We’ve already looked at the third wheel, Sony, and the areas they need to focus on in improving. Now lets take a look at the current market leader, Canon. I’ve mentioned before that 2009 has been a busy year for Japanese firm, Canon. They’ve released several bombshells on the market starting with their Canon 5D MK II in late 2008 and then followed by the Canon 1Ti which arguably is the better competitor than the popular Nikon D90. On the heels of the Canon 1Ti, they unveiled the aggressively designed Canon 7D which appears (at least on paper) to be head and shoulders above the Nikon D300 or D300s.

As of the time of this writing, perhaps the only “big” camera Canon hasn’t unveiled yet is their successor to the 1D/1Ds MK III professional camera. With still 3 months left in 2009 I think it wouldn’t be unrealistic for Canon to unveil the next generation of their flagship camera although I think its also possible they could wait until early 2010 as well. I fully expect 2010 to be a relatively quiet year for Canon considering all the announcements they’ve made in 2009. They’ll need to reload and come back with a fury in 2011 just like they’ve done in 2009. Regarding the 1ds MK III though, Canon has been taking all the typical steps prior to introducing a replacement camera. The main signal has been the substantial decrease in price on the 1Ds MKIII. Smells like something coming down the pipeline.

So, at the end of 2009 Canon will once again be comfortably in the lead of the dslr market having staved off their old nemesis, Nikon once again. Their thoughts will be to the future and what the next generation of products should offer.

Canon provides perhaps the most balanced blend of features, price and resolution of all the major players. Nikon products currently feature low resolution (comparatively) with excellent high ISO performance. Sony features league leading resolution with poor ISO performance. Canon straddles the fence and offers the best blend of both. This is exactly what the consumers want. Canon needs to continue to build the best products they can possibly offer. While Nikon, for the most part, is content to “tie” or just barely exceed most of the specs of their competitors. Canon usually trumps virtually all of the competitors specs and tries to go as far beyond them as possible. Here’s my advise.

Autofocus System

The universal criticism of Canon right now centers around their AF systems. Compared to the excellent 51 point systems found in the D700 and D300s the Canon 15 point AF system sounds a little pokey. The Canon AF system is good, people greatly exaggerate its weakness but there’s no doubt that the Nikon system is measurably better. Canon needs to address this because in the consumer market there is no difference between an actual weakness and a perceived weakness. They’ve already trumped most of the other significant areas of camera design, its time to work on the AF system as well. We’ve seen some of this improvement already in the 7D, it will be interesting to see how it performs against the excellent D300 system.

 HD Video Recording

Like it or not, HD video is the biggest thing in DSLRs since liveview. Canon has done very well an integrating and implementing HD video across their product line. They need to continue to refine and improve this. With each new product they have been making strides, the 7D gets them even closer to what all the videophiles are lusting after. Still in the future they should breach the gap to offer 1080p @ 60 fps plus all the options in between (SD, 720P, 1080i, 25fps, 30fps). What would be a neat parlor trick that Canon could quite probably perform is high speed standard definition video capture. The Casio EX camera already does this with captures of up to 1000fps at a greatly decreased resolution. If Canon could implement a high speed video capture as standard definition it would a neat option to tout over their rivals. (this feature would be best implemented in their lower end DSLR models for the consumers who would be most impressed by it).

Beyond those two main areas of focus Canon simply needs to continue to do what it always does, that is to release great cameras with strong feature sets at affordable prices. If they addressed the AF system, continue to commit to the rising trend of HD video they should remain set to stay on top of the hill for the forseeable future. They need to continue to push the megapixel barrier as well as their ISO performance.

Image Stabilization (IS), Vibration Reduction (VR) Optical Stabilization (OS), Vibration Compensation (VC) by whichever of the many names it is known by, stabilization is becoming more and more popular all the time. Virtually all of the major lens manufacturers now offer some sort of stabilization on an increasing number of their lenses. Of course, Sony, Pentax, Olympus and Panasonic all feature in body stabilization. The big two, however, Canon and Nikon only offer their stabilization system in their optics. Canon was the original inventor of Image Stabilization known as IS in their popular (at the time) 75-300mm IS lens.  The others all eventually followed suit. Nikon came out with their own form of stabilization and called it Vibration Reduction (VR). Sigma introduced their own system, Optical Stabilization (OS) and Tamron recently has begun producing lenses with Vibration Compensation (VC).

Is it worth the extra money for stabilization?

Before I answer that, let’s first discuss exactly what stabilization does. The first thing we must acknowledge up front is the General Rule of Thumb. The general rule of thumb is that your shutter speed should equal whatever focal length you are shooting at. So, if you are shooting at 100mm then you should roughly have a 1/100th shutter speed. If you are shooting at 300mm then you should have at least 1/300th shutter speed. That is the rule of thumb to produce a reasonably sharp picture of a still object. (Shooting a moving object can completely change this rule of thumb.)  But for a still object you should use a shutter speed equal to your focal length.

As an aside, if you are using what is known as a crop factor camera, see This article on Crop Factors you should multiple both your focal length and shutter speed by your crop factor in order to maintain this general rule of thumb.

Ok, now we have established what is the general rule of thumb regarding shutter speeds an focal lengths. So what does Image stabilization do? Image stabilization allows you to now break the general rule of thumb. Depending on the system’s effectiveness, you can now use a shutter speed about 3 stops slower than what the rule of thumb would dictate. For example, the rule of thumb says that at 300mm you should use about a 1/300th shutter, well with an Image Stabilization system you can probably safely use a 1/60th shutter and still produce a reasonably sharp picture of a stationary object.

Image Stabilization does absolutely nothing for a rapidly moving object. IS is simply stabilizing your camera and/or lens, it is not stabilizing your subject. This is where you must still use your head when taking pictures. If you are photographing a rapidly moving object (say a speeding bullet) then that 1/60th shutter speed we talked about probably won’t be sufficient. If you are photographing someone standing a lecturn and giving a publich speech then it may be fast enough, you must use your head for this. That’s why you’re a photographer.

Ok, so now we understand what Image stabilization does for us. Is it worth the extra cost that manufacturers charge for it? In my estimation, it is indeed worth the cost…in most circumstances. First, you should consider the max focal length of the lens. The longer the reach of the lens then the faster your going to need your shutter speed in order to maintain the rule of thumb. If you purchase that 80-400mm lens then that means at your maximum length you are going to need a 1/400th shutter speed to produce a clear picture. That’s a pretty fast shutter speed and not always attainable especially in poor lighting. Using a good IS system means you only need a 1/80th or so to get that sharp picture…that’s a big difference in shutter speed.  Basically I would say for any lens that reaches into the triple digits the image stabilization is worth the money.

Fthe shorter focal lengths,  (i.e. 28-70mm, or anything under 100mm) I do question whether the stabilization is truly worth the cost. If you’re snapping a shot at 28mm then you only need a shutter speed of 1/30th which isn’t that difficult to get in all but the darkest of lighting situations. If you’ve got a fairly fast aperture (3.5 or better yet 2.8) then I can only see extreme situations where you would need a shutter speed slower than 1/30th. Anything you would take with a slower shutter speed than that would absolutely have to be a completely stationary object because virtually any movement would be noticeable in your results. So, in short, I would save the money and purchase a reasonably fast lens without IS if its maximum focal length was under 100mm. If you’ve got the money and feel you really need it then by all means go ahead, but I’d rather put that money into IS on a lens that really benefits from it.

Is any Stabilization System superior to the other?

In my opinion they all work approximately the same. Depending on your focal length, they all buy you about 3 stops consistantly of handholding below the general rule of thumb. 3 stops is excellent and really allows you to get pictures you probably just couldn’t get with a non-IS lens. Some systems boast 4 stops of handholding and you can get that some of the time, however the best results are usually at 3 stops or less. With a good camera body, an IS lens will allow you to take pictures indoors with a lens that would typically be considered an outdoors only performer. I’ve used my Canon 70-300mm IS USM lens indoors with poor lighting when I’ve combined it with the excellent ISO performance of my full frame Canon 5D MK II. Not the ideal lens for that situation but thanks to the IS system its given me several keepers. It was definitely worth the money in my opinion.

There’s been a lot of excitement in 2009 over the latest releases from Nikon, Canon and Sony. Even more excitement has raged around the “soon to be announced” models from the major manufacturers and what those offerings might look like. For a moment let’s take a step back from the hype and talk about what makes sense. In this article I’m only going to discuss Canon, Nikon and Sony the current top 3 leaders in the DSLR market.  There are other players but right now their market share has relegated them to being pure fringe players right now. It will be interesting to see if anything changes that at the end of 2009. In this first part of a 3 part series, we’re going to take a closer look at newcomer Sony. Let’s see what Sony needs to bring to market:

Part 1 – Sony

Sony has hit the DSLR market hard, putting on an all out blitz on the market and trying to penetrate deeply into the tightly held territory of Canon and Nikon. They’ve made progress and have put out some decent products. Their in body stabilization is by far their most significant advantage over their bigger rivals and their class leading 24 megapixel A900 and A850 cameras are the other.  Sony has delivered two things, league leading resolution (24MP) and a useful in body stabilization system. These are great offerings that have turned the head of many consumers but not yet propelled Sony anywhere near to the level of an equalized competitor.

Unfortunately, Sony’s products come up short in two noticeable areas. To date, none of their product offerings have ability to record HD video. With Canon and Nikon now touting multiple products with HD recording capabilities the lack of any by Sony is astounding to say the least. HD recording will grow more and more prevalent in both Canon’s and Nikon’s product lines and Sony had better recognize that trend. It is not a fad. It won’t go away and even though its clear they might be competiting with their own professional level HD video cameras they’d better jump on the DSLR HD video wagon or they’ll find themselves on the short stick. If anything Sony can produce a better HD DSLR product than Canon or Nikon based on their experience already in that area. Sony has always been hesitant to compete against itself but this move is necessary and the sooner they admit it the better off they’ll be.

The other area Sony needs to significantly improve is the High ISO performance of their imaging sensors. For quite some time Sony has trailed Canon and Nikon in ISO performance across their product lines. Basically the line has been, Sony has great cameras as long as you don’t need ISO above 1600. With CAnon and Nikon cameras offering incredible ISO 25,600 performance the Sony lineup has looked completely feeble in their competition. Basically the order of “hot” features right now is in this order : Megapixels, ISO performance, HD video (I’m talking within the last 3 months). Now that the megapixel count has reached upward far into the double digits its not quite the buzz it used to be. I could easily see ISO performance exceeding the significance of megapixels to the consumer market. Don’t get me wrong, megapixels is still the big measuring stick to most consumers and will continue to be so but ISO range and performance is a close second and possibly soon to be number 1 measuring stick for a camera’s perceived abilities.

What’s particularly saddening about Sony’s poor ISO performance is that the electronics giant manufacturers Nikon’s sensors for them. That is to say Nikon does not manufacture their own imaging sensors but rather purchases them from Sony. That Nikon is utilizing Sony’s sensors to better ISO performance should be a black mark to Sony’s R&D department.

The Future Generation

What I would recommend and, in fact, do expect from Sony in their next generation of DSLRs is greatly improved ISO performance first and foremost. It will not be good enough to simply tie the existing competition. Sony must exceed the performance of the Nikon D3X and Canon 5D MK II. They’ve already shown that they have the megapixels they now need to use them more effectively at the higher ISO ranges.  I do expect an increase in megapixels from Sony in their next FF offering but it will be more important that Sony produce better ISO performance than the megapixel increase.

Next, they must deliver HD video. There’s still a debate among DSLR consumers on whether video should or should not be included in DSLRs but while that argument continues to play out the decision has already been made. With both Canon and Nikon now offering HD video recording in multiple products (Canon now offers it in 3 of its current DSLRs) its no longer a matter of should HD video be offered in cameras but a matter of how it should be offered. Sony will find itself playing catch up and for a company that’s looking to capture an increasing market share, offering products late to the game is not a recipe for success.  You succeed by offering better products at better prices. Take note, Sony. I look forward to seeing your next generation of DSLRs. I would love in fact to be part of the team beta testing your product. If you would like candid and professional feedback please contact me.