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CANON - The Great Innovator (was: CANON – The Great Pretender)
"nikonpro" wrote in message
... Canons stroke of genius also became its achilles heel. By throwing away the FD mount they alienated many followers, but the AF was fast, smooth and USM with sharp "L" glass mounted on EOS-1's became familiar everywhere. Canon did what they had to do, regarding lens mounts. It was not genius, nor was it an Achilles’ heel. Canon changed from the FD mount to the EOS mount, because the FD mount was not capable of taking them where they wanted to go in terms of lenses, and in terms of ending Nikon’s dominance in the professional segment. Canon succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Canon did not alienate many followers, since there were (and still are) adapters available to use FD lenses on the EOS mount. And Canon didn’t have much of the pro market to alienate--they were mainly in the amateur market with the popular AE series. The Canon FD mount cameras did not become unusable when the EOS mount was introduced. Most people (at least knowledgeable people) understood why Canon did what they did, and accept that manufacturers do sometimes have to make revolutionary, rather than evolutionary, changes to their products. You wouldn't see all the BWLs at sporting events if not for the EOS mount. Nikon also desperately wanted to update from their F mount, but they were absolutely terrified of what their customers would do, fearing that it would give the pros an excuse to defect to Canon’s superior new mount. This was a valid concern, but as it turns out, many pros defected to Canon anyway, since they couldn't get the lenses they wanted on the Nikon mount. Nikon could have gone the same route as Canon, and enabled owners of old mount lenses to use them on bodies with a newer, more capable mount. You can read a good account of the Canon EOS story at: http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography...eos/eoscamera/ Nikon's decline, among both professionals and amateurs, and in both film and digital, is only partially related to their antiquated F mount with the small diameter. Their failure in the professional digital SLR space is due to their lack of a full frame, or even a 1.3 crop factor, high resolution sensor. Interestingly, one of the reasons that Nikon is unenthusiastic about full frame is because their lens mount is not well suited to digital full frame. The Kodak full frame digital, with a Fill Factory 14 megapixel sensor, and a Nikon lens mount, has flopped due to the noisy sensor, but it would have flopped no matter what because full frame won’t work well with the small lens mount and the tendency for CA at the edges of the glass, which is especially pronounced with digital. Nikon has, in effect, ceded the entire professional digital market to Canon. As of today, Nikon has nothing to compete with the Canon EOS-1Ds or the EOS-1D Mark II. Nikon does have a good offering for the amateur, in the D70, though the D70 isn’t as good as the Canon 10D, it’s more comparable the Canon 300D. Nikon has another problem caused by their lagging of Canon in digital. Once a professional buys an expensive Canon professional digital body such as the EOS-1Ds or EOS-1D Mark II, and a few lenses, they may as well pick up a Canon film body to go with it (the cost of the film body is lost in the noise of the cost of a 1Ds or 1D Mark II), and sell their Nikon gear. Amusingly, while Nikon has retained the F mount, and touted that they won’t “abandon” their existing customer base, there are all sorts of compatibility issues that need to be addressed. See: http://www.aiconversions.com/compatibilitytable.htm As more professionals go the digital route, Nikon will lose more and more market share. They need to bite the bullet and update their lens mount. There have been rumors for years (actually for more than a decade) that such a change is imminent. Last year there was a more credible rumor than most, that they’d have a larger lens mount, but only for their next generation of professional digital cameras. But they are losing market share to Canon every day, and once someone starts acquiring EOS mount lenses, they are not going to switch back to Nikon. Of course the other problem Nikon has is that they have no high resolution sensors with small crop factors. Canon completely dominates Nikon in terms of sensors. It is a real shame for Nikon that the Foveon sensor didn’t deliver as promised, since they then would have had a sensor to use. Personally, when I bought my first SLR it was very close between the Canon EOS-5QD and the Nikon 8008S. You can even see my 1994 post on Usenet asking for advice about which to get: "http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&edition=us&selm=1994Jun9.162306.24802%40berlioz. nsc.com" I’m very glad I chose Canon, just because of how far Canon has leapt ahead of Nikon. At the time I mainly chose Canon because Nikon lacked a 28-105 lens! I think that everyone has been surprised at how quickly Canon has gone so far ahead of Nikon, both in film and digital bodies, and lenses. Nikon had an early lead in point and shoot digital cameras, but Canon has since gone from very little market share in digital, to the number 1 spot in digital (in the space of less than five years!). Well technically Sanyo ships more digital cameras than Canon, but as a contract manufacturer. Someday soon we’ll be reading Harvard Business School studies of how Nikon blew their dominance in SLRs and lenses. It’s quite sad to see the decline of Nikon. But blame Nikon for failing to keep up, don’t blame Canon for innovating. |
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