Hacker News Reader

Comment by fetus8 | Hacker News Reader

While smartphones have decimated the smaller portable camera markets, there is still a large market for larger sensor cameras (APS-C, Full Frame, Medium Format, Etc.)

Canon specifically has fallen drastically behind their competition in those spaces, allowing Sony to decimate them when it comes to features/performance and cost. Canon's current line up of cameras are missing features that their competitors have had for years. It's kind of shocking how they seem to consistently miss the mark on so many things. Their build quality and reliability is still top notch though.

I think ultimately the professional market looking for larger sensor cameras has gone to other brands due to this, which is probably hurting them a lot more than expected.

View on HN

Canon's professional line has been lacking for years in the high ISO sensor performance. Their saving grace has been their lenses, which are still magnitudes better than the competition. That said, third party lensmakers like Sigma and Tamron have really been getting better in recent years, and the premium for Canon glass isn't always justifiable.

High ISO performance, and their auto-focusing systems are put to shame by just about every one else on the market.

While their lens quality and EF mount have probably been their saving grace, I personally don't find their lenses to be worth the cost. I left the Canon ecosystem for Fujifilm's X-Series cameras, and cannot believe the IQ their lenses have, across the board, and they're priced very competitively. I'm just a hobbyist at the end of the day, but when I can get an incredible portrait lens on the second hand market for $650, that rivals L-series glass, it's really really hard to justify that Canon premium.

How are they put to shame by everyone else on AF? Could you be more specific?

Can you specify what you mean by high ISO performance? Do you mean read-noise or do you mean DR or something else? Canon is very competitive in read-noise and DR. Yes AFAIK they don't have dual-gain in their professional series, but the difference is not "magnitudes better" FWICT.

Read Noise:

http://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/RN_ADU.htm#Canon%20EOS...

DR:

http://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/PDR.htm#Canon%20EOS%20...

> there is still a large market for larger sensor cameras

It's large, but shrinking according to:

https://petapixel.com/2019/07/08/canon-increased-market-shar...

"[In 2018] total sales volume for digital cameras dropped by a whopping 22%. The story is perhaps rosiest for Canon, whose 40.5% market share represents an increase of 3.9% over 2017. Meanwhile, its closest competitors both saw market share drop, with Nikon logging 19.1% (a decrease of 2.7%) and Sony at 17.7% (a drop of 0.7%)" from your link.

"So far, 2019 is continuing that trend" (downwards).

I wouldn't be surprised to see some consolidation. Nikon, Fuji, and Olympus all seem like they could be purchased by one of their bigger rivals.

Exactly. If you want full frame zoomable quality and don't mind the bulk and weight (I don't even on hikes with >1500m altitude difference), there ain't nothing in phones for next decade that can match it.

Photos on best phone sensors look OKish under ideal conditions, and if you don't need any zoom (subpar additional cameras on recent phones are pretty bad so far). Add any zoom, less than ideal light, faster moving objects and even phone sensors rated in DxO Mark over 100 are simply not good enough (I have one of those). Forget night at all.

Yes its enough to clearly see where you are and what you do, but that's about it and any photo aesthetics are often simply not there. Phones of course have huge advantage of almost always being there, but that's another topic. Some of us want to capture important things in life in ways that will stand the test of time better.

I think more than anything its that Cannon has really missed the boat when it comes to the transition from still images to video. A decade or two ago, the vast majority of consumers only wanted a camera to shot photographs with, but now most consumers are also at least partially interested in shooting video, with many being primarily interested in video. Other companies have adapted to these changing consumer preferences (Panasonic and Sony especially) while Cannon has lagged behind in terms of rolling out more video focused features like 4K, IBIS, 10 bit color etc. in all but their top of the line models.

My guess is that Canon is afraid of cannibalizing sales of their cinema cameras, like the C300.

Panasonic and Sony don't seem as worried about cannibalizing theirs, which might be a better strategy in the long run. Fuji and Nikon don't sell cinema cameras, so they have no incentive not to move fast on adding video features to their (previously) still cameras.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com