f/otographer
New member
Apparently, quietly in the corner. Or even not at all. Which are not the traditional answers to this question.
I would like to discuss the 800lb gorilla that is not in the room. And by this I mean the seeming overwhelming reluctance of Canon to enter into the mirrorless market in any type of serious manner. The lackluster M/M2/M3 jokes notwithstanding.
Now you may think I am a bit silly to be posting a Canon question in the Sony forum but wait. There is method to the madness. For one thing I want to get the opinions of a serious cross section of mirrorless users who are experienced with this new technology and have shown themselves capable of producing beautiful art with it. That would be the majority of the Sony users here. For another, the Canon part of this forum gets very little play and I don't feel the answers from that forum alone would be as insightful or as well rounded as I am looking for.
I have actually been pondering Canons lack of seriousness concerning mirrorless cameras for some time now. I really love Canon as a company and have been anxiously awaiting for them to release a new from the ground up, kick *** mirrorless camera for some time now. A camera system that would compete head to head with the ever strengthening onslaught that is the a7 line. But month after month, year after year there is seeming apathy on the part of Big Red.
Then a few days ago the new hits. Canon is coming out with (soon) a 120mp DSLR. That's right....120mp. DSLR.
Now at first I wanted to praise Canon a little bit for having the balls to so greatly leap ahead in the MP war with both feet first. But as the news has sunk in over the last few days and I have really thought about it and there is something very much wrong with this.
Here's the problem. For Canon to seriously enter the mirrorless market with a new, professional quality mirrorless camera they are going to have to do something that they simply wont do. They are going to have to give up their current dominance of their lens line (think all those hundreds of EOS lenses) and start over with a new mount and a new line of lenses like everyone else has done. And the very thought of that is probably giving them fits. The sheer amount of R/D which will need to be spent to bring them up to even a fraction of their current lens choices might not even be in the company budget with the way the economy has been going.
So what is an 800lb gorilla to do to stay relevant against the stronger and stronger oncoming tide of Fuji X's and Sony Alphas? What can they possibly do save their treasured DSLR's and the total lens dominance they now have in their hand.
Why, they simply need to come up with a new sensor for the old camera and give it some stoopid amount of megapixels. Say around 120 or so. That should do it.
Im sorry, but I see this a Canons complete misreading of the next decade of camera design. Mirrorless is here to stay, DSLR's are anachronistic machines that are on the way out. Will they hang around for several more years in a last gasp of life? Yes, I truly believe they will. There are to many pros still using them and to be honest they do get the job done. But the problem is that DSLR have basically matured as a platform. Whereas mirrorless is just at the beginning of its development cycle and has decades or research and advancements ahead of it. EVF's will get better and better, auto focus systems will mature, etc etc.
I think that Canon has blinders on and really believes that they can pull out this dog and pony show of 150mp while smiling and saying "See world, look at how cool DSLR's are. They are all the camera you will ever need". It is so much easier to do this then it is to actually sit down and design a new camera with a new set of lenses. The danger in being this moribund is that you will alienate your userbase by not having interesting and fresh new designs like the competition does.
And, on a technical side, have they considered what the 220mb files that this new camera produces are going to be like to work with? My god, the memory cards alone.....And lets not forget how even now high end machines can struggle with photo processing. Imagine the computing power you will need on your desk to work with files of this size. I have also read an interesting article suggesting that with such a high MP count diffraction is going to raise its ugly head much earlier in the aperture range then normal. Like say, around f/4. I seriously don't think Canon has thought this thru all the way.
Anyway, I would really like to hear everyones thoughts on Canon and their reluctance to produce a serious mirrorless camera. Again, I don't mean the M3. I mean getting serious about maturing a mirrorless camera line which has all the perks, designs and expectations of a professional level camera. Much like what Sony seems to be doing with the a7 line.
There is no reason that Canon cannot go head to head with Sony in this market. They are simply choosing not to.
Lets hear what you think.
I would like to discuss the 800lb gorilla that is not in the room. And by this I mean the seeming overwhelming reluctance of Canon to enter into the mirrorless market in any type of serious manner. The lackluster M/M2/M3 jokes notwithstanding.
Now you may think I am a bit silly to be posting a Canon question in the Sony forum but wait. There is method to the madness. For one thing I want to get the opinions of a serious cross section of mirrorless users who are experienced with this new technology and have shown themselves capable of producing beautiful art with it. That would be the majority of the Sony users here. For another, the Canon part of this forum gets very little play and I don't feel the answers from that forum alone would be as insightful or as well rounded as I am looking for.
I have actually been pondering Canons lack of seriousness concerning mirrorless cameras for some time now. I really love Canon as a company and have been anxiously awaiting for them to release a new from the ground up, kick *** mirrorless camera for some time now. A camera system that would compete head to head with the ever strengthening onslaught that is the a7 line. But month after month, year after year there is seeming apathy on the part of Big Red.
Then a few days ago the new hits. Canon is coming out with (soon) a 120mp DSLR. That's right....120mp. DSLR.
Now at first I wanted to praise Canon a little bit for having the balls to so greatly leap ahead in the MP war with both feet first. But as the news has sunk in over the last few days and I have really thought about it and there is something very much wrong with this.
Here's the problem. For Canon to seriously enter the mirrorless market with a new, professional quality mirrorless camera they are going to have to do something that they simply wont do. They are going to have to give up their current dominance of their lens line (think all those hundreds of EOS lenses) and start over with a new mount and a new line of lenses like everyone else has done. And the very thought of that is probably giving them fits. The sheer amount of R/D which will need to be spent to bring them up to even a fraction of their current lens choices might not even be in the company budget with the way the economy has been going.
So what is an 800lb gorilla to do to stay relevant against the stronger and stronger oncoming tide of Fuji X's and Sony Alphas? What can they possibly do save their treasured DSLR's and the total lens dominance they now have in their hand.
Why, they simply need to come up with a new sensor for the old camera and give it some stoopid amount of megapixels. Say around 120 or so. That should do it.
Im sorry, but I see this a Canons complete misreading of the next decade of camera design. Mirrorless is here to stay, DSLR's are anachronistic machines that are on the way out. Will they hang around for several more years in a last gasp of life? Yes, I truly believe they will. There are to many pros still using them and to be honest they do get the job done. But the problem is that DSLR have basically matured as a platform. Whereas mirrorless is just at the beginning of its development cycle and has decades or research and advancements ahead of it. EVF's will get better and better, auto focus systems will mature, etc etc.
I think that Canon has blinders on and really believes that they can pull out this dog and pony show of 150mp while smiling and saying "See world, look at how cool DSLR's are. They are all the camera you will ever need". It is so much easier to do this then it is to actually sit down and design a new camera with a new set of lenses. The danger in being this moribund is that you will alienate your userbase by not having interesting and fresh new designs like the competition does.
And, on a technical side, have they considered what the 220mb files that this new camera produces are going to be like to work with? My god, the memory cards alone.....And lets not forget how even now high end machines can struggle with photo processing. Imagine the computing power you will need on your desk to work with files of this size. I have also read an interesting article suggesting that with such a high MP count diffraction is going to raise its ugly head much earlier in the aperture range then normal. Like say, around f/4. I seriously don't think Canon has thought this thru all the way.
Anyway, I would really like to hear everyones thoughts on Canon and their reluctance to produce a serious mirrorless camera. Again, I don't mean the M3. I mean getting serious about maturing a mirrorless camera line which has all the perks, designs and expectations of a professional level camera. Much like what Sony seems to be doing with the a7 line.
There is no reason that Canon cannot go head to head with Sony in this market. They are simply choosing not to.
Lets hear what you think.
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