Joe Rivera

Hi Andrew, This is more of a stills question -- but any improvement over the very loud shutter of the first gen A7? The silent shooting and the ISO performance have me leaning towards the A7S for my day-to-day stills shooting, but the low megapixel count is a bummer for crop flexibility. Thanks for your thoughtful reviews, Joe

Canon isn't the only behemoth corporation at risk of falling by the wayside because it uses blundering marketing tactics to try and keep itself relevant in a changing industry. The key to survival is simplification and innovation, not bait-and-switch.   Rather than wasting time lying to consumers by creating false delineations between product lines, Canon should be thinking about the role of the camera in 2013 and how to cut down their product line to a few incredibly compelling offerings, rather than creating a bunch of fake steps between ranges using dubious spec differences.   Why do we need: T3i, T4i, 70D, 7D MKII, 6D, 5D MKIII, 1DX, 1DC Not to mention the 4,000 compact cameras in their lineup?   The technology exists to boil these down to 3, maybe 4 great cameras that offer unexpected quality and specs at each level and that have appeal across several consumer types. Canon just doesn't want to do it because they are desperate to hold on to past market segmentations and too lazy to learn to market a leaner lineup.    Canon's also afraid of cannibalizing their own market, but the truth is there's always been a false differentiation made with price points. The difference now is that there are so many new and interesting options, consumers don't have to play by those rules anymore. Realistically, offering a small selection of highly specced, well-crafted cameras could put Canon on top again and give them the economy of scale to produce great things at even lower price points. Sticking to their current methods will only guarantee that some lean, innovative company or rogue startup with nothing to lose will come along and leave Canon in the dust by beating them to it (see: Blackmagic).   It's too bad, because I've enjoyed Canon products (as a hobbyist stills photographer, I'm not a videographer) and even just a year ago wouldn't have considered switching. But I can't help but get excited over what Fujifilm, Olympus and Panasonic are doing. Within three years (if that) the images from those cameras will be astounding and who will want to carry around a big brick DSLR and 10 pounds of glass anymore? Only those who have done it so long they can't be bothered to change. New generations will look at a 5D MKIII and laugh the way we laugh now about cell phones from the 1960's.   The days of checking off boxes of what you can leave out of your products in order to hit a lucrative price point while fooling customers are over. We're in a golden era of offering MORE and BETTER. The big boys like Canon and Nikon will fall like dominoes. Want an example? — just look at Microsoft, RIM, HP ... the list goes on.