Canon Inc. rape, feature requests, and why the Canon EOS 6D sucks balls

Man what a weekend. What a weekend! Things are just so hectic around here I barely get any time to update the blog. But I have to do this update today because my previous post about Canon Inc. raping us all didn’t come across very well with some of my contacts at Canon Inc. To be honest, this happens quite often, but this time I feel that their criticisms do have some validity.

Yeah, it’s true that the 5D Mark III could be enabled to do all kinds of advanced stuff, as the guys from Magic Lantern have shown recently with their RAW video update. However, it may not be reasonable to expect Canon Inc. to just implement and enable any and all possibilities on such a camera. It takes quite a lot of work to implement and test functionality on a camera, and adding features — sometimes what may seem as even minor features — could simply mean a lot of additional engineering work, not to mention testing and Q/A work. And at some point you just have to stop adding stuff and release the product. Otherwise you could go on adding and developing to infinity.

So yeah, maybe I was a little too hard on them in the previous post. Especially since Canon Inc. has shown us in recent years that they do listen. But during the discussion I also mentioned, and we talked about, the possibility of releasing an SDK along with some of our products that would enable other people to more easily extend their functionalities, and even introduce new ones, and basically add value to our products without us having to do very much ourselves. Wouldn’t it be nice if the guys at Magic Lantern, for example, could just use such an officially supported SDK to build cool new features everyone, including Canon Inc. could benefit from — instead of having to hack into and reverse engineer the products?

A company famous for using this strategy for many years now is Microsoft. They’ve been handing out development tools and sample code to software developers for free for years. And look how that has worked out for them. All kinds of programs exist within Microsoft for independent software vendors to get free software licenses to get them started building cool new software for the Windows platform. Sometimes you can even get some funding in addition to free licenses. This leads to more interesting software that runs on their platform, which leads to more value, which leads to more users, which leads to market share and sales, which leads to $$$$$.

With an official SDK from Canon Inc., developers could build on top of our existing products and add value to them, adding all kinds of stuff we couldn’t add ourselves, eventually leading to more interesting products and more customers. There are so many cool benefits I just don’t want to name them all here for the competition to steal.

And you’re not going to believe this, but I had this discussion last week, and lo and fucking behold, I almost fell off of my chair this morning when I saw that Samsung is already releasing the code for their cameras to open source developers.

Canon Inc. needs to act fast man. Who the fuck wants to develop for Samsung anyway? Their platform sucks balls. EOS is where the fucking power lies in this industry, as the guys from Magic Lantern have clearly demonstrated. If we had an official SDK out, people would be all over it.

Now, having said all of the above, this still doesn’t change the fact that for many features, Canon Inc. IS GUILTY of dumbing down and crippling products fucking INTENTIONALLY. That needs to be said. It’s just that it’s unreasonable to expect them to add all features that a product could be capable of supporting.

Just look at the goddamn 6D. I still haven’t written a post dedicated to this camera because honest to God, as soon as I think about this camera I get fucking depressed. Was it really neccessary to put a sync speed of 1/180th on it? Honestly? The fucking 5D Mark III is already crippled with 1/200th sync speed. Why in God’s name was it neccessary to go to 1/180th sync on the 6D?

And you know what pains me the most about this? Just a few days before the release of the 6D, I was on Twitter smacktalking The Lord of the Speedlights about how we already had built-in wireless capabilities via RT on our flashes, and how we’re going to show him that the 5D Mark IV would even have a 1/500th sync speed in the future.

Twitter discussion

And then, just a few days later, Canon Inc. totally fucking lets me down with the 6D and announces it with a sync speed even worse than the D600. When in fact I’m sure the sensor in the 6D would be quite able to handle at least a 1/200th sync speed. I’m just glad The Lord of the Speedlights apparently isn’t aware of this, and never replied to my last tweet to publicly laugh at me and rub the 6D fuckup in. That would have been quite embarrassing.

This kind of intentional crippling of products is just not necessary man. Seriously. The same thing can be said about the 9-point piece of fucking shit autofocus system on the 6D. I keep saying this, but who the fuck releases a camera with a fucking 9-point AF system these days? Honestly? Not only that, but with just one goddamn cross-type point in the center? Really man, that was just not necessary. The 6D could have benefitted from at least the AF system from the 7D. Releasing it the way it is right now at that price is simply criminal behavior. Even the image quality was purposely degraded.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, don’t waste your money on a 6D. Get a Nikon D600, or save some more to get the 5D Mark III. Just pretend the 6D doesn’t exist.

Apart from the 1/500th sync on the 5D Mark IV, I’ve also told Canon Inc. that people want exposure metering linked to the selected AF point. Those of you who have been continuing to spam my inbox with this request, please stop. I know about it, I’ve told Japan, and I keep reminding them. Emailing me about it every other day isn’t going to help right now.

And the same also goes for second curtain sync on our new 600EX-RT flash system when using the wireless capabilities. I already told Japan you guys want that feature. Honest to God, I don’t know why it was left out. Please stop asking me. And the same also goes for being able to set the flash zoom setting on the slaves wirelessly from the master or the ST-E3-RT. This one boggles the mind, I agree. Canon Inc. added the capability to set flash power levels from the master and the ST-E3-RT, but somehow forgot to also let you set the zoom setting wirelessly. So if you want to change the zoom setting on your flashes, you still have to fucking walk up to each and every one of them and do it manually, defeating the entire point of having wireless control over them.

I hope to God that they add these features soon via some kind of firmware update because the kind of emails I receive on these issues almost daily would make even Joe McNally blush uncomfortably while reading.

I’ll be back soon with more. In the mean time keep spamming your local Canon reps with these feature requests!

Being raped by Canon Inc.

By now we all know that we’re being fucking raped by Canon Inc. We’ve seen enough in the last few years that’s made us painfully aware of this fact.

Apart from the 100% profit margins on bodies and lenses, we knew products were being intentionally dumbed down and downright crippled so Canon Inc. could get people to buy the expensive as fuck “more advanced” models.

But this recent RAW video update on the 5D Mark III from Magic Lantern puts things entirely into a new perspective.

And Hitler, for one, is not amused.

Planned obsolescence is wasteful and unethical. It contributes to the fucked up nature of the world we live in today. Things need to change man, things need to change.

 

Phase One is going down

I’m spending a late night at the office, going over some white papers regarding the new DIGIC 6 chip – yes, in the fucking weekend (see how hard I work?) – and decided to take a break only to end up totally fucking pissed off. I was trying to relax, just browsing around while taking sips of my cappuccino when I came across the below video interview by Michael Reichmann with Phase One CEO Henrik Hakonsson.

Now, before I get to why I got pissed off, let me first point out that I got really excited to see Reichmann publicly state how difficult it is to work with the Japanese. I mean, you guys have watched me complain on this blog for over 4 years now about dealing with the fucking morons in Japan, but now you can get confirmation from someone else in this industry who has the balls to openly state this on camera. And here’s the quote which begins at roughly the 25:00 mark:

I will tell you that in all the years that I’ve been working with the Japanese camera makers and I go to product launches or I sit in on meetings where they’re looking at future products and I’ll go “oh that doesn’t work right, what about this and this” and the American – and I’m saying this and I’m gonna get into trouble for it, but I’m going to say it anyhow - the American product manager or Canadian says “you know what, you’re right, gee I hadn’t thought of that, hadn’t seen it.” Another journalist will say “yah, I agree with Michael.” …… Nothing happens! It goes back to Japan and the feedback loop doesn’t exist. Or, it’s 2 years later when there’s a new model, even though it might have been fixed in a new firmware update. So that is, I think for me, is it a question that you’re a European company rather than an Asian company? I don’t know. Is it a cultural business ethic approach, is it even a language approach? [...] But it’s so frustrating when a manufacturer brings out a product and doesn’t respond to the feedback.

Michael, on behalf of the entire goddamn executive team here at Canon USA, I salute you! Thank you for this. This is so fucking true man, and it’s frustrating as hell. I’ve gotten into intensive care because of these people more times than I care to remember. Major blood pressure issues and almost lost my health insurance too. I will say that we did make some progress since 2011 which shows in the 1DX, the 5D Mark III and the new flash system. It’s amazing what a carefully crafted petition and a large amount of threats of violence directed at Japanese executives can do. And while Canon Inc. improved and started listening, things got worse at Nikon and they’re feeling the consequences of that right now.

Dealing with Japan remains a tough challenge to be sure. If you guys want an idea of how tough communications can get with the Japanese, just listen to the conference call below.

Now why did I get pissed off? Well it’s because of Mr. Henrik Hakonsson referring to Canon Inc. as a “Toyota factory” in his Ahnold accent. Actually the exact quote at roughly the 37:15 mark is:

That’s the medium format environment, and then there’s a couple of big Toyota factories just behind us, you know, which we also take very seriously.

It’s Henrik Hakonsson, you idiot

You guys know that I often like to make jokes about Canon Inc. Honestly, who doesn’t enjoy a good Canon Inc. bashing? But when it’s done by the competition, forgive me for this, but then it’s not funny. In fact, not only is it not funny, but it fucking pisses me off. Who the fuck does this Hakonsson guy think he is?? I just sent an email to Mitarai with a link to this video and told him he needs to respond to this pronto. The last thing we need right now is a Phase One CEO openly making fun of us in public. It’s a good thing he also admits taking us very seriously though. Cuz lemme tell ya Hakonsson, you guys are fucking going down in 2014! You’ll hear more about this in a few months. That’s all I’m gonna say right now. Enjoy making fun of the Toyota factory now while you still can. Your ass is grass Hakonsson; your ass is fucking grass.

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM Lens Sample Image and Stuff

Anelisa, oh Anelisa…

I wrote a few weeks ago about a new book on lighting titled “Direction & Quality of Light” by Van Niekerk and I told you all to order it if you know what’s good for you. I’d be a total fucking hypocrite if I didn’t go ahead and order one for myself after telling you to do so. So here’s proof that I did get my own copy. Because it’s fucking good. And not only that, but I ordered my SIGNED copy directly from the vampire slayer himself.

Signed baby, signed.

Those of you paying close attention to the pictures will notice how I strategically placed the book between some of our test gear lying here in my office. I figured Van Niekerk would really appreciate his book surrounded by top quality state of the art Canon gear after everything he had to say about our poor quality control (of which incidentally he’s right). And you have to admit, the Canon logo does look cool next to his signature.

The pictures were shot using the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM Lens. A lot of morons write to me every week about this lens not having IS, despite the fact that this lens is so sharp it could crack your monitor viewing images at 100% as we discussed on this blog before. Just take a look at the 100% crop below.

100% crop, click to enlarge

There’s more to image quality than just IS. So you retards complaining to me had better recognize and stop spamming my goddamn inbox and wasting my bandwidth and hard drive space.

And in case you were wondering, as far as I know, Van Niekerk has no clue who ordered this book and who he signed it for. But I’ll tell you this though, all the pictures of gorgeous women I’m seeing in the book are indeed making me do certain things in new ways, if you know what I mean.

In other news, I’ve been playing for a while now with some of our upcoming bodies. Been having mixed feelings about a lot of things going on here right now. For one, I can’t seem to convince Tokyo about the fucking megapixels they keep stuffing on the new sensors. Then there’s the marketing teams who come up with all kinds of retarded feature sets for new bodies. Who the fuck uses a goddamn 9 point AF system these days? Honestly? Nikon just released the D7100 with a frikkin’ 51 point AF system at $1200! Only 15 cross type points and not very sensitive, admittedly, but at least people have more options compared to our ancient 9 point system, which even made it into the $2000 6D and totally fucked it up. Apparently Tokyo is of the opinion that everyone using a 6D composes pictures with the subject right in the fucking center of the frame every time. People write in asking me which camera to choose and I always recommend the D600 instead of our own 6D. Because that’s how I am and that’s how you guys know me; I’m honest. I hate to bullshit people.

But more on that in another post. I need to spend some time now with a preproduction model of the new 7D.

Nikon Taking a Serious Beating – DXOMark SUCKS BALLS

The Nikon 1D Mark III (AKA D800)

I almost chocked on a piece of pizza this morning when I read the following Q&A with Nikon:

Q: What can you tell us about the revision of the financial forecast in the  imaging products business?

A: While we increased production and inventory of digital SLR cameras as one  of measures against the risk of floods in Thailand, rapid deterioration in the  market occurred late November and continuing into December. That resulted in a  reduction of unit prices and additional sales costs in fiercer market  competition. This is the main reason of a significant adjustment for Imaging  Company which had been making stable earnings, and we have taken this fact  seriously.

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

Yeah of course, blame it all on the market instead of putting the blame on yourself. I’ve been pointing out here on my blog ever since the release of the piece of shit D800 that Nikon was in for a major ass whooping. Especially since we had enough time here at Canon Inc. to regroup our efforts in 2012. I said 2012 would be and exciting year for EOS, and you’d think Nikon would take note of that and release something spectacular. Instead they came up with the biggest piece of shit since the 1D Mark III and called it the D800. Not to mention that the 1DX beats the crap out of the D4 too.

Nikon morons are all up in arms everywhere on the interwebs. Just check this out:

Nikon morons are seriously disappointed

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!

This really puts the bullshit on DXOMark into perspective doesn’t it? I’ve been saying here for a couple of blog posts already that they suck balls at DXOLabs, but the Nikon morons just didn’t want to believe me. And how about those fuckwads at EISA with their bullshit awards? This puts that into perspective as well right? RIGHT??? I hope that Nikon finally learns that buying/bribing the entire fucking European camera industry will not guarantee good business results.

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

This goes to show you that if you want true honest to God expert opinion on the Interwebs, I am your guy. Not to brag about myself, but yes, I am the Canon camera guru after all and I fucking earned that title!

So while Nikon’s market is “rapidly deteriorating” (LMFAO!!!! BAAAAAAHAHAHA LOLOLOLOL!!!!!) remember that the 5D Mark III and the 1DX are currently the best fucking DSLRs in the entire history of human civilization. This point continues to be proven again and again. Choose wisely if you know what’s good for you. I said this before, but seriously, how can one expect Sony and Nikon to compete with our entire EOS ecosystem? We’ve got everything in there from DSLRs to Cinema Cameras to a whole fucking arsenal of lenses that work on both systems. It’s fucking beautiful!!! I can certainly agree with Nikon when they talk about “fiercer market competition.” Oh it’s fierce alright.

Problem Nikon?

And now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got another 3 slices of pizza that’re waiting for me.

The 5D Mark III proves itself; The D800 sucks balls

Piece of Shit

I don’t usually do this, but this comment by Phil Banno is so true it fucking made my day:

I have a 5D mark 3 and my business partner has a D800. It started as a personal preference but the L series canon lenses blast the nikons out the water, so much so my business partner is selling his virtually new D800 to buy a 5D mark 3 (& he’s a Nikon fan). A lot of you rant about high ISO usage but in a church where you aren’t allowed to use flash, the 5D on 5000 ISO with a 70-200mm f2.8 ISM L series 2  has no equal in the D800 arsenal. And the confetti shots with 6fps also beat the D800. Real camera, used by a professionally qualified, 24 year experienced photographer (not you geeky Mega Pixel Amateurs). The Canon is like a pure racing car, designed for power to weight performance with outstanding handling, breaking and aerodynamics against the Nikon, an American muscle car that can go fast in a straight line then end up in a hedge at the first bend or blow up after a short distance. Too much power (Mega Pixels) and no where near as good lenses (tyres and breaks). REAL WORLD, 5D MK3 is the professionals choice, D800 the Amateaur look at me with my massive over kill mega pixel never to be used above a 20″x16″ canvas choice! 5D super fit professional athlete, D800 steroid muscle freek with a small penis and long term health problems. Canon purposely created a perfected version of its 5D range. Nikon went down the gimmick route. Bullshit for bull shitters so it’s simple. If you’re a true pro buy the canon. If you’re a wanna be amateur by the Nikon but be aware, us true professionals will laugh at you for choosing poorly. You either have it or you don’t. And I photograph her majesty the queen to name drop but one of my clients so beat that!!!

Yeah, read it and weep Nikon fanboys. And FYI the D800 autofocus fuckup saga is still ongoing. The D800 truly is the Nikon 1D Mark III.

I’ll be back soon with more updates. Yes, yes, I know, I have been really slacking here but man, things are just so hectic here at Canon USA. I’m sure you’ve noticed all the products we’re launching every month. I have loads of technical documents concerning the new products to wade through right now just so I can keep my Canon Guru title in the future. Not to mention play with….errr….i mean, test, the new products.

Many have been sending me emails and leaving comments asking when I’ll update again to talk about the piece of shit EOS 6D and the Nikon D600 and all the other stuff. Some even get hostile on me like the guy below.

Request 4 Update

Rest assured that I’ll be back very soon with some very in-dept analysis of all recent developments.

Mirrorless, 5D Mark III, D800, DxO Mark Sucks Balls

I just got back from a short photowalk around town with my pre-production Canon mirrorless camera and I have to say it’s a nice little camera. I think most people will love it. What kinda sucks about it is the sensor. It’s not bad but it can’t go up against the latest Sony sensors in their mirrorless cameras. Japan really needs to do something about this in the very near future or else Sony is going to kill us with their dynamic range and low noise. All the pattern noise and banding shit has got to become a thing of the past.

The 5D Mark III, which is the world’s best DSLR right now regardless of what those fucking idiots at DxO Labs say, still has that pattern and banding crap, although you have to mess with the exposure in post for it to become an issue. But there’s none of that on the Sony sensors, and so Canon Inc. needs to improve. If Sony can do it, so can we.

Yeah.

This might not be surprising to you, but people are still emailing me and telling me how wrong I am about the piece of shit D800. I have to say, the feeling I have right now has got to be similar to the feeling John Harrington had when he was practically the only one complaining about the massive amounts of noise on the Nikon D200 and D2x. The noise issue on the D200 was legendary. Even Nikon was ignoring him. Yet, after a few years suddenly everyone’s like “oh yeah of course, there was an issue with excessive noise, everyone knows that?!” Mark my words, after some time has passed and the fucking fanboys quiet down, everyone is going to see the D800 for the inferior camera that it is. And then everyone is going to realize how stupid the DxO Mark tests really are. Down sampling to 8MP for comparisons? Why don’t you guys down sample all your images to 100×100 pixels instead? Today most people view only thumbnails anyway. Just fucking down sample everything to 100×100 pixels and do your tests. That way even my crappy Blackberry phone can look like it rivals the 5D Mark III.

Wait jest wan bombaclad minute, mon! Dees nuh look irie ta me!?

The biggest joke is that they claim that the D800 is better than the 5D Mark III in low light. You can’t even begin to imagine how many facepalms the above image is worth. If the D800 is so great, then why is Ken Rockwell shooting with the 5D Mark III instead?

The Canon EOS 5D Mark III is the world’s best digital SLR. It easily lets us create smooth, clean, beautiful and colorful images in any sort of light. It handles much better my cheaper Nikon D800 and D800E; my 5D Mark III handles and sounds smoother, quieter, feels better and makes better-looking images than my Nikon D800E.

The 5D Mark III also has the best LCD ever put in a DSLR, while the LCD on my Nikon D800E is smaller in actual use, and most importantly, the Nikon’s LCD isn’t color-accurate. My 5D Mark III LCD is big, bold, bright, sharp, clear, colorful and accurate, and automatically varies its brightness brilliantly for use in any light. (My D800E also has auto LCD brightness control, but doesn’t work well enough to want to use it.)

—

To shooters upgrading from the Nikon D800 and D800E, the Mark III is greatly improved over the Mark II, while the Nikon D800 and D800E are a step backwards in ergonomics and LCD quality from the D700. Therefore the status quo has reversed; I used to prefer Nikon, while today with the 5D Mark III, I greatly prefer it to my D800E. Pixels impress amateurs, while guys like me who shoot every day for a living are more impressed at how my 5D Mark III lets me get more of the right pixels faster, not just more of the wrong ones.

—

The 5D Mark III is the world’s best DSLR.

It’s a huge improvement over the 5D Mark II due to the improvements from automatic color fringe correction, and the greatly improved power, depth-of-field and playback controls.

If you shoot Canon, you deserve one of these.

I told you so.

All those extra pixels on the D800 are worth jack shit when they also contain more noise. The camera is also slower at just 4fps and the autofocus system just can’t compete with the 5D Mark III. The D800 might perform OK if you have to do an assignment at a retirement home shooting old people moving around in their wheelchairs. And I’ve been told that even then you may need to shoot from a heavy duty industrial grade tripod to get sharp images. But for anything more serious, you’ll want the 5D Mark III. Plus the extra resolution on the D800 is marginal at best. We’ve reached a point where more resolution on the 35mm sensor isn’t giving us any significant return. Best to keep the resolution at a decent level in the 24MP range and instead focus on speed, accuracy and image quality (sharpness, low noise, dynamic range, chromatic aberration correction etc. etc.). Those are the things that really matter. Capturing the right pixels faster, instead of a lot more crap slower.

And with the 5D Mark III, Canon Inc. did well in that area. Yes, yes, it could be better, and we’re going to work on it. What will be much hotter in the near future instead of senseless megapixels, are features based on computational photography. The new HDR feature on the 5D Mark III should be seen in this light. Instead of worthless extra data (megapixels) let’s improve the quality of the data we do have and do some meaningful stuff with it.

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

I was told Japan actually put in the HDR feature to get Joe McNally to switch to Canon faster. Most people aren’t aware of this but we’ve been in talks with McNally for well over 3 years now to make the switch. Negotiations have been tough, to say the least, and one of McNally’s demands was to get him an in-camera HDR feature because it’s an absolutely essential feature to him (each of his shots is combined from at least 7-8 exposures), and Nikon just doesn’t want to deliver. Combined with our new Speedlite system (600EX-RT and ST-E3-RT) based on radio frequency technology, I’m expecting McNally to become a Canon Explorer of Light within a few months. And I hope he takes his friend with him. You may want to check out his latest performance on The Grid with Scott Kelby. Whenever those 2 guys get together they crack me up.

Anyway, I’m late for my meditation session with the swami. I’ll be back soon with more. In the mean time, get a 5D Mark III and do some real photography.

Quick Update

A Nikon D800 explodes in a major US city

I heard about exploding Nikon D800s before but I never knew it was as bad as this report by CNN’s Anderson Cooper shows it to be. Seems like Nikon is doing good business in the middle east these days. Not only that, but according to our Swedisch correspondent Kai Reinertsen, the FAA has put the Nikon D800 on the list of prohibited items to take on board airplanes. Needless to say, shit are happen at Nikon.

I took a break from posting on the blog after the last post in order to calm down, rest and put my mind on other things for a while. Those cocksmokers at DxO Labs really got to me. I know for a fact that if I didn’t take some time out I’d probably not be alive today. I started taking meditation classes shortly after that last post to help me calm down, and I must say it has really helped me. Swami Rajesh Ramchandrati really knows his stuff. I met the swami at a bar in New York shortly after publishing my last post, and he convinced me to start taking meditation classes the next day. He’s quite an interesting fellow too. When he told me about his earlier life in New Delhi in between shots of vodka, it somehow reminded me of the time I served in ‘Nam. I felt like we had a lot in common.

Swami Rajesh Ramchandrati and me a couple of days ago. The swami was actually floating in mid air right next to me, though you can’t clearly see it in this picture.

Turns out I’ve had a lot of repressed anger and fear inside of me for all these years, which when you think about it makes so much fucking sense. Suddenly I could explain so much of my behaviour in the past. When cocksmokers like DxO Labs show up, all of this repressed anger surfaces and I just can’t control it. So I told the swami about DxO Labs and the D800 and everything that was bothering me that night, and crazily enough, as soon as I mentioned DxO Labs the swami’s whole body started shuddering and he briefly went into some kind of trance. When he snapped out of it a few seconds later, he explained to me that he felt some strong negative energy from DxO Labs. So I was all like “No shit!” Then he put his right hand on my head and closed his eyes and everything around me started moving as if I was looking at the world through some kind of jelly. Then I started seeing funky colors and got dizzy. I’m not sure if this was because of the swami or the fact that I had way too much vodka that night, but I decided that I had enough and that it was time to head home. Only problem was I could barely walk by myself. Fortunately the swami was there with his taxicab and offered me a free ride home.

But I can’t tell you enough how relaxing all this meditation really is. My mind feels so light and clear these days and I’ve even been able to deal with those DxO Labs cocksmokers without losing my sanity. And that’s great because it helped me to focus on the coming product launches in the next few weeks.

Anyway, I should be going now if I don’t want to be late for my meditation session with the swami. I’ll be back.

5D Mark III Selling like Hotcakes while Nikon Fanboys Attack

Nikon Fanboys swarmed the blog, again

See the graph above? The last time this happened was when I posted about how fucked the Nikon D800 is. This latest spike in traffic is in response to my post yesterday about DxOMark sucking balls, and more specifically how the 5D Mark III trashes the D800.

It would seem as if the average IQ in the Nikon camp is at an all time low these days. The comments leave a lot to be desired. Then there’s the emails accusing me of all kinds of crap. Do you people honestly think I love bashing the D800? I don’t give a fuck about the D800. This is not about the D800. It’s about letting Canon Inc. know our users are not going to love the megapixel shit that’s currently going on at Nikon. Tokyo had better recognize we’re going to go fucking batshit insane on their ass if they go down the D800 route. It’s more than clear what the drawbacks are of so many megapixels. It’s fucking pointless. If I had anything to say about it, the sensor in the 5D Mark III would have been the same 18MP sensor from the 1DX and we’d have even cleaner image quality on the 5D Mark III.

I just updated the DxOMark blog post with yet another video showing why people love the 5D Mark III and choose that instead of the piece of shit D800:

Listen carefully to this guy’s conclusion and why he went with the 5D Mark III. It’s all about low noise and better image quality. And as I have shown yesterday, the 5D Mark III is way better in this area than the D800. Sure, the D800 has better dynamic range at low ISO, but it’s too bad that the extra megapixels make all the dynamic range worthless in the end. Plus it’s a goddamn tragedy that Nikon can’t seem to nail something as basic as the correct white balance in 2012. This was also quite apparent in the review done by The Camera Store.

So I’m not surprised one bit that the 5D Mark III’s are selling like hotcakes right now. Just check the sequence of tweets below (screenshot taken moments ago), within a matter of minutes all stock at B&H was gone.

5D Mark III selling like hotcakes

Plus, you might also like to read this tweet:

According to a major retailer, the 5D Mark III has outsold the D800 25 to 1. I guess that’s all that matters in the end.

Get that?? 25 to fucking 1. Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. Recogniiiiize!

5D Mark III, D800, D4 – DXOMark Sucks Balls

I just got off of the phone with Mitarai. We had a lengthy discussion about the imaging division at Canon and the way we’re heading right now with EOS. We also discussed some of the more recent issues and the need for better quality control. Things are looking very good for the future right now at Canon especially now that he took over again from Uchida.

It’s been very hectic around here recently and I just couldn’t find enough time to update the blog. There was NAB and the whole launch of the EOS C500 and 1DC cameras and a lot of other stuff going on behind the scenes. Plus the press was all over me for weeks. Everyone wanted a piece of the “legendary” Chuck Westfall. I felt like a Hollywood celebrity. And it’s fun, I have to admit, but it can really wear you down. I’ve felt exhausted for weeks. Fortunately I’ve had some time to rest and as you can see I’m back on the blog to address some really burning issues.

First let me get the NAB interview issues out of the way. Here’s an interview Engadget did with me:

I was fucking pissed off when I saw the interview on their website later that day. Those guys seriously need to get some lessons in how to properly do video interviews. First of all, only my mouth is constantly in the frame. If you’re going to interview someone as important as me, at least make sure my face is fully visible in the goddamn frame. Secondly, the sound is fucking horrible. This is so disappointing for such a big website like Engadget. I’ve seen small bloggers do videos with better sound! Very disappointing production values from Engadget.

Dan Chung from DPreview did a much better job interviewing me here:

Framing was good, audio much better, but I almost punched him in the face when he kept repeating how expensive the 1DC is to him. He said it once, what’s the fucking point of repeating it constantly? What the hell did he expect me to say? If you don’t have the money, simply don’t buy it for fuck’s sake! It’s not like Canon Inc. is begging or forcing you to buy it, okay? Just fucking get a 60D or something. Or a Digital Rebel. Anything! But don’t annoy me by constantly whining about the price of the 1DC while recording it! I’m warning you – and this goes to all of you in the press – if you want to get punched in the face the next time you interview me, just repeat Dan Chung’s performance in this video!

Mitch from Planet5D did a much, much better interview with me. You can really tell I enjoyed talking to Mitch during this interview.

And then there was this interview with Scott Bourne from Photofocus.

Scott made me feel really important and powerful, legendary even, and I especially loved the intro. Thanks Scott, looking forward to seeing you again!

Now, on to a more important issue. Those fucking ganja smoking Europeans at DxO Labs are at it again. While everyone expected the 5D Mark III to score at least as good as, and possibly even better, than the Nikon D800 and Nikon D4, it scored far lower on DXOMark. Just look at this sad picture:

I’ve said it before 3 years ago, and I’m not going to repeat myself:

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!

Honestly, can the 5D Mark III score so much lower than the piece of shit D800? We’ve already established and discussed to death on this blog the fact that the D800 is a piece of shit camera:

• The Nikon D800: Less than meets the eye
• Nikon D800 VS Canon EOS 1DX Image Quality
• The Nikon D800 is fucked

But since a lot of people apparently seem to go through life completely brain-dead, let’s fucking take a look at it again.

First of all, even DXOMark shows that the 5D Mark III has lower noise compared to the D800.

5D Mark III has less noise compared to the D800

From the graph you would think that the difference in noise performance between the 5D Mark III and the D800 isn’t that big. But once you look at some sample images, you see how big the difference is. The noise on the D800 is fucking terrible. Here’s a comparison of RAW images on DPReview:

D800 sucks balls

That’s just nasty. It’s even slightly worse than the 7D. And this is at ISO 3200 but essentially this is a problem at all ISO values. And don’t forget the color dithering and image banding which we had already discussed in a previous post:

BAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

And in JPEG mode the 5D Mark III is sharper than both the D800 and even the D4. Where the fuck is all the supposedly extra resolution on the D800?

Soft and muddy piece of shit image quality of the D800

The comparison above is from DPReview, at ISO 6400. But at all ISO values the 5D Mark III images are sharper in JPEG mode. Apparently both the D800 and D4 have some kind of shitty JPEG processing engine. We had already seen that the 5D Mark III has better image quality than the D4.

Here’s a comparison from Cameralabs that clearly shows the cleaner and sharper images from the 5D Mark III in JPEG mode:

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!

The noise on the D800 is so bad, that even in Live View it becomes an issue when trying to focus in low light situations:

D800 Live View Sucks Balls BAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!!!!!!1

To be fair, the sensor in the D800 is better when it comes to dynamic range at low ISO values:

Meh.

But what’s the use of more dynamic range when there’s also more noise, color dithering and banding and when the JPEG images are fucking soft? The amount of detail you can get out of the shadows is pretty impressive at ISO 100 on the D800, but at higher ISO values the noise is going to become a problem. And as you can see, above ISO 800 the 5D Mark III actually takes over with better dynamic range. Combined with the lower noise, the 5D Mark III is definitely the better camera for low light shooting (think events, weddings, concerts etc. etc.).

And with the superior AF system on the 5D Mark III even in low light, and the higher frame rate, the 5D Mark III is a definite winner. The review below clearly shows the difference between the AF systems of the 5D Mark III and D800.

There’s also the review of the 5D Mark III by Kay from DigitalRev that caught my attention. I think everyone else should take this review as an example. In general I think all camera review videos should contain more young pretty asian girls. Especially if it’s a review of a Canon camera. Please do take notes.

Those of you who know me personally know that I have a thing for asian women. Hell, I’ve been married to one for years now.

Holy hell

There’s just something about asian women that drives me crazy. They look so.. exotic. I’ve never been able to quite put my finger on it. But anyway, you’ll note that the 5D Mark III easily locked focus on the subject in the review. Although I must admit that this was not a particularly challenging situation for the AF system. I know for a fact that I would have easily locked focus on the subject myself, had I been there. Ahem.

Photographer Ryan Brenizer riverdanced his way through a wedding recently with the 5D Mark III and raved about the AF system on the camera being better than even the D3s.

Has Canon finally fixed the autofocus in the 5D line? In a word? Abso-freaking-lutely. The autofocus is accurate, fast, and a pleasure to use — in some ways moreso than the Nikon D3s. I immediately turned off all sensors except the extra-sensitive cross-type sensors — and still had 41 left! Combined with the joystick, I never have to play the focus and recompose game very much unless I want my point of focus to be at the very edge of the frame. And even then I can get it close enough to not compromise the accuracy of my focal plane, which can matter when you’re shooting with a lens like the 50mm f/1.2L

Not surprising given that the AF system on the 5D Mark III is the same one from the 1DX. The only significant issue Brenizer had was with the lower dynamic range in the images from the 5D Mark III, but only when significantly pushing the exposure in post.

Sir Philip Bloom of London did an excellent review of the video capabilities of the 5D Mark III, check it out below.

Bloom recently also compared the video capabilities of the 5D Mark III to the D800 and D4, and the 5D Mark III is the clear winner as far as I’m concerned. The only issue Bloom had with the 5D Mark III is the soft video out of the camera, but which can be sharpened to become quite excellent in post. Compare that to the “too damn soft” video on the D4 which remains crap even in post and the fucking horrible aliasing and moire on the D800 with lots of noise at higher ISO values that you’ll never be able to fix in post even if Jesus himself was assisting you. Here’s what Bloom had to say about the D800:

It does have some downsides to it. I was very very scared when I heard about the really high megapixel count of 36 megapixels. It’s absolutely insane! I don’t need that for stills and I certainly don’t want it for video. And the low light performance does suffer because of that.

Again, up yours DxO Labs!!!!

The winner, also for video: 5D Mark III!

However, the best part of the above comparision by Bloom is really the absolutely lovely Diana:

Yeah that’s right, get her drunk Philip!

When Diana appeared on screen I lost all interest in what Bloom was talking about. I believe he said something about the noise on the cameras but I can’t be sure. The audio just got completely blurred out in my mind. All I cared about was Diana. I immediately fell in love. She is so cute it hurts to watch this whole comparison sequence. I’ll be forever grateful to anyone who can send me her email address and a link to her Facebook profile. Who cares about the noise performance of any goddamn DSLR when Diana is on screen? Honestly? Even with the horrible noise on the D800 Diana still looks absolutely gorgeous! And when you watch this sequence, pay attention to how Bloom gets her to drink bottle after bottle of beer. You’ll even see her on screen going “Drink again now?”, no doubt responding to Bloom’s frequent requests to keep taking another sip. Nice going there Philip, this is a really great way to get a girl drunk. Bastard. You shagged her didn’t you? Don’t fucking lie to me, man! You got her drunk, declared the shoot a wrap and brought her to your hotel room, didn’t you!? You lucky bastard.

Seeing as how the D800 performs worse compared to the 5D Mark III when image quality is concerned, both for stills AND video (noise, softness), you tell me how the fuck those cock sucking morons at DxO Labs ended up with such a high score for the D800 sensor? Someone please tell me, because for the life of me, I’ll never be able to figure it out. Nikon probably paid a load of money to DxO Labs and possibly signed some long term advertising contracts and sponsorship deals to be able to position the D800 and D4 so high above the 5D Mark III. No other explanation makes sense.

When reviewing all the information above about both the 5D Mark III and the D800, it should be quite clear to anyone that the 5D Mark III wins. Overall it is the best camera to have for both stills and video and the image quality is clearly superior in both cases.

DxO Labs can take their fucking worthless sensor database and cram it up their ass!

UPDATE 14 May 2012:

I just saw this comparison video of the 5D Mark III and the D800. Pay attention to the conclusion, especially you Nikon morans! Check it out:

See why that guy chose the 5D Mark III instead? Because of the great fucking image quality! Nikon can’t even handle something as basic as white balance correctly for Christ’s sake. And the aliasing and moire are fucking horrible. Plus the 5D Mark III’s AF is better.