Canon should be ashamed of themselves

[sjprg]

Look what you can buy for the price of a 1Ds. This is real electronics built on a scale of only around 10-15 thousand units a year, compared to Canons 100,000 plus per year. Canon has the gall to pass off thier ticky-tac electronics as state of the art. That may be, but only in cameras. Their so far behind the true state its almost laughable if it didn't hurt so bad. They are so myopic they can't look outside of their own little world. Of course they figure most customers don't know, so why do any more than necessary to sucker them in.

http://www.garmin.com/products/gns430/

Paul

[Brian Mackey]

hmmmmmmmmm and the point would be?

[Belmondo]

Obviously the point is:

Next time, buy your camera from Garmin!

Tom

[ilya]

I know there's a forum somewhere for "People who compare Canon's technology to aviation electronics, or something like that and then are disappointed and disgruntled"

[sjprg]

Mainly to point out that photographers are being hyped with BS by the camera industry. The Garmin unit I used as an example not only has the production cost, but also has to go through FCC and FAA TSO certification which cost buque $$$. I'm not as upset about their price structure as about their BS. I would suggest as starters a class action suit to make Canon release the sensor programing and decode infomation to Adobe, C1, etc. If Leaf can do it, so can Canon, Nikon etc.

[Tom W]

Does Garmin have DIGIC? Does it?? DOES IT??

I rest my case! :)

[Tom W]

Supply - Demand - Equalibrium.

[Andy_T]

The digital pictures I've seen so far taken with Garmin equipment did not really convince me, to say the least :)

Regards,
Andy

PS: I'll post a comparison of how many horsepower you can get out of a motorbike the price of the 1Ds ... as soon as I find the time to do so.

[RichardtheSane]

And exactly how much do you think a full frame sensor costs to build, it is a little more complex than a navigation system.
Jeez!

[UK_Terry]

should i buy "L" glass or will my ordinary lens fit this garmin?

when will the new one be in the shops?

how many Pixels has it got?

will i be able to edit it in PS8 or do i have to buy a new editing program?


will it fit in my camera bag?

[sjprg]

Digic??? What a bunch of hype, Where are the specs? How for example does it compare with other processors? What is the processing speed and throughput. You notice that Canon very carefully does not publish these. Every other industry that uses processors will give you all the specs. (My SWAG is that this is probably one of the slowest single purpose processor around just looking at the response time.)

And come on guys quit trying to sarcastastly say that any other product is not a camera, Of course its not.

What I am comparing is the level of technology that you get from the Camera industry to what you get from the electronics industry in general. Don't be so protective of your investment that you can't see the forest for the trees.

[Tom W]

RichardtheSane wrote:
And exactly how much do you think a full frame sensor costs to build, it is a little more complex than a navigation system.
Jeez!

I wasn't going to get too realistic about this, but you're right - the full-frame sensor is quite expensive. But almost as important on the cost side is the complex electro-mechanical functions. Yes, the digital Rebel has complex mechanicals as well, but cannot withstand the beating that the professional 1Ds is built to take. Quality and durability are expensive.

The other point that I was making is that this is a matter of simple economics - prices are based on what people are willing to pay for a product, not what it costs to make. The US government prints millions of pieces of paper every year that bear the numbers "20" on them. They are worth $20.00US and will net you a couple of bags of groceries, yet they cost pennies to create.

[Belmondo]

Perhaps what we should be expecting from Canon is not necessarily a price drop on high-end cameras inthe future, but more features. Maybe GPS capabilities, built-in UHF receiver, microwave oven, wireless fax machine, potato peeler, hair dryer, and electric toothbrush.

A true top-of-the-line camera needs to be more than just a vehicle for taking snapshots.

Tom

[Tom W]

sjprg wrote:
Digic??? What a bunch of hype, Where are the specs? How for example does it compare with other processors? What is the processing speed and throughput. You notice that Canon very carefully does not publish these. Every other industry that uses processors will give you all the specs. (My SWAG is that this is probably one of the slowest single purpose processor around just looking at the response time.)

And come on guys quit trying to sarcastastly say that any other product is not a camera, Of course its not.

What I am comparing is the level of technology that you get from the Camera industry to what you get from the electronics industry in general. Don't be so protective of your investment that you can't see the forest for the trees.

I was being a little humerous on the DIGIC thing - its a specialized product. Processing speed? Who cares!! Would you buy a camera for its electronic prowess, or its ability to take great pictures (with the right operator) under a variety of conditions.

You're comparing apples and oranges here, and that's just plain silly.

You would do better to compare the 1Ds to the 10D or even to a film-based camera like the Elan. At least they share the same purpose in life.

[UK_Terry]

sjprg wrote:

And come on guys quit trying to sarcastastly say that any other product is not a camera, Of course its not.




But i think you will find, this is a camera/photography forum ( clue is in the title)

if your "garmin" was made by canon it may have a small place on this forum...but it is not.

as a previous poster said you are trying to compare 2 different things, completely unrelated.

i have a small dent in my car, over £300.00 to put right...the cost of a decent lens...why?

well the answer is because it does...and canon choose to set the price they do. as do Nikon & Minolta.

[defordphoto]

Wow. What a great example of comparing apples and, ummmm, tunafish. What a waste of bandwidth. http://forums.speedguide.net/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

[sjprg]

Ok guys, put your head back in the sand, with you *** in the air. The camera industry sees you coming. As Barum said, " there is one born every day".

[defordphoto]

sjprg wrote:
Ok guys, put your head back in the sand, with you *** in the air. The camera industry sees you coming. As Barum said, " there is one born every day".

Okay now you can go somewhere else to spew. Thanks for stopping by.

[GenDEM]

sjprg wrote:
Ok guys, put your head back in the sand, with you *** in the air. The camera industry sees you coming. As Barum said, " there is one born every day".
I think you mean "Barnum" and "There's one born every minute." If you seriously believe that a solid state whatever that is somehow compares to a 1D or a 10D, you are laughably ignorant, or an obvious troll.

Please, let's let this thread die and maybe he'll go away.

[PacAce]

Okay, if everybody looks the other way and just ignores him/her/what ever, you think maybe (s)he'll get the hint and GO AWAY?????

[ijohnson]

Has anybody said that this poster is a moron. I am justing making sure that SOMEONE says it.

[robertwgross]

SJPRG, your postings are difficult to parse. Could you translate so that mere photographers can understand?

---Bob Gross---

[agit-prop]

I can buy a handheld GPS for under $200 and a handheld VHF radio for under $300.

Garmin is ripping people off

[ijohnson]

Agit-Prop wrote:
I can buy a handheld GPS for under $200 and a handheld VHF radio for under $300.

Garmin is ripping people off


I love it.

[Belmondo]

sjprg wrote:
Ok guys, put your head back in the sand, with your *** in the air. The camera industry sees you coming.

Probably a better position for them to see us going.


Tom

[sjprg]

One last comment before I give up a seemingly unstartable discussion of technology. As I stated in the begining the price or the product is not the issue, the technology is. I may be a moron to some of you but I have worked in the semiconductor wafer test industry designing wafer test equipment , where one piece of test equipment ran over a 1/2 million dollars. I have worked in the Aerospace Industry, and on the Apollo program, The trident program and several other hi-tech programs so I will stack my design skills up against at least 90% of you.

A while back I showed a method of scanning a sensor at over a hundred fps. I was accused of being on something by anothe engineer. I sent him a 1970 paper that actually showed it could be done at probably over 1000 fps if needed. He aquiesed.

I'm really not trying to be a wise ass, I'm just trying to wake up the photograpic community that the camera industry is in it's infancy as far as technology is concerned. I don't blame the engineers, their hand are tied by bean counters. We are beaning spoon fed dabs of the technology that I'm sure the engineers would like to to really produce.
For those of you who ask what does this have to do with a 10D, etc. Perhaps you should try a little more introspection.

Bob, You sound reasonable, I'm not sure how to state things any different. Bottom line is that photographers need to get on the industries case and demand that they quit hiding behind buzz words (I.E. Digic) etc and release real information.

Force Canon,etc to publish some real numbers and I'll be happy to apologise if I'm wrong

I'll drop the subject now.

[Belmondo]

Paul:
I don’t have any doubts that Canon has the ability to give us much more than they are at present. They could probably sell a 1Ds at a price equal to, or below, the 1D. If the good folks at Canon wanted to commit themselves to making their DSLR line ‘full-frame-sensor’ only, they could. The fact is, there is no incentive in existence for them to do so. In truth, a more capable ‘pro-sumer’ camera would probably cost them a significant percentage of the highly profitable high-end market for the 1Ds and 1D. (I say ‘highly profitable’ because if it wasn’t, Canon wouldn’t bother with it.) We’re already seeing many professionals gravitating to the 10D, and even the Rebel, based on the logic that they are almost ‘disposable’-----acceptable performance at ¼ the price or less.

There is a risk to Canon in giving us too much, too fast. At the present time, they no doubt have a clear picture of where the digital camera technology is going to take them over the next five years or longer. In order to do that, they must either have the technology available now, or at least be reasonably certain that the technology will exist by then.

Their priorities are:
1. Make money now.
2. Make money in the future.

Both priorities are in definite conflict with a policy of giving the consumer everything they can at the lowest possible price.

Thanks for not being too put off by all our tongue-in-cheek responses.

Tom

[Brian Mackey]

belmondo wrote:
Obviously the point is:

Next time, buy your camera from Garmin!

Tom

Ugh -- and it was right in front me of the whole time! Thanks tom :)

[Brian Mackey]

sjprg wrote:
Digic??? What a bunch of hype, Where are the specs? How for example does it compare with other processors? What is the processing speed and throughput. You notice that Canon very carefully does not publish these. Every other industry that uses processors will give you all the specs. (My SWAG is that this is probably one of the slowest single purpose processor around just looking at the response time.)

And come on guys quit trying to sarcastastly say that any other product is not a camera, Of course its not.

What I am comparing is the level of technology that you get from the Camera industry to what you get from the electronics industry in general. Don't be so protective of your investment that you can't see the forest for the trees.

Sarcasim? surely you jest. Why not compare a 8 thousand dollar fur coat, or diamond ring, or 8 thousand dollar vacation? Oh, I know how about chain saws? So we can cut all the silly posts out and see the trees again? why should Canon apologize for making one of the best cameras ont he planet? Maybe you should apologize for being a flamer on the forum -- your comment about "waking up the industry" What? you think we are all sheep, mindless morons thinking Canon is the second comming? Trust me, we are awake ---

[KennyG]

sjprg wrote:
Look what you can buy for the price of a 1Ds.

I can't pass this one up and its boring this afternoon. Paul, you are so far off the mark I'm pleased you are not a target shooter.

The 1D and 1Ds are nothing like your 10D. They are virtually hand-built. Have you ever held one of these beasts? My 1D is much heavier than my 10D with Big Ed and 2 batteries. Additonally, any low volume specialist chip like the full-frame CMOS in the 1Ds costs an arm and a leg to produce.

I do not imagine that Canon could sell the 1Ds much lower than it has recently dropped to unless they are prepared to make a loss clearing inventory. Price depends on volume and trust me, the 300D owners already moan that their camera is heavy, imagine trying to sell the 1D/1Ds in volume to the same people.

Your biggest error is trying to compare it at the electronics level. You can't do that. Shutter life of 150,000 combined with a build like a sherman tank and a very specialist CMOS is not a cheap bit of kit, even at the mechanical level.

Tell me, why do Lexus charge so much for their cars when Hyundai can sell their's for a third of the cost? Or, why does Toyota have the Lexus division in the first place? Ah, do the words, quality, build and reliability come to mind?

[ijohnson]

I really don't understand.

What is a camera supposed to do beyond that of a 1ds?

I guess that I wonder if you would have said this about an EOS 1v. Is that camera in its infancy? If the 1ds does almost everything that the 35mm's do, what else is digital supposed to do that makes it in its infancy?

45 Terapixels?
X-Ray vision?
Automatic detection of weapons of mass destruction?

Maybe the newest digital camera 15 years from now will hover around on its own and take Time Magazine cover shots only!

I have no doubt that the digic processor or the CMOS sensor are NOT the finest in the world in respect to all other products for all other applications. In fact, putting a PowerPC chip in the 10D might give some performance gains, though it might cost another $500. A 1000fps camera would be interesting (apologizing to my hard drive), however I doubt that it could be installed with a 6mp output and within the price range of other than a sizeable countrie's defense department can afford.

Enlighten us please, don't give up because you are frustrated. Tell me how a 22 Billion dollar corporation (Canon) that is highly respected as one of the 3 best photographic companies in the world, can get away with either totally ripping us off, or otherwise, how in a highly competitive world trade environment with capitalist end-users, are able to give us an OBVIOUSLY inferior product at an artificially inflated price.

Otherwise, I just want to take the pictures with my camera that people enjoy looking at.

[CoolToolGuy]

It may be too late, but let me throw some gasoline on the cinders ;-)

Comparing Canon with the Apollo or Trident programs is just not appropriate, although perhaps if you consider who the competition is, maybe so. The 'specs' may be available in the USA, but I doubt very seriously if any crucial specs for the Trident program are available to any other countries that are not close friends of the USA. Canon will not give up any information that allows it to maintain a competitive advantage over Nikon, Sony, Minolta, or HP.

On a less serious note, I believe the aviation GPS units acquire five satellites to determine position, and the 10D has seven focus points available to it - take that, Garmin ;-)

And what, exactly is the crop factor of a Garmin device? ;-)

Have Fun

[Tom W]

sjprg wrote:
One last comment before I give up a seemingly unstartable discussion of technology. As I stated in the begining the price or the product is not the issue, the technology is. I may be a moron to some of you but I have worked in the semiconductor wafer test industry designing wafer test equipment , where one piece of test equipment ran over a 1/2 million dollars. I have worked in the Aerospace Industry, and on the Apollo program, The trident program and several other hi-tech programs so I will stack my design skills up against at least 90% of you.

I was really trying to figure out just where you were going with this - your first post didn't do much other than compare two unlike items, then insult those who owned one of them. All because you think the electronics in a camera isn't as good as that of a certain GPS unit. It probably can't touch my laptop's electronics either, but it doesn't need to.

A while back I showed a method of scanning a sensor at over a hundred fps. I was accused of being on something by anothe engineer. I sent him a 1970 paper that actually showed it could be done at probably over 1000 fps if needed. He aquiesed.

How many pixels? How big of a circuit? How much power consumption? How accurately can it reproduce the image collected by the sensor? I'm not doubting what you say, but you've defined the goal way to narrowly to be used sucessfully in field photography.


I'm really not trying to be a wise ass, I'm just trying to wake up the photograpic community that the camera industry is in it's infancy as far as technology is concerned. I don't blame the engineers, their hand are tied by bean counters. We are beaning spoon fed dabs of the technology that I'm sure the engineers would like to to really produce.

For those of you who ask what does this have to do with a 10D, etc. Perhaps you should try a little more introspection.


There are 3-4 major players in the digital camera market that are all fairly close to the leading edge. If Canon, Nikon, Olympus, or Kodak could easily surpass the others in performance and price, they would do so without question. I don't believe for a minute that manufacturers are sitting on a pile of capability right now. Granted, they may delay a product for a few months for marketing reasons, but the technology is moving fast and the competition is tight. One cannot sit on technology too long right now. I'm not going to say that things cannot nor will not improve - they most definately will.

The way I see it now, you're comparing two dissimilar products on one very narrow piece of their workings - the speed of their electronics. I don't think that electronics is the most limiting factor on the 1Ds now - and if it is, I don't really know what is being lost. Focus speed? Pretty good from what I've read. FPS? What's the point - If I want a movie camera, I'll get one. No, we are nearing the point where the most limiting factors in digital cameras are the electro-mechanicals and the lenses. The focus motors and various other servos that operate the mechanism of the camera will always present a challenge unless new methods can be found to replace them.


Bob, You sound reasonable, I'm not sure how to state things any different. Bottom line is that photographers need to get on the industries case and demand that they quit hiding behind buzz words (I.E. Digic) etc and release real information.


Force Canon,etc to publish some real numbers and I'll be happy to apologise if I'm wrong

I'll drop the subject now.

I'm always in favor of manufacturers giving out performance information, but you have to ask just what information is important. I don't give the south end of an overweight rat what processors and such are inside of my camera. I do care that it can focus fast, be flexible, and reproduce as accurate an image as possible. I also care that the device is rugged enough for normal use (and if I were a pro, that normal use would be a lot rougher than what I put my cameras through), and whether it is built with sufficient care that it will not fail on its own. I believe that the best way to judge a tool designed for photography is to measure its ability to perform photographic tasks.

[robertwgross]

sjprg wrote:
...
Bob, You sound reasonable, I'm not sure how to state things any different. Bottom line is that photographers need to get on the industries case and demand that they quit hiding behind buzz words (I.E. Digic) etc and release real information.

Force Canon,etc to publish some real numbers and I'll be happy to apologise if I'm wrong

I'll drop the subject now.

First of all, it is difficult to read your sentences and understand your true meaning. Hostility gets caught up in the translation.

Second, there is absolutely zero case for demanding that a manufacturer (Canon) divulge proprietary details of its chips. If they did, then competitors would use it to the disadvantage of Canon. Competitive industries don't work that way.

Or, to put it another way... why don't you force Garmin to publish the specifications on its GPS chipsets? In fact, that would probably be a better use of your time instead of complaining to the Canon users here.

---Bob Gross---

[CyberDyneSystems]

You know whats really weird,. either I am having the absolute most powerfull sense of Deja vue in histroy,. or there is another post almost Identical to this deep in the annals of this forum,.. :eyes

[Case]

cooltoolguy wrote:
On a less serious note, I believe the aviation GPS units acquire five satellites to determine position,


I think it's 4 (3 plus 1 for integrity monitoring), but... :)

Since the original author wants to make this arguement about technology, lets have a better look at it...

GPS, like some else said $300 for a handheld and not exactly cutting edge anymore. And what's the point of calling it "IFR GPS", it means nothing, they're all the same accuracy. Sounds like "a bunch of hype" to me.
ILS, VOR and LOC have beena round for what? 20 years? Amazing!
Surely the fact that every major airliner has the big brother of this thing in place....keeping production and development costs down.
Ooh, i forgot, the GARMIN has VHF aswell. Wow: RADIO!

Speeking of development, lets look at what aviation technology is really up to...ADS? not in the GARMIN. Even better: ADS-B, not in the GARMIN. What about CPDLC, not in the GARMIN.

Point: there is nothing new in this device, not the components, not the integration, not the size and not (probably) the price.

Chris (ducking)

Acronyms for those not in aviation:
IFR: Instrument Flight Rules
GPS: Global Positioning System
ILS: Instrument Landing System
VOR: VHF Omni Radials
LOC: Locator
ADS: Automatic Dependence Surveillance
CPDLC: Controller Pilot Datilink Communications (basiclly a text msg system for air traffic control!)

[RbnDave]

As someone who has used both a Garmin GPS for aircraft navigation and a Canon digital camera for photography, I can say a digital camera is far more technologically advanced than a GPS reciever. A GPS with moving map display is nothing more than a glorified radio reciever linked to a Data base. Big deal, aircraft have had RNAV equipment since the 1960's that does basicly the same thing. GPS is just more accurate due to the nature of the microwave frequency range it uses vs. the UHF band used by the older RNAV systems. Don't get too excited about the moving map display either. You could build the database for that moving map of every airport and navigation fix in the entire IFR system and the data base would take up less memory than one photo from my 10d.

[CoolToolGuy]

Chris, I'm no expert, but I was told that the need for 5 satellites was to get accurate altitude, and it can tell you how high you are as you go (wait a minute, something that can tell me how high I am? I sure coulda used that in the '70s! ;-) )

Have Fun

[robertwgross]

rbndave wrote:
As someone who has used both a Garmin GPS for aircraft navigation and a Canon digital camera for photography, I can say a digital camera is far more technologically advanced than a GPS reciever. A GPS with moving map display is nothing more than a glorified radio reciever linked to a Data base. Big deal, aircraft have had RNAV equipment since the 1960's that does basicly the same thing. GPS is just more accurate due to the nature of the microwave frequency range it uses vs. the UHF band used by the older RNAV systems. Don't get too excited about the moving map display either. You could build the database for that moving map of every airport and navigation fix in the entire IFR system and the data base would take up less memory than one photo from my 10d.

This is an absurdly inaccurate statement! You far underestimate the complexity of a GPS receiver.

---Bob Gross---

[bnpndxtr]

Well actually Case didn’t make his argument about technology very well either. There are several oversights and over-generalizations here. Let’s go in reverse order and set the record straight. I’m also a pilot, GPS user, and designer.

VOR: VHF Omni Radials
LOC: Locator

VOR means “VHF Omni Range”, not “VHF Omni Radials”.
LOC means “localizer”, not “Locator”.

Point: there is nothing new in this device, not the components, not the integration, not the size and not (probably) the price.

You don’t know what you’re talking about. Every next generation of product like this crams more technology into less space. It's either that or go out of business.

And what's the point of calling it "IFR GPS", it means nothing, they're all the same accuracy. Sounds like "a bunch of hype" to me.
ILS, VOR and LOC have beena round for what? 20 years? Amazing!
Surely the fact that every major airliner has the big brother of this thing in place....keeping production and development costs down.
Ooh, i forgot, the GARMIN has VHF aswell. Wow: RADIO!


Getting several kinds of radios (GPS, ILS (glideslope and locaizer), VOR, VHF NAV/COM, narrow band FM), plus multiple CPUs, plus switching power supplies (low voltage and high voltage), plus high level and low level audio, to coexist in one product makes a digital camera pale in comparison as a design problem, sorry. GPS signals are typically below the noise floor, and contrary to what you may be have been told about it, it takes practically nothing to jam it. They types of certification required for aviation navigation equipment is an order of magnitude more rigorous than that of a consumer product like a “camera”. As far as accuracy goes, GPS is GPS, but an aviation receiver has SW as well as HW technology in it that differentiates it from a common handheld. Aviation GPS manufacturers have to implement receiver autonomous integrity checking to allow it to be used for approaches, and every maker of this equipment has invested lots of money into the development of this technology. The application is necessarily one of extreme liability for the manufacturer. Is the 10D rated for lightning pin injection? No. Is it rated for High Energy Radiated Fields? No. Will it operate at –40C and +85C for two weeks? I dare you to try it. Did it go through HALT (highly accelerated life testing? Who knows. Is their SW testing gone over with a white glove by the FAA? Don’t make me laugh, now. You compare this to Canon, and their consumer grade products- get serious, you’re killin me here!

The “digic” is probably some standard off-the-shelf CPU core (perhaps ARM since that seems to be in vogue these days) with some camera-type optimization and pipelining thrown in. Certainly not trivial, but one can argue this is no great feat. It kind of reminds me of Sony’s “X-Plod” automotive audio power amp ICs, and the hype they made about it. They use MOSFETs in the output stage. This gives them a bit more headroom, but…….so what- it’s no quantum leap in technology. The way automotive audio power is measured is BS anyway, so it makes it even more funny.

Regarding “Surely the fact that every major airliner has the big brother of this thing in place....keeping production and development costs down.”. Well this doesn’t really hold water either. It is companies like Garmin that keep the cost of this technology down, not the “heavy iron” avionics manufacturers. If you want to see better-placed examples of price gouging, look at those heavy iron systems instead. Or…..maybe Canon…or Nikon….or Fuji….or [insert famous camera company name here] :)

[HeatherJL]

http://geoparent.com/community/icons/disoriented.gif

This is a ridiculous discussion... which I realize that I just bumped.

I am insulted only by one statement:
...so I will stack my design skills up against at least 90% of you

You have no idea what any of us do for a living, and even if your design skills are that superior, I'm sure that you aren't an expert in all areas of life or industry.

[bnpndxtr]

Yeah I probably shouldn't have commented either, but I couldn't resist this time. Just too much BS floating around, granted the topic is somewhat goofy anyway to begin with.

[Case]

[bnpndxtr wrote:
Well actually Case didn’t make his argument about technology very well either. There are several oversights and over-generalizations here. Let’s go in reverse order and set the record straight. I’m also a pilot, GPS user, and designer.

I think this needs to calm down a bit, but:
Of course i over generalised, i didn't intend to get into deep design issues. My point was only that most of the tech in the GPS device has broad purposes and has developed over many years by users on a broad scale. That's not to mean that i beleive a 1Ds has a fair price, but i don't think it's development costs can be easily dismissed
I apologise for my incorrect acronym definitions (although i still hear VOR's refered to as both radials and range...) LOC was a hurried recall from training years ago....
I still beleive its the "larger" market that keeps the price of these devices down.

Anyway,
Cheers,
Chris

BTW to answer another post, is it 4 or 5 signals required for GPS?

[bnpndxtr]

In general, 4 satellites are required for a 3D fix. Any number more than that will allow multiple geometry fixes, etc.

I agree with your comment about the larger market keeping the prices down. But I think the larger market is in fact the general aviation market (i.e. Garmin and others).

[robertwgross]

That is correct. For a 2D fix, three satellite signals are required. For a 3D fix, four satellite signals are required. Then for a receiver that has Integrity Monitoring, normally one extra satellite signal is required.

Let me say, GPS technology is non-trivial. We owe thanks to Hedy Lamarr.

Hedy Lamarr?

Wasn't she some Hollywood actress or something, before World War II?

True. And she is generally acknowledged for the concept of Spread Spectrum Transmission, which is one of the core technologies running around in the system.

More importantly, does anybody here have a GPS hooked up to his digital camera? The GPS can stick lat/long/time information into (I think) the EXIF information on the image file. That is to prove exactly where and when you took the shot.

---Bob Gross---

[defordphoto]

Hmmmm. Anyone shoot any pictures lately? FramerPDX and I were out at the WoodlandMX Park today shooting MotoCross riders from age 8 and up.

That is until one rider biffed it hard missing the triple. He got thrown hard on his head, neck and shoulders and had to be life-flighted out. They suspect a broken neck.

It was an absolutely beautiful day today weatherwise, but we started losing the light about that time and somehow the life-flight helicopter just takes the wind out of a raceday's sails so we bailed after that.

Ty and I had a great time meeting each other and shooting together. I'm confident we'll become shooting partners from here on out.

Here's a sample (Quick sample/no editing and yes, I am trying to hijack this stupid thread):

http://racefamily.racinglines.com/MiscPhotos/WoodlandMX1130.JPG

[FramerPDX]

I will agree to that RFM

I had a blast I sure hope that rider comes out ok...

I will have my pics up on my pbase site tonight I am going to start a upload right now so they should be done in about 10-15 minutes...


bye for now..


-Ty

[defordphoto]

Okay cool. I went through mine and tossed the bad ones. Not too many. I have about 300 or so and a handful that are pretty nice. I'm looking forward to seeing yours though as you shot the jump more than I did. I'll throw up a small gallery tomorrow night.

[RichardtheSane]

Damn this debate got long while I was out there doing some photography.... :D :D

[Longwatcher]

sjprg wrote:
Look what you can buy for the price of a 1Ds. This is real electronics built on a scale of only around 10-15 thousand units a year, compared to Canons 100,000 plus per year. Canon has the gall to pass off thier ticky-tac electronics as state of the art. That may be, but only in cameras. Their so far behind the true state its almost laughable if it didn't hurt so bad. They are so myopic they can't look outside of their own little world. Of course they figure most customers don't know, so why do any more than necessary to sucker them in.

http://www.garmin.com/products/gns430/

Paul

Back to the original post.
Paul,
Have you researched the cost and production rates for imaging sensors. I have had lunch conversations with image scientists who do this for a living. There is a very low percentage of good sensors that make it from production process into the camera. This is a matter of the environmental conditions of production on the planet earth. The rest of the electronics in the device above are easy to manufacture by comparison.
The second part is the cost of the sensor processing chip which has to take the data from the 11+ million sensor points in time to get over 3 frames per second with at least 8 bits of data per sensor. Or if my math and computer science is close to correct faster then 264mbs just for first stage processing, then it has to do all of the other processes involved in correlating those pixels to each other, correcting for sensor anomalies, and recording them to a buffer.

The box of yours takes twice the space of the 1Ds (not counting lenses). and does not have room for a CF card, flash attachment, USB, video out, and battery (amoung other things). It has some cable hooks out the back. It also does not have to be engineered for human handling. It sits in a cradle and is rectangular in shape in a very easy to design layout.

Do some research and prove that Canon has a design close to the same complexity as your Garmin device and I will start listening. Show that there is a way to get a higher yield on image sensors of the size used for the 1Ds and I will actually pay attention.

Until then take pictures have fun, Canon is doing a fine job in my opinion based on the fact they need money to employ researchers and engineers, build new CMOS fabrication factories and supply me with my toys at a price I can afford.

Finally, just for trivia. An aerial sensor to the same level of technology of your Garmin unit costs in the range of 2 Million dollars US. $150,000 of that is for the focal plane array (the sensor itself). So if a personal GPS/map tracker costs me $200 and your Garvin costs $8000, then $8000 for a 1Ds ($7000 is cheapest I have seen) compares favorably to the 2mil of an aerial sensor.

Just my opinion and counter ranting.

[rdenney]

sjprg wrote:

What I am comparing is the level of technology that you get from the Camera industry to what you get from the electronics industry in general. Don't be so protective of your investment that you can't see the forest for the trees.

I'm sure you've done a design review of the DIGIC processor so that you know how slow it really is, versus what it does in the time it takes (such as dealing with slow Compact Flash, for one thing). Without having done such a review, your comments that it is slow are so much opinion, and uninformed opinion at that.

If Canon was horribly slow and fooling us all, then why hasn't Nikon or Olympus blown Canon away with something superior? It's quite easy to sit in your chair and complain, but if something better was easy to do, it would be done by the competition.

But your biggest mistake is confusing price and cost. The two are only loosely related, and then only in one direction.

The first thing that happens is that Canon (or whoever) survey's the market. They find out how many units they can sell for a given price, over a range of prices. For example, let's say they could sell 1000 units for $50,000; 5000 units for $15,000; 10,000 units for $8000; and 100,000 units for $4000.

Once they have their market projections, then to compare their price points to two things: Production capacity and cost. If their cost (including amortizing their R&D, distribution and marketing) is $6000 (and the 1Ds chip's cost is $4500, from what we understand), then they must sell them for more than that.

If their production capacity is 10,000, then a glance at the market information above suggests that they would be fools to sell them for less than $8000, no matter what their cost.

Remember, their goal is to maximize profits, which maximizes their stock value and earnings. That is what the managers at Canon are hired to do, not to provide cameras that will impress you with their technology and price. If they fail to maximize their profits, their investors will go elsewhere with their money and nobody will get a 1Ds at any price.

I didn't follow your Garmin link. But I have a Garmin GPS unit that cost around $400. It has a GPS chip in it that costs less than $20, plus a small chunk of memory, a low-resolution LCD screen, and some software. In the quantities they sell, $400 represents a huge markup on their cost, I'm sure. I doubt their costs exceeded $50 for the unit.

But I don't care. What I care about is that I got the GPS unit I wanted at a price that was competitive. It was me who elected to pay the price, therefore it was me to set the price. I could just as easily have done without a GPS unit.

And I own dozens of cameras, and could easily have done without a 10D. But I still thought it gave good value, and I stand behind that decision. I decided with my checkbook, not with a post on the Internet, and not based on whether the electronics were anywhere near the state of the art. If you don't think so, then nobody is forcing you to buy it.

One final thing: I buy systems all the time for mission-critical applications, and the level of reliability expected of a digital camera is actually higher than for even some defense applications, because the users usually don't have anywhere near the training they need when they start out. I'd bet that Canon has spent 75% of their development dollar on fault-tolerant software.

Now, for the catty remark: I'm looking forward to seeing the camera you design and market.

Rick "who doesn't buy cameras on the basis of technology, but rather buys them on the basis of performance and capabilities" Denney