# I hate to say you told me so, but...



## paul13walnut5 (Nov 2, 2013)

Just attended an Olympus event and got to play in depth with the new OM-D with the fast 12, 45 and 75mm lenses in a model shoot.

The live view AF is really something else, even with the long lens and shallow DoF. Really really fast and really really accurate.

Makes me love my M just a little bit less. Still love it lots and lots though.

I need to remember 2 things:

The OM-Ds don't work with EF lenses.
In video use I use MF anyway.

I know canon have tried to design a system that doesn't alienate existing EF users, wheras Olympus have pretty much had a clean sheet, I just hope the M2 tears more than a few pages from the OM-D's book.


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## Don Haines (Nov 2, 2013)

Olympus has had a long history of innovations... I have always thought that the first decent consumer grade MILC would be from them...


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## distant.star (Nov 2, 2013)

.
I don't recall telling you, but this is part of why I'm still waiting to see where Canon goes with their mirrorless products. My hope is there will be something like the EOS-M that performs close to their DSLRs (AF accuracy and speed, metering, etc.) while enabling my proven EF lenses.


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## paul13walnut5 (Nov 2, 2013)

Hi Distant.star,

An OM-D EM-1 with 75mm f2.0 seemed to be faster than my 7D with 100mm f2.0 in phase mode.

Ok, much more recent lens design, smaller, less movement etc. My canon gear just felt old heavy and slow.

I have an SD with some jpegs from the event so I'll maybe share some later.


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## Orangutan (Nov 2, 2013)

That's good news. I know it'll take a couple years for Canon to catch up, but I'm glad we're headed in that direction.

Here's a question for those who know SLR innards: is there any remotely feasible way to have a hybrid EVF/OVF? My imagination is that it would act like a normal SLR with OVF until you turn on Live View; then the the EVF display would move into the optical path of the VF. If this were feasible, and not too expensive, it might be a way to make everyone happy during the (eventual) transition to EVF only.

Just speculating...


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## AvTvM (Nov 2, 2013)

paul13walnut5 said:


> I know canon have tried to design a system that doesn't alienate existing EF users, ...



No, wrong. Canon was neither able nor willing to build a good, fast-responding mirrorless cam. They just try to stuff their dumb old DLSRs down our throats at ever higher prices. 

NOT A SINGLE "EF user" would be offenden with an EOS-M that has the sensor and all other innards of an EOS 70D and the hybrid-AF speed of an Olympus OMD1. Or even a FF-EOS mirrorless, the size of a Sony A7/R with a gret 36 MP sensor at 2.500 USD. Actually, if Canon made and sold those and included an EF-adapter for free with each of these MILCs ... they would have a future in this business. 

They way they go about it up to now ... likely not.


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## paul13walnut5 (Nov 2, 2013)

AvTvM said:


> paul13walnut5 said:
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Thats not a very constructive response. FW2 was loads better.

I think canon may have been better ripping it up and starting from scratch, it does seem a bit mental that the 70D got the tech the M should have had.

I don't know what bit I got wrong though, might you elucidate?


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## Don Haines (Nov 2, 2013)

AvTvM said:


> paul13walnut5 said:
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> > I know canon have tried to design a system that doesn't alienate existing EF users, ...
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If canon does not care about alienating thier EOS users, then why did the EOS-M have a mount adaptor?

Most of us think that there will be a 70D dual-pixel sensor jammed into the EOS-M2.... Yes, we wish that they would roll out new models faster, but at what cost? There is a trade off between update speed and company profitability and none of us have access to the info required to decide what that is. I would rather deal with a slow moving company that stays around than a fast moving company that goes away after a few years.


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## Don Haines (Nov 2, 2013)

paul13walnut5 said:


> I think canon may have been better ripping it up and starting from scratch, it does seem a bit mental that the 70D got the tech the M should have had.


The most likely explanation is that it wasn't ready in time. I wouldn't be surprised that if when the EOS M project started, they were expecting to use dual pixel technology. As anybody in R+D knows, things take longer than expected, and at some point they realized they had to go back to the same old sensor that Canon having using for the last four years.


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## AmbientLight (Nov 2, 2013)

AvTvM said:


> paul13walnut5 said:
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> > I know canon have tried to design a system that doesn't alienate existing EF users, ...
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One of the root causes here is that Canon is making so much money with products other than cameras and lenses that their focus is now mostly elsewhere.

As long as they somehow manage to hang on to their market leader status Canon will not go all-out on being innovative. They will only react once they lose market shares in areas giving them high margins, so Olympus won't force a reaction just by providing better product features. Olympus must outsell Canon enough to make them hurt. Otherwise Canon will just allow less profitable niche markets to go down the drain, while they make more money elsewhere. This is just good business sense, but will not exactly stir the rumor mill.

In my humble opinion the story of the EOS-M just illustrates Canon's cautious approach. They do know their strengths and thus provided the EOS-M with an EF-adapter, but otherwise Canon to me appear to regard the mirrorless market as a relatively bad business for them. Putting the 70D AF into a DSLR first may have happened purely based on product release cycles, but what if this is not the case and putting this kind of AF into a DSLR just for increased live view AF performance generates more profits than putting the same technology into an EOS-M2? We cannot fully ignore such possibilities, although from my own experience with such issues I agree with Don, dependencies on planned release dates and time taken for development projects are quite likely.

Multiple posters have claimed on this forum that Canon may fear mirrorless sales eating into their DSLR sales, but I don't expect there is much behind that with the kind of hype going on inflating the mirrorless market up to fully unrealistic proportions. Canon is sure to have real numbers to base their market research on. I expect this will serve Canon well in the long run.


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## AvTvM (Nov 2, 2013)

paul13walnut5 said:


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## AmbientLight (Nov 2, 2013)

AvTvM said:


> paul13walnut5 said:
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Now I think you are going overboard with your arguments. Canon may not be willing to invest more, but this is no basis for any kind of assumption that they cannot do this.

Remember that you are comparing the R&D efforts of companies struggling for survival and compare this with a corporation at the very top of their business, reaping in substantial profits. R&D budgets will be set according to what kind of money there is to spend.


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## Orangutan (Nov 2, 2013)

AvTvM said:


> paul13walnut5 said:
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Neither you nor anyone outside of Canon is ABLE to say what Canon is able to do, only what they have chosen to do.

We can say that they are ABLE to outsell their competition in DSLR's, and likely ABLE to make more profit than their competition.

Serious question here: why do you think Canon is _not _a for-profit business? 

Your attitude is like a petulant art critic who thinks every artist should starve to put every drop of energy, creativity and money into each piece they produce. DSLRs are not works of art, they're the products of a for-profit business.


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## Pi (Nov 2, 2013)

paul13walnut5 said:


> I know canon have tried to design a system that doesn't alienate existing EF users, wheras Olympus have pretty much had a clean sheet, I just hope the M2 tears more than a few pages from the OM-D's book.



Canon is missing IBIS. Not only in the M series...

On the other hand, I am not a big fan of the 4:3 format. I was, when I owned 1600x1200 screens but not anymore.


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## AmbientLight (Nov 2, 2013)

Pi said:


> paul13walnut5 said:
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> > I know canon have tried to design a system that doesn't alienate existing EF users, wheras Olympus have pretty much had a clean sheet, I just hope the M2 tears more than a few pages from the OM-D's book.
> ...



You are currently running a Macbook Pro with Retina display, don't you?


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## Pi (Nov 2, 2013)

AmbientLight said:


> You are currently running a Macbook Pro with Retina display, don't you?



No, PC's.


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## Don Haines (Nov 2, 2013)

Pi said:


> On the other hand, I am not a big fan of the 4:3 format. I was, when I owned 1600x1200 screens but not anymore.



I preferred the 4x3 format, particularly for printing... but as time marches on, more and more work gets displayed electronically, and the 3x2 format is better, particularly when it gets cropped down to 16x9.


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## Don Haines (Nov 2, 2013)

Pi said:


> Canon is missing IBIS. Not only in the M series...



IBIS would be much appreciated by bird photographers... (picture from Wikipedia)


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## paul13walnut5 (Nov 2, 2013)

AvTvM said:


> paul13walnut5 said:
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> > I know canon have tried to design a system that doesn't alienate existing EF users, ...
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Nope, no clearer.

What bit did I get wrong again? My argument is that the M was hamstrung by backwards compatability. Systems that were not had a clean sheet to design without compromises.

You seem to disagree that canon made the M backwards compatable (they did) as a selling point (no doubt) and that instead they should have started from scratch (you say they would do that if they wanted anyway, but ahem, they didn't appear to want to, so we can only surmise what they wanted)

So I'll ask again, because at the moment you are making as much logical sense as a chocolate teapot... how am I wrong?

Oh and you are back to video. Yawn.


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## AmbientLight (Nov 2, 2013)

paul13walnut5 said:


> AvTvM said:
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Did you actually try a chocolate teapot? I wonder what that might taste like. I am not much of a tea drinker, more somewhat of a Swiss chocolate eater, so please forgive me for asking.


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## paul13walnut5 (Nov 2, 2013)

A chocloate teapot may make some sense in your scenario, although chocolate bars may be cheaper in the long run.


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## Don Haines (Nov 2, 2013)

paul13walnut5 said:


> AvTvM said:
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I'm not sure if backwards compatibility was such a problem with the EOS-M.... They changed the lens mount... but making an adaptor to EOS was a simple task.... and pretty well whatever route they took with lenses an adaptor would have been easy. I think that with sensors it was a choice between going FF or APS-C, and Canon being conservative would have gone with APS-C.

To me, what didn't make sense was how poor the AF is on the EOS-M, other than that, people seem to like it. 

(This is all guesswork, I have no inside knowledge) I really think that the EOS-M was designed for dual-pixel and was given the standard APS-C sensor when development was taking too long. You can bet that the dual-pixel project is at least 5 years old. Probably, in the infancy of the project, Canon realized that this would make a kick-ass compact mirrorless camera that nobody else could touch.... and so began the EOS-M project. When the planned time for release came, dual-pixel was not ready so it went without it, probably in the hope of getting some lenses out there in the buying public to make the eventual release of a dual-pixel EOS-M an easier system to buy into.

I don't understand how people can rant about "lack of innovation" from the company that has just introduced what may well be the best balanced sensor for use in mirrorless cameras... The 70D sensor is merely the first iteration of this technology, more and better will come. How long before you see a dual-pixel sensor where you can set the two halves to different ISO's and take pictures with 16 stops of dynamic range? If we have thought of it you can bet that Canon has thought of it.


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## Don Haines (Nov 2, 2013)

paul13walnut5 said:


> A chocloate teapot may make some sense in your scenario, although chocolate bars may be cheaper in the long run.


There are liquor filled chocolates, so the technology does exist.... Tea filled would be a down-grade


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## sdsr (Nov 2, 2013)

I'm glad you like the new OM-D EM1 - except that its viewfinder isn't as good, and aside from photographing things that move, the EM5's performance is much the same, and very impressive it is, too; using the Canon M after owning the OM-D for several months, despite the potentially excellent image quality, was frustrating. If Canon could somehow acquire/develop similar mirrorless performance for a body (preferably FF - I don't care if it's big, and preferably with IBIS) that could take its pre-existing lenses, I would be all over it. Meanwhile, don't mind owning both systems. On top of everything else, it's remarkable how good the images taken with Olympus 4/3 sensors can be: like Pentax and Nikon, they seem to get better performance out of Sony's sensors than Sony does, which seems a tad counter-intuitive (if they can conjure up such quality from those smallish sensors, imagine what they could do with a FF sensor...).


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## jdramirez (Nov 2, 2013)

when I saw this, I thought it might be thgmuffin finally ageing that f5.6 is useless for shooting night sports... I guess I will just continue to wait for that acknowledgement.


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## paul13walnut5 (Nov 2, 2013)

@sdsr

Viewfinder wasn't great, jaggies etc.

BUT i barely used it. The rear screen was so fast to use I didn't ever once think 'viewfinder'


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## Zv (Nov 3, 2013)

jdramirez said:


> when I saw this, I thought it might be thgmuffin finally ageing that f5.6 is useless for shooting night sports... I guess I will just continue to wait for that acknowledgement.



;D ;D ;D


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## Woody (Nov 3, 2013)

Two things to keep in mind:

a) Canon talked about MILCs as early as 2006, way before the first Olympus MILC appeared in the market. This is what Chuck Westfall told PC Photomagzine in a 2006 interview:

"If you substituted an optical viewfinder with an EVF, the size, weight and cost of the camera would come down quite a bit. You’d be eliminating the need for a prism and a mirror, which currently limits how small of an SLR you can make."

b) But Canon chose not to do anything about it. Why? Because they know current MILC technology is not good enough to replace DSLR. I know that because I used the OMD for a year. The masses have already spoken with their wallets, interest in MILCs is dropping rapidly. Currently, in Europe and USA, for every MILC sold, 9 to 10 more DSLRs are sold.


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## dickgrafixstop (Nov 3, 2013)

I would rather imagine that Canon could do whatever it wants to, assuming some marketing geek can make a 
financial case for it and some insider is willing to champion it. If I were running Canon I'd be much more concerned about the bottom falling out of the point and shoot market as cell phones get better and better 
photo functions. The Rebel SL1 isn't that much bigger than the Olympus or Panasonic top end m43 offerings,
with access to a much fuller line of lenses - some of which anyone who looked to buy the SL1 would probably
already have. I'd be much more concerned about the rumored new full frame, basic photography oriented
Nikon DF as having the potential to impact my high end product lines than any smaller format ILC offering.
It's reasonable to assume that within five years only Canon, Sony, Panasonic and Fuji will be making serious
cameras anyway.


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## paul13walnut5 (Nov 3, 2013)

Most folk at the seminar today brought their own cameras. 
Most of those folk had canons.
Most of those folks had 1100d's.

True story.

I went to listen and play.

Quite a revelation. I think canon have became quite complaicent.

I was straight with the olympus guys, I said I'm thinking bmd or panny gh.
So would they for video. The oly lenses are nice however.

And the om-d was a revelation.


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## eml58 (Nov 3, 2013)

paul13walnut5 said:


> I think canon have became quite complacent.



Unfortunately, totally agree, absolutely.

The chap earlier that rambled about Canon being Non Profit, non etc etc, is deluded, Canon is and has been for many years, a Multi Billion Dollar Company, having owned my own Business I know exactly what drives Companies, Profits, Profits first, profits always, anything else, quality, design etc etc, is secondary, important of course (and ignoring these areas tends to have a negative impact on, Profits), but all are secondary to Profits.

Innovation is what Companies generally need to stay on top of in order to continue generate Profits (Apple being the perfect example I believe), without Profitable Companies and Innovation we would all be still using Box Brownies, and likely quite Happy, Companies don't bother with innovation if it doesn't generate more profits, more market share, the Car Manufacturing Industry is an example where Companies fold because there is little room left within the Market for innovation, everyone is making the same piece of crap for the same Market, less room for the smaller companies.

Canon has I feel let the innovation department slip, 1Dx is a lovely Camera, for me no question, 5DMK III is Ok nothing special, does the job, the M is somewhat ill designed and lacks in most areas, unfortunately I own one so this is disappointing, but I've learnt to live with that (My Apologies up front Paul for throwing dispersions on your Once Loved), Canon missed the Boat on the D800, I feel this Camera took Canon as much by surprise as did the 5DMK II for Nikon.

The Sony a7r took most everyone by surprise, yet to see if it's going to live up to the Hype, but I hope it does at least mostly, if for no other reason than it will push Canon, Nikon etc etc to innovate, otherwise Sony will eat into those Profits that large, and small, companies bow down to, allowing us, the Consumer, access over the years to better and better products, don't much care from which company, but as I've a large investment in Canon, I hope Canon lifts their game going forward, I don't really see that at the moment though.


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