‘Tis the Season to be Fucked

In the future Canon DSLRs may closely resemble a hairdryer.

Shit are happening people, shit are happening big time. You’ll know what I’m talking about in a few weeks. I can’t let it all out just yet if I want to keep my job at Canon. And I’m sure most of you will probably wonder right now why I would want to keep my job at Canon in the first place. Well, yes we’re fucking up right now but technically it’s Canon Inc. in Japan that’s really fucking up, while the rest of us just have to deal with their fuckups globally. I continue to believe that if we keep slapping the Japanese in the face with all the problems, things should improve. Now I may not live to see things actually improve, and likely neither will my daughter if things continue the way they’re going now, but maybe my great grandchildren will be able to actually buy a working Canon DSLR in the future with a combination of features that makes sense and hopefully won’t look like a hairdryer. And that’s what I’m ultimately fighting for here on my blog and that’s why I need to keep my job here at Canon USA. I know all of you depend on me and I won’t let you down.

Now having said that, prepare for some major fuckage in the following months leading up to Christmas. Nikon as well as Sony are going to show Canon Inc. what innovation really is. At one point Canon Inc. thought they could get away with small incremental upgrades and minimal investments in innovation, but times have clearly changed. What we’re seeing now is a Canon Inc. that is scrambling to get their asses off of the couch and trying to keep up with the competition that is already way ahead. But in the process of doing that, they’re making decisions about product design that are actually backwards while the competition is taking a step forward. I can’t go into details right now, like I said because I want to keep my job, but I’ll be able to talk about it in a few weeks. It’s fucking hilarious, but sad at the same time depending on your perspective.

For now let’s look at some of the emails I got recently:

Dear Sir,
I used to be a Nikon user when its was a manual system but when the DSLR appear, i switch to Canon gear. I have three body’s 30D, 40D and 50D with two micro lenses 100mm and 180mm. Also i have 28-135mm and 100-400mm lens. I nearly wanted to buy a big lens but decided to hold due to the system did not improve.Specially the noise reduction.

I also have the old Canon camera T90 with the FD 800mm. This is where i cannot understand why canon cannot improve the auto focus system and the noise problem. I hope i can get some answer from the canon rep. about switching to Nikon.

Well I’m not sure the Canon rep. is going to be very helpful to you when it comes to switching to Nikon. But I can tell you that it’s probably best to contact a local Nikon rep. about switching to Nikon as they have been very helpful with this in the past, or so I’ve been told. I have discussed the autofocus and noise problem here on my blog numerous times. I answered a question about the noise and megapixel craziness just a few weeks ago. With regards to the aut-o’-focus system I can tell you that Canon Inc. did try to make some improvements in the 7D and 1D Mark IV, but it’s still not close to what Nikon currently has. In true Canon Inc. style they keep holding back the features in the lower models and it’s going to cost them dearly in the long run. The Nikon D300s has a 51-point AF system while the 7D only has 19 points. And I don’t want to even mention the D700 and the 5D Mark II. So it’s no surprise to me that you’re looking to switch to Nikon to be honest with ya. Reports of people switching to Nikon have only increased in the last few months and the trend continues. We’ve had some high profile people switch to Nikon recently too. The Norwegian photographer who ran the CanonFieldReviews website switched to Nikon after receiving an offer from Nikon and after numerous frustrations with Canon. Remember that this is the same guy I mentioned before who received a 1D Mark IV body to test with a glued CF-card slot. Treat people like crap, and that’s the result you will get. Then we also had Karl Grobl switching to Nikon because “Nikon offers a full frame pro body with high ISO capability for $5000 while Canon’s full frame Mark IIIs is $6,115 and lacks high the newer, cleaner, high ISO settings.” Everyone loves the image quality coming from the Nikon D3s. I’ve been here busting my ass off sending tons of feedback to Canon Inc. year after year about people wanting less megapixels and less noise, but those motherfuckers wouldn’t listen to me. Had they listened to me then today Canon Inc. would have been far better off.

Fake chuck,
I just read a post on Canon Rumors about the possibility of a 5dIII and source was confident that the AF would be improved over the 5dII but not as good as that of the 7D.  What are they thinking?  Do you have any thoughts? Any chance that Canon will stop packing crappy pixels on sensors and try to produce a camera that makes a good f-ing picture so I don’t have to buy Nikon stuff?  Any chance Canon will even try to compete with Nikon’s CLS stuff, or are they just going to rely on the same old technology they’ve been using for a decade? Thanks!

They’re a bunch of fucking morons at Canon Inc. that’s why they’ll put an inferior AF system in the 5D Mark III compared to the 7D. Of course we’ll have to see if they’ll actually do it when the 5D Mark III comes out. But knowing (from experience) their past mentality of intentionally crippling products, I for one will not be surprised when it does happen. Nikon put the same 51-point AF system as the D3 in the D700 and it paid off for them. Even the D300s has a 51-point AF system. But at Canon Inc. they’re afraid people won’t buy the 1D series cameras if they release camera bodies in the lower segment that can actually autofocus reliably on a subject. Well guess what’s happening now: People aren’t buying the cheaper cameras and neither are they buying the 1D; Instead they’re all switching to Nikon and increasingly more to Sony. This is what happens when you’re fucking stupid, controlled by greed and want to sell shit to people.

I wouldn’t hope on Canon stopping soon with the megapixel craziness. We’ve seen the 5D Mark II, the 7D, the 550D and the 1D Mark IV, all with more pixels with more noise and other image quality issues, while Nikon is clearly taking things more slowly putting image quality ahead of megapixels. Should I reveal here why the 1Ds Mark IV is being delayed for so long now, or are you guys able to take a good guess if I tell you they want to cram 30+MP on the sensor?

Canon ST-E2 Ass-Rape VS Cactus V4

As for the Canon flash system, everyone knows that currently it’s no match for Nikon’s system. Canon Inc. has the same problem in this area that they’re suffering from in the DSLR department, and that is that they basically have no fucking clue about what photographers need and refuse to respond to feedback and refuse to innovate. The ST-E2 wireless trigger is so fucking old right now it could have been designed by the Egyptians. Basically a piece of cheap plastic, Canon Inc. continues to charge an astounding $230 for it ($320 suggested retail price). Reliability is terrible outdoors, and you have to maintain line of sight constantly between the ST-E2 and slaves. Has Canon Inc. been unable to produce an improvement over the ST-E2 in the last 8 years?? No they’ve just been slacking, just like they did absolutely nothing to improve the AF system of the old 5D and released a 5D Mark II after 3 years with the same old AF system from the older model. It’s the lazy-ass engineering Canon Inc. has become known for. Meanwhile there are a ton of other manufacturers who have developed all kinds of RF-based flash triggers. Just look at the Cactus V4 wireless trigger set costing a mere $40 for both the trigger and the receiver! They may not be as good as the gold-plated expensive as fuck PocketWizards, but they are A LOT more reliable and practical than Canon Inc.’s infrared system (trust me on this). You mean to tell me that in all these fucking years the big and mighty Canon Inc. has been unable to integrate CactusV4-like RF-based wireless functionality in its flash system?? If Canon Inc. had even the slightest clue about innovation, they would have done this way ahead of the Chinese!!!! Every goddamn DSLR body starting at the prosumer level would have a built-in RF flash trigger, and every flash a built-in RF receiver. Instead they’re selling a goddamn practically worthless ST-E2 for the price of almost 6 complete Cactus V4 trigger sets. This has got to be one of the biggest ass-rapes in the history of mankind. Inferior technology at a premium price. Fucken A! Tell me that your blood pressure isn’t starting to rise when you think about this. Tell me goddammit!

The latest EOS Utility does not work with older cameras. Don’t they suppose to build their cameras to last? To last for what if I cannot connect them to my computer?

No no my friend, I see you’re probably still living in the 80’s and early 90’s. We used to build cameras to last but those times are long gone. Now we don’t want to hear from you if you haven’t recently spent money on one of our latest products. Today we’re largely manufacturing consumables that are built to last 2 to 4 years max, expecting you to come back to us somewhere in that timeframe with more of your money. Even if your camera is still working perfectly fine, we’ll give you all kinds of ‘incentives’ to help you ‘make the decision’ to upgrade. One such incentive is of course to refuse to support your camera any longer. Another such ‘incentive’ is to just release cameras much earlier with half-assed implementations of features and then release a newer model with ‘improvements’ a few months later. That way not only can we then claim to be the first with such a feature (never mind the fact that it’s essentially useless at this stage), but we can also get you to spend more money to ‘upgrade’ later. An example of that was our Live-View functionality. I hope you can now begin to understand how this works. Canon Inc. is just doing their part as a global citizen to keep the economy going.

Now, if you’re complaining about EOS Utility, just be happy you don’t have to deal with the clusterfuck that is Nikon Capture NX 2. Things have really gone bad with camera software drivers when you need the computing power of the Large Hadron Collider to download and process RAW files from your DSLR with reasonable speed.

The 1D Mark IV only allows sport focusing with the longer lenses having AF Stop button… they say that spot focusing reduce the AF area (which could help in low light situations) and they only give it in the long lenses (a wedding photographer using a 400 is what I want to see) BUT the 7D has it…

I am aware of this issue and I have reported it months ago to Canon Inc. I have yet to hear from them about doing something about this. As you may know, one of the first people to notice this issue was photographer Justin Gryba. He’s written about it in his 1D Mark IV review. I’m sad to say that this is just another example of the lack of a clear vision at Canon Inc. when product design is concerned. Why would you put such an important feature like Spot-AF on the 7D, and cripple it on the 1D Mark IV? This does not make sense to normal people like you and me, but I think we all know by now with reasonable certainty that we’re not dealing with normal people at Canon Inc. In fact, I have reason to believe that they’ve already replaced most of their workforce with humanoid robots. The only problem is that their AI appears to be slightly more advanced than an Aibo. Let us all hope that they fix the Spot-AF issue in a future firmware update for the 1D Mark IV.

That’s it for now, I’ve got to get back to finish my preparations for the EOS 60D press briefing in a few weeks. I can’t believe some of the decisions the Japanese made on this one. Their stupidity never ceases to amaze me. This is going to be a classic example of putting three steps forward and then taking two steps backwards. This while we already have Nikon ahead of us and Sony breathing down our necks. Have you seen what’s coming up from Nikon and Sony? Obviously the Nikon D3100 is going to be announced soon, and the D3000 already is outselling the 550D, so the D3100 is only going to make that a lot worse considering the features it’s going to have. But the bigger news is the coming release of the Nikkor AF-S 24-120 f/4 VR lens and the Nikkor AF-S 85mm f/1.4 lens. I mentioned before how the only advantage we still had was our lens lineup, and Nikon has now closed the gap for 95%. All they need now are the new 35mm f/1.4 and 135mm f.2 primes and it’s done. Then Nikon will officially have the best DSLR bodies, lenses and flash system. Even Sony is working hard to close the gaps in their lineup with their recent lens announcements. It won’t be long now before they have a DSLR body that’s going to make Canon Inc. executives shit their pants. But Canon Inc. has had plenty of time and plenty of opportunities, and if they keep blowing it every time they’ve got nobody to blame but themselves.