To sum it up quickly, I think Canon has a problem building hype... This is going to be a long one, But please, bear with me and read
To get more in depth into it...
The entire 6D vs D600 situation reminds me of the 60D and the D7000 from a few years back, the 60D was launched and on paper looked like a terrible camera, Too many "consumer" features, a plastic body, a "Rebel on steroids" compared to the outgoing 50D, the lack of some nice basic things like AF Microadjustment certainly didnt help matters...
On the other side we had the D7000, Which seemed to be an amazing camera, a 7D for $700 less, a Pocket Battleship of a camera that combined everything you could want for a very respectible price, Everyone praised it, and they should, its a cracking camera
But then people got their hands on the 60D and the screaming about how it sucked quickly stopped, Canon's decisions made sense, The flippy screen was useful for movies, which the 60D excelled at, and the AF system, while crappy on paper, in reality works quite well, in fact, in my opinion (Albeit from only playing with both cameras a bit in the store) I feel the 60D AF is actually better, the D7000 always felt a bit "deliberate" to me...
And the D7000 wasnt as good as it looked on paper, I played with one, Dont get me wrong, its a very nice camera, But its not a 7D equal, its a Pocket Battleship, Not the Yamato, The 7D is built better, has a better viewfinder, has snappier AF and overall just feels faster, About the only thing the D7000 can claim is slightly better IQ, but as i said in another thread, Look at my shots from the 7D and tell me the D7000 would do any of them better, I dare you
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Cut to a few months ago, 5D Mark III vs D800...
Instantly we hear it again, The 5DIII is met with disappointed sighs, grumbles and complaints, People wanted more resolution after seeing the D800 and what it could do... the D800s image quality is astounding and there were samples available right out of the gate showing what a 36mp FX sensor can do
Of course, the 5D Mark III is in many ways what people here were asking for, Nowone complained too much that the 5D Mark II didnt have enough resolution, What they wanted was a better AF system, More FPS, better build... and thats exactly what the 5D Mark III gave them, With the added cherry in the whiskey being better noise performance at high ISOs, People screamed that Canon wasnt "listening" to the market, When in fact, it seems they had listened perfectly....
A few months before when the 36mp D800 was just a rumor if Canon had launched the 5D Mark III I guarantee the tune would have been one of applause, a Worthy Successor to the 5D Mark II
After all, the 24mp sensors in the D3x and a900 werent exactly "breathtaking" in many situations and many people thought a 36mp wasnt going to be much better, at least thats what we saw until we saw what the D800 could do with our own eyes...
And that would be one of the big differences, The D800 had a slew of pictures and previews showing off what that 36mp sensor could do, Canon had a lot less "show" going for it, Although it didnt take too long before we started to see samples from the 5D Mark III I still remember the D800 was first out of the gate when it came to such things...
Heres where I have to concede I'm relying on the various reviews I've read, videos I've watched and etc, I cant get my hands on a 5D3 or a D800 in reality....
But the D800 isnt without its flaws, weird color cast on the rear LCD, the focusing asymmetry, and of course that awesome 36mp sensor, Whats bad about it you ask? Well how many of the Nikon lenses in existence can actually deliver enough resolution to take advantage of it? The answer is not too many, In fact, even the lauded-upon 14-24 and 24-70 fall a bit short when faced with the challenge of delivering when placed before the mighty D800... The D800 is also a bit slow, and I've heard the AF system while pretty fast can have moments of "hesitation", Most field reports I've heard say the 5DIII's AF wins in most situations, Not that the D800 is bad, But the 5DIII is better... And the 5D Mark III has fantastic IQ, even if it doesnt have the bonkers resolution of the D800....
But very recently I realized something, Maybe Canon was thinking ahead, Think to what I mentioned about the lenses, in Nikon's lineup theres only a handful of lenses that can really deliver on the D800, Even recent designs look to need an update..
And now, I see results from the 24-70 Mark II and I think I realized something, Canon is smarter than they let on, They knew this, They didnt push the 5D Mark III's resolution higher because they knew their lenses cant take it with the exception of a few of their primes and their 70-200 f/2.8L IS II, So Canon decided they need to update their bread and butter, The lenses pros use to make money, the flagship L lineup, to be able to handle these Mondo sensors....
The 24-70 II supports this, that thing is a beast, Wide open it out resolves the TS-E 24 f/3.5L, a $2000 prime lens renowned for its sharpness, Its not only one of, if not the sharpest zoom lens out there, Its one of the sharpest lenses on the market right now period, The 70-200 f/2.8L IS II is equally beastly in terms of resolution... The only thing Canon is missing, and I expect we'll see it soon, is a fast wide zoom (A 14-24 f/2.8L) to cement this trinity... and perhaps an update to the 35mm f/1.4L is in order, Or the 85mm f/1.2L or something else thats prime-y and loved by the people likely to want an uber-high resolution camera
Now, What approach is better? To have the resolution today, but waiting for Nikon to update its bread and butter to really take full use of that resolution, Or to wait on the resolution and have the lenses ready to go when it comes out? Personally, I think the second is better.... Your Glass is far more likely to last you longer than your camera body after all...
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Cut to now, and the D600 vs 6D
In many ways I'm seeing parallels between this and the 60D vs D7000 stuff from back then, Screaming, Yelling, Making assumptions...
On paper, the D600 is an excellent package, 24mp, 5.5fps, a 39 point AF system with 9 cross types from the D7000 which has proven to be a very good AF system (Albeit a bit "deliberate" in its function... something the one D600 review thats up noted) a 100% viewfinder, and nothing "consumerish" in sight... People are already saying its a 5D Mark III for $1400 less, and seeing it as the best budget thing around since affordable sliced bread
The 6D on the other hand looks like reheated leftovers, a 20 megapixel sensor, 4.5fps, 11 point unproven AF system with only ONE crosstype sensor and a 97% viewfinder, Its almost like they took a 5D Mark II and made it pretty, The addition of Wi-Fi and GPS is just consumerization, Such things have no place IN a serious camera Canon, They're supposed to be a $200 add on! Thats how you know its a SERIOUS Camera after all
The two companies approaches are radically different again, The D600 is shipping now, Theres a review up already, DPReview has samples ready to go, You can already see how good the D600 is and you can even order it right now to have in your hands before the end of the week
Canon on the other hand? The 6D will be shipped in a couple months, Theres about 5 images up from it, nothing high ISO yet, A few previews that are little more than rattling off spec sheets, Some guy with an afro sniffing a camera thats been manhandled by god knows how many people...
No words on performance, Only one source I've found has actually managed to play with the AF a bit it seems (or everyone is too concerned sniffing the camera to bother seeing if the AF works alright) and they did praise it, Saying it seems very fast and sure... Canon seems to not want to release samples from it for whatever reason.. Which to many people is suspicious, Arent they sure of it? Does it suck at high ISO? Is there banding if you underexpose the image by 10 stops and push it back up? Nowone can say...
Well ok one guy can, he did push one of the sample images a bit to see if there was banding, And there wasnt any.. Whatever
And this here was the point of the article:
I think Canon has a timing problem, Even if the 6D is a bit preproduction DPReview, Engadget, The Verge, and other sites should have a 6D in hand, They should have some sample cameras, and they should be able to post up about it when you announce it, They should be able to sit there and say "Even though this is preproduction this things image quality is astounding" or "The new 11 point AF may seem like a slight upgrade from the 5DII but its far more than that, Despite the modest endowment of points it proves quality is better than quantity, It kicks the D600's AF where it hurts and steals its wallet"
Even if the thing doesnt ship for 2 months, they should build hype, They should be able to do more than sit there with their thumbs you know where and say well.. Something which a lot of people say mirrors their sentiments on the 6D:
in our estimation a lot will hinge on how well the 6D's autofocus system behaves in practice. If it proves positive and accurate with off-centre subjects (a clear weakness of the EOS 5D series prior to the Mark III), then many users will probably be very happy with it.
The 6D is clearly aimed at tempting APS-C owners to upgrade to full frame, but here Canon has given itself another problem. Its EF-S lenses simply won't fit on the 6D, so users with a decent collection - perhaps the 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM
, 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM and 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM - will have to buy a new lens set to use with it. At which point the barrier to switching systems becomes rather lower, and the temptation to change brands stronger.Overall, though, it's difficult to shake the feeling that the EOS 6D simply lacks the 'wow' factor of its main rival. Whereas Nikon seems to have taken the approach of taking away as little as possible from D800 when creating the D600, Canon appears almost to have gone the other way, removing as much as it thinks it can get away with at the price. The result is the kind of conservative, slightly unimaginative design that's become the company's hallmark. It's still bound to be a very good camera, of course; just perhaps not quite as good as it could be.
I'm sorry but if i was Canon this is NOT the kind of stuff I want to see on a major review site, Does this sell you a 6D? No it doesnt, it makes you contemplate switching systems, Which is exactly what I see a lot of people commenting they're considering doing, or in fact, have already done...
And it would have been avoided had Canon given DPReview and them cameras sooner, To let them put up first impressions or a preview, To talk about how the camera actually works, Not how nervous they are its going to suck compared to the D600 they've been playing with for the last few weeks...
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And this brings us back full circle, Remember what I said before about the 60D and the D7000? Well I was actually disappointed in the D7000, it didnt live up to the spec sheet or the hype people made about it, it was not a 7D for $1100... it was a very good Pocket Battleship, But it was not my Yamato...On the other hand i was really impressed by the 60D to the point of apologizing for mocking it and admitting a lot of things people criticized were in fact things I'd love to have on my 7D
People are saying the D600 is a 5D Mark III for $1400 off, People who think this are so laughably wrong, I guarantee you if you think this, You are going to be disappointed, is the D600 bad? No, But a 5D Mark III is $1400 more for a reason, if you buy a D600 thinking this, You are probubly going to be disappointed...
The D600 has more points, So what? All the cross type ones are clustered in the center, How useful is that? the rest of them are exactly like the Canon points, They cover the same area too.. So you're really not getting much... except just a lot more points
Consider, Canon could have put the AF from a 5D Mark II in the 6D, in fact, this would have made the camera even cheaper, using an old AF system off the shelf as opposed to developing an entirely new one... they didnt, and I'm going to think the reason they didnt is that the new one is better.....
And finally... this may be an assumption, but I expect when the 6D gets in reviewers hands they're going to say something like this:
What the EOS 6D lacks in style and headline, attention-grabbing features, it more than makes up for in practicality, In practice its a fantastic imaging tool that reliably delivers results, the Image sensor is the best Canon has made, Even besting the 5D Mark III in some respects and easily more than a match for its closest competition, the D600, the Autofocus system made us nervous at first, but in practice it shows that Canon knew what they were doing, the 5D Mark II this isnt, it consistently delivers spot on focusing, even in the worst conditions, in fact, the AF module easily matches and in some situations exceeds the Nikon D600's, All in all, while not impressive at first the EOS 6D is a superb imaging tool and another camera that any Canon shooter should be proud to have in their bag
But for now, Nikon is winning, Their camera is shipping, and soon the internet will be flooded with cat pictures taken by the D600 while we wait patiently for Canon to give us some more samples
Thank you, to anyone who read all this.. I hope what I said makes sense and you can see my points...
