Canon Europe launches biggest ever Pan-EMEA campaign empowering consumers to take their ‘next step’ in imaging

[Andrew Reid]

Also...

 

All big markets begin as a niche. The whole photographic industry began as a niche.

 

Trying to capitalise further on a saturated mass market rather than inventing a new one is the number one failing of the consumer electronics industry today.

 

Apple were designing for a market of 2 when they came up with the iPad - Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive.

[Brellivids]

Besides it's two years. And the price of capture media is no longer as relevant as it is right now. 4tb WD hdd's will be out this year (the non black ones) 1000x cards will drop 50% in price in a year. Unless they really inflate the dollar and then it's not about the cameras anymore it's about beeing able to buy food.  RAW is here to stay. Caling it freakish is emotional response.

[JohnBarlow]

Not one for disagreeing for arguments sake, I can just point you to the facts

 

Check the rightmost download columns of these links put up by the devs themselves

 

5D2

https://bitbucket.org/a_d_/magic-lantern/downloads

 

600D

https://bitbucket.org/OtherOnePercent/tragic-lantern-2.0/downloads

 

I dont have data for the 5D3 but I would suggest it is not 10x, 100x or 1000x more downloads.

 

These figures represent repeated downloading of the latest builds based on users actually installing the soft and shooting with it.

 

Which is a whole world of difference between watching and shooting.

 

I believe video of kittens are big on the tube and vimeo, struth....

 

I am not knocking ML at all but facts are facts, we are minnows.

 

 

Strongly disagree.

 

The Magic Lantern community and this one on EOSHD isn't just an amateur club. It is read by pros and amateurs alike.

 

The interest in the raw recording was huge. I have seen the figures John, to be fair you don't know. To say 100 downloaded ML is a bit insane, I don't know where you got that from.

 

EOSHD figures are:

 

1.1 million loads of the test footage, 125,000 plays in less than a month. That's just one video.

 

In that same time the blog had 812,000 visits, up from an average of 500,000 in the slower months leading up to this news.

 

Small fry? Really?

 

For me Cinema EOS is the small market. Consumer market is massive.

[Julian]

@JohnBarlow: I agree with you in a way that the 'mass consumer market' has no clue about (or interest in) such things. It has no clue about things like video quality either. Until a few years back I also thought every Canon shot beautiful 1080p footage. Just because it was in the specs and I saw nice stuff with shalow dof on Vimeo and YouTube.

I just didn't have much knowledge about it. I thought small sensors like 4/3 were crap compared to fullframe (like they relatively are in photography). And that was me, working in photography business for years. 99% of consumers is totally ignorant about things like moire, they probably don't even know what it is and don't care. 95% of the market doesn't realise Canon has been shipping the same sensor for 5 years. I spoke to a editor in chief of big a photography magazine recently who 'really likes the quality of his 650D'. Surprised me. I wouldn't say it's bad, but if you know how to use the 14 stops of DR in a Nikon D5200 for example, you don't want that Canon sensor anymore...

 

But. On the other hand. The Magic Lantern Forum has 22525 members. And those are the people who actually took the step to register at the forums. It's not just a few hundred people playing around.

 

Ok, those ten thousands of people haven't all tried raw, butit is still in an experimental/alpha phase. Those numbers will change when it gets to the frontpage of ML with a stable release.

 

Yeah, still this share of ML users will be much smaller than the usual consumer crowd (we don't have to forget that we are talking about dslrs, I'm pretty sure 90% of the users never even touch the movie options. Most photographers are very, very conservative.). But in the end, ML is not a niche of a few hundreds of users.

 

Especially now it brings such huge improvements in image quality, I think ML will gather more attention and users. Before the Canon raw hack, I really didn't feel the need to buy a Canon. Even though ML was pretty cool, it didn't help the image quality at all.

 

Once a stable ML raw release will be available on their frontpage, this will leave the experimental phase and the numbers will grow. 

 

In the end, I think ML is giving us a piece of the future here :) Consumers aren't ready for raw video, probably they never will be in the 'raw' form. Pro-sumers will switch to it, like they do in photography where it is really the standard. It might take 5 more years before raw video is a normal thing in a hdslr. Wouldn't surprise me. The big brands have to make money out of their pricey raw video camera's. They have to come up with something new and awesome in the high end markt, to make sure the raw shooting dslr's aren't a threat to their own products.

[Andrew Reid]

Not one for disagreeing for arguments sake, I can just point you to the facts

 

Check the rightmost download columns of these links put up by the devs themselves

 

5D2

https://bitbucket.org/a_d_/magic-lantern/downloads

 

600D

https://bitbucket.org/OtherOnePercent/tragic-lantern-2.0/downloads

 

I dont have data for the 5D3 but I would suggest it is not 10x, 100x or 1000x more downloads.

 

These figures represent repeated downloading of the latest builds based on users actually installing the soft and shooting with it.

 

Which is a whole world of difference between watching and shooting.

 

I believe video of kittens are big on the tube and vimeo, struth....

 

I am not knocking ML at all but facts are facts, we are minnows.

 

Nice point.

 

Except those aren't the best download links, or the only links. First time I have ever seen that list of files thus far!

[Andrew Reid]

@JohnBarlow: I agree with you in a way that the 'mass consumer market' has no clue about (or interest in) such things. It has no clue about things like video quality either.

 

I think they do have an interest in image quality, it is the clue part that is lacking.

 

Moreover, we should be doing this for ourselves anyway. Our creative urges should be to satisfy ourselves first and foremost. Who cares if 4 billion apes don't appreciate quality? Even just 1% of people are capable of creating a huge cultural movement by cottoning on, so focus on that.

 

I think figures and numbers are pretty meaningless, it's a shame marketing departments are so hung up on them rather than supporting the kind of niches and passionate people that mass markets begin with in the first place.

[JohnBarlow]

Minnows, small fry or otherwise I think ML RAW is fantastic, and, there is nothing wrong in being a minnow.

 

Remember, in the beginning there were 4 Beatles, then look what happened..........

[mtheory]

People are already shooting commercial gigs with 5D RAW. If you're too scared to take the plunge with the rest of the gang, at least don't sit there trying to convince yourself everyone else is miserable when you're the one sitting on that lonely plank.

 

I haven't had so much fun with my 5D since the Manual Firmware was released. 14-bit color. For free. Unreal. 

[ScreensPro]

I spoke to a editor in chief of big a photography magazine recently who 'really likes the quality of his 650D'. Surprised me. I wouldn't say it's bad, but if you know how to use the 14 stops of DR in a Nikon D5200 for example, you don't want that Canon sensor anymore...

 

Of course they would... if they prefer Canon's colours, skin tones, lens choices or other aspects that lead people to choose Canon over Nikon.

 

99% of shots simply do not need more than 12 stops of DR.

 

Most Hasselblad cameras used on pro fashion shoots have a DR lower than a Nikon D5200... So why are they not shooting Nikon? Colour, look and, perhaps most importantly, skin tone.

 

DR is not the ultimate yardstick for quality.... It is just one of many, many things that go into making a great looking image (especially if you are shooting people).

[Nikkor]

I get the distinct impression you're upset, not sure why. I suppose calling people who shoot raw video (Peter Jackson, David Fincher, etc.) freaks makes you feel better about the fact you invested in the Nikon D800 partially for outstanding video quality, only to see the 5D Mark III leap up from nowhere and shoot raw.

Well, I don't know if it's because my akward school english but I think you're not getting me. You are quoting part of an answer to someone who was saying that ML RAW was just for a bunch of guys, a niche in the eyes of any CEO. My answer wanted to say that although in the eyes of some executive RAW is just for a few nerds it's in fact something important because it builds a strong opinion on the internet, that's why I told about that funny 600d exaple.

 

The d800 I bought to replace my D3 which is getting old in terms of resolution and especially DR, when I saw that RAW thing I thought it would be nice to make landscape videos (don't have to change the lenses for that and I still have my D3) but then I realized the lacking photo performance of the canon. If I would make money on videos it would be another story, maybe ;).

 

Anyway, just got a 50d, to play around, maybe I change my mind.

[hmcindie]

 but then I realized the lacking photo performance of the canon. 

 

Rubbish. I had the D800 and compared it to the 5dmkIII. In the end I kept the 5d. Better video, better ergonomics. Way easier to shoot both videos and photos at the same time, not really possible at all with D800. Or it was but they way it's set up makes it not-workable in a hectic environment. I shot yesterday for a band and I got great videos and great stills at the same time. The amount of photos/videos ratio just would've went to hell with the D800. A bit of dynamic range bonus for the D800 wouldn't have mattered.

[Nikkor]

Rubbish. I had the D800 and compared it to the 5dmkIII. In the end I kept the 5d. Better video, better ergonomics. Way easier to shoot both videos and photos at the same time, not really possible at all with D800. Or it was but they way it's set up makes it not-workable in a hectic environment. I shot yesterday for a band and I got great videos and great stills at the same time. The amount of photos/videos ratio just would've went to hell with the D800. A bit of dynamic range bonus for the D800 wouldn't have mattered.

I prefer the nikon ergonomics, having to change between joystick and wheel gets on my nerve, but again that's more about taste or what you are used to. 

Shooting video and photo in a concert, that's right, the mkiii is going to do a better job. But I don't shoot concerts neither would I shoot ML raw in a concert ;), I mostly do landscape and you know what matters there.

[ScreensPro]

Nikon's are great.... I still have a D200, D90 and my wife has a D5000.

 

But i will argue all night that their sensors are in some way superior to Canon's.... It is simply a myth. They are decent at DR, Canon's are decent at other things.

 

Then again, maybe this site attracts alot of people who shoot cave interiors that need to show a blue sky outside?

[Julian]

@ScreensPro: I agree there's more than DR. But Nikon also beats Canon on high iso and color depth hands down... and then I'm not even talking about things like autofocus points etc. I don't care about the brand of my camera, not saying you can't make great work with a Canon. I'm just interested in getting the most out of my money. My own experience tells me that for stills, Nikon absolutely has the edge now.

 

I'm not so sure about that whole skin tone thing though. If you shoot raw... does it really matter? Can you really tell the difference between Canon/Nikon if it's processed well? I'd like to see a scientific breakdown of that. Wouldn't it make sense that a sensor that has 24.2 bits color depth (D5200) produces better skintones than a camera that has 21.7 bits? (700D, 650D etc). Yeah, the default output and picture profiles are different, but you can change them as much as you want (and with the Nikon more because the sensor just gives you more information in color, dr, etc).

[Andrew Reid]

Magic Lantern shows 10.9 stops of dynamic range on the raw histogram when shooting raw video.

 

There's more to dynamic range than just a number.

 

I remember one of the flat picture profiles for the Nikon D800's H.264 video mode was measured nearly 12 stops.

 

The problem with that is you're trading colour accuracy and smooth gradation for more dynamic range.

 

8bit does not have the capacity to do 12 stops justice. It also depends how much of the dynamic range is usable. The Blackmagic Cinema Camera quotes 13 stops, but there's quite a lot of noise in the shadows.

 

In the first Zacuto shootout, which I liked because it focused on DSLRs vs film, they had a section where they imagined how wonderful dynamic range would be on DSLRs if they shot raw, and compared a raw still to the video output. That gives you an idea of what a leap raw is on the 5D Mark III regardless of whether the sensor measures, 11 stops, 12 stops of 14 stops.

[ScreensPro]

I'm not so sure about that whole skin tone thing though. If you shoot raw... does it really matter? Can you really tell the difference between Canon/Nikon if it's processed well? I'd like to see a scientific breakdown of that.

 

It is these little things that can't be scientifically quantified that can make all the difference. Skin tones are notoriously difficult to perfect, at the sensor level... and it is something Canon have really nailed. Of course, the difference is very small, but it is there and yes, i can generally notice it. It becomes even more apparent with fashion cameras like the Hassy.

 

Shooting raw is not the absolute fail safe that people seem to think it is.... Look at the RED-One M and to a lesser extent the MX.... The skin tones were somewhat cold.... You can start messing around in post and get the skin colours right, but you are directly affecting the rest of the scene too. Of course, you can get it pretty damn good, if you are a good colourist.... But certain sensors just have it nailed from the off.

 

Much like the DR though, we are talking about minute, hard to stop details.... Nikon sensors are stunning, Canon sensors are stunning. You'd have to be clueless not to get a great shot out of either.