nads wrote:
The goal when marketing isn't necessarily to produce a product that competes with every single product made by a competitor.
The idea is to hit the sweet spots of the market segments that you wish to compete in. Canon is doing so by producing bodies at five separate and spread out levels. The idea isn't to adjust every single tech spec. in order to cover all bodies that may fit somewhere between their five bodies. Particularly, not boost MP in order to compete with a D200 that sells for ~60% more.
But therein lies the problem....the D200 its a very sweet camera and has nailed the sweet spot for the amateur. Canon *has* to directly compete with it and not just pull another minor upgrade like what happened to the 20D. Keep in mind this camera would, ideally, need to be competitive and appealing for another 1.5 years...which is a long time as fast as technology is progressing. While the MP boost is not as much as it seems (as we are all well aware here), its what is perceived by the consumer who has the money to spend, and sadly the world is by and large uninformed...
But therein lies the problem....the D200 its a very sweet camera and has nailed the sweet spot for the amateur. Canon *has* to directly compete with it and not just pull another minor upgrade like what happened to the 20D.
[...]
But what IS the sweet spot? I am not really convinced there is such a thing, it's more of a sweet range. The D200 has more features, it also costs more. To an amateur buyer on a slightly lower budget, the 10/20/30/40D range will be the sweet spot, price-wise, not the D200.
If current prices are anything to go by, the 30D body does €970-ish, the 40D will do €1150-ish, if the intro prices of the 20D and 30D are anything to go by, while the D200 body is now at €1360. It intro'ed at over €1660.
The price positions and feature sets of the 10/20/30/40D and D100/D200 differ too much to make them direct competitors. Competition is buffered by the price difference. Or am I missing a point?
Strid3r wrote:
But therein lies the problem....the D200 its a very sweet camera and has nailed the sweet spot for the amateur. Canon *has* to directly compete with it and not just pull another minor upgrade like what happened to the 20D. Keep in mind this camera would, ideally, need to be competitive and appealing for another 1.5 years...which is a long time as fast as technology is progressing. While the MP boost is not as much as it seems (as we are all well aware here), its what is perceived by the consumer who has the money to spend, and sadly the world is by and large uninformed... ...Show more →
I agree and even more: probably the entry DSRL level market is going to be saturated at a certain period of time taking into account the electronics evolution, so camera bodies are going to be similar to PC´s. Considering the investment to be realize and thanks to Internet, Forums, colleagues, etc ...everybody looks for the best bang for the pocket (a good investment for several years). If you add the amount of people (like me) that have start in DSRL world with an ENTRY LEVEL and NEEDS to update because the entry level body is NOT ENOUGH --->> MIDDLE SEGMENT (Higher segment is out of our choices, unless you are richman). And in this moment the 5D is also a choice !! (with rebates).
Personally I am still waiting for something GREAT (40D with very good performance, I prefer always 2 MP less and a very good low noise sensor & a good AF system - or a 1D Mk III, or 5D mkII), no just a remodeling like it was the 30D. If not I shall move to the 5D probably in the next coming months.
And this is in this way because I did invest on a good collection of lenses (following the advice of wise people....) , so I have to stuck on Canon (invest in good lenses, are for ever almost ...) So, choose a body implies "a marriage" for your next investments. Actually, if I had to start again and Canon hasn´t a COMPETITIVE body (IQ/Performance/Price), probably I should change my mind .... Remember also that 3th companies are producing very good optics (Sigma, Zeiss, ...)
Just my thoughts from the point of view of a consumer ...
A post by Richard Heathcote from SportsShooter says:
New body and new long glass coming soon, announcement due on 24th feb, dealers in the UK have been told they will be told on the 23rd....
The new long lenses are rumored to have more/new contacts/connections which make them significantly quicker and they will also be lighter... the return of the 200mm is on the cards as well but maybe as a 200/2 not 200/1.8...
beewee wrote:
New body and new long glass coming soon, announcement due on 24th feb, dealers in the UK have been told they will be told on the 23rd....
The new long lenses are rumored to have more/new contacts/connections which make them significantly quicker and they will also be lighter... the return of the 200mm is on the cards as well but maybe as a 200/2 not 200/1.8...
Or is it more noise and nonsense? I didn't see anything over there that was in the least bit convincing. Instead, all I saw was the same old tired rumors that people keep telling themselves and now they're starting to believe it.
Actually, I think there have been tiny pieces of truth in many rumors, but those pieces are so small as to be insignificant.
3-4 more weeks and we'll know if Canon has any plans for the first half of the year, but I'm not going to get any more worked up than I already am until I see something from a credible source, and I don't think this is one.
Focus on Imaging is on in Birmingham from 25th-28th february, so an announcment on the 24th would make sense.
Canon are (again) not officially taking part in this show with a canon only stand, but like last year, new gear was on the jacobs digital stand with the people from canon training courses.
beewee wrote:
A post by Richard Heathcote from SportsShooter says:
New body and new long glass coming soon, announcement due on 24th feb, dealers in the UK have been told they will be told on the 23rd....
The new long lenses are rumored to have more/new contacts/connections which make them significantly quicker and they will also be lighter... the return of the 200mm is on the cards as well but maybe as a 200/2 not 200/1.8...
But the question is the 'direction' of compatibility. An extention to the EF mount for more electrical connections to the lens could be a two-way compatible system, with the additional contacts not in use if you mount a EFII lens on EF/EF-S body.
But why would the EF mount need additional contacts? Power, ground, communication. And the current 8 (well, 7) aren't enough? Must have some technical explanation I can't think of.
Tentacle wrote:
But the question is the 'direction' of compatibility. An extention to the EF mount for more electrical connections to the lens could be a two-way compatible system, with the additional contacts not in use if you mount a EFII lens on EF/EF-S body.
But why would the EF mount need additional contacts? Power, ground, communication. And the current 8 (well, 7) aren't enough? Must have some technical explanation I can't think of.
As far as I know, the actual EF lens system use a serial protocol: Power lines (motors + electronics) + 2 lines for serial protocol communication. If I am not wrong, they use a kind of PSI protocol (Peripheral Serial Interface, if I am not wrong - speaking by memory) of the same class that the microdevices from Motorola type 68XX use. So, all binary data are serialized and sent via two connectors/wires. This could be a slow system today, but it did work since years ago.... Probably it´s also time to improve.
From here on, any speculation could be possible, but one thing it has to be true: BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY --->>> It should work in the old mount, with less performance, but it should work ....
Tentacle wrote:
But the question is the 'direction' of compatibility. An extention to the EF mount for more electrical connections to the lens could be a two-way compatible system, with the additional contacts not in use if you mount a EFII lens on EF/EF-S body.
But why would the EF mount need additional contacts? Power, ground, communication. And the current 8 (well, 7) aren't enough? Must have some technical explanation I can't think of.
Perhaps a new physical connection type. They may have a new higher speed communication bus for a new lens type. How fast can they reliably run data over tarnished copper pressed together?
Antony wrote:
I find it interesting that here we have 168 pages of speculation and there isn't even one pre-PMA post on the front page of the Nikon forum.
After 168 pages of reading I can only come to one definite and total conclusion as to what Canon will for sure announce at the upcoming PMA:
A digital SLR that will end all digital SLRs and can single handedly take a picture the size of our national bureaucracy, transport you across the universe, dissolve mountains in seconds with it's new built in laser, freeze lava flow with the new ice cold white balance option, and on a quiet evening note it can cut your vegetables with precision accuracy. It can slice em, dice em and even NEWER for this years model a built in Julienne Fry maker!
I don't know about the rest of you pros out there but I'm all over this with my checkbook even before the official announcement. Oh and I can't forget about the new meat grinding accessory attachment that is built into the upgraded 400mmL! If I swing a new 500mm too I'll get the automated pasta making tool as well.
Antony wrote:
I find it interesting that here we have 168 pages of speculation and there isn't even one pre-PMA post on the front page of the Nikon forum.
Yet, here you are.
The trick to tolerating this thread is to listen to Allison Krause while reading.
Edited by dcmiller on Feb 08, 2007 at 07:32 AM GMT
