p.7 #1 · Canon finally honest and openly admit AF crippling
Jim Levitt wrote:
Who is the target market for this camera? Is it somehow different than the market Nikon is targeting with the D600?
The target market for this product will be people who are already invested in Canon (practically nobody enters the DSLR world with a full frame--or $2000--camera), and want a full frame camera. Just like the target market for the D600 is people already invested in Nikon, wanting to move up--gently--to full frame.
That was me a few years ago; I bought a 10D in 2004, then slowly accumulated lenses for a few years, then upgraded to a 5d2 on the CLP. Brilliant marketing by Canon!
Whatever I think of Canon's higher end cameras (and, all else being equal, I think the D800E is a better camera than my 5D3), I think they're good enough for my needs (and almost anybody's needs) that I'm not willing to sell my Canon lenses and buy Nikon lenses, at a very significant loss, to gain the small marginal improvement in a body I'll probably only keep a few years. Especially since I'm pretty sure that this game of leapfrog that these two fine companies play will result in Canon sometimes being ahead in the future.
These are smart companies, folks; they know what they're doing, and they do it very well.
p.7 #2 · Canon finally honest and openly admit AF crippling
6D looks like a reasonable body, if sold at a FF Rebel price, which it isn't.
Like many others I suspect I'm not going to be selling my Canon outfit because I like my L lenses. But looking at what Nikonians already have on offer makes me very reluctant to spend more money on Canon for now, just in case I have to contemplate jumping ship in 3 years or so.
Looks to me that we should have Canon equivalents of the D600 and D800 one day, and at that point I will reevaluate my purchasing/brand position. Until then my three year old 5D2 and two year old 7D should get me through. I shouldn't be surprised if my 5D2 will be my main body till the 2015 5D4. That won't be a hardship for me personally, but I am surprised to be contemplating a 6 year life for my main body, usually I would be upgrading fairly routinely.
p.7 #3 · Canon finally honest and openly admit AF crippling
StarNut wrote:
... and, all else being equal, I think the D800E is a better camera than my 5D3 ...
Interesting. I've had the D700 for almost four years, and if I were interested in replacing it, I would likely choose the 5D3 over the D800/D800E (I shot with Canon film SLRs for 12 years and their digital SLRs for another year, so no stranger to Canon). I guess from a sensor standpoint I could see your reasoning. But there are features and capabilities of the 5D3 that I find to be a positive over the D800. The one area that is a bit of a letdown is the pricing of the 5D3.
Having just lost a job I held for 30 years earlier this month, I won't be in position to make any changes for the time being. I guess life could be worse than being saddled with the D700.
p.7 #4 · Canon finally honest and openly admit AF crippling
David Baldwin wrote:
6D looks like a reasonable body, if sold at a FF Rebel price, which it isn't.
My feelings also. Priced closer to the 7D (say around £1300-1400) this would be an excellent product. At £1800 i think it looks expensive in comparison to both the 7D and D600. I notice the 5D2 is still available at £1600 also...
p.7 #6 · Canon finally honest and openly admit AF crippling
timbop wrote:
^ this is precisely what they are saying. The 6d is intended to be a FF rebel; the choice of a single cross AF point, wifi, and SD only is a great fit for someone coming from the rebel. It will give them the great IQ of FF that they read about online, they won't have to buy new cards, and they get to upload to facebook SOOC. Enthusiasts are happy because they can afford it, and the pro/semipro/forumographers still have the 5d3.
If that is so, then where's the pop up flash? Someone coming from Rebel would expect that no? I would also be able to understand the 97% VF coverage better if they said it's because of the pop-up flash.
And then there's the weird ONE axis electronic level in the 6D. I know many people here probably don't use it at all but it still doesn't make any sense. A level is only useful when it covers two axis, just as tyres on a motorbike are only useful in a set of two.
That said, I also don't get why Canon would take Mirror Lock Up out of the Rebel.
p.7 #7 · Canon finally honest and openly admit AF crippling
Jim Levitt wrote:
Huh? A Rebel user is going to spend two thousand dollars plus more for lenses (since their EF-S lenses won't work on the 6D), discover that the shallower apparent depth of field at the same aperture means focus is more critical on the 6D than on the Rebel, then find out that in other than bright light only the center point can be relied upon for accurate AF, and will somehow be happy about this? This doesn't sound likely to me.
All that is true.
BUT do we know ALL the 9 cross AF sensors in the D600/D7000 are located in the center 3x3 block? So, how different is this from a single highly sensitive cross AF sensor in the 6D? No one knows since the 6D is yet to be released, but my feeling is they are more similar than what many folks think. Also, there have been countless complaints about the D7000 AF sensor in various forums. So, unless one actually puts these camera to use, it's really hard to say if the D7000 AF sensor is really any more capable.
Jim Levitt wrote:
Wouldn't someone about to spend that kind of money do some research? In the course of which they could and should find out that a competitor offers a camera of greater resolution, for the same price, with a more capable AF system. How does Canon's marketing team think this is a winning scenario for Canon?
How many potential camera buyers, other than a bunch of us on these forums, have more than one camera body, especially camera bodies costing several thousand dollars? Won't most likely buyers gravitate toward the camera that can best serve a wider range of uses?
Who is the target market for this camera? Is it somehow different than the market Nikon is targeting with the D600?...Show more →
All Canon needs to do is to lower the price of the 6D sufficiently. With poorer specs and home-built imaging sensor, I cannot see why they cannot make money with a lower priced 6D.
p.7 #8 · Canon finally honest and openly admit AF crippling
Gee all this fuss over AF and we don't even have a camera in hand yet. I'd just like a camera that didn't blow out the details in my red and orange clivia flower shots.
p.7 #9 · Canon finally honest and openly admit AF crippling
PetKal wrote:
It looks like there are some real dummies working for Canon who are allowed to give interviews: autofocus not "critical" in a $2,000 camera ? Does one have to spend $3,500 on a Canon camera today in order to get a functioning autofocus ?
Granted, if our incomes were similar to the Canon employees' salaries, then we might also consider $2,000 to be merely loose change, and we wouldn't expect to be able to buy much with it in terms of camera capability.
+1
Very weak argument indeed. AF is as important as IQ, possibly more; well focused shot of a lesser IQ camera will always look better than an OOF shot from a higher IQ camera.
p.7 #10 · Canon finally honest and openly admit AF crippling
Pixel -- I might be wrong, but I think the references to AF have to do with the broader AF usages -- AI Servo, many outer AF points, not center AF accuracy. The center AF seems to be provided as a iron-clad accurate simple device -- sort of back to old-time P&S technology. That's fine with me, as all I really want is one precise AF point I can count on. That may not satisfy other experienced shooters, but for me and probably less experiences shooters, it does. Which leads me to . . .
thw2 -- One of my biggest disappointments with the D7000 (which I really wanted to love) was it poor center AF point. I was finding adjacent areas of high contrast edges being chosen by the cameras, even though well outside the center AF box -- like three times the boxes distance! That lead me to plotting the sensor's sensitivity range and finding it to be enormous. That finally explained why I had so many unexplained OOF shots using center AF or center-press-recompose. If the 6D is as good as other Canon models I'm used to for center AF precision (or possibly better), I'd be a very happy camper.
n0B0 -- Did you catch in the interview that the WiFi and GPS are located in the polycarbonate top mirror housing? That is one of the likely engineering compromises leading to the 97% coverage and lack of pop-up flash. And I can see how that would be a tough choice -- pop-up flash is very useful and often needed, WiFi maybe not so needed or as often. . . what to choose? I'm willing to live with these sorts of compromises, even though it isn't ideal for most owners.
p.7 #12 · Canon finally honest and openly admit AF crippling
From an interview with Nikon on DPReview:
What's your opinion of the Canon EOS 6D? You must have been looking at it pretty closely?
I cannot really comment much on competitive models, but if you look at the concept of the 6D, I think Canon has a different approach to us. With the D600 we are really concentrating on the photographic features and we're trying to give the best photographic package that we can. We've seen a lot of cameras with full-frame sensors released in the past ten days but my feeling is that all of them - the 6D, Sony's A99 and RX1 - all have a different approach, and represent a different concept to ours.
We are really concentrating on delivering something for the photo enthusiast - so for example it was important to include a 100% viewfinder, a good AF system with enough cross-type AF points, the ability to shoot with teleconverters and still focus at F8, a built-in flash… also, you can use the D600's flash as a commander in Nikon's Creative Lighting System. That is we've been asked for by our customers. And our 'want to be' customers.
Or in other words, shame we're locked into Canon to be honest. At a given price segment Nikon are interested in delivering, Canon in crippling. I've got a feeling Canon have become the Nikon of the pre D700/D3 era, deaf, dumb and blind but most of all, not listening to anything other than the echoes in their own minds. I'm not sure it will be Nikon but rather Sony who will make them rue that policy in the long run.
What is interesting is that they get away with it due to huge market penetration. I teach a photography class in an art school in Jerusalem. All US students on a year out. This year, every single DSLR apart from one is a Canon. That tells me a lot about Canon's market penetration in the US.
p.7 #13 · Canon finally honest and openly admit AF crippling
On Canon.usa site they say that at f/2.8 and higher, even the center AF point will not behave like a cross-type anymore and it will become a vertical-line senzitive AF point !!!
p.7 #14 · Canon finally honest and openly admit AF crippling
Since both cameras (6D and D600) it will be selled at the same price,2100$, Canon 6D it has no chance. With Canon 5D MK3,Canon can compete with d800 from Nikon (with a little help from Nikon that destroyed the D800's AF sistem), but 6D can't compete with D600.
p.7 #15 · Canon finally honest and openly admit AF crippling
Beni wrote:
At a given price segment Nikon are interested in delivering, Canon in crippling.
In the last several years Canon have been changing by consolidating their standing as the premier rip-off supplier of 35mm photo gear. I feel they have seriously neglected the business need to be seen as providing good value for their customer's $.
p.7 #16 · Canon finally honest and openly admit AF crippling
gabimaster wrote:
On Canon.usa site they say that at f/2.8 and higher, even the center AF point will not behave like a cross-type anymore and it will become a vertical-line senzitive AF point !!!
The Canon USA center point specs are : Center: cross-type at f/5.6; vertical line-sensitive at f/2.8.
In Canon-speak I believe that means the center point is enabled as a cross point at F 5.6 or faster. At F 2.8 or faster it is enhanced with additional precision or sensitivity. They could have phrased it more clearly. I wouldn't pass judgement on 6D AF until I actually tried it. And there have been rumblings on the 'net from photokina that 6D AF was surprisingly nimble.
p.7 #19 · Canon finally honest and openly admit AF crippling
I don't get it. If they think that AF is not very important for 6D users why not just use the one from the 20D? After all, they used it in the 5D and 5D2.
p.7 #20 · Canon finally honest and openly admit AF crippling
The 5DII, in AI Servo, has six additional sensors, two of which are cross sensors. So in AI Servo, it has 7 times as many central sensors, and 3 times as many cross sensors, compared to the 6D.
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