Because it didn\'t cost them much to put one toe in the pool. It didn\'t in any way hamper the 5D\'s abilities as a still camera, so they had nothing to lose. However, that doesn\'t mean they had much to win either. They simply weren\'t risking anything.
Canon\'s been playing it very conservatively in the video market. The XL1 and XL1s were very, very popular cameras...10 years ago. They defined a new market (low-end ENG, pornography, weddings, low-end documentaries, etc.) but followed it up with more of the same: the XL2 and the HD version of it both have essentially fizzled. Panasonic has since took the lead: the DXV-100/100A/100B totally supplanted Canon\'s offerings in record time and the HVX-100 is a force to be reckoned with. They are ground-breaking cameras, whereas Canon has offered only incremental upgrades. Canon may have a lot of experience in the video world, but not a lot of success.
In the professional realm, Canon simply isn\'t a player. Their asses are being (and have been for more than a decade) kicked by Sony and Panasonic, both of whom are doing very cool things at very aggressive price points, and Red is about to turn the bottom half of the market upside-down. Canon is the horse lagging ten lengths behind - that\'s why they\'ve chosen to half-ass this, rather than do something revolutionary...they\'re not committed to the video market the way they were. At this point they\'re essentially making lenses for Sony and Ikegami and Panasonic broadcast cameras.
For reference, something like $260,000 of my annual gross is made from video work. I probably own $40,000 of video gear. I\'m very invested in the video market, and would buy a video-enabled DSLR even as an impulse buy if I thought it would function effectively. These two current cameras simply aren\'t effective implementations...like I said, you\'re going to see some very cool YouTube videos over the next year and very few cases of these cases being used to produce video with any kind of commercial application.
Sep 28, 2008 at 09:50 AM
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