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 p.13 #8 · EOS-R5....will it live up to the hype? | |
gdanmitchell wrote:
FWIW, while I don't actually "know" what is coming from Canon, I think we all have some suspicions... and the process is one that I've written about for some time. My thinking has, for several years, been something like the following.
First, Sony made an absolutely brilliant set of moves when they introduced the mirrorless A7rII full frame camera. Sony recognized that they were very unlikely to be as successful in the DSLR space, even though they had proven that they could make competitive DSLR systems. The issue was that the base of Canon and Nikon DSLR users was so large and so invested in those systems that it wouldn't be enough to equal those brands — Sony would have to exceed them significantly in terms of features and performance and probably at the same or lower price points. That was, as Sony recognized after trying, going to be a nearly impossible task.
So Sony zigged where the others were still zagging. To this day, I think that nearly everything about the introduction of the A7rII was brilliant — even though I personally did not find the camera compelling for my own photography. What made it so smart?
1. The camera appealed to the portion of the market that is always looking for the cool, new thing since the cool, new thing was the full frame mirrorless camera.
2. They went right at "early adopter" types (who often don't fully trust their existing brand, and often think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence). These folks also tend to be a lot more forgiving of new systems that have some rough edges and limitations, since the potential of the new system appeals to them.
3. The first model offered the highest resolution sensor then available, so it naturally appealed to high-MP fans, in particular landscape photographers. This went straight at Canon, whose high-MP cameras at that point were lounging around in the 20MP range, while the new Sony had 36MP. (Nikon also had 36MP in the D800, but more on that it moment.)
4. Sony also went straight at Canon by largely foregoing the marketing of Sony-native lenses, instead offering an adapter that allowed Canon lenses to work on their camera. There were issues — some lenses didn't work well at all, and many worked less well, but the cost of trying the Sony system was greatly reduced for Canon owners who could bring their existing lenses along.
5. While the adapted lenses didn't work well enough for some uses dependent on critically accurate and fast AF, they worked fine in less challenging circumstances, and arguably as well for things like landscape as they worked on native Canon cameras... which, remember, now looked less appealing by way of their lower MP sensors.
6. All of this gave Sony quick market penetration, and as they began to build out lenses and improve the operation of their cameras they already had a strong and growing base in the market.
Someone will — if they haven't already — do a case study on this and use it to illustrate some principles about marketing and development strategies.
At that time, we heard the constant refrain of "But Canon isn't innovating! Canon is falling behind! What's wrong with Canon?!"
Well, yes, but...
Unlike Sony, until then a small player with a tiny installed base of users, Canon could not afford to move as fast or experiment on their customers. Consider for a moment: If the exact same camera that we got with the A7rII had come from Canon, the reaction would have been almost entirely different. People would have complained mightily about the AF problems. They would have rejected the need to use old lenses with adapters. They would never have tolerated the less sophisticated interface. The installed base of Canon users would have — let's be honest here — pilloried Canon if they had released the very same camera under their brand.
That is not an indictment of Canon nor Sony. It simply recognizes the different realities for bigger, established companies versus upstart players in a market.
The big company cannot bring a product with a lot of rough edges to market. They have far less ability to experiment on their users. They need to present an entire integrated system. They can't rely on telling users to buy parts from a competitor.
And Canon didn't do those things. They set about on a longer-term development process that literally took years — as they had to do — with a goal of being able to introduce a fairly mature product line-up that would, from the start, compare favorably with their existing DSLR line-up, and if possible exceed its capabilities.
It looks like we are getting very, very close to seeing the real fruits of that long term process. Arguably we begin so see some wins in the M cameras, and we are seeing some clearer evidence in the R and the RP. But even more so, we are seeing it in the lenses. Canon knows that if they are to move users to the new system that there must be lenses ready to go. Increasingly it is clear that there are and will be. Existing EF lenses appear to work essentially as well on R systems as they work on DSLRs, by means of an inexpensive adapter. But even more important, as Canon introduces new R lenses they almost always exceed the capabilities of the previous EF incarnations in some way or ways. They have a larger maximum aperture, a larger focal length range, better image quality. What I think we are seeing is a plan by Canon to make sure that when current DSLR users look at the new R system they will understand/think that a) they can bring their existing lenses along, b) the new system performs as well as or better than the older systems, and c) that a extensive line-up of native lenses is available, and d) that the new lenses also offer advances over the old lenses.
Make sense now?
"Will it live up to the hype?" I have no idea, but it looks like Canon is rolling out at pretty serious and respectable system.
BTW, this is not intended to be pro- or anti- any brand... They all are producing really fine gear these days....Show more →
Canon can afford a longer R&D period between cameras than Sony because their bred and butter are their inexpensive consumer cameras and lenses. I agree they’ve produced some very impressive RF lenses so far, but how they manage expectations for the R5 and how that camera delivers I think is a huge gamble.
For the reasons you’ve mentioned, it can’t not perform. If it’s the actual cross of the a9 and a7riii that it appears to be, I may move to Canon. But that’s a big if.
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