Andrew Reid

With the camera, the iPhone 6 has taken a pretty reasonable step forward. Although resolution remains the same at 8MP the sensor is brand new. On the video side 1080/60p and 240fps round out an impressive spec along with optical image stabilisation. Read the full article here

EOSHD has a fresh look to both the blog and forum. Both are now responsive layouts with the latest source code and web technology. Now EOSHD comes to you faster and easier to use than ever before. More features will be added in the coming days and one I am especially looking forward to rolling out is EOSHD Soundtrack Compositions. This is the start of a long project but right out of the blocks I am impressed with the quality of music we'll be providing to filmmakers through it. So this is a new era for EOSHD and a new site design, please do let me know what you think of it on the forum and I will answer any questions you have about the new layout there. If you spot anything you think isn't working properly or could do with tidying up, do let me know! What's next this week on EOSHD 1. The final conclusion and part 2 of my Sony A7S review is almost done so look out for it. 2. I have been shooting with the Sigma 50mm F1.4 DG HSM ART lens and it is very interesting to compare the performance to my Cooke S4i Mini 50mm T2.8 PL mount cinema lens. One is a $999 photographic lens and one a $8000 cinema lens. The mighty Sigma will also go up against the lenses I love because of character first and foremost rather than outright performance - the Canon 50mm F1.2L and Leica-R Summilux 50mm F1.4. What's the best high end 50 you can get? Find out soon on EOSHD. 3. Photokina 2014 preview, ahead of the show the following week. Every year the largest consumer photographic show comes round and I'll be in Cologne, Germany from the 16th to cover the show first hand and see what's new. There's plenty of video related action at Photokina (the last one saw the debut of the GH3). Canon have all their Cinema EOS offerings at the show. Will there be anything new from them? Sony will certainly have their new F series cinema camera at the show and I can't way to try it out. I'll be interviewing Sony's Bill Drummond at the show about their Alpha stills cameras, such as the A7S. Lot's to look forward to and do come along and say hello! 4. SLR Magic 10mm T2.1 review. What's the latest wide angle for Micro Four Thirds like? My full review is in the works and will be ready soon. 5. Metabones Speed Booster ULTRA and Micro Four Thirds EF Speed Booster reviews. And finally... Thanks for reading EOSHD and for just being interested! By being passionate and interested in what we love to do over the long term, we improve the quality of what we do. It is a very interesting time to be a filmmaker in terms of the cameras and if there's any direction you'd prefer to see EOSHD move towards in the coming months do have your say on the forum. Read the full article here

  Looks nice.

24.3MP is the exact same megapixel count as the sensor in the D610, which can't do 4K video and does video with terrible line-skipping so I don't hold out much hope. It's rare for an updated sensor to have the same megapixel count right down to the decimal point.   Also same sensor as Sony A99, RX1, etc.   Essentially I am expecting the D750 to be a D610 with a price bump and some extra marketing bullshit applied.

Really nice video as always :) Loved the music too, Trentemøller are playing in Berlin tomorrow, might go and take a listen.

  I doubt it very much! 1080p will be slow-mo for sure.

Hmm, very non-committal.   To drive more hits I'll say the D750 definitely has 4K recording.... Oh and by the way I'm not sure.

Your graph shows a long term product life cycle. What we are dealing with here is a sudden, disruptive technological change. DSLR sales had been increasing for around 10 years straight! Only in the last 2 years they have fallen back dramatically.   That isn't a controlled decline due to a mature product line as your graph and theory says. To me that looks like a sudden and uncontrolled decline due to a complete lack of fresh and relevant products to ship to new customers...

All my research into this topic is here:   http://www.eoshd.com/eoshd-shooters-guide-sony-a7-a7r-lenses

Damphouse, do feel free to explain why mirrorless shipments have remained steady whilst DSLR shipments have halved in 2 years. Clue... it's nothing to do with the product life cycle stages. It has all happened relatively recently in a matter of months not over the long term.

  Ah those lovely C300 ergonomics everyone raves about ;)

The least they can do is stay on the topic then. Saying they have a problem with opinion, conjecture or speculation as if they are a bad thing, is unacceptable and wrong.

So in that case I ask again... what is the problem with speculation and opinion? It gets a hard time. A blog is always going to be one person's take based on the facts available - unless you have 20 guest writers and this is not that kind of 'churn em out' blog.   Regardless, camera companies need younger management and need to get with the internet age.   And I don't mean with gimmicks and low end tacky stuff like selfie cameras, but with serious technology and Apple-like cutting edge innovation.

  What kind of 'average consumer' are we talking about here exactly? Those who bought a high end DSLR in 2012, in which there were lots of buyers, for the 5D Mark III and D800 released that year, see no reason to upgrade and that's one of the reasons for the 2014 drop in supply, due to lower demand. I am pretty sure the buyers at the 5D / D800 level are interested in the specs and not naive. They want 4K, better image quality, innovation. They are also interested in mirrorless functionality that is missing on their DSLRs. They are certainly interested in the GH4 and the A7S if the sales of those are anything to go by.   As for the low end of the consumer market, they are flocking away from DSLRs due to a lack of innovation as well.   Smartphones are more innovative as imaging devices in 2014 and they are giving customers what they need.   If that was merely speculation on my part, the figures and facts would be very different.

What is the problem people have with speculation exactly?   You read EOSHD as much for my opinion I hope, as you do for raw specs, facts and figures.

A typical conversation between a Canon or Nikon rep and a consumer satisfied with their smartphone and existing DSLR would go a bit like this -   Consumer: why do I need this new model. It's expensive!   Rep: it will give you better image quality than your smartphone!   Consumer: but I have taken a lot of nice images with my smartphone (Editor's note: and so have I, because it is always there to capture a special moment, whilst a DSLR isn't)   Rep: [Spouts some technical jargon about sensor size]   Consumer: Hmm   Rep: You can pair it to your smartphone via WiFi for social networks   Consumer: I cannot be bothered. Carrying two devices is impractical on a daily basis. Through sheer laziness I only take photos using my smartphone. Sometimes even on special occasions. Pairing via a WiFi network is slow and complicated. May as well use a card reader. It is of no use to me.   Rep: Hmm   Consumer: I have a 5D Mark III by the way. What do you have to tempt me to upgrade that!?   Rep: Nothing!

Erm, the A7S is targeted at people who understand the specs, having done basic internet research, which is more common than you think and more people are capable of being less stupid than you think when it comes to spending that much on a camera.   The average consumer does not spend $2500 anyway, so it doesn't matter that they don't understand the merits of an A7S. It isn't for them.   There's a good reason why smartphones are so popular as cameras. First of all they've been mainstream for more than a decade, and during those 10 years Canon & Nikon have done absolutely nothing to successfully integrate their imaging devices with the internet era.   All the exciting mainstream imaging stuff has happened in that connected-up smartphone / internet space... Consumers aren't stupid, they value this stuff. DSLRs aren't giving it them.   Think back to 2003 with the Canon 300D - http://***URL removed***/reviews/canoneos300d   The gap between this and the phone cameras of the time was enormous and Facebook didn't even exist.   A lot has changed and Canon have not changed the breed in response.   They are still doing 300Ds just with larger sensors and better image quality.   In video now they are really nowhere.   Where's the revolution?   Also back in 2003 there was a prosumer market for compacts above $1000. These users migrated to DSLRs because of the better image quality and falling prices of DSLRs so they were level with high end compacts. Whereas in 2003 the word 'selfie' did not exist and the masses chose digital cameras based on a price / performance ratio. In 2014 the criteria for selection couldn't be more different. The masses attach more value to the moment, the snapshot. Showing off is rife because of social media, and because phones are carried everywhere, they make very good snapshot / moment getters - they are quick and simple, only one device required to be carried (not lots of separate ones, i.e. camera, iPod, phone) and now image quality is good enough for that people need to do with them.   DSLRs are also a saturated market. Too much supply, too much similarity between models. Supply is now dropping because the demand for so many models just isn't there.   Don't forget also that smartphones have a major price advantage over DSLRs, even now end ones, and that people generally don't want to carry around a brick with them that isn't pocketable. Thin is the trend in smartphones, always has been since the sales success of the Motorola Razr.   DSLRs have no choice but to retreat from the mainstream and become photographer's tools again, and if that means it's a 'niche' by comparison then so be it! More high end models for us and less of the low end crap.

  The Kowa Micro Four Thirds lenses are just rehoused c-mount machine vision lenses apparently according to DPReview.   http://***URL removed***/articles/7889568906/kowa-announces-three-manual-focus-lenses-for-micro-four-thirds   http://www.kowa-usa.com/MV-FA-CCTV/Products.php?Product-Line=XC-Series

I don't see any sign of people getting off the consumerist upgrade bandwagon.   Despite the clear tanking of low end sales (Nikon 1, GF5, EOSHD M etc.) Mirrorless sales haven't dropped in the same way. They're remained steady. This means that if the low end mirrorless crap has tanked in the way I think it has, there's been considerable growth in sales for the more innovative higher end stuff. Clearly people are upgrading for features like 4K video, 5 axis stabilisation, mirrorless full frame lens mounts, mirrorless lenses, Leica M lens compatibility, clean ISO 3200, 14 stop dynamic range and 36MP full frame sensors, classic body styling like the X-T1 and huge EVFs, better video modes, smaller bodies, smaller lenses, more adaptable lenses and perhaps even for better AF in live-view mode (who'd have though it!?)   Canon and Nikon will wake up eventually...

  Because the HDMI output quality drops in stills mode and live-view doesn't always observe the right frame rate.

Your red line on the graph shows exactly what the problem is. The spikes are not random, they are seasonal and predictable. Every year in June there's a spike as people buy DSLRs for the summer holidays and every November there's a spike in the run up to Christmas.   We are now in September and shipments of DSLRs have been flat all summer, the peak months of June and July are half of what they were in 2012. Why?   2013 was already a disappointing year and now this.   There are many kinds of customers. The most casual gave up their DSLR and embraced the smartphone a long time ago, way before June of this year. What is different between the past 3 months and the same 3 months a year or 2 years ago?   Obviously there are multiple things at play here but the fact that DSLRs have not really fundamentally changed with the times and that Canon haven't really done anything genuinely new or interesting since the 5D Mark II in 2008, only reinforces my opinion that overall people are bored of the DSLRs in shops and don't feel the need to buy more.   PS - just seen a new Sony 4K TV, 49" starting at £999 in a shop near me. 4K can no longer be counted on to drive sales and margins it seems. You have to ask yourself why such a low price is necessary to get people to upgrade to 4K.   There's just no easy answer in all of this.

In my opinion...   If you separate high end mirrorless from low end, the growth in high end mirrorless is very promising.   It only looks like it's stagnating due to the low end 'smartphone step up' compact system cameras not selling very well.

It's not as simple as pointing at the whole article and saying it is merely speculation because as I have already pointed out, it is an opinion piece based on some pretty hard facts.   Are you going to be one of these people who can't tell the difference between facts and opinion? The sales are down, fact. The products are to blame, my opinion. It's very simple, anyone who can read English well can separate the facts from opinion in an EOSHD article.

Sensors larger than Super 35mm are a perfectly reasonable proposition in the cinema world, look at the Red Dragon or 65mm.   Putting a full frame sensor in the new Sony would work fine with PL lenses, etc. because it would have a crop mode for Super 35mm.   The issue would be resolution and readout speed. To crop from full frame to S35 and still have 4K2K resolution would make the entire full frame sensor an 8K one, and there ain't no 180fps coming off that for $10k I can tell you now :)

I'd prefer it to have the A7S full frame sensor instead of the F5's, but I don't think it will because one of the big selling points is slow-mo. It will likely do 180fps. I don't think the A7S sensor is capable of that, not even in 1080p.