dSLR autofocus ability...

And that's where the point of dispute seems to arise . My back-of-the-envelope guesstimate (based on features vs price of Canon film cameras) suggests that right now it would add US$400 to include 45-point AF on a 20D-class camera. Like it or not, Canon won't eat that - it will be added to retail price. On release the 20D listed at US$1,500. Nikon's D70 listed at US$1,000. The older D100 was discounted (considerably) from US$2,000.

The question is - do you lose more sales for charging $1,900 (vs $1,500) than you gain sales from having better AF? Correctly or not, Canon implicitly said "yes". That's a legitimate business decision. And it's a cop-out to suggest they should include the feature, not price it in, and take a per-unit loss. That may not be what you mean but you've seemed to come awfully close.

...Mike

Has anyone ever tried comparing Nikon and Canon AF accuracy? Say, D70 vs 20D?

Edit:

fusionphoto wrote:
We are talking a huge price diferential between the true pro camera and the 10D and 20D, they do very well for the price.

The wipers on Hyundai Getz and Maybach have the same job to do (except in the latter case they have somewhat bigger surface to wipe) and just because of enormous price difference Hyundai won't be equipped with wipers that only get half the job done, or basically, sometimes they just wouldn't wipe, like, when it's raining really hard and there are occasional traffic jams on the highway. I want and need my windshield clean, so why would I have to buy Maybach for it??!

The D60 was close to being their first generation consumer dSLR (effectively it is just a minor upgrade to the D30). Sales volumes were tiny, tooling costs were high. All this adds to the cost. It would be nice to have a higher spec (including the AF) but not sure that it was financially worthwhile with the combination of sales volumes and R&D costs to further add to the price. As an aside I bought my D30 2nd hand about when the 10D replaced the D60. I was the first person I know to buy a dSLR, which possibly shows the low sales volumes at that time.

The D60 was announced at the start of 2002. The 1Ds was announced a few months later. To compare the prices of the consumer model with the pro sped model at that time a D60 was under 1/3 of the price.

To be honest I am not sure whether part of the problem with the dSLR focusing is down to the smaller sensor size.

The solution is to buy another companies products!

All the best

Keith

Not really a valid thing when you have invested money in lenses...

Dave

Hi

With a decent resale value on lenses it is a possibility, and long term far cheaper than upgrading cameras continuously if you regard the current spec as dumbed down for marketing reasons.

All the best

Keith

Not really. I'd only get 70-75% of the retail value on my L series lenses, but then would have to pay full price for Nikon equivalents...I'd lose most probably at least 25%, and that's just allowing for the resale value...other factors will bump it up from 25% to higher...When you're talking say, 10k in money, that's a 2.5k (at least) loss...it mightn't be a lot of money to you, but it is to me and many others.

Dave

Hmm... Even in these days of many (perhaps even over-many) megapixels, doubling the sensor's pixel-count isn't exactly a minor upgrade. And given the improvement off a low-ish base, it lifted the decent-resloution print size from roughly A4 to roughly A3. A huge difference, really, if your aim is to produce prints rather than compare spec-sheets. It's so easy to forget (so quickly!) why megapixel-counts truly did make a major difference in the earlier days of digital and (following a square rather than linear law) make less obvious difference now.

...Mike

Hi

While you will get less than the new price of the lenses then you will be paying a similar lower price if you replace them with 2nd hand Nikon equivalents.

Just fitting a larger sensor is an easy and cheap upgrade compared to buffer side, processing speed, fps, etc.

All the best

Keith

That's an excellent point Keith! The only thing I'd lament is that I much prefer the Canon UI and ergonomics, and Canon's AF is simply better than Nikon's. For what interests me (motor sports/wildlife/bird), AF is an important thing.

Dave

Are the Nikon people talking about Poor AF in their Pro systems?

I swiched from Nikon to Canon thinking that Canon was the leader.

I just think that a good AF system is the bread and butter of the camera.
If you can't focus accurately you have a $4000 paper weight.


I don't have enough experience yet to compare my new 1d Mark II N to my old Nikon n90s. But I can tell you my old Nikon n90s AF system may have been a bit slow, but it was accurate.

Steve

Well, if you discount rewriting the firmware and changing the data bus to accomodate the different size sensor. Also, you'll need to enlarge the buffer size (which is easy) to accomodate a larger sensor. Installling a faster buffer would mean architecture changes, but just adding memory only requires you to find space (assuming the system's capable of addressing it without problems).