.
The DSLR camera makers focus on a constant/shrinking market of pros, while totally ignoring a booming Instagram market.
The people who don't want to learn the intricacies of photography just use their phone. Unless you learn those intricacies, your phone will reliably take better images, because Apple have spent stupid amounts of R&D money on optimising their image post-processing.
The better lens and sensor on a DSLR is essentially irrelevant to Instagrammers, because the limitations of phone camera hardware are barely visible on a 6" phone screen in typical shooting scenarios. The point of using a DSLR-type camera is to gain more control over the imagemaking process. Unless you actually learn something about photography, that extra control is just an array of footguns. Faffing about with cables and cards is utterly trivial compared to pretty much any aspect of serious photography.
Every SLR I've seen has an Auto mode. You don't need to know intricacies to put it in that mode and leave it there forever.
I don't know why people keep parroting that an iphone is capable of comparable images to an SLR, it's just not true.
Even on Auto everything and with the result shrunk down to 2 Megapixels, an SLR will take much more pleasing images. The short depth of field will be very noticeable. In anything close to lower light the difference will be astronomical. Like a nice image instead of a blurry mess that you immediately delete.
Yes, the differences will be noticeable on a phone screen. DOF makes a massive difference to the overall image.
You can't get around physics and the weight and size of those lenses are tolerated for a good reason. If it was only about control then you there would definitely be camera phones with all the functionality of SLRs.
When the lens is so hopelessly tiny there's no point trying to control anything else because you will hit the limits of the lens/sensor in basically any situation. You can't open the aperture wide enough to get a pleasing DOF, and you don't have enough leeway to control shutter speed. And forget about zooming. All of those things are advantages because of the larger lenses, and are the difference between nice photos and, well, cameraphone images.
I would definitely think Instagrammers, with their endless vanity, would be interested in anything that makes their photos more appealing.
A very large number of would-be content creators (not just Instagram, either - YouTubers also) want the higher image quality, dynamic range, optical zoom, interchangeable lenses, etc. of a full-body camera, but don't want to deal with the clunky interfaces and multi-step processes just to get your images/videos to a format, style, and place you want them. Yes, that's a subset of the market, but it's probably a bigger potential userbase than traditional "pure" photographers.
With regard to Instagram, sure, you have a point. A DSLR-to-social-media flow doesn't have anything like the same ease of use as one involving a phone camera. But I'm willing to argue that the production values involved in being a serious Instagram influencer, and the degree of artifice that's necessary to that sector's pretense of an artlessly beautiful life, means the bar for switching to an interchangeable-lens system isn't as high as you think it is. Indeed, I'd be astonished if a significant segment of that crowd has not already done so.
And they all have to cut and edit their video, because thats what they do.
So being able to edit on a 2" screen when you care about quality to the point where you're getting a DSLR doesn't make any sense, so it isn't implemented.
I also agree with you.
It seems that the most appealing features of modern DSLRs, except fast autofocus, are hidden behind 90s interfaces with multi-button setups and so on.
Additionally, modern DSLRs must have appstore-like capabilities built into the camera (rather than into a phone device that attaches to camera).
This is where Nikon/Sony/Cannon/Panasonic/Olympus/Pentax(or whoever their new owners are) -- really need to come together with some standard API/interfaces.
I am somewhat disappointing that Samsung with their NX line exited the market, they had some interesting features that I would like to see licensed-for-free to other makers -- like lens based controls.
There is so much of unexplored UI real-state on the cameras, and opportunity for standardization -- that's is so sad to see complete lack of innovation from the dSLR makers.
I do not think vanilla mobile OSes are right platform for the camera... (because of the UIs).
If anything, I suspect these companies have the people (or could get them), but they have to change their culture across marketing/support/software engineering areas. Not just how they do business, but how they hire.
A somewhat separate example: companies like Panasonic, while excelling at device engineering and manufacturing seem to be completely and utterly incompetent when building phone apps that control their own devices (in this example talking about home security products).
What features are you referring to? Personally as someone who likes to take photos, I find the tactile multi-button/dial interface ideal and don't want a menu driven touch UI. It seems like some people want to co-opt a camera type made primarily for photography and turn it into a social media focused camcorder. I know the companies are trying to tap into that market but it feels like it is turning cameras into jacks of all trades and masters of none. I find the pricing obscene, but some current Leica models are stills only and have very elegant and simple interfaces designed purely for taking photographs. There are high quality cinema cameras all over to choose from. It seems people are pulling the DLSR/interchangeable lens mirrorless camera market in two different directions with opposing goals...photography vs social media/video production.
Multiple exposure bracketing
Rear curtain flash sync
Exposure compensation
Overall -- the 'preview experience is not great, at all
-- this should be picture-in-picture kind of view.I do not do much video, because I could not really figure out how to control auto focus selectively (when I want certain things in focus, and certain things out of focus as I pan)
The multiple settings preview thing sounds interesting but isn't something I can see using myself. The video autofocus stuff is another example of why I don't like photography cameras being repurposed as camcorders, although I read dual-pixel AF and its equivalents are quite good. No personal experience though as I have no video interest really.
The user base would be everyone who buys <$1000 crop sensor cameras, which is already significant. This includes parents taking photos of their kids playing sports from across the field, (un)official school photographers, Instagram boyfriends, all non-pro photographers who need separate telephoto lenses. Improving ease of use would expand this market greatly since the main barrier to entry is learning how to use a DSLR.
I want to take a picture of someone at a party and share it with them in a few seconds like I can do on my phone.
It is the main reason I don't use a DSLR much at all anymore.
https://ai.googleblog.com/2017/04/experimental-nighttime-pho...
Using a relatively crappy camera on a phone, they were able to get great results merely because they can program it.
As a simple example: I want to reduce high ISO noise by taking N photos and taking the median. This is an established technique in photo editing. Why do I have to manually tell the camera to take those N photos (and make sure autofocus and autoexposure is not enabled), and then transfer N images, and then load a program to do the median calculation for me? Why can't I create a plugin/app for my camera where I just input the number of photos and it does it all for me?
I think any camera manufacturer that makes an API available for their cameras could see a serious boost. People no longer have to rely on the company deciding what cool features to add.
There's really not been any serious innovation in DSLRs in over a decade. Pentax occasionally comes up with something neat, but that's about it.
That said, you probably could do something like that with sufficient effort invested in CHDK or Magic Lantern or whatever the current homebrew Canon firmware project is lately. I'll be fascinated to see what you come up with!
No one except all the people who are using smartphones instead of DSLR's, causing a decline in sales?
And what do you mean "no one cares"? The use case I've provided are precisely ones that "real" photographers care about. The amateur non-hobbyist photographer isn't going to want to do stacking on photos. The serious hobbyist/professional is.
CHDK and Magic Lantern are great. My problem is that I don't use a Canon :-) But even if I did, I assume these are all unofficial? The idea is for the manufacturer to have official APIs. Now of course, it does make it more likely one will reduce the lifetime of a camera with a poorly written plugin (e.g. one that wildly keeps using the focusing motors), but they can simply say the warranty is voided if you install custom firmware/plugins.
(I don't shoot Canon either, and yes, the homebrew firmwares are homebrew and thus not officially supported. I don't really know what effect they have on the warranty, but based on things I've heard, I think people just reflash bodies with stock firmware before shipping to the service center and it's basically fine.)
It's also worth noting that smartphones and ILCs don't compete directly any more. They never really did; once smartphones with good enough cameras to take casual snapshots and family photos started happening, ILCs were done in that market. Since then, they've been specializing toward those markets where they don't have to compete against smartphones. You're more or less suggesting that they do the opposite, and I don't know if you realize that the reason they're not already doing that is because they got murdered the last time they tried it and they're not in a hurry to get murdered again.
It was an amazing feature but Casio has sadly exited the camera market now, and I haven't seen another camera with the same kind of feature.
Because the computing resource, battery power, and physical volume spent on hardware Instagram integration detracts from what can be devoted to making the camera as good as possible at being a camera. You'd have to cram a smartphone in there, and everyone already has smartphones anyway.
And you can do light editing in-camera, if you want.
"Why can't download the photos directly to a phone? Why can't I charge from a micro-USB/USB-C cable?"
You can. Modern bodies have touchscreens, too.
And I don't want Nikon and Canon worrying about marketing to influencers, because influencers are a terrible market! I want them worrying about making and selling excellent cameras for the use of people who do need more than a phone camera or maybe a cheap camcorder can provide.
Granted, the camera makers haven't gone to the extent of just building a smartphone into a DSLR so you can post to Instagram with two taps, or whatever. IMO that's because they know where their strengths lie, and also understand that such a hybrid device would need a few generations to evolve into really solid usability - generations which it would not receive, because the same market at which it'd be aimed would consider the v1.0 difficulties a deal breaker for exactly the ease-of-use reasons you're arguing it would be a good idea for the camera makers to do this in the first place.
Just taking the area of the lens, say a 5mm diameter cameraphone lens is pi x 5^2=79mm^2 vs a DSLR, conservatively 60mm diameter is pi x 60^2=11309mm^2.
So 143 times the lens area, while your example exposure time is only 75 times more. So your example of a 5s exposure would be similar to a 1/30s DSLR exposure only based on lens area.
With the advantage of bigger sensor pixels and thus much better sensitivity, larger aperture, usually stabilization in the lens, and much, much less motion of the subject during that exposure as well, the DSLR still wins on absolutely everything except weight to lug around.
Taking for instance a full-frame Canon 5D II and something like a Huawei P30 Pro on the back of a napkin. A full-frame sensor is 864mm2 and a 1/1.7in sensor is 43mm2. Huawei with a RYYB sensor has an ISO of 409,600 vs 6,400. The phone aperture is /1.6. Realistically, /1.6 glass would be too heavy, so let's call it /2.8.
The ratio would then be 20 (sensor size) * 0.0156 (ISO) * 0.57 (aperture) = 0.178x before AI kicks in for, say, another 75x more exposure time ~= 421x more usable light on the phone.
Based on super unscientific anecdotal experience between the 2 (since the human eye is logarithmic), it seems about right.
I am not saying everything is perfect. But it seems you haven't done research on modern cameras.
Trying to put a whole phone stack in there isn't the core competency of any of those manufacturers (except barely Sony, though a different division). It's not just "slap a SIM and a beefier CPU" in there. Camera CPUs are highly specialised. So you'd have to essentially put another phone in there. That adds BOM cost plus reasearch and development of folks without core competency. Issues with software updates, compatibility, let alone battery life. All so you can edit a picture on a tiny 3" screen to post a 4megapixel version of a 24-45Megapixel original image directly to instagram?
Zeiss is coming out with a phone just with everything you've described. They're late. It will be huge. It will be incredibly expensive. Not sure I'd want to go that route.
That mode should turn off bit by bit as I make manual adjustments. If I adjust ISO and exposure, then the camera is left with aperture and shutter speed under auto control. If I turn the focus ring, then the camera stops doing autofocus.
Aside from focus, there are 4 user settings (ISO,shutter,exposure,aperture) to control 3 physical settings (ISO,shutter,aperture). It is thus overspecified. On power-on, the camera should control all of that. As soon as I have changed 3 user settings, the 4th is also determined and there is nothing left for automatic control.
If I change less than 3 user settings, the camera should automatically adjust the remaining settings. If I change 3 user settings, then the camera is in manual mode and the 4th user setting is determined by the other 3. If I then change a 4th user setting, there is a conflict which might be resolved by using the most recently adjusted 3 user settings.
Going back to auto mode is rare enough that it can be done by flipping the power switch twice, off then on. A menu item is also fine for this, but not needed.
Fuji (at least the X-T3 I own) doesn't have an explicit "Aperture priority, shutter priority, auto, manual" mode dial like most cameras. Instead it has physical dials for aperture, shutter speed and ISO. The dials have "auto" positions and the shutter and ISO dials can be locked in place.
So instead of aperture priority, you leave the ISO and SS dials in "auto" and change the aperture on the lens. If you care about the ISO, you can change that and it'll automate the shutter speed.
The main thing it doesn't do is default to full auto at power on. I frankly think that's insane and would never buy a camera that allows it. I don't trust auto to do what I need.
Suppose you are up in a high desert. At night, you take pictures of blossoms by starlight. The next day at noon, you spot an interesting and rare bird of prey quickly flying by while holding an interesting prey item. Quickly you flip the camera on and take a photo. Oh bummer, the camera was still configured for starlight, and you'll probably never have another opportunity for a similar photo. All pixels are white.
Anyway, thanks for the mention of Fuji. That sounds better than normal. Why can't you lock the aperture in place? Why do you need to lock something in place if there is a separate dial position for auto? (if not auto, isn't it locked?)
Usually it'll be in similar lighting conditions because I shoot with my camera pretty continuously.
> Suppose you are up in a high desert. At night, you take pictures of blossoms by starlight. The next day at noon, you spot an interesting and rare bird of prey quickly flying by while holding an interesting prey item. Quickly you flip the camera on and take a photo. Oh bummer, the camera was still configured for starlight, and you'll probably never have another opportunity for a similar photo. All pixels are white.
This is unlikely to happen because I tend to shoot with my camera continuously. I'd have taken a photo of an interesting cactus long before I saw the bird.
That said, assuming I already had a super telephoto lens attached to the camera (which is the bigger problem, if I was shooting blossoms I probably wouldn't have the right lens attached), it'd take me less than a second to move the relevant dials on the Fuji to something acceptable. On the Sony that's not possible but that's just a sacrifice I make by shooting Sony.
And in this situation, I'd expect the auto settings to do something stupid like expose for the sky instead of the bird. For example the camera might choose low ISO, wide aperture, relatively slow shutter speed while I'd want max shutter speed, moderate ISO and whatever aperture works with the other two.
> Why can't you lock the aperture in place?
The lenses just don't come with a locking mechanism for the aperture wheel. It has some little clicks but that's it.
> Why do you need to lock something in place if there is a separate dial position for auto? (if not auto, isn't it locked?)
The lock is a physical mechanism to stop the dial from turning accidentally while in your bag or something like that. Otherwise even if you put it in auto when you put it away, a bit of jostling in its bag can turn the dial to a different setting, which can be an issue when auto is usually between the extremes.
I have a good expensive DSLR that I haven’t touched in more than a year. Why? Cause the workflow stinks compared to my phones camera.
- I have to remove the SD card - I have to bring out my computer and pop in the card - I have to sync it into Lightroom, which keeps all the photos in a totally different bin than all my smartphone pictures. - once I’m done dinking with the photos, I have to export the ones I like and import them back into the Photos app, which ensures it shows up on my TV - I’ve got to post it to FB/instagram. - I’ve got to nuke the card to free up the space - put it back into the camera
That is just enough of a hurdle that it keeps me from lugging the damn thing with me on trips.
Seriously. I’d love to use my DSLR more. It takes way better pictures. It just doesn’t integrate worth a damn into my computing infrastructure anymore.
I think there is a untapped market for some higher end camera with interchangeable lenses that can seamlessly integrate with a modern workflow.
I would not want to edit photos on the camera, a phone or tablet is way more comfortable to hold for that.
>I think there is a untapped market for some higher end camera with interchangeable lenses that can seamlessly integrate with a modern workflow.
Sure, maybe there is. The real question is.. is it a tiny $1-2 million market or a larger 100+ million dollar market.
I have Canon and Leica cameras, mid and high end, that do this.
> Why can't I charge from a micro-USB/USB-C cable?
There are cameras that will.
> how much more could adding a touch screen
Notably Sony stands alone in being the only major manufacturer _without_ touch.
> a simple auto-mode (which disables most buttons and hides advanced menus)
Not sure about other manufacturers, but this would be Canon's "creative" mode, available on (at least) entry levels) to the $3,000 body only 5D IV.
> and upload to instagram feature
> It's ridiculous that the most expensive cameras in the world can't connect to the number one place in the world where pictures are posted.
Agreed. And it's Instagram's fault. You can't upload to IG from your computer (without your browser pretending to be mobile). APIs for third party app-based uploads are near non-existent, and the people who _do_ try to maintain plugins to export to IG from Lightroom, etc., are constantly playing cat and mouse.
Not sure how this correlates to a "lack of vision from DSLR companies" - IG is actively hostile to uploading to IG from anywhere but its own apps.
Where there is a will, there is a way. Just turn the camera into an android phone.
https://www.thephoblographer.com/2019/03/10/the-new-yongnuo-...
Sony has touch screens on their cameras. It's of limited usefulness though, mainly limited to focus points.
* rugged tank-like construction - 1D, 5D series mag-alloy bodies check, weather sealing - check
* reliable AF - check
* awesome battery life - check
* professional support services that can service/repair/loan products with a super-fast turnaround time for when you have a gig.. - check
* high quality optics - Canon L glass, check
* high res sensor for billboards - 5DSR check
* huge library of lenses - check, check and check
In all of those things Canon and Nikon (and even Sony to some extent) excel. I don't think the features you want are useless or provide no value, but you have to look at the bigger picture and take the entire market into consideration. People are using smartphones not just because DSLRs don't have certain features, its that they don't want to carry yet another device when their smartphone does an adequate job.
All high-end phones take tens or sometimes hundreds of raw frames for every photograph, and then combine them to reduce noise and get more dynamic range than the tiny lens and sensor would otherwise provide. The combining process involves using a gyro to remove camera shake and optical-flow to undo the effect of anything moving in the scene.
As far as I know, no DSLR camera does this. You need to be able to take ~100 frames at 120fps or more, and either store it as RAW (ie. 10's of gigabytes of data), or process it realtime. Phones process it realtime on the GPU or with dedicated silicon.
I agree, they aren’t innovating fast enough.
I would love getting rid of the mini USB charger. Why can’t cameras use micro usb like every other non-Apple usb accessory? Different power specs?
The HDR feature is so aggressive that it’s not really usable compared to my phone’s HDR. There should be a slider to pick how much HDR you want for each picture.
Upper (middle?) management were all dinosaurs, and stuck in their ways. The entire 'digital revolution' caught them unaware and unprepared. And most importantly IMHO, they didn't eat their own dogfood. The only saving grace for the printer/copier division was HP's controller boards and drivers.
This was a situation where you knew you were on a sinking ship. Some R&D and advancements were INCREDIBLE, some of the behind the scenes tech was very compelling but I don't think management could get out of the way.
If under the current mode of capitalism they want to "succeed" financially they might need to make crappier cameras on purpose so that people replace them every year.
Crocs are also amazing. I bought a pair and never needed to buy another pair. Bad for their balance sheet, but they are an amazing success in terms of sustainability and not creating trash.
Film cameras used to last a very long time in the range, Nikon, for example, went from the F to the F4 in forty years. Around ten years between the pro cameras. That’s down to about four years now. My 1DX shows no signs of needing replacement, despite wanting WiFi and GPS, everything is great, and despite fewer pixels than the previous 5D2, enlarges to wall-size without drama. The iPhone takes care of casual use, and a £110 Fuji XM1 covers everyday carry. A secondhand digital camera from six years ago is good enough and costs around £100. Well, why upgrade indeed?
Profits dropping 64% is a pretty good indication that things aren't going great.
It's obvious from the heavy price cutting that EOS M is struggling. EOS R isn't a disaster, but it's a big disappointment. Canon are still lagging well behind Sony in sensor quality and Panasonic in video functionality; their mirrorless offerings aren't capitalising on Canon's historical advantage in terms of ergonomics.
Canon still make good cameras and good lenses, but there's no obvious reason to buy into the Canon ecosystem unless you're an existing Canon customer, nor is there any sign of Canon turning things around.
Social groups tend somewhat towards the same system, so this might have distorted the preferences of you and your acquaintances.
Also Canon is doing badly _now_. People aren't buying their _new_ stuff. You and your acquaintances likely own, for the most part, equipment that's at least a few years old.
Canon has primarily survived off brand loyalty with professional photographers driven by the extremely high quality lenses they produce. This too has been challenged lately by Sony and their partnership with Zeiss, meaning Sony lenses for mirrorless are on par or in excess of the quality level you can get from Canon lenses and Zeiss is financially able to offer similarly high quality lenses to the wider market, cannibalizing first-party sales. Nikon has historically had worse lenses than Canon and this hasn't changed significantly, but they've made huge leaps in R&D for large telephotos with usable fresnel lenses at 300mm and 500mm focal length.
Canon had some opportunities to right the ship, but their management seems incompetent. It's sad to me that they're in this situation because I respect what they've done for photography for decades. I don't see this improving though.
>but they've made huge leaps in R&D for large telephotos with usable fresnel lenses at 300mm and 500mm focal length.
Canon already has this tech, as they showed in their 400 DO II, which is a freakishly awesome lens.
>his too has been challenged lately by Sony and their partnership with Zeiss
Hmm, have there been any sony-zeiss lenses since Sony started their GM lineup?
But mirrorless eroded a lot of that advantage - they were late to the trend, then came with a substandard offering (EOS M series) and then tried to catch up with the EOS R but leveraging existing glass investments to drive adoption is much harder because people see part of the point of mirrorless as moving to a new mount which allows for smaller lenses (at least at shorter focal lengths).
It'd want to be, for $13,000!!
My previous perception which I think is common, is that due to the amount they made from non-digital, they ignored digital until it was too late.
My revised perception after listening is that Kodak was right there at the cutting edge (and has the cameras and patents to prove it). Problem was how the company was structured. Pretty much https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law
They had a 'chemical' photography division that did amazingly as they opened up photography to consumers. They created a digital division as they saw the way the market was heading. Problem was the fighting between the two divisions.
Film has become extremely niche in the last decade, even among the niche that is interchangeable-lens-camera hobby photography. As you've seen, that makes it expensive.
That said, if you're looking to get back to film specifically as opposed to photography in general, you can find good used midrange 35mm bodies without too much trouble. You'll still pay through the nose for film and developing services, and probably also for glass since that holds its value in a way 35mm SLR bodies don't, but you can at least avoid the $2600 bite of a brand-new F6.
(And I feel you about the UI issues. Part of the reason I switched from a D5300 to a D500 was because the prosumer bodies are really designed to be shot in program auto, and you just don't have enough direct control of basic parameters - you need to be in the 7xxx range even to have an aperture dial! I'm waiting for D850s to start hitting the used market in numbers for precisely that reason - 45MP full-frame is just about ideal for the macro work I do, despite the relative DoF loss, and the UI commonality between that and the D500 means I won't have to worry about missing the perfect shot of a wasp or whatever because my hands got confused about how to operate the camera.)
If you can avoid getting swept up with the idea that you need the latest and greatest, it's a really great time to get back into photography. eBay is full of fantastic kit at yard sale prices.
Bit of a moot point for me at present as all I have is an old Lumix LX1 with manual settings that still takes good photos at 14 years old (just super limited due to sensor size and a 400 max ISO) and had to sell the DSLR for financial reasons. Still have a dream to get back into photography if things ever look up enough I can justify spending on a hobby. I really enjoyed it. I would love to do some astrophotography especially. Even an original 6D (superb low light clarity) and the right lens would probably suit me for life with no compromises to my interests as long as I could keep it serviced and alive. Tried shooting the Milky Way recently with the LX1 but the low light ability won't allow it.
Bright side is maybe even if mirrorless is the future, it would make DLSRs more affordable used as people sell off the "deprecated" tech.
(That said, check the shutter count, and the rated shutter life of the model, before you buy a used body! That's the primary wearing item in any DSLR, and the cost of replacement means you're pretty much better off just replacing the whole body instead. You shouldn't expect to pay as much for a used body with a high shutter count as you do for a low one, and if someone tries to get you to, you're likely better off shopping somewhere else.)
(Well, if you buy Nikon, anyway. I don't know who does Canon's UI design, but whoever they are, they could be a lot better at it...)
Optical viewfinders also vary quite a bit in size which impact eye strain quite a bit - unsurprisingly the larger, brighter ones are typically in the more expensive cameras. If you ever get the chance, try a top of the range DSLR viewfinder next to a bottom of the range one. You might be surprised at the difference.
In terms of image quality, my A7RIII blows my Fuji X-T3 out of the water but in _every other way_ the X-T3 is better. The ergonomics are fantastic (I love manual dials for all the settings), it has the kind of video you'd have to buy a Panasonic GH-5 for in the past, the out of camera JPEGs are much more pleasing to the eye (though I mostly shoot raw), the menu system is far more sane and it comes with features like focus stacking.
Plus, Fuji routinely adds new features to old cameras with software updates, while Sony for the most part tends to forget about a camera as soon as the new one is released.
But I'm sure Canon's leaders laughed it off until now.
Canon specifically has fallen drastically behind their competition in those spaces, allowing Sony to decimate them when it comes to features/performance and cost. Canon's current line up of cameras are missing features that their competitors have had for years. It's kind of shocking how they seem to consistently miss the mark on so many things. Their build quality and reliability is still top notch though.
I think ultimately the professional market looking for larger sensor cameras has gone to other brands due to this, which is probably hurting them a lot more than expected.
While their lens quality and EF mount have probably been their saving grace, I personally don't find their lenses to be worth the cost. I left the Canon ecosystem for Fujifilm's X-Series cameras, and cannot believe the IQ their lenses have, across the board, and they're priced very competitively. I'm just a hobbyist at the end of the day, but when I can get an incredible portrait lens on the second hand market for $650, that rivals L-series glass, it's really really hard to justify that Canon premium.
Read Noise:
http://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/RN_ADU.htm#Canon%20EOS...
DR:
http://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/PDR.htm#Canon%20EOS%20...
Panasonic and Sony don't seem as worried about cannibalizing theirs, which might be a better strategy in the long run. Fuji and Nikon don't sell cinema cameras, so they have no incentive not to move fast on adding video features to their (previously) still cameras.
Photos on best phone sensors look OKish under ideal conditions, and if you don't need any zoom (subpar additional cameras on recent phones are pretty bad so far). Add any zoom, less than ideal light, faster moving objects and even phone sensors rated in DxO Mark over 100 are simply not good enough (I have one of those). Forget night at all.
Yes its enough to clearly see where you are and what you do, but that's about it and any photo aesthetics are often simply not there. Phones of course have huge advantage of almost always being there, but that's another topic. Some of us want to capture important things in life in ways that will stand the test of time better.
It's large, but shrinking according to:
https://petapixel.com/2019/07/08/canon-increased-market-shar...
"So far, 2019 is continuing that trend" (downwards).
Smartphones reduced the market for ~$500 digital point-&-shoots. However, for the more expensive prosumer and professional cameras like the $1999 Canon EOS R mentioned in the article, Canon is competing with other high-end cameras like Sony Alpha mirrorless.
https://www.google.com/search?q=sony+mirrorless+outsells+can...
I bought a Canon consumer camcorder (Vixia HF R800) for about $200 last year and it was dismal:
- Tiny sensor -- Terrible performance indoor
- Lacks viewfinder -- terrible performance outdoor
- No 4K, 1080p max
- Abysmal bitrate 25Mbps for 60FPS 1080p
- Connecting power supply when recording introduces 60Hz hum on line in audio.
- Electronics and firmware haven't really been updated since 2014
This seemed like a great little camera, but it let me down on every front.
I ended up upgrading to Panasonic GH4 that cost 5x more, and I'm actually happy with it.
Given how poorly EOS R and EOS RP were reviewed about 6 months ago, I'm not surprised.
I would be fine with no-name Chinese camera for the same amount of money, which by the way would have 4K and a hotshoe mount.