bballfreak6
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 Re: Canon departure thoughts | |
gdanmitchell wrote:
Rather than adding to the troll wars, brand wars, and spec wars, I want to take up this point:
Tony5787 wrote:
I’m in a very similar situation as Dorian, I’ve been shooting with Canon now for about a decade
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Up front: This will be long. If that’s a problem for anyone in the forum, feel free to skip it.
“Situation” is the key word here, and it is useful to remember that — as you again point out — there’s no one perfect, right, best, obvious solution for everyone to every equipment question.
My particular situation is pretty different than yours and Dorians, but it is no less a situation that leaves me both less enthusiastic (though not entirely unenthusiastic) about Canon and more interested in considering alternatives.
I use two different brands of gear at this point, but I’ll try to leave the other one out of the discussion at this point. I’ve used Canon as my only or my primary system for two decades (slightly plus) and I’ve overall been very happy with it for what I do. At the same time, I’ve understood that there are perfectly fine reasons that explain why others might prefer an alternative — that used to mean Nikon for most people, but that circle of full frame gear now expands to include at least Sony. Sometimes one of those brands has done something that I thought was pretty darned appealing, but it wasn’t enough to counteract the way the Canon system was working for me, and certainly not enough to persuade me to give up an entire system and move to another.
For me, the primary driver has been (loosely defined) landscape photography plus some serious tripod-based night photography that we might think of as industrial landscapes. I work from the tripod and I print up to relatively large sizes. (I have a P9000.) I value higher resolution over camera speed. And when the Canon 5DS and 5DsR were introduced almost a decade ago they were pretty much perfect for what I do. I went with the 5DsR.
(Side note: I do some bird photography, seriously enough to sell and license some of the work. And I’ve been able to do it with the 5DsR. I know that may sound nuts to many traditional bird photographers, but it works for me.)
As I watched many of my friends to do similar work switch to (mostly) Sony and (a very few) Nikon, I was skeptical. Despite the attractions of those systems, the costs of doing a system change seemed excessive for what I regarded to be relatively small and likely temporary advantages. So I have stuck with that same system since I got back when it was introduced, and it has continued to serve me well. More modern cameras would, no doubt, work better for the bird photography component, but the idea of replacing the entire system still did not appeal.
Over the past few years I have watched several interesting things take place:
1. Sony has gone from its original outsider FF mirrorless status (remember having to adapt virtually all lenses for that system?) to a very sophisticated system with a complete line of lenses and multiple body types, including some that are arguably industry leaders.
2. Nikon, a bit to my surprise, appears to perhaps be coming back from its near-death experience and producing some really excellent gear — though I’m not sure that it excels what Sony is doing overall.
3. Fujifilm has produced a very impressive high resolution miniMF system that does a few things that the other systems cannot do, though it is hampered (in the context of my needs) by gaps in their lens offerings. I remain hopeful and occasionally tempted.
4. Canon has continued to produce solid, well built cameras, but has moved to an entirely new RF lens system. Despite years of hints and rumors of a high MP successor to the 5Ds/5DsR bodies, there has been no actual movement — we are now two generations into the R5 cameras and there is still no indication that such a camera will ever come.
From my personal photographic perspective, Canon has gone from being generally the best suited for what I do, or so close to it that it made no sense to consider others, to introducing new cameras that arguably do not achieve what the competition achieved with previous models. That’s backwards from what we usually expect — we tend to see each new generation move ahead of the prior generations of its competition.
Normally, I still would not be quick to consider alternatives. I’ll accept an incremental “less” status from the gear I’m using rather than go to the trouble of switching out lens systems in order to get a marginal improvement, especially when I expect that the next iteration of my brand will likely overcome those incremental differences. But what is also different now is that Canon’s new RF lens system is part of the plus of the new R bodies, and I’m not at all likely to simply stick adapters on those lenses. If I stay with Canon I’m just about as likely to need to buy new (expensive) lenses as if I try a different brand
So FROM MY PERSPECTIVE and IN MY SITUATION, this seems like one of those rare inflection points when it does make sense to consider other brands. And when I do I find that those brands are offering things of value to me that Canon isn’t supporting and doesn’t look to be supporting going forward.
Again, if you (are still reading this and you) still prefer Canon, I accept that you have fine reasons for doing so — but maybe accept that others who look at this from a different perspective many not come to the same conclusion.
Read only the first and last few pages for sh!ts and gigs but honestly I don't understand these kind of threads where someone feels the need to make a declaration post to everyone else that they're switching systems like it's of great importance; followed up by specific people who feels that *insert your particular brand* is not innovating or lagging behind because what the particular brand offers does not appeal to that SPECIFIC INDIVIDUAL.
For example how many years now have we heard the same sentiment from individuals that Canon is lagging behind and everyone's going to abandon Canon if they don't catch up yet to this very day Canon continues to outsell everyone else including the mirrorless market once they decided to get serious with it. You don't think Canon does any market research and ask professionals and the like what they want to see in a camera system? What YOU want in a system is not representative of what EVERYONE ELSE wants.
Of course that's not to say Canon does everything right or have a perfect system, I did survive through those horrible shadow recovery sensor days as a LANDSCAPE SHOOTER but today the tech is so advanced and you're really talking about minute differences/advantages brands have on each other it's laughable to see individuals make statements as if one company doing some much worse than the other, again based on their OWN needs and interpretation as opposed to everyone else. Like some individual here harping on about cooked raw files; again as if other brands haven't done the same thing and I'd wager put a bunch of properly processed files from different brands together said person wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
But hey maybe I'm just talking out of my arse, I am after all shooting with just a peasant grade R6II (would've stayed with the OG R6 if my mate's shop didn't offer me a great trade in deal/camera was on sale/was going overseas so claimed tax back on the new body) and god forbid an ancient pre-historic tech 77D for my deep sky astro stuff; also that I only shoot landscape/astro/people/events/weddings/food and only the occasional bird/wildlife and not the high demand wildlife stuff to have any idea of what I am talking about.
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