This isn't a surprise. Canon has lagged behind Sony on the sensor side of things for ages. Nikon was also lagging, but decided to do the right thing which was buy its sensors from Sony. For full-frame DSLR camera bodies, Nikon is far superior to Canon currently and has been for a long time.
Canon has primarily survived off brand loyalty with professional photographers driven by the extremely high quality lenses they produce. This too has been challenged lately by Sony and their partnership with Zeiss, meaning Sony lenses for mirrorless are on par or in excess of the quality level you can get from Canon lenses and Zeiss is financially able to offer similarly high quality lenses to the wider market, cannibalizing first-party sales. Nikon has historically had worse lenses than Canon and this hasn't changed significantly, but they've made huge leaps in R&D for large telephotos with usable fresnel lenses at 300mm and 500mm focal length.
Canon had some opportunities to right the ship, but their management seems incompetent. It's sad to me that they're in this situation because I respect what they've done for photography for decades. I don't see this improving though.
While it may appear so from a retail consumer standpoint, I don't think Canon is lagging behind in tech from an IP and R&D standpoint. The thing is they make the sensor themselves, and the fabs and tooling is super super expensive. Canons MO is to extract as much profit as possible from a pre-existing process before moving over to something new. They already have BSI tech.. they already have the means to create a 100MP sensor as well as compete on AF (for video I think dualpixel AF is already ahead of the competition). Canon has diversified product lines and doesn't want to upset its Cinema EOS lineup too much by offering "too many" features. Sony, being the newcomer has sunk a ginormous amount of capital into fabs and tooling to differentiate itself in a saturated market and it has worked for the amateur and enthusiast crowd. They have a few weaknesses, specifically ergonomics, color science, the smaller E mount diameter, and a less rugged body for professional use (compared to 1DX or D5). It will be interesting to see how they tackle the new challenger..
but they've made huge leaps in R&D for large telephotos with usable fresnel lenses at 300mm and 500mm focal length.
Canon already has this tech, as they showed in their 400 DO II, which is a freakishly awesome lens.
his too has been challenged lately by Sony and their partnership with Zeiss
Hmm, have there been any sony-zeiss lenses since Sony started their GM lineup?
I think what has really hurt Canon is their failure so far in the mirrorless segment. As others have said, for quite a while they've relied in large part on high quality glass and people's glass investments within the EF ecosystem to drive people to that and retain them within it. It's worked well - they are "good enough" on the sensor side and have also won (or at least not lost) on things which professionals care about quite a lot like reliability.
But mirrorless eroded a lot of that advantage - they were late to the trend, then came with a substandard offering (EOS M series) and then tried to catch up with the EOS R but leveraging existing glass investments to drive adoption is much harder because people see part of the point of mirrorless as moving to a new mount which allows for smaller lenses (at least at shorter focal lengths).
Well, the EOS R and RP are entry level cameras. They have yet to release a professional series mirrorless camera. Comparatively, the 1st gen Sony mirrorless systems were pretty bad. They had tiny bodies that overheated, had poor battery life, and had slow unreliable AF. Ofcource, The EOS R and RP won't be compared to Sony's 1st gen, which is very fair, but I don't think canon has failed in this market.
I'd say they haven't succeeded yet - and the signs aren't great. They needed to produce a knockout offering with the EOS R and RP I think - they were so far behind that unless they did, they would struggle to build market share. I don't know how many more chances the market will give them to get it right, sadly.
I disagree. Given their history and given their capability, I give them an excellent chance to hang on to their current dominant position. They're still producing drool worthy glass.. the RF 28-70 F/2.. the RF 50mm 1.2 is the tits. The new 600 F/4 III is sublime.
Comments
This isn't a surprise. Canon has lagged behind Sony on the sensor side of things for ages. Nikon was also lagging, but decided to do the right thing which was buy its sensors from Sony. For full-frame DSLR camera bodies, Nikon is far superior to Canon currently and has been for a long time.
Canon has primarily survived off brand loyalty with professional photographers driven by the extremely high quality lenses they produce. This too has been challenged lately by Sony and their partnership with Zeiss, meaning Sony lenses for mirrorless are on par or in excess of the quality level you can get from Canon lenses and Zeiss is financially able to offer similarly high quality lenses to the wider market, cannibalizing first-party sales. Nikon has historically had worse lenses than Canon and this hasn't changed significantly, but they've made huge leaps in R&D for large telephotos with usable fresnel lenses at 300mm and 500mm focal length.
Canon had some opportunities to right the ship, but their management seems incompetent. It's sad to me that they're in this situation because I respect what they've done for photography for decades. I don't see this improving though.
While it may appear so from a retail consumer standpoint, I don't think Canon is lagging behind in tech from an IP and R&D standpoint. The thing is they make the sensor themselves, and the fabs and tooling is super super expensive. Canons MO is to extract as much profit as possible from a pre-existing process before moving over to something new. They already have BSI tech.. they already have the means to create a 100MP sensor as well as compete on AF (for video I think dualpixel AF is already ahead of the competition). Canon has diversified product lines and doesn't want to upset its Cinema EOS lineup too much by offering "too many" features. Sony, being the newcomer has sunk a ginormous amount of capital into fabs and tooling to differentiate itself in a saturated market and it has worked for the amateur and enthusiast crowd. They have a few weaknesses, specifically ergonomics, color science, the smaller E mount diameter, and a less rugged body for professional use (compared to 1DX or D5). It will be interesting to see how they tackle the new challenger..
Canon already has this tech, as they showed in their 400 DO II, which is a freakishly awesome lens.
Hmm, have there been any sony-zeiss lenses since Sony started their GM lineup?
I think what has really hurt Canon is their failure so far in the mirrorless segment. As others have said, for quite a while they've relied in large part on high quality glass and people's glass investments within the EF ecosystem to drive people to that and retain them within it. It's worked well - they are "good enough" on the sensor side and have also won (or at least not lost) on things which professionals care about quite a lot like reliability.
But mirrorless eroded a lot of that advantage - they were late to the trend, then came with a substandard offering (EOS M series) and then tried to catch up with the EOS R but leveraging existing glass investments to drive adoption is much harder because people see part of the point of mirrorless as moving to a new mount which allows for smaller lenses (at least at shorter focal lengths).
Well, the EOS R and RP are entry level cameras. They have yet to release a professional series mirrorless camera. Comparatively, the 1st gen Sony mirrorless systems were pretty bad. They had tiny bodies that overheated, had poor battery life, and had slow unreliable AF. Ofcource, The EOS R and RP won't be compared to Sony's 1st gen, which is very fair, but I don't think canon has failed in this market.
I'd say they haven't succeeded yet - and the signs aren't great. They needed to produce a knockout offering with the EOS R and RP I think - they were so far behind that unless they did, they would struggle to build market share. I don't know how many more chances the market will give them to get it right, sadly.
I disagree. Given their history and given their capability, I give them an excellent chance to hang on to their current dominant position. They're still producing drool worthy glass.. the RF 28-70 F/2.. the RF 50mm 1.2 is the tits. The new 600 F/4 III is sublime.
It'd want to be, for $13,000!!