p.2 #1 · Do only Canon users put their gear under (extreme) scrutiny?
It must be because I am an engineer and Canon gearhead with no photographic talent nor artistic vision, that I process some of my images like this and get "textures" for free:
p.2 #2 · Do only Canon users put their gear under (extreme) scrutiny?
^ That's actually a nice effect and I like that picture.
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I will concur about the "gear head" level, though. I pretty much prowl every brand's forums at FM and DPReview, occasionally PHoto.net, and on average, the Canon guys seem to obsess over some of the most minute details.
Not saying it's good or bad -- just saying.
Of course at Dpreview, there are a lot of less-than-capable photogs posting in Nikon or Canon, obsessing over stats, etc. and not having a lick of photographic talent, but on average it seems like the pixel peepers are the Canonites, especially here at FM
I've actually been really, really tempted to do a bit of testing on this stereotype...more to come
Pentax users don't view their stuff through rose glasses (I used to shoot pentax and frequent pentaxforums.com), it's just that they bought their gear (well, most of them did) knowing exactly why they were doing so and they're happy with it. They generally tend to not shoot sports or other "extreme" situations, and it suits them just fine. They enjoy older pentax glass or other things.
They sorta remind me of the Alternative Gear posters here at FM, minus the Leica obsessions.
Edit - Oh, and Sony seems about 1/2 and 1/2 - 1/2 are quite happy with Sony (except not having an A700 replacement), the other half probably accidentally bought Sony when they should have been a Canonite and gripe like hell about it !
Edit 2 - It could very well be that for whatever reason, people tend to suggest to Canon owners to check their bodies/lenses for focusing issues.
There have been enough threads dealing with 7D focus problems or potential non-pushed shadow banding on some models that maybe Canon was working out a few bugs with the gear, and everyone tends to try to "make sure they don't have a bad camera", hence all the peeping. I can almost understand - I would hate to have spent $2500 on a 5D2 only to have shadow banding, visibile, at ISO 100. How rampant this problem actually is, though, I'm not sure and really don't care.
p.2 #3 · Do only Canon users put their gear under (extreme) scrutiny?
big country wrote:
people are dumb. they cry about what their camera can't do instead of crying about what they can't do regardless of the camera they use.
don't ever use the manual controls on the 5D2 for video, don't attack the whiners and then take advantage of their efforts....
(and crying about something a cam can't do doesn't mean people don't try to improve what they can do or hate the camera, etc. and i've seen some pretty amazing galleries from some of the useless tech heads, just sayin....)
p.2 #4 · Do only Canon users put their gear under (extreme) scrutiny?
molson wrote:
Over on the Nikon forum, the never-ending hand-wringing is all about trying to convince each other there is no reason on earth, and never will be, that anyone could possibly need a camera with more than 12 megapixels... (unless the D700 replacement has more...)
Yep. I remember a couple of years ago the mere suggestion that a 24mmx36mm sensor was desirable was looked upon with incredulity. People (the same people who now extoll the virtues of the D700) would rant and rave vociferously that APS-C was the perfect size of sensor for digital and that only a complete moron with more money than sense would ever want a full frame sensor. That Nikon was to be applauded for steadfastly refusing to go down the foolish and wasteful path of producing "full frame" sensors. Then the D3 and D700 came out and now those very same people love their "FX" bodies.
p.2 #5 · Do only Canon users put their gear under (extreme) scrutiny?
Alundeb, that picture tells the story more than a thousand words . I thought I downloaded some bird pictures taken with the 7D pushed to the extreme to show the ghost image I was referring to in the previous post but apparently I deleted that already. I remembered you responded to that thread, too back then. It was posted here on FM and I believe on dpreview, too.
JL, I think you are right on the money as far as the general attitude of those various forums concerned. FYI, I stay away from the dpreview forum and just visit their news and review section from time to time.
p.2 #6 · Do only Canon users put their gear under (extreme) scrutiny?
molson wrote:
Over on the Nikon forum, the never-ending hand-wringing is all about trying to convince each other there is no reason on earth, and never will be, that anyone could possibly need a camera with more than 12 megapixels... (unless the D700 replacement has more...)
Ain't that the truth . No offense to those folks. I felt the shortcoming of the D700 is that... only 12MP, that is, but different folks, different strokes.
p.2 #7 · Do only Canon users put their gear under (extreme) scrutiny?
IMO it's the combination of the novice factor (as mentioned earlier) and the fact that AFAIK there are more Canon dSLR users in the U.S. than Nikon users, and this forum is likely very U.S. centric.
A huge number of new gear-related threads on the Canon board seem to be asking more or less the same questions as threads I read weeks or months earlier, so there's also an enhanced echo-chamber effect. Granted, the search function is not perfect, but some people just never seem to even bother doing any research.
p.2 #8 · Do only Canon users put their gear under (extreme) scrutiny?
trenchmonkey wrote:
The Nikon Forum too has it's fair share of under the microscope junkies, Joshua.
Most of us shoot, post, and print with nary an issue but it seems the most vocal
gear critics don't post many pictures OR have a website/galleries. Imagine that!
When I first joined FM I posted a contract question on the "Wedding Photographer" section. One of the "regulars" went out of her way to make sure I never posted on "her section" again. When I went to view her work, I found nothing, no photos, no website, no nothing. Imagine that. There are two kinds of people in this world...those that get off their rear ends and do something with their life, and those that sit on their rear ends and criticize those that are doing something with their life. Don't be the later.
p.2 #9 · Do only Canon users put their gear under (extreme) scrutiny?
We used to critique Contax Zeiss gear to death way back when. Check out the Alternate Gear & Lenses forum and I'm sure you'll find plenty of critical photo equipment users.
p.2 #11 · Do only Canon users put their gear under (extreme) scrutiny?
And suddenly there are crickets chirping from the Sony group :P
I kid, really!
I don't have an answer, nor can I think of one, as to why Canon is more of a gear-head group. I never noticed this when comparing Nikon to Canon.
I can only assuming that there was some movement vertically and laterally from various marketing efforts over the last 20 years to push folks into one of two segments. Either your a consumer who buys a Nikon D5000 because of the commercial, and would never visit a forum, or you are a Canon user who got turned on by Canon from either a P/S you had, or a friend or forum post that you came across. That's the only way I see people "these days" jumping into Canon. The only marketing I see from Canon in the SLR group is on PBS for their "Capturing the wild" commercial. The marketing in the 80's and 90's was quite large for Canon, not so for Nikon. But now it's all Nikon, all the time.
So again, Nikon probably has more consumers than Canon in the SLR segment (consumer SLR segment, mind you) due to the marketing, while Canon has more professional users, most of which end up on forums like this one pepping their pixels.
p.2 #12 · Do only Canon users put their gear under (extreme) scrutiny?
Yes and no. I do like to scrutinise a little bit so test a lens to see if it is good, sharp, focus etc. But with a camera body, what can you do? The most likely situation is that its a problem with that camera in general, and if i want to use this camera (ie, 7D or 5D2 (banding?) ) Im going to have to get over it. That is to say, I value the features of the camera rather than its ability to push shadows and not show banding.
p.2 #13 · Do only Canon users put their gear under (extreme) scrutiny?
Sorry, but who cares? Photography gear can be a hobby in itself. It doesn't have to interfere or take away from the actual taking of photographs. It's all part of the fun.
p.2 #14 · Do only Canon users put their gear under (extreme) scrutiny?
trenchmonkey wrote:
The Nikon Forum too has it's fair share of under the microscope junkies, Joshua.
Most of us shoot, post, and print with nary an issue but it seems the most vocal
gear critics don't post many pictures OR have a website/galleries. Imagine that!
p.2 #15 · Do only Canon users put their gear under (extreme) scrutiny?
Given that Canon panders to the pixel peepers (how else do you explain the 5D mkII's 21 megapixels?) they kinda ask for it. Most canon shooters I know are far more gear orientated and obsess over the megapixels rather than the Nikonites I know who are older, ex-film shooters and usually crusted pro's who have been shooting professionally for 30 years or more.
As a canon shooter who owns a 1Ds mkIII, 12 megapixels is enough for a 35mm camera, honestly. Unless you regularly print huge or crop hugely (the realm of the pro who used to use medium format) if 12 megapixels isn't enough for you then you are the definition of a pixel peeper. Sorry. Oh and I've gone back to my 5D originals..
p.2 #17 · Do only Canon users put their gear under (extreme) scrutiny?
My point is that the need for 21 megapixels nevermind the ability to utilise that kind of resolution is highly specialised but you would never know it from the legions of people who bought one because suddenly they needed 21 megapixels for their flikr albums. Is it any wonder that such people who do not realise just what 21 megapixels means, start learning all to fast just how hard it is to shoot with them in the real world with lenses never designed for the task, an AF system woefully incapable of maximising that resolution, diffraction, camera shake, the stupidity of applying 1/FL to that level of resolution, etc, etc?
You put a serious racing engine into a regular ford without upping the price and you will get a lot of puzzled people looking at their new car wrapped around a tree. I see this as no different. More megapixels does not a good photographer make however much Canon delights in proving that people truly believe the opposite.
p.2 #19 · Do only Canon users put their gear under (extreme) scrutiny?
Beni wrote:
Given that Canon panders to the pixel peepers (how else do you explain the 5D mkII's 21 megapixels?) they kinda ask for it. Most canon shooters I know are far more gear orientated and obsess over the megapixels rather than the Nikonites I know who are older, ex-film shooters and usually crusted pro's who have been shooting professionally for 30 years or more.
As a canon shooter who owns a 1Ds mkIII, 12 megapixels is enough for a 35mm camera, honestly. Unless you regularly print huge or crop hugely (the realm of the pro who used to use medium format) if 12 megapixels isn't enough for you then you are the definition of a pixel peeper. Sorry. Oh and I've gone back to my 5D originals.. ...Show more →
well 21MP can be nice for landscapes, little details and textures don't get blended together and don't forget in the film days many nature mags didn't want to accept photos taken in 35mm format for landscapes (and they are probably like 14MP equivalent) and you had the whole 4x5 or nothing crowd
21MP is also great for sports and wildlife where you may need to do heavy cropping (in fact it is not always enough for wildlife)
p.2 #20 · Do only Canon users put their gear under (extreme) scrutiny?
Beni wrote:
My point is that the need for 21 megapixels nevermind the ability to utilise that kind of resolution is highly specialised but you would never know it from the legions of people who bought one because suddenly they needed 21 megapixels for their flikr albums. Is it any wonder that such people who do not realise just what 21 megapixels means, start learning all to fast just how hard it is to shoot with them in the real world with lenses never designed for the task, an AF system woefully incapable of maximising that resolution, diffraction, camera shake, the stupidity of applying 1/FL to that level of resolution, etc, etc?
You put a serious racing engine into a regular ford without upping the price and you will get a lot of puzzled people looking at their new car wrapped around a tree. I see this as no different. More megapixels does not a good photographer make however much Canon delights in proving that people truly believe the opposite.
and I like that picture.
