Nikon D800: Shit are happen

ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think we’ve gotten to a point now where it’s reasonable to say that the Nikon D800 is pretty much fucked. It’s not even available yet and no sane photographer wants one.

The poll in the image above was done by Nikonrumors. You can see it by clicking here, just so you can check that I haven’t doctored this image. I think it’s safe to assume that the majority of people reading Nikonrumors are Nikon morons. And the results show how badly fucked Nikon is going to be in the near future. Almost 60% of the Nikon morons say they want the 16MP sensor of the D4 in the D800. What the fuck happened at Nikon? Seriously man, I want to know. I’ve been laughing my ass of on this blog the last few posts, but I do feel concerned for the Nikon morons. Because to be honest, it’s not in our best interest for Nikon to start fucking up now. I mean, if Canon Inc. decides to fuck up again in the near future, and Nikon is also fucking up, then what the hell are we going to switch to? Sony? No thanks, Sony is nowhere near ready to compete in the pro market.

So really, what the hell happened at Nikon? Their own users want a 16MP sensor in the D800! What the fuck got into the heads of Nikon executives to put a 36MP sensor that produces noisy, color banded, color dithered piece of shit images and muddy, compressed, moired, aliased videos?

And don’t think that Nikon doesn’t realize that they fucked up. They know. When the D800 was announced, the D700 was already discontinued.

Nikon-D700-D300s Discontinued

Nikon D700 and D300s are now officially listed as discontinued on Nikon’s website.   The surprise here is the phase out of the D300s, because I have not received any reliable information about a potential replacement.   I believe the D700 will be available for sale for at least few more months after the D800 announcement.   Update: I was told that the Nikon D700 is no longer on display at the Nikon flagship store in Ginza.

And then, as soon as they started to feel the backlash of the 36MP piece of shit producing sensor, they quickly backpedalled and said that the D700 would stay in production as long as there was demand:

Officially, the D800 has not replaced the D700 in Nikon’s range of DSLRs, and Sasagaki said that, so long as there is demand for the D700, Nikon will continue to produce the bodies.   However, he revealed that the D800E and the D4 would not be the only DSLRs that Nikon will launch this year, though he would not be drawn on timing.

Really? If they would fucking continue producing the D700, then why list it as discontinued on their website??? Doesn’t make sense to me. I think after the D800 announcement, they had a lot of complaints from Nikon morons who started complaining about the fucked-up upgrade path from the D700 to the D800 or D4 (LOL!). Nikon then had no choice but to continue to produce the D700, or else risk losing people to the upcoming 5DX.

But they’re going to lose people to the 5DX anyway. Just watch what’s going to happen my friends.

Nikon morons, understandably, are worried sick right now and are becoming increasingly more frustrated and hostile. They’re a frustrated and angry bunch of lunatics. They almost remind me of myself 3 years ago. Just look at the comments in the last 3 posts here on my blog. It’s crazy. People have no respect for others anymore. And you guys know that I’ve had a reputation at Canon for always politely answering emails and comments and really taking my time to do it. But the way these Nikon morons behave on my blog requires me to deal with this problem in a different way. It’s no more Mr. nice Westfall for them. Remember, on my personal blog I can say exactly what I feel and want. You mess with me, I mess with you.

So relax, you fucking morons. Don’t let the truth offend you. Direct your anger towards Nikon executives and you’ll have less chance for your energy to have been wasted.

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA

Nikon D800 - Less than meets the eye

BAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! I just keep laughing these days man, seriously. Whenever I read about the Nikon D800, I start laughing like I’m going crazy. And what’s even more funny are the Nikon morons who’re leaving behind comments here on my blog about the D800. You morons are going to have to face the facts very soon. The image quality on the D800 sucks balls. And not only for stills, but also for video. I hope you saw this article at EOSHD:

moire – at least on the internally recorded 1080p – is not nice on the Nikon D800 and not a great improvement on the way the 3 year old 5D Mark II samples video

—

the internal codec on the Nikon D800 is quite muddy, and I don’t like the harsh edges around highlights or the overall softness to wide shots (see below)

—

The internal codec is quite basic and at a low bitrate of 24Mbit, far less than on the 5D Mark II especially with Magic Lantern. The image is not actually that much better resolved than the 5D Mark II (it seems from initial videos). In terms of aliasing and moire it is the same old story.

—

But still it is disappointing that the D800 is stuck in the dark ages when it comes to this issue. The old GH1 still performs better than the Nikon D800 in terms of having less moire. Expeed 3 in the Nikon J1 has the same aliasing issues as the D800 and that costs just $399 so do I expect Nikon to fix stuff like this on a $2999 camera (let alone on the $5999 D4?). YES unequivocally and it is a scandal they haven’t.

I keep saying it, and I’ll continue to say it, and I’ll fucking say it again now: We’re going to fucking own the D800 with the 5DX.

I’m telling you, Canon is on a roll now. Didn’t I mention how sharp the 24-70 is in my previous post when all of you were complaining about IS?? There’s more to image quality than just IS. This lens is so fucking sharp you’ll cut yourself editting images. Check out what Dan Carr had to say about it:

Firstly for a zoom lens wide open at f2.8 this is SHARP!!  Secondly there appears to be essentially no chromatic aberration even in the high contrast black on bright white areas.  This was the same on all the images that I took and clearly this is something they have worked very hard to eliminate with this lens.   Despite its high price I expect that this lens will be in huge demand once it’s launched.  I’d advise getting in line with a pre-order at one of the following vendors.

This is from his site:

Aaaaw yeah

Do you believe me now? Who the fuck needs IS if you can get sharp images like this, without chromatic aberration while shooting hand held?

And this is nothing yet my friends. We’ve got even more planned for this year. I predict that once we reach the end of 2012, a lot of photographers are going to be switching (back) to Canon.

And speaking of switching to Canon, my good pal Tony Dunn has just released a new ebook where he recounts his years of struggle with unknown sub standard camera brands, only to finally end up with the brand all serious pros use, namely Canon.

Ten Years Ago Today. Life before Canon.

Tony has been like a brother to me. Ever since I started this blog, he’s always been here supporting me, making fun of me, honestly telling me how stupid I am, etc. etc. We all need someone like Tony in our lives. I’m very glad that after being lost in the wilderness for 10 years, he was finally able to see the light and join the Canon club of professionals.

Me: You trying to compensate for something Tony? Tony: Absolutely! (I'm not making this up)

You can see some sample pages from his book on his blog. I asked him a review copy so I could let you all know how much it sucks, but he told me to go buy it like everyone else. So since I haven’t read the whole book yet, I can’t honestly recommend it to you, though the sample pages looked interesting. And certainly the fact that he switched to Canon in the end says something about the validity and quality of his experiences in those 10 years. But for all I know, apart from the sample pages I’ve seen on his site, the rest of the ebook could be blank pages. Perhaps even containing a virus like that ebook by Kirk Tuck about LED lighting which I wrote about before. So be cautious.

Spinlight 360

And since I seem to be on a promotional tour here I might as well mention the new Spinlight 360 flash modifier, which is based on the black foamie thing by photographer Neil van Niekerk.

Video link.

In my honest opinion, this is one of the best flash modifiers you can buy if you’re doing event photography (including weddings), couples and models. The results you get will look like they were shot using available light, or a softbox, instead of the typical flash look. And with a name like Van Niekerk standing behind it, you know you can’t go wrong with this. I mean, that’s a cool-ass name, right? Van Niekerk. When I first heard the name I thought it was a character from Star Wars or something. Darth Niekerk. That sounds absolutely bad-ass. Or like the movie Van Helsing, but only this time it’s Van Niekerk.

Van Niekerk - In theaters soon.

Personally, I think that would have been a better promotional video for the Spinlight 360 instead of the boring video with a model above. Don’t get me wrong, I like when Neil does videos with his model Anelisa. I dream of Anelisa and I’m in love with her. She’s the best. I would like to marry her some day if I’m lucky enough. Neil knows this. But I just think that Neil using the Spinlight 360 to fight vampires Van Helsing-style would make the Spinlight 360s fly off of the shelves. And I’m sure most of you can agree with me on this.

Anyway, I should be going back to work now. Lots of preparations before the 5DX launch. Stay tuned for more.

The Nikon D800 is fucked

Man, what a week, what a week. I haven’t partied so hard in quite a while. I assume most of you noticed I wasn’t exactly what you’d call sober when I did the last two posts about the D800. I’m telling you, the champagne was flowing here at Canon USA. At the end of the night I was practically peeing champagne. Some of you have asked for me not to post when I’m drunk, and I’ve decided I owe you at least one post where I’m reasonably sober.

Nikon morons put a heavy load on the blog

As you can see from the graph above, Nikon morons swarmed the servers when news about the shitty image quality of the D800 got out. That was an FCW exclusive as far as I’m concerned. This kind of stuff usually only happens when The Lord of the Speedlights links to your website.

I’m happy to see that amidst the crowd of Nikon morons, there are actually still people who are willing to be honest to themselves and not fool themselves about the absolutely god-awful color banded, color dithered, noisy piece of shit images from the D800. Comments like these give me hope for the future of mankind:

Congrats to Canon USA! You fucktards somehow convinced Nikon Inc that video is more important than stills. Now all of us Nikon users have no real upgrade path. These cameras that Nikon came out with HAD, HAD. to have been engineered by an ex-Canon engineer. Wonderful. Thanks Canon.

And this:

Chuck, all sarcasm aside, this post is very funny! And more than that, you’re bloody right.  I’m a D700 shooter, I’ve spent lots of my hard-earned cash on nice Nikkor glass, and now I’m fucked. All I wanted was good HD video, better ISO performance, keep 8fps, and dual card slots. Don’t know about anyone else, but I’ll be shagged if I’ve got $6000 dollars to spend on a D4. It’s a complete frigging cock-up.

———————–

I’m in the same boat, Andyj. I just hope my D700 doesn’t flake out anytime soon — it still takes great, sharp images with that nice Nikkor glass. My “upgrade path” is going to be to a used D3s whenever they start hitting Craigslist at reasonable prices (that is, not the $4000+ the go for on ebay) as people move up to the D4.

And this:

Hi Fake Chuck   Just wanted to express my dismay at how idiotic some of the respondents to this post are.   What’s up with all the dorks calling you a “canon fanboy” like that’s some sort of mortal insult? They need to go back to school and learn some proper vocabulary.   “OMGGGZZZ CANON FANBOY!!!!!!!1111oneoneoneone” – they need to get a life and learn some english.

Keep up the good work and telling it like it is!

You get the idea. But in general, the comments section of the previous posts make for some interesting, but not exactly light, reading. We’ve got Al Qaeda fighters all the way from Afghanistan commenting in there, it’s nuts.

I promised to look at the high ISO samples of the D800, which Nikon didn’t include on their own website BTW, for very obvious reasons. I’ll be comparing this Nikon D800 image with this Canon 1DX image, both at ISO 800. Just take a look at this:

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Click on the image to open it in actual size. These are 100% crops. Just look at the noise in the D800 image. That’s just nasty. And this is apart from the color banding and color dithering artifacts which I had already discussed previously. Now some of you Nikon morons are going to be quick to mention how this comparison isn’t fair and how the D800 image should be downsampled to the 18MP size of the 1DX. And according to those morons, the D800 image quality will actually be comparable to the 1DX in that case. Quite why one would buy a 36MP camera only to resize the images to 18MP for better image quality is beyond me. That sounds like Nikon moron logic to me. But let’s check it out:

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Nope. Doesn’t look comparable to me. The D800 image at 18MP still looks fucking awful compared to the 1DX image. And in fact, even the 1DX image upsampled to 36MP looks much better compared to the piece of shit D800 image:

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Like I said before, I’m willing to bet my left nut that an upsampled 1DX image will look much better compared to a D800 image at 36MP. The 1DX image will look cleaner and in fact, if you try to make the D800 image look similar, you’ll be losing some of the detail that you claim to have captured along with the noise. Not to mention the fact that the D800 image has far less dynamic range compared to the 1DX, and also suffers from color banding and dithering artifacts which you’ll have to clean in post. And the thing is, the D800 has this shit even at ISO 100!! Me, I’d rather have clean images from the 1DX with the extra dynamic range to play with.

Oh god...

Just look at the 100% crop of an ISO 6400 image from the D800 above. That’s some pretty nasty chroma noise. This is the worst kind of noise you can have in your images. I haven’t seen this shit since the late 1990s when the first digital cameras were coming out.

But I do have a confession to make. And one of the commenters in a previous post almost got it right. Nikon was set up by Canon. Maeda is fucking brilliant!! Remember the conference call I had with Maeda, where we discussed the D800 and the 5D Mark III? Maeda kept insisting that they would continue adding megapixels on the 5D Mark III, no matter the image quality issues, and Nikon would not be able to compete. As it turns out, he wasn’t serious. This was just to get Nikon to fuck up and have them release a D800 with insane amount of megapixels and shitty image quality. If you don’t believe me, just listen to the conference call below.

I never thought I’d say this, but Maeda is a fucking genius!!

The Nikon D800: Less than meets the eye

Nikon D800 - Less than meets the eye

Let me first begin by apologizing to all the people who have switched to the Nikon D700 in the last few years because of my recommendations. Really, honestly, I sincerely apologize. I truly feel bad about this, because you guys are fucked now.

WHAT was Nikon thinking?? Jesus Christ. What kind of an upgrade is this? Is this really supposed to be an upgrade to the D700?? It’s gotta be, because apparently the D700 is now discontinued. Was Nikon even paying attention to what I was writing about on my blog and all the complaints we were getting here at Canon about the megapixels? Did they fucking consult with The Lord of Speedlights about this? Didn’t Nikon get the megapixel memo??

You know, just because you CAN doesn’t always mean that you SHOULD. Nikon had the opportunity to include this 37MP Sony sensor in the D800, and they did, but this is the worst decision they could have taken.

I feel for you Nikon morons who are now going to have to suddenly deal with 37MP files, up from 12MP on the D700. Imagine what that will do to your workflow having to deal with 37MP of bloated files. Processing power, RAM and especially storage are going to take a serious hit. And I’ve seen the files, they’re softer than a baby’s butt. Where the fuck is all the detail??? My God. And the noise, oh god, the noise.

Say hello to the melted eyebrow - Nikon D800 sample image 100% crop

Say hello to the melted eyebrow! That is some incredible detail right there, wouldn’t you say? I mean, you can see every individual hair in the eyebrow down to each individual cell in each hair! This is what 37MP is for right? This is absolutely stunning resolution! This image reminds me of the melted hay image on the EOS 7D from a while back. But this is far worse than that. At least we were still able to see some individual strands of hay in the melted heap. This is one big mushy blob of eyebrow hair. Does that even look like hair to you?

Nikon D800 sample (ISO 100, 100% crop)

Look at the color banding and the noise in the shadows in this ISO 100 (!!!!!) image. Awesome isn’t it? And to think that this is a JPEG with noise reduction applied. How bad was it before that??

Nikon D800 sample (ISO 320, 100% crop)

Why does this ISO 320 image look like it was shot at ISO 3200?? How bad was this before the noise reduction??

And you’ll be able to get all this stunning 37MP of fine detail at an incredible, blazingly fast, photon freezing 4 FPS in FX mode (6 FPS in DX mode with Battery pack!)!!Really?? 4 FPS?????? 

BAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!BAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!BAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

*cough*cough*

BAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!BAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Down from 8 FPS in FX mode on the D700. Oh. My. God. So if you were used to the 8 FPS on your D700 you’re going to really, seriously, have to slow down now. Not only are you slowing down in the field, but because of the fucking bloated, razor sharp, 37MP files you’re slowing down in post too. Oh God, what happened at Nikon? Jesus Christ, I can’t believe this. FUCK!

I’m laughing my ass off and crying at the same time. Laughing because we’re going to fucking own this piece of shit camera in a few days, but crying because I feel so sorry, oh so sorry for all you Nikon morons and especially those who switched from Canon to the D700. Oh God I’m so sorry.

How do you “upgrade” from the D700 to this?? It’s a fucking downgrade! Does Nikon expect the D700 ($2700) crowd to upgrade to the D4 ($6000)??? HAHAHAHA you Nikon morons are SO fucked. The only upgrades I can think of on the D800 are the new autofocus system and the video capabilities. But with this noisy sensor, don’t expect a lot from the image quality and noise. But hey, you’ll have a headphone jack! So maybe it’s not so bad after all right???

BAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Excuse me now while I uncork a bottle of champagne and join the party here in the cafeteria at Canon USA.

Update: Image quality comparison between the D800 and 1DX.

The Empire Strikes Back

Man I’m so tired. The last couple of months have just been soo hectic. There’s so much exciting stuff going on here at Canon, and I  have to tell you I’m starting to really enjoy my work again. Many of you loyal readers will undoubtedly still remember how depressed I was during most of 2009 and 2010. I even developed a drinking problem and started doing drugs. I got hospitalized a couple of times, got into rehab, and really put my family through hell.

But starting in early 2011 things began to change. It seemed like all the feedback we’ve been giving Japan in the previous years started to bring some positive change. Many of you wrote in to ask why I wasn’t updating the blog back then. Well the answer is that 1) I was busy and 2) I honestly had nothing to write about. Especially point 2 is going to be a huge problem from now on. Seeing how Canon Inc. were doing their best to listen to the feedback we were giving them during the development of the 1DX and other new models, I just couldn’t continue to give them hell on my blog like I used to. It just wouldn’t be fair. I wanted to write about the positive developments, but obviously I can’t discuss unannounced camera models here on my blog, and also, I didn’t want to get too optimistic too soon. I’ve done that in the past and got burned. It seemed like Canon Inc. were listening, but you never really know until the official announcement is made and everything is pretty much set in stone. So all I could do at the time was make cryptic remarks about exciting times coming to EOS.

When the 1DX was finally announced last year, it was a very emotional moment for me. All the hard work and all the effort we put into making Canon Inc. realize what we wanted paid off in the end. And it’s not just me, but it’s all of you. All the photographers who weren’t afraid and told Canon what they wanted, what sucked, what needed improvement, all of you who supported this blog and left comments with your experiences, all of that helped. Japan took notice.

After the press release for the 1DX went out, I went into my office with tears in my eyes, sat down behind my desk and just cried for 15 minutes. It felt really good, I felt happy. Adachi came into my office moments later and hugged me, and it was clear to both of us that we were heading for a much brighter future with Canon.

Just a few months after that we announced the C300 and I was just ecstatic. The entire industry shook on top of its foundations when the C300 and 1D C were announced. Of course we also had Vincent Laforet, eternal peace and blessings be upon him, with a great new video to show off the C300 too. It was awesome.

Vincent Laforet, peace be with Him, got his hair done by a professional hair stylist before the C300 launch. Thanks to Philip Bloom for bringing this to our attention.

Philip Bloom has a review of the C300 on Vimeo:

http://vimeo.com/34172998

It was immediately clear to everyone that Canon was making a major come back. And we’re going to fucking trash everything out there in the coming months. Remember when I wrote this:

Nikon’s apparent decision to start fucking up really is coming at a bad time. Because here at Canon Inc. we’ve had a couple of months now, okay years actually, to regroup our efforts, and shit are going to happen for Nikon, that much I can tell you. Ever since the release of the D3 Nikon has given us blow after blow, and we haven’t been quite able to answer back. I mentioned in a previous post how the release of the D7000 was like the attack on Pearl Harbor to us, taking out both our 60D and 7D at the  same time – a rather serious offence. And if you saw the movie “Pearl Harbor”, you can maybe remember the scene with the Japanese general after they attacked Pearl Harbor, when he mentioned that “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” He might also have said “Gentlemen, we have just kicked a rabid dog.” Nikon has either awoken a sleeping giant, or they have kicked a rabid dog, but either way, all I know is that we’re going to fucking own them! Make no mistake about it, Canon Inc. is at war. This is no time for Nikon to be screwing around. Trust me on this.

Well my friends, the sleeping giant has awoken. Not only are we going to fucking own Nikon and Sony, but even RED got owned. RED’s timing to start fucking up with the announcement of the Scarlet-X was pretty terrible. I laughed my ass off when Jannard couldn’t even properly announce the Scarlet-X. This is what happens when a bunch of amateurs think they can go up against Canon Inc. The Scarlet-X was announced 3 years ago for about $3000, has been fucking vaporware ever since, and now all of a sudden you’ll have to pay $14000 for a complete Scarlet-X, and get this >>> if you can actually buy one. Good luck with that. If you get one, I’m sure you’ll appreciate the quality of their forever in beta software too LMAO. But seriously, the C300 has the best image quality and overall features. And remember, the C300 is basically a version 1.0 product and a pretty incredible one at that. The shit is really going to hit the fan for RED when the C300 Mark II hits the market in the future. Not to mention the 1D C.

You absolutely, most certainly, fucking can - Canon

And Nikon? LMFAO. Nikon can’t possibly hope to compete. The entire EOS ecosystem is fucking unparalleled in this industry. Make no mistake about it, the sleeping giant is awake. What you guys have witnessed in the last few months is the empire striking back in a very big way.

Remember when I said the following:

Everyone has been busy praising Nikon and Sony in the last few months, either for their outstanding sensors or their recent innovations. But it seems that everyone ignores the fact that Nikon and Sony have only now gotten to a point with their sensors where Canon Inc. had been over 3 years ago! The image quality on the D7000 and the Sony A580 have just recently caught up with the image quality we had 3 years ago on our 40D! The image quality on the D700 that everyone is raving about, existed almost 3 years earlier on the original EOS 5D. Yeah that’s right, fucking recognize! It took Nikon and Sony 3 years to catch up. Imagine where we are now. Yeah sure, we fucked up with our latest sensors, I’ll give you that, but this doesn’t mean we didn’t innovate. We still have our 3 year lead, I promise you, and you’re going to find out about it soon! Y’all better prepare for penetration!

Nikon, Sony and RED had better start stocking up on personal lube.

But don’t take my word for it, you can already see what’s happening with the G1X. Check out what DXO Mark had to say about the G1X, it fucking slaughtered the competition!

The Powershot G1X Fucking Rocks

The G1X even fucking owns the Nikon 1!!!

The Powershot G1X Fucking Rocks

You can see why DXO Mark would call the Powershot G1X the best compact camera ever made. The way it completely trashes the other competing models is just ridiculous. In fact, I’m surprised this is even legal.

It wasn’t so long ago when Nikon was the one on top in DXO Mark benchmarks. In fact, Nikon has been consistently on top in the last 3-4 years:

I know what you’re saying right now, yes I’ve gotten the emails, “but Chuck, these people at DXOMark are saying the Nikon sensors are all better compared to Canon sensors in the same category.” Go ahead and believe those morons at DxO Labs if you want to. Who are you going to believe? A bunch of ganja smoking Europeans who don’t have anything to do and slapped up a website with some “data” to kill some time, or your own eyes? And get this, according to them the Nikon D90 has a better sensor compared to the Canon EOS 5D? Daat’s riiight, mon! When you ees high, ewrytheeng ees possybal!

As you can see I wasn’t quite happy with the results from DxO Labs back then, but obviously now that Canon is ahead in the benchmarks, this no doubt means that their data got a lot more accurate over the years. This shows improvement, and I like that.

But there’s one downside to all of this.

With all of these very positive developments, Canon Inc. is taking the wind out of my sails here on this blog. If they don’t fuck up anymore, what the hell am I going to write about? I may even have to start thinking about shutting down this blog.

Because trust me, you’ve seen nothing yet. The last few releases have just been the tip of the iceberg. There’s a lot more coming to EOS in the following months. Obviously we’ve got the 5DX coming soon, but there’s still more in the pipeline. Our ancient flash system is screaming for a replacement. We’ve got some absolutely killer new lenses coming up. Moses recently wrote about the 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye lens, which those morons at PDN thought wasn’t that great. But we’ve got the 200-400 f/4L 1.4x coming up as well, which is at least as fucking awesome and innovative as the 8-15mm fisheye. If that lens doesn’t win the PDN Gear of the Year award there’s no hope left anymore for anyone at PDN.

So what do you guys think? Personally, I think it’s time for a good cup of cappuccino.

Photographers Gone Wild

I decided to take a short break from playing with my 5DX to write about some crazy photographers that caught my attention last week. Man, we’ve got some seriously crazy people running around in this industry. Take Scott Kelby for example. He went absolutely wild when Nikon let him shoot the D4 for a few hours. I thought Chase Jarvis was hyper, but clearly I had seen nothing yet. Kelby was all over the place. Take a look at the video below:

Kelby went absolutely nuts for some of the features of the D4. I gotta say, I’m happy for the guy, but couldn’t someone tell Kelby that Canon had the wireless tethering functionality with built-in webserver ever since, what, the 1950s or something? All this time Kelby was missing out on some really cool shit. We’ve had that functionality on the 1D Mark III and every 1D after that. All you Nikon morons had to wait at least 5 years for technology we were taking for granted here at Canon. And yes, for a couple of those 5 years Canon photographers mainly used the built-in webserver to transfer out of focus images, I’ll grant you that, but think of the convenience of shooting completely wireless. When you see what Kelby had to use before the D4, you’ll immediately understand why he went nuts:

The Nikon WT-4 "Wireless" transmitter. Oh, it's wireless alright.

That’s what Kelby had to use before the D4. I had the biggest belly-laugh in quite a while when I saw this image. My entire desk with everything on it shook as if we were having a major earthquake here in New York. I wonder how Nikon got away with calling this a “Wireless” Transmitter.

The Nikon WT-4 "Wireless" Transmitter in action.

Does that look wireless to you? Somehow I thought wireless would look more like the picture below:

At Canon we've had wireless control of the camera from an iPhone ever since the 1D(s) Mark III

No wonder Kelby got so excited. Poor guy. I can’t imagine what it must have been like using the Nikon “Wireless” WT-4. Oh God, what a joke. This just keeps cracking me up.

At the end of the video, a Nikon NPS moron explained the intelligent shutter speed functionality in the D4 when auto ISO is active. Canon photographers have enjoyed that functionality ever since the early 1900s if not earlier. I’m kidding of course, but seriously, we’ve had it starting on the 5D Mark II and just took it for granted ever since. Someone needs to tell Kelby to switch to Canon so he doesn’t have to wait so many years for these kinds of features. And how long did he have to wait for full HD video on a pro Nikon DSLR? Am I making my point already or should I go on?

Now I’m sure some of you smart-asses are gonna be quick to point out how Canon photographers are probably going to wait at least until the release of the EOS C for a headphone jack on the camera, and in the worst case scenario until the 1DX Mark II, but I’ve already covered that here. It’s a non-issue, folks, move on.

And then photographer Kirk Tuck, who was very pro SOPA and one of their biggest financial supporters if we can believe the rumors, posted a link on his blog to a pirated PDF download of his latest book on LED lighting. The post has now been removed from his website (his tweet is still up), but I still have it in my feed:

What do you say we go back and revisit that whole SOPA thang?  I got my advance copy on Monday but I can download the whole thing as a PDF right now, for free, from this website.  Tell me again how this is making the web safe for content creators?  I’m puzzled.  I think we need to re-think the whole carefully orchestrated campaign to protect Google and the rest of the aggregators from…….anything.

I’m sure my publisher’s attorney will take time to comply with their “take down” procedures and equally sure that the OP will post it right back again under another name.  How exciting for an author!  Now instead of toasting the completion of another project with a great bottle of champagne we’ll have a quick, domestic beer and get back to work writing up take down notices…

Thanks to all the people who don’t download stolen stuff.  I really do hope you are the majority….

When I saw this post, I immediately asked myself why he would post about a pirated copy of his book (including the link) and by doing so promote the link to everyone so they could go and download it. It seemed very suspicious to me since this wouldn’t be in his best interest. I’ve been playing around with some LED lights while testing my pre-production 5DX and couldn’t wait trying out some of the stuff in his book. So as naive as I was, I quickly clicked on the link to go download the book while thinking what a complete moron Tuck must be to post the link for stealing his book and making it so easy for us to pirate the shit out of it.

Kirk Tuck fucking 0wn3d us all

The above site opens and then I click on the download button and next thing you know the PDF downloads to my computer and opens up and I get over 300 blank pages in Acrobat Reader. Not only that, but the computer hangs for a few seconds too and suddenly a link opens up to the books section of Amazon inside my web browser. It was then that it became clear to me that Tuck set everyone up. After losing the SOPA argument he must have gotten so bitter that he decided to teach us all a lesson by posting a fake pirated version of his book online, infected with some kind of virus, and punish all the anti-SOPA-free-stuff-loving pirates who would download it. Not only did he give us over 300 blank pages, but by automatically opening the books section of Amazon inside a browser his message to us was very clear: Gotcha, now go BUY the fucking book.

Tuck removed the post after other readers, who obviously also tried to download the free book, pointed out that it was a virus:

Okay, one of my readers searched the site, downloaded and examined the PDF and found it to be mostly blank pages, probably a virus.

Kirk Tuck: "Muhahahahaha 000000wn3d!!!!!"

But of course, the damage had already been done. I can only imagine how Tuck must have laughed like maniac in his office enjoying the thought of hundreds of anti-SOPA pirates getting 0wn3d by the virus inside the fake PDF. Who knows what other damage the virus has done on my computer.

This is what this industry does to people. Either positively or negatively, this industry is driving people insane every day.

It’s time for me to go back to testing my 5DX and finish my report for Tokyo. I mentioned last year that EOS was heading for some very exciting times, and trust me, you’ll love this camera. Nikon are going to seriously shit their pants. I can’t tell you a lot about the camera right now, but can you still remember the 5D Mark III petition from last year? It’s never too late to sign it

Also, this may have some clues for ya:

I thought I’d never see the day again where Canon Inc. over delivers on their promises.

Lighting, Flashes, Flash Busses

The Lord of the Speedlights (left) and Zack Arias, separated at birth?

It seems like these days if you’re a photographer and you’re not either blogging about lighting, writing a book about lighting, making lighting DVD’s or giving lighting workshops, then chances are you’re probably not very cool or important. Perhaps just an amateur fooling around with cameras in your spare time, hoping to become like the pros when you grow up one day. Everywhere I look there’s either someone writing a book on lighting, giving workshops or selling books and DVD’s on lighting. At some point even a Flash Bus got into the mix. When I first heard the term “Flash Bus” I thought it had something to do with “Bang Bus.” But then I got on the website and found out that it was actually worse than I thought: it was about lighting workshops being done by The lord of the Speedlights and Joe McNally. Both of them, together.

Joe Mc Nally (left) and a random Sock Puppet, separated at birth?

Now, you may not immediately understand why I think this isn’t such a good idea if you’ve never heard of them before, but these guys are absolutely nuts. I’m still surprised they somehow got approval for this project. These two guys together, traveling cross country on a bus to 29 cities in 6 weeks? That’s just asking for trouble. Who knows what kind of weird stuff is going to happen with those two together in a bus for 6 weeks. I’m telling you, if you see this bus in town, do NOT go near it. Trust me on this, stay far away. Especially if the bus is shaking and you see bright flashes of (colored) light coming through the windows. Just notify the authorities and let them handle it. You may want to head on over to the Flash Bus website, not necessarily to register for the workshop in your city, but to start checking when you need to get the hell out of your city before these guys arrive and things start to get bad. Don’t risk becoming their hostage for a day and being forced to work as a voice activated lightstand, or heaven  forbid, their model.

BE ON THE LOOKOUT: The bus has just departed from a secret location east of the Mississippi en route to Seattle, Washington.

Seattle appears to be their first destination so you folks from Seattle who’re reading this, time is of the essence. They’re probably already nearby so it’s best to stay in your homes, barricade the doors and make sure you have enough food for the next 5 days.

Close-up shot of the Flash Bus

The picture of the Flash Bus above appears to be the first picture of the bus taken in the wild. It was emailed to me by a photographer who put a lot at risk to get this amazing shot. For obvious reasons the photographer requested to remain anonymous. If you look at the picture you can see The Lord of the Speedlights and McNally in the bus  and their driver who goes by the name “Cool Breeze.” The name made sense to me when I saw the picture. According to the photographer he managed to snap this picture just seconds before they saw him and drove right into him. He dove off to the side and just barely managed to get away.

The Lord of the Speedlights and Joe McNally both also have new DVD’s out on lighting: Lighting in Layers and The Language of Light. They have what I think is a more stylized approach to off-camera lighting. In most cases you’ll look at one of their pictures and you’ll know it was made using one or more of their own lights. And in the case of Joe McNally, probably a crapload of lights (McNally’s rumored to own enough Nikon SB-900′s to light the Empire State Building). But it’s also possible to use flashes and make your pictures look like they were shot using available light.

Neil van Niekerk in deep concentration, thinking of even more ways to get beautiful women in front of his camera.

And that’s where Neil van Niekerk comes in. I know you may have heard that you shouldn’t use your flash on-camera very often because it makes your pictures look like crap, but Neil van Niekerk has some  excellent techniques that’ll blow you away when you see the kind of results you can get: pictures taken with on-camera flash that look so natural people will think they were taken in available light. That, and he’s somehow able to get a lot of beautiful women to pose for him. Most of the information is available on his blog (about the lighting techniques, not the women), and in his book on on-camera flash: On-Camera Flash Techniques for Digital Wedding and Portrait Photography. And just a few days ago, almost synchronous with the Flash Bus, Neil’s second book became available which is about off-camera flash: Off-Camera Flash Techniques for Digital Photographers. I bought both books hoping to find information about how I could get beautiful women to pose for me, just like van Niekerk. But sadly I have to report that this information is not included. Perhaps he’ll focus on that in his third book. Meanwhile I’ll have to keep stalking young women on Facebook.

But what is most important to me as the technical advisor here at Canon USA when I look at all of this, is that all of these photographers are using Nikon gear primarily. Sure, you’ll find them occasionally briefly mentioning Canon speedlites and cameras here and there, but when they do I can’t help but feel as if they’re doing it just because they feel sorry for Canon users and don’t want them to feel left out. If you just look at what they themselves shoot with primarily, it’s all Nikon gear. And there’s a reason for that. We fucking suck when it comes to lighting and Nikon is way ahead of us. I don’t know what is taking those fucking morons in Tokyo so long but they had better come out with something new pronto. We need a new professional flash to replace the 580 EX II and we fucking need it fast. And it had better fucking come with RF based wireless flash functionality or as the Lord Jesus Christ is my witness, I’m going to go fucking berserk on their ass. Not too long ago I wrote about our ancient ST-E2 wireless flash trigger and  mentioned how even the Chinese were way ahead of Canon Inc. with innovations in that area.

Canon ST-E2 Ass-Rape VS Cactus V4

Back then I compared the ST-E2 with the Cactus V4. Well guess what, the Cactus V5 is already out. In the time it took the Chinese to develop the Cactus V2, V4 and V5, Canon Inc. has been unable to release an update to the fucking ST-E2 that can stand next to the rest of today’s technology without being laughed at. The ST-E2 uses a 2CR5 battery for Christ’s sake, talk about old! And they still want $230 for it, when you can get a Cactus V5 set with 2 transceivers for a mere $60. And the Cactus V5 will offer you many interesting possibilities, like a 100m working range (compared to the sorry-ass 10m of the ST-E2 with line of sight) and 100% reliability.

I don’t know what the fuck is taking those bastards in Japan so long, but if they finally release an update it had better fucking blow everything away. I’m talking RF based wireless flash triggers, a new pro speedlite with built-in RF wireless flash capabilities, full TTL and High Speed Sync support, Master/Slave functionality, 100m working range, and best of all, remote control of the speedlites from the back of the camera. I want all my fucking speedlites to show up on my camera LCD just like wireless access points show up on my computer, and I want to fucking add them to my own private network of flashes under my control, each with their own custom ID (so I know which is which). And then I want to be able to fucking select each one of them and be able to change their goddamn settings right on my fucking camera even if I’m 100 meters away! THAT is what I would consider true innovation. Not the fucking horseshit we’ve been seeing in the last few years.

God damn! I started writing this post laughing my ass off and now I’m pissed again. This always happens. As soon as I get reminded of those fucking morons in Tokyo my blood just starts to boil automatically. I’m going to get me a cup of coffee now before I end up in intensive care again.

We almost switched to Nikon ourselves

Vincent Laforet, Peace be with Him, and me.

Man you won’t believe how relieved all of us at Canon USA were when Vincent Laforet, God bless his soul, said on Twitter that he wasn’t planning to switch to Nikon at all:

@fcwestfall Oh FakeChuck… always causing trouble… made me laugh though. No – no Nikon / Sony et al in my future…happy Canon guy still

A strange coincidence is also that today marks the one year anniversary of the Canon USA announcement to switch to Nikon. In the end we couldn’t actually switch to Nikon though, because upper management lacked the balls to go ahead and implement the plans. All it took for them to cancel everything was one phone call from Canon Inc. in Tokyo.

An emotional looking Canon U.S.A. President and CEO Joe Adachi holds a Nikon D3s while taking questions during the press conference.

I don’t know what they told Adachi, but he became very pale and started sweating like crazy while he was on the phone with them. So it would have been a very strange coincidence if Laforet were to announce or confirm his switch to Nikon today. But anyway, we still have him and that’s what matters now.

Also noteworthy is a comment made by DarthDouche, which I think deserves to be posted here in full with commentary:

First I’ll be serious, then follow with profanity in order to be cool like the rest of you old fat cocksuckers. (FCW: Yes, that’s how we operate around here.)

I love Canon products…I’ve never owned Nikon (yet…haha…just joking…maybe in the future?? Nah, it’d be like cutting my dick off and making your Ashton’s wife choke it down!). However last year I purchased a small Sigma camera. Berate me if you must (like I give a fuck what you bunch of tampon sucking wimps think…). Quirks aside, its sensor is brilliant…and achieves color, sharpness, and low noise (within its limited resolution)….FAR THE FUCK BEYOND ANY BAYER FILTER’D SENSOR EVER WILL!! It’s a shame that they let a room full of monkeys design the rest of the camera’s innards. (FCW: Sounds like the situation at Canon Inc.’s DSLR product design department.)

Now on to my criticism of this blog posting. I am pleased to see this “future” Canon 200-400 lens. However, to fall all over yourself slamming Nikon for “copying” Canon…in a “blog” about how a 200-400 f/4 lens is “new”, no less??? I mean get the fuck over your dumbass self man!! Integrated extender or not…so what? (FCW: Well…um…)

THE ONE AND FUCKING ONLY THING NIKON HAS DONE BETTER THAN CANON FOR HOW MANY YEARS NOW??? (i.e. the 200-400 zoom?) And you can’t even say something like…”FINALLY CANON DECIDED TO CATCH UP TO NIKON’S BRILLIANT IDEA OF HAVING A 200-400 F/4 ZOOM…”??? (FCW: Well…err…)

Canon may know how to make (perhaps) better lenses than everyone else (overall anyway), and charge a fair price for them (as opposed to Nikon charging 20% more for the same or less quality…then painting them with black leaded paint so they look even more like turds)… (FCW: Well yeah, the older ones look kindof weird, but the new AF-S lenses look kinda cool with the golden stripe and all, ofcourse blatantly ripped off again from Canon (red stripe on L lenses))

…but Canon are damn sure too slow and unimaginative with “innovative” ideas! (FCW: That’s what I’ve been saying here man, haven’t you been paying attention? For the last 4 years this has indeed been the case.)

I mean, really Canon? Really??? You couldn’t even make it a 250-450 f/4, or a 180-380 f/3.5?? Somehow 200-400 was the right way to go, even though it’s the exact same as Nikon’s?????? What a load of horseshit! You can bet Nikon “fanbois” aren’t impressed… (FCW: You do have a point with the 200-400 focal length, personally I think a more clever option would have been to just make a 280-560mm f/5.6 lens and then add a 0.714x extender to it that gives you a 200-400mm f/4 lens when activated. That way people would just think it’s a 280-560mm lens and we’d still have a 200-400mm lens in disguise. It’s like good old Einstein said: The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.)

As a side note…I’ve read a review or two regarding the AF on the 1DMk4. If its AF sensors are so huge and “innovative”, why the fuck can’t they work well in low light?? You know, at least try to beat Nikon where they are good (at a supposed -2EV)?? Why not go for -2.5 EV, rather than make something that gets one-upped by the measly “old man’s camera” in low light, the 5DMk2? (FCW: You’re preaching to the choir my friend. Also I like how you call the 5D Mark II an “old man’s camera.” I really think there’s no better way to describe that camera. It’s just like how someone else recently said that it has an auto-fuck-us system. I think that very accurately describes the focus technology in the camera.)

I think the same supervising “engineers” in charge of ideas for AF sensors for the 1Dmk4, are in charge of deciding whatever cheap ass, plastic piece of Rebel xx camel dung to make. The same ones that decided $1100 wasn’t enough to pay for a real camera with a magnesium chassis, that has AF microadjustment. The same ones that couldn’t figure out they were about to be owned like a bitch in an alley by Nikon and their D7000. (FCW: They were caught with their fucking pants down. I warned them but they wouldn’t listen.)

The same ones that Rebel-ized, and cut the balls off the 60D, simply because they didn’t want to cut into 7D sales. For what? To saturate the market with lame ass entry level SLR’s that get matched or beaten by 4/3 and micro 4/3?? I guess they didn’t have the faith in their own 7D from the get-go, that the press did. (FCW: Amen brother!)

Whine if you must, but I say they need to cut the entry line down to one “Rebel” model, and the 60D. The Rebel could be $350, body only, the 60D could sell for what it’s worth…$500 body only! (FCW: Hallelujah!)

Then undercut the D7000 with the 7D, make it $50 less than the D7000…rather than hundreds more. Then hire some new thinkers to beat Nikon at their own game…before they make anything else new. (FCW: And fire the entire upper management for their incompetence.)

I read it somewhere, maybe here…is Nikon now the new Canon, and vice versa? (FCW: Yes that was here.)

I guess Canon needs to hire some celebrity like Nikon did, to hawk their products in lame ass tv ads. You know, somebody ELSE who likes tripping over wedding cakes…and who married a lady 40 years older than them, who still looks hot, at least in silhouette. (FCW: I actually proposed something like that a long time ago, but those bastards in Tokyo refuse to listen to me. Here’s some of what I had proposed:  ”Even if this wasn’t a problem, there’s still the issue of why people should listen to some Japanese guy named Takahito Mizutani who likely got paid (or possibly threatened) to do the interview. I mean for Christ’s sake, couldn’t they find someone better? At Nikon they have Ashton Kutcher! The guy probably never actually uses a Nikon camera longer than 2 minutes a month, and that’s when he’s able to figure out how to turn it on. But when he tells people he’s using a Nikon DSLR, millions of people who know and like him listen. And that’s marketing. But at Canon Inc.? There they have the great Mr. Mizutani. Couldn’t they pay someone better to talk about the 1D3? How about Arnold Schwarzenegger? Nikon has Ashton Kutcher, why can’t we have Schwarzenegger? Can you imagine Arnold dressed like the T-800 on his Harley looking very serious, pulling out a 1D3 and going “I require excellent AF.” That clip would have moved some serious inventory.”)

They need to add more zeros to their camera names. The Rebel EOS TQis777000000000 IS, with image stabilimotion and global orgasm positioning…the Rebel Dreamliner Signature PQiS, with integrated mobile aps…It takes your pictures for you, while you spend your time doing important stuff like stalking chicks on facebook…with its integrated ap. (FCW: Interesting, we may have to look into that.)

And now for the cussing, because you know, I’m real mature and shit ya’ll. FUCK FUCKA FUCK YOUR MOTHER BLAH BLAH BLAH…in the ass blah blah all night long…say hello to your mom’s new backdoor neighbor! (FCW: Not bad, needs a little work. With some more practice I think you’ll do just fine.)

Boom Shakalaka

Don’t forget to sign the petition to Canon Inc. regarding the new 5D Mark III. In 48 hours only about 120 people have signed it and that’s fucking pathetic. I’m beginning to regret taking the time to have made that petition. I think I could have better used that time to shave my balls or something. At least my wife might have shown some more appreciation than the lot of you.

Well that’s it for today, I need to get back on the phone now with Japan to discuss some of our new wireless flash technology because I think their current implementation is half-assed at best.

Breaking News: Vincent Laforet to switch to Nikon?

Vincent Laforet (left) and Eolake Stobblehouse, separated at birth?

All hell broke loose a few hours ago here at Canon USA HQ when we noticed a blog update by Vincent Laforet, peace and blessings be upon him, where he appears to be selling a crapload of his Canon gear. Experience in the last 3 years has taught us that if a photographer is selling this much Canon gear at once, it is usually followed by the announcement of switching to Nikon. And in the case of someone at Laforet’s level, that is again followed by the announcement of becoming a Nikon ambassador. We’ve got an entire team of our top executives on top of this situation right now, and I can assure you we’re going to do everything we possibly can to keep Laforet with us. Nikon already has most of the big names in this industry, at least the vocal ones with a community, and God knows we can’t afford to lose Laforet to them. Certainly not right now.

I’ve been trying to get through to Laforet but all lines appear to be jammed right now. No doubt by an army of Nikon people (and possibly also Sony) trying to get a hold of him. Laforet did mention a “career change” in his blog post, which could mean a change to quit being a Canon Explorer of Light to become a Nikon ambassador. Let us all pray that all of this is just a false alarm and that there’s nothing serious going on here. Admittedly we all got a little paranoid here at Canon USA after all the recent switches to Nikon, it’s become some kind of trauma. As soon as I see a photographer selling a lot of Canon gear it’s almost like I’m getting a heart attack. So there may not be much going on here, but we’re not taking any chances here at Canon.

Anyway, most of you should already know by now that I have launched a petition and have asked all of you to sign it and show your support to let Canon Inc. know we want a serious full frame update this year. In 24 hours, only about 74 people have signed the petition so far, which quite frankly is fucking pathetic. I have to say, I’m asking myself who I am doing all of this for right now. Because if you fucks can’t show your support by signing a goddamn petition, I might as well just fucking shut down this whole fucking blog. I’ve been busting my ass off here on this blog for 3 fucking years now, do you think I’m doing it for myself? Do you think I’m doing it for fame? Do you think I’m doing it for money? NO GOD DAMMIT, I’m doing it for you! You’re the ones who complain about how Canon sucks and doesn’t listen and all the other usual shit that you complain about. And now that I create an opportunity to show Canon Inc. we’re not going to take this shit anymore, you disappoint me and let me stand alone in the cold! Well thanks a lot!!!! I know how many of you viewed that petition, I know how many of you read the blog every day, and it is a damn shame that such a tiny percentage of you signed the petition so far. So what if you fucking disagree with minor aspects of the specs? The point is we have to send a message to Canon Inc. that any update to the 5D Mark II had better be very significant on all levels. Focusing on specific details of the specs is missing the fucking point. OK?? Please share the link to the petition on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, your blog, online forums, your local photography club, etc. etc. We need to get the message out. I can’t fucking do this alone!!!!!! And will you all grow a fucking backbone and for once stand up for something you believe in, instead of cowering because you’re afraid of losing business/support. Sign the fucking petition with your name if you’re man enough! For once let us stand up to those corporate FUCKS, GOD DAMN IT!!

And then this gem of a publication was brought to my attention today by Paul. It’s from Digital Camera Magazine in the UK:

D7000 VS 60D according to Digital Camera Magazine UK (apparently run from the basement of a mental institution)

I couldn’t make this up. Notice that this is a reaction to a letter from a disappointed reader who writes:

I’m disappointed by Angela Nicholson’s review of the Nikon D7000 in issue 107. How can you take a review seriously if it marks down a top-end prosumer camera, despite achieving outstanding scores in tests, primarily because it doesn’t have an articulating screen?

Their answer? Read it and weep:

While the Nikon camera has a more advanced AF system, the Canon model has a better LCD that has a high pixel count and is articulated. Our resolution chart tests indicate that the EOS 60D also resolves more detail in images, especially JPEG files.

…

Unfortunately, the Nikon D7000′s build quality was shown as 4/5 in the test, but it should have been 3/5, the same as the EOS 60D.

WHO THE FUCK ARE THESE PEOPLE??? Are these the kind of people doing reviews these days? No wonder Canon is still doing so well. What a bunch of fucking morons, my God, my God!!!!!!! How in God’s name can the 60D’s fucking articulating screen be more important than the advanced AF system on the D7000? Isn’t the AF system more important than the articulating screen for taking pictures? What the fuck is going on here? I feel like I’m in a scene from Alice in fucking Wonderland. And the 60D having better image quality compared to the D7000? Well DXO Mark disagrees with that by 14 points:

Recognize, you fucking morons!

And the 60D  having the same build quality as the D7000???????? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh my God, these people are so fucking clueless it worries me. I’m beginning to fear for the future of humanity, I’m telling you guys, if this is the way we’re heading, I’m afraid we’re slowly evolving into Homo Moronicus as a species. How stupid do you have to be to not see the clear difference in build quality between the 60D and the D7000? Oh God, get me out of this nightmare, please make it fucking stop, dear Lord, I’m on my knees, begging!

You know at my age I shouldn’t have to deal with this. Stress, high bloodpressure, irregular heart beat, it’s going to kill me one of these days. I need some rest now, but before I go, let me mention this post by photographer Lloyd Chambers (thanks Dweeb) where he shows us what leaves the Nikon factories these days labeled as brand new and in perfect working condition:

According to Nikon, this lens is brand new and in perfect working condition.

Yep, that’s one of those new Nikon 24G lenses with broken aperture blades. As Dweeb pointed out, this does appear to be a “phenomenon” in need of getting “reduced.” Apparently this left the Nikon factory in this state as brand new and certified by their quality control department as being in perfect working condition. Yep, that’s a $2000 lens, folks. Read the details at Chamber’s blog. Just recently I did a post about Nikon receiving a lot of bad press these days and now this pops up. Is Nikon really, seriously, becoming the new Canon???? I thought this bad quality control shit was unique to Canon. Apparently Nikon DID copy our bad quality control. What the fuck happened at Nikon? If Nikon starts acting like Canon now, what the hell are we going to do??? What will everyone switch to now? God help us all.

Who the fuck needs a Rebel T3i or a Rebel T3?

The entire photo industry collectively yawned yesterday when we announced the new EOS Rebel T3i (EOS 600D) and T3 (EOS 1100D) cameras. Understandable since these cameras offer very little more compared to the older models that they are replacing. Canon Inc. could just as well have skipped these releases and waited till next year when they have some real improvements to add. So the 600D got a swivel screen, big fucking deal. The 60D has a swivel screen, and right now, its price is just about $100 more compared to the 600D. You have to wonder what Canon Inc. was thinking when they decided to go ahead and introduce the 600D at $800. I’m at Canon USA, and trust me, even we don’t fucking have a clue. Those morons in Japan are seriously out of touch with reality and this has been the case for the last 4 years. If you have a 600D costing $800, and a 60D costing close to $900 right now, who the fuck is going to buy the 600D?

I had Tokyo on the line this morning, and on some level I could understand them. The issue they’re dealing with right now is that the Nikon D7000 ruined their plans. The 60D was supposed to sell for $1100, and the 600D would sell for $800 and that would make more sense if you look at the feature and price difference. But in the aftermath of the Nikon D7000 release, the price of the 60D dropped to almost $900. This is understandable since the D7000 offers a ton more compared to the 60D for just $1200. There’s no way Canon Inc. would still be able to sell the 60D for $1100. This completely fucked up our plans. Financially and marketing-wise this is a fucking disaster for us. Sure, Canon Inc. could have changed the plans, but it was already too late. By the time the D7000 got released, the 600D product cycle had progressed too far to make drastic changes so they decided to just go ahead as planned and deal with this shit until the next update. The devastation caused by the D7000 is enormous and it won’t be until the end of 2011 until we will fully see the extent of the damage it has caused.

But I hope those fucking morons in Tokyo have learned their lesson now and have seen that releasing slightly re-heated versions of older products every year is not a strategy that’ll work from now on. If you look around the web, nobody the fuck talks about the 60D, 600D and the 1100D. That’s because they’re fucking boring. There’s nothing new worth talking about. This is the complete opposite of the way Nikon and Sony handle things. When the D7000 got out, everybody raved about it for fucking weeks. I got sick and tired of hearing about how cool the D7000 was. If I had to go through another 2 months of that I swear I’d jump out of my goddamn office window. But that’s because Nikon went out of their way to innovate with the D7000 and surprised everyone with exciting new features, one of which is the great image quality. This is the kind of product that gets people excited and motivates them to buy. You’re not likely to find the D7000 in stock anywhere right now, because everyone wants one. In contrast the 60D is available everywhere and the price only drops because nobody the fuck wants one and the same will be true for the 600D. In fact, we’re going to have to offer rebates on the 60D and 7D in the coming month to sell as much of them as we possibly can during the D7000 stock shortage. A planned $100 rebate for the 60D is going to bring down the price much closer to the $800 introduction price of the 600D making you wonder even more why the 600D exists. This is how bad the situation is for Canon right now.

View a conference call (transcript) I had with Canon Inc. here on YouTube:

There will be no acceptable excuse if the next 5D fails to impress. Canon Inc. has had enough time, and I personally made sure they also received enough feedback  for them not to fuck this one up.

But we also announced some cool new lenses. And when it comes to lenses, everyone has to admit that we fucking rock! A 8-15mm f/4 fisheye zoom lens? Fucking awesome. A 200-400mm f/4 super telephoto zoom with a built-in 1.4x extender? Fucking brilliant! That is the kind of innovative thinking I hope Canon Inc. will carry over to their DSLR body design process because we seriously need it there. The 200-400mm lens is a fucking master piece. After everyone stopped yawning because of the 600D and 1100D, all of their jaws hit a crater in the ground in front of them when we announced the 200-400mm f/4 lens.

The EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM EXTENDER 1.4x zoom. If this image doesn't instantly give you some serious wood, then not even Viagra can help you.

I’d like to see those hacks at Nikon copy this one. I just know they’re going to add 1.4x extenders to all of their lenses now, maybe even where it doesn’t make sense. I’ve already shown in my previous post how they copy all of our cool products. And what’s fucking hilarious about this is that they copy our strategies completely, the good aspects AND bad aspects. HAHAHA fucking brain-dead wankers. They were so obsessed with copying our Holy Trinity group of primes for example, that in the process they even copied our bad quality control and had their lenses back focus just like ours. You just can’t make this shit up. HAHAHA, what a bunch of fucking idiots. Hey Nikon morons, our lenses back focusing or inconsistently autofocusing is NOT what makes them popular, OK? You guys might want to leave that out. Nikon’s behavior reminds me of the time when I was cheating back in high school and was copying someone else’s answers during exams, the good AND bad answers. Needless to say, the teacher not only knew that I cheated, but he also knew exactly who’s work I copied. At that time it kept me busy for weeks, I kept wondering how the fuck that teacher knew. I even beat up the girl who’s work I copied several times because I blamed her for telling on me. But of course now I know better.

Apart from the 200-400mm f/4 lens we also launched the 500mm f/4L IS II and the 600mm f/4L IS II lenses, both of them beauties. I’ve been playing with prototypes of these lenses since August last year and my wife has been complaining ever since about feeling neglected. If there’s one thing the Japanese engineers at Canon Inc. are good at, it’s designing big sensors and big lenses. I’m not going to repeat myself and make the obvious joke here again, but I do have to say that this reminded me of my good friend Tony:

Me: You trying to compensate for something Tony? Tony: Absolutely! (I'm not making this up)

Canon Inc. are so desperate right now to show that they still matter in this industry that they’re now even starting to announce the development of new products instead of just the actual product launches we’re used to. It started last year in August when the competition was launching all kinds of exciting new products, and all we had to show was the 7D with integrated barcode reader (LMFAO). And let’s face it, when all you’ve got to show is a 7D with integrated barcode reader, you had better bust your ass off searching for any other bits of information that you can also release together with that in order for people to take you seriously. So Canon Inc. had to quickly “announce the development” of the 8-15mm f/4 fisheye lens and the 500 and 600mm lenses about a week after they announced the 7D SV and everyone pointed and laughed at them. Doesn’t matter that those products wouldn’t be available for at least 7 months. And the same is true again for the 200-400mm f/4L IS II lens we announced yesterday. The 600D and 1100D just made everyone yawn so Canon Inc. needed something a lot more exciting to show off. And it worked, people initially yawned but then started paying attention again because of the 200-400mm lens, even though all Canon Inc. can tell us is that the lens will be available “sometime in 2011″ and it is essentially vaporware right now. Succesful PR manipulation at its finest. You can be damn sure Nikon is paying attention too, because who knows they might need to copy these PR skills in the future.

Anyway, I’m off to play with my prototype 200-400mm lens now. Let me hear what you think of all of this.