bernardl
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 Re: Canon departure thoughts | |
tctmp wrote:
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.
To summarize, it's the perception and personal projection by drawing a trend line over the last few years and ask the question "what am I going to get over the next few years if I stay".
That's exactly what happened to Nikon users years ago when they waited a long time for the mirrorless models to come, hoped the management's propaganda's about some leading edge mirrorless were true, and then saw the behind time Z6/Z7 released. I don't think Nikon has ever recovered most of those users who left then yet.
The Z6/Z7 were excellent in most areas but AF tracking. I got wonderful images from mines. They were way ahead of the Canon R for example that still relied on the 6D sensor and had terrible EVFs and very average AF as well.
And even AF was usable in many situations. Only the a9 was very clearly ahead among mirrorless cameras and then the R5/R6 when they came out years later. But the main issue was that the Z6/Z7 were indeed far behind a D850 or D5/D6, the best focusing DSLRs on the market. The tracking of the D5/D6 was still clearly better than the a9. I owned both as the same time. They only had very basic eye AF capability compared to Sony, a limited focus areas, but within those constraints they were better by a good margin. So the step to climb for Nikon was higher than for Canon.
I compared a few months ago the eye AF of the Z7II (a minor upgrade to the Z7 in terms of AF) vs the a7III and the Nikon had significantly higher hit rate and accuracy. Despite the hype claiming the overall superiority of Sony. The truth is that until the a7rV, the only Sonys excellent at focusing were their stacked sensor bodies and they were expensive propositions. I was a victim of the hype myself. I recommended to a friend an a7rIII and 85mm f1.4 to take pictures of his kids. He still hates me years later. Focusing was really average and not suitable to track kids running around. I ended up having to help him sell them...
So there is hype and reality. Nikon was not as bad as the hype says (certainly not in terms of overall performance) and Sony wasn't as good as the hype says. All coming from first hand experience. I don't believe that many Nikon DSLR shooters involved in birding or other types of action photography moved to mirrorless before the Z9/Z8, I certainly don't know any. Even today many are still getting top class results from the DSLRs and will migrate when the time comes.
Cheers,
Bernard
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