What can Canon be thinking?

[tomsemiterrific]

I own several Canon camcorders and still cameras and really love them. But I can't imagine what directs their marketing thinking. One thing I know: it can't really be money.

For instance, instead of pricing a camera out the roof, selling a few, and then, because they're not moving, dropping the price drastically, why not establish a fair and reasonable price and sell a crap load of them at the outset, and keep selling them according to the old sales adage, "the more you sell, the more you sell."

Next, why not offer paid upgrades---such as offering a 4k upgrade with a, say 100 mbps, for the C100 Mk II? I'm sure thousands of C100 Mk II owners who would never consider the C300 mk II would be glad to pay a fair price for that upgrade. 

With cameras being upgradable by means of firmware this is a way to make lots of money if you are judicious about the features you decide to add. And there are dozens more examples.

Then there's the crazy stuff. The new Canon 1DX mk II---with 4k but no Canon LOG. That's a deal killer for me. Why should I own the C300 mk ii and XC10---and then buy a 4k Canon I can't shoot Log with???

I know this subject has been lamentably considered many times. I'd love to hear your ideas on what Canon could be thinking---marketing seems crazy to me, and I own a business.

[Oliver Daniel]

4 minutes ago, tomsemiterrific said:

I own several Canon camcorders and still cameras and really love them. But I can't imagine what directs their marketing thinking. One thing I know: it can't really be money.

For instance, instead of pricing a camera out the roof, selling a few, and then, because they're not moving, dropping the price drastically, why not establish a fair and reasonable price and sell a crap load of them at the outset, and keep selling them according to the old sales adage, "the more you sell, the more you sell."

Next, why not offer paid upgrades---such as offering a 4k upgrade with a, say 100 mbps, for the C100 Mk II? I'm sure thousands of C100 Mk II owners who would never consider the C300 mk II would be glad to pay a fair price for that upgrade. 

With cameras being upgradable by means of firmware this is a way to make lots of money if you are judicious about the features you decide to add. And there are dozens more examples.

Then there's the crazy stuff. The new Canon 1DX mk II---with 4k but no Canon LOG. That's a deal killer for me. Why should I own the C300 mk ii and XC10---and then buy a 4k Canon I can't shoot Log with???

I know this subject has been lamentably considered many times. I'd love to hear your ideas on what Canon could be thinking---marketing seems crazy to me, and I own a business.

 

Canon don't make hybrids - they make speciality cameras. So if you want all the features, you have to buy 3 different bodies. 

For instance: 

• C300 - documentary/events. 
• 1DX II - sports, wildlife and photo journalism. 
• XC10 - run n gun, low budget news shooter. 
• 80D - Youtubers. 

This sort of model is exactly why they leave C-log out of the 1DXII.... "oh, we have EOS cinema cameras for that." 

Thos who want an all-in-one only have Sony really. 

[MattH]

11 minutes ago, tomsemiterrific said:

I own several Canon camcorders and still cameras and really love them. But I can't imagine what directs their marketing thinking. One thing I know: it can't really be money.

For instance, instead of pricing a camera out the roof, selling a few, and then, because they're not moving, dropping the price drastically, why not establish a fair and reasonable price and sell a crap load of them at the outset, and keep selling them according to the old sales adage, "the more you sell, the more you sell."

Next, why not offer paid upgrades---such as offering a 4k upgrade with a, say 100 mbps, for the C100 Mk II? I'm sure thousands of C100 Mk II owners who would never consider the C300 mk II would be glad to pay a fair price for that upgrade. 

With cameras being upgradable by means of firmware this is a way to make lots of money if you are judicious about the features you decide to add. And there are dozens more examples.

Then there's the crazy stuff. The new Canon 1DX mk II---with 4k but no Canon LOG. That's a deal killer for me. Why should I own the C300 mk ii and XC10---and then buy a 4k Canon I can't shoot Log with???

I know this subject has been lamentably considered many times. I'd love to hear your ideas on what Canon could be thinking---marketing seems crazy to me, and I own a business.

The C line of cameras have log because they are 'cinema' cameras.  The stills cameras dont.  It's just that simple unfortunately.  The people who implement video features will probably have nothing to do with still cameras. If they bring out a 1DC mk ii, that will have log.

[fuzzynormal]

33 minutes ago, Oliver Daniel said:

Thos who want an all-in-one only have Sony really. 

There ya go.

[tomsemiterrific]

 I don't disagree with any of these comments. In fact, what you say is obvious on its face. My point was and still is whatever they are thinking it's not about making money. I think that is a serious mistake. It seems there's a HUGE part of the market they are totally snubbing. 

There are many who would be completely satisfied with the status quo of a model...most even. But for those, for instance, would like some added features for the C100 Mk II, but simply could never dream of owning a C300 mk II--and such people are likely to jump to Sony for want of a few simple features.

I know what they've been thinking. In the light of their sales  trajectory the past years what I wonder is why they keep thinking it.

[Cinegain]

Blame the consumer, though. Instead of going for brand B, everyone still goes to a store and buys a Canon. If they massively wouldn't, that would call for change, but unfortunately they're in a position where they're allowed to slack. Especially when it comes to the entry-level consumer cameras. There's nothing innovative or outspecced with what they do (with exception perhaps the DualPixel AF that might be the best in its class). But you do have to agree, that Canon's aren't fuzzy. It works quite well. It might be underwhelming in terms of features, but they still deliver the basics well. Tie that to the name that still carries some weight, not neccessarily for what they're doing now, but years back and people still get a Canon camera. And if people still buy your cameras, you don't even need to break a sweat. You can just sit back and see the ca$h come rolling in...

[tomsemiterrific]

But that's the problem. The cash isn't rolling in like it did before and more innovative companies are eating Canon's lunch. As I understand it sales are down and Canon are being displaced in many important and lucrative markets that have risen from the development of new technologies. Who thinks of Canon when the topic of mirrorless comes up? Yet this market is growing by leaps and bounds and Canon delivers a mirrorless without any kind of EVF. Do they really think that can compete?

Don't get me wrong. I love Canon products. They do deliver what they say they will. They just don't say comparatively much. They look like the UNinnovators...like 7up is the UNcola. 

I just think the intended limitations on a model for the purpose of "nudging" present Canon owners to purchase yet another camera, shelling out thousands, for a few simple features that could have been added to their present camera for the price of a paid up grade cannot go on forever. It, like socialism, is doomed to backfire.

Personally, I have become allergic to Sony color space and image quality---but there are other companies that are innovative that have lovely color and image---and some of those are beginning to use the tactics of Sony to further erode Canon's market share. 

I guess, stated briefly, how long can you sit around, living on your laurels, and feeling your ass grow?

This is just not good business as far as I can see. It sounds like a company that has lost its way, its lead, and is not clear on what to do. Sad to say the XC10, good as it is, is one of the most innovative things Canon has done...and even then they purposely limit it in the hope of forcing you to buy a second iteration. 

It's useless--they seem totally tone deaf---of maybe I just don't know what the heck I'm talking about. But, then again, a lot of sharp, innovative thinkers with vast experience, I think of Tony Northrop and Andrew, see the trouble---but I don't think even they're being listened to. Personally, I'm rooting for Canon. I'd really like to them use their technologies and artistry to serve us better, give us more of what we ask for, and make more money for themselves...there's a causal connection here that benefits everyone. Presently, it seems to me the present policies and path they've taken doesn't deliver what customers ask for and it doesn't benefit Canon. How can that be good?

 

 

 

 

 

[BrooklynDan]

After spending several months servicing both Canon and Sony cameras at a rental house, Canon's decisions are starting to make sense to me. While they clearly follow a strict marketing playbook and parse out features according to what they perceive as end user needs (like giving LOG to their cinema cameras only), they do spend they time and effort to provide a quality product that lasts. Sony just tends to cram in as much processing power as possible without considering how it might best be used. The FS5 for example cannot output via SDI during 4K recording. The signal just cuts out, so you're pretty screwed if you're using an on-board monitor. The FS7 must be manually switched between SDI and HDMI. It won't do both at the same time. The menus on the Canons are quick and responsive. The ones on the FS7 lag and make you wait for every setting. Takes 25 minutes to upload new firmware. The FS5 is constantly repairing it's image database. And all Sonys are incredibly touchy when it comes to folder structure on the memory cards. God forbid you put in a memory card you used on a different camera, and the Sony won't even be able to access the card in order to format it.

I've also gone on and on about how poorly they're built. The C100 and C300 come with a crisp magnesium chassis that is impervious to dents, dirt and scrapes. So while you might not be getting the 4K resolution and high frame rates that you might feel are necessary, you are getting a solid tool that will last long beyond product cycles. Arri brings the same philosophy which is why Oscar-winning movies keep being shot on Alexas, shot in 2.8K. Solid quality over flashy specs.

[IronFilm]

C300 mk2 also lacks the processing power the FS5 has and suffers from similar weird output restrictions. Had to deal with a C300 mk2's bizarreness on a shoot last week.

[The Chris]

17 hours ago, tomsemiterrific said:

 I don't disagree with any of these comments. In fact, what you say is obvious on its face. My point was and still is whatever they are thinking it's not about making money. I think that is a serious mistake. It seems there's a HUGE part of the market they are totally snubbing. 

There are many who would be completely satisfied with the status quo of a model...most even. But for those, for instance, would like some added features for the C100 Mk II, but simply could never dream of owning a C300 mk II--and such people are likely to jump to Sony for want of a few simple features.

I know what they've been thinking. In the light of their sales  trajectory the past years what I wonder is why they keep thinking it.

Its all about making money, you say its a mistake, but they're the most profitable camera manufacturer over the last decade, and its not close. Prior to the A7's, Sony imaging was losing a lot of money, hundreds of millions dollars a year. If you want to shoot Canon you have choices. The Cinema line, the XC10 and the 5dsr shows they're looking at ways to adapt the mass market tech to fill smaller but profitable niche markets.  They don't care if you can't afford a C300 vs C100, plenty of others are footing the bill. Paid upgrades with newer features make no business sense, it may make sense to camera owners, but it would have to be priced so high - in order to recoup development costs of new tech and a new model and balance profits from moving fewer units of the new model - that it would go largely ignored in favor of just buying a new camera. Would you pay $5000 for a 4k upgrade in a C100 or a Log upgrade in a 1dxII? My guess is no.

[M Carter]

As far as marketing goes - keep in mind one of the issues that likely killed Samsung's NX line - the strap didn't say "Canon" or "Nikon".

[Michael Ma]

Remember when the consumers strong-armed Canon to put 24p on the 5D Mark II via a firmware update?  That's one for the books.  At least we have that.

I guess what I want really is a 1Dc Mark II, in a 5D body with C-Log at 5D prices.  It almost sounds unreasonable but what I'm asking for is mostly a 5D with a color profile.  Considering that Canon is gonna make it probably impossible for the 5D Mark IV to be hacked, it seems like even less capable than the 5D Mark III.  That's the problem.

[tomsemiterrific]

2 hours ago, The Chris said:

Its all about making money, you say its a mistake, but they're the most profitable camera manufacturer over the last decade, and its not close. Prior to the A7's, Sony imaging was losing a lot of money, hundreds of millions dollars a year. If you want to shoot Canon you have choices. The Cinema line, the XC10 and the 5dsr shows they're looking at ways to adapt the mass market tech to fill smaller but profitable niche markets.  They don't care if you can't afford a C300 vs C100, plenty of others are footing the bill. Paid upgrades with newer features make no business sense, it may make sense to camera owners, but it would have to be priced so high - in order to recoup development costs of new tech and a new model and balance profits from moving fewer units of the new model - that it would go largely ignored in favor of just buying a new camera. Would you pay $5000 for a 4k upgrade in a C100 or a Log upgrade in a 1dxII? My guess is no.

Chris, you make many good points, but about the past. I'm not talking about the past. I'm talking about trends we're seeing in recent years and presently...and if they continue the future doesn't look good. And while I appreciate much of what you say I believe your "$5000.00" paid upgrade for C-Log is little more than bluster and hyperbole. It costs Canon nothing to adapt a present technology to increase profits by improving a model thousands and thousands own, and do it by firmware. The C300 shoots 4k at over 400 mbps. The people who need that will settle only for that. Meanwhile the C100 Mk II languishes with a 1080p bitrate of only 35 mbps. Activating the 4k sensor to produce 4k at, say, 100 mbps like the GH4, would not make the C100 mk ii competitive with the C300 mk II in any way. Those markets have little overlap. What such a firmware upgrade would do would be to increase the profit margin on a product already sold by means requiring only a microscopic bit of overhead---it would be almost pure profit. I would sure as Hell pay 500.00 or even 700.00 for 4k at 100 mbps on the C100 mk II. 

This could possibly kill C300 sales--unless the same firmware upgrade was offered for the model. But, again, the C100 mk II has a better sensor and processor than the C300...and a better image once you put a Ninja Star on it and record 422 10 bit off the C100 mk ii sensor.

[jax_rox]

9 hours ago, The Chris said:

they're the most profitable camera manufacturer over the last decade, and its not close. Prior to the A7's, Sony imaging was losing a lot of money, hundreds of millions dollars a year. 

Looking at profit over a decade is dangerous. You could have once said that Kodak was the most profitable camera manufacturer too. 

Things have changed a lot since 2006 - and if you think Sony or Panasonic are simply going to go away, you'd be mistaken. Yes, Sony has had troubles in their camera division. But that doesn't mean they can't, or won't have success now.

9 hours ago, The Chris said:

Paid upgrades with newer features make no business sense, it may make sense to camera owners, but it would have to be priced so high - in order to recoup development costs of new tech and a new model and balance profits from moving fewer units of the new model - that it would go largely ignored in favor of just buying a new camera. Would you pay $5000 for a 4k upgrade in a C100 or a Log upgrade in a 1dxII? My guess is no.

Works for Sony - paid upgrade to unlock raw on the FS700, FS5 and FS7? Paid upgrade to shoot 4k on the F5? Paid upgrade to get Slog444 on the F3? etc. etc. 

I think the big difference is Sony develops these cameras with an upgrade workflow - you still need to get accessories for the FS700, FS5 or FS7 to enable the raw output, but if you want to do it that option is available, it will just cost you a bit extra.

Would you prefer to pay $1,000 to enable 4k on your C100 or would you rather have to pony up thousands and thousands of extra dollars to buy a C300?

The 4k on the FS5 OOB isn't as good as the 4k on the FS7, but if you want to pay $500 you can get raw out of it. The FS5 fills a spot in the market where HD is necessary and 4k is nice to have. If you need 4k all the time, you can go for the FS7. If you buy a C100, you'll never be able to shoot 4k on it. Call it marketing hype if you like, but there's a lot more to gain from enabling even a somewhat crippled 4k mode than there is to have people at the point of purchase thinking about needing to hire something else if they ever want to shoot 4k.

[The Chris]

I'm not saying what I would do or prefer, that's just Canons way of doing business. Sony is no different, plenty of A7s users, myself included, would love a 4k internal upgrade. Instead we have to buy a mkII. The FS700 raw debacle was a joke. Canon offered the dual pixel AF upgrade, but as far as 4k goes we're SOL. That may not always be the case, I'm guessing C300 sales are robust enough to keep paid upgrades at bay for now.

People always drag Kodak out of the grave when talking about camera company financials, Canon's imaging division is smaller than other divisions like office, they have a large medical segment and they have others. Kodak is a poor analogy, they weren't as diverse and even when they were on top in the mid-2000's, they were still losing money. Imaging was a majority of their business and a significant portion was film and P&S cameras - they ignored video and didn't have office products, medical instruments, broadcasting divisions and so on bringing a bulk of their revenues to fall back on. Canon can survive the downturn we're seeing.

Nikon is a different story IMO. 

[tomekk]

Guys, chill out, things aren't easy. What makes no sense to you might make perfect sense to somebody else. To complicate it even more, if they lose, it doesn't mean they were wrong. Only one thing has 100% chances of happening. Our death. Your plan might be 95% perfect but you still can fail. This doesn't make the plan bad. The truth is, there is no point in talking about those things. Spend your time shooting/making money/spending time with your family instead ;).

[IronFilm]

19 hours ago, jax_rox said:

Works for Sony - paid upgrade to unlock raw on the FS700, FS5 and FS7? Paid upgrade to shoot 4k on the F5? Paid upgrade to get Slog444 on the F3? etc. etc. 

 

Paid upgrade for the Sony X70 too to get 4K. Same with the PMW-F5, same principle... at two drastically different ends of the market!

[jax_rox]

22 hours ago, The Chris said:

I'm not saying what I would do or prefer, that's just Canons way of doing business. Sony is no different, plenty of A7s users, myself included, would love a 4k internal upgrade. Instead we have to buy a mkII. The FS700 raw debacle was a joke. Canon offered the dual pixel AF upgrade, but as far as 4k goes we're SOL. That may not always be the case, I'm guessing C300 sales are robust enough to keep paid upgrades at bay for now.

The point is - there's an option available to you right now to get 4k out of your A7s. Not even paid. There's no option to get 4k out of a C100. Paid or otherwise. 

22 hours ago, The Chris said:

People always drag Kodak out of the grave when talking about camera company financials, Canon's imaging division is smaller than other divisions like office, they have a large medical segment and they have others. Kodak is a poor analogy, they weren't as diverse and even when they were on top in the mid-2000's, they were still losing money. Imaging was a majority of their business and a significant portion was film and P&S cameras - they ignored video and didn't have office products, medical instruments, broadcasting divisions and so on bringing a bulk of their revenues to fall back on. Canon can survive the downturn we're seeing.

Being able to survive doesn't mean you're making good business decisions. Sony's imaging division was 'able to survive' because it's Sony and it was propped up by it's many other divisions. That doesn't make it successful. It's bad business. If Kodak were still a profitable company, it wouldn't mean they didn't fail to anticipate video, expecting it to never penetrate the film market.

4 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Paid upgrade for the Sony X70 too to get 4K. Same with the PMW-F5, same principle... at two drastically different ends of the market!

Sony seem to build this into their modelling - it must work quite well for them!

[The Chris]

13 hours ago, jax_rox said:

Sony seem to build this into their modelling - it must work quite well for them!

The flip side of that coin is they're squeezing customers that have already paid a lot of money for a camera that's intentionally crippled, for the express purpose of screwing people over with an "upgrade" that should have been included in the first place, since the hardware already has the capability. Sony shouldn't be applauded in any way for charging extra to unlock features that should have been included with the camera when bought new. Just my opinion. 

[jgharding]

Competition forces change and Canon have none... Before i start ducking the tomatoes I mean COLOUR.

Red and Arri can top Canon but in 8-bit littlecam land Canon rule.

You can spot a modern pro/am Sony shot a mile off most of the time, especially if it has people in it, because the colour is so thin and anaemic.

Sony can release a 4K 120fps full-frame if they like, but as long as it's their "I love blue, except when it clips, ooh let's have some magenta faces" sensor/ADC architecture and processing squeezed into 8-bits I'm not touching it.

Also the Sony menus and build quality are a pain and they depreciate quicker than Pokemon cards.

The RX10 ii lost a third of it's value in a few months, long enough for me to realise it took ages to match to Canon, still didn't look as nice and I couldn't bring myself to put the shots in an edit. I got an XC10 instead.