Mokara

She is not being a mad queen, what she is doing is perfectly logical in a medieval ruler mindset. It may not be palatable to modern sensibilities, but rulers in that sort of world were more like mafia bosses than modern state leaders, and you need to think about them from that point of view. For Daenerys it would have been important to stamp her authority on the situation once it was clear that she had won, since there were competing claims to the throne. She would have wanted to make it VERY clear to anyone who had thoughts of opposing her, or supporting someone else for throne, that SHE was in charge and any opposition would be crushed without mercy. For that a show of force was necessary. In medieval society, kindness and mercy by rulers, especially when they were conquering new territory, was weakness. Making an example of Kings Landing was the correct move to cement her power. No one would dare oppose her after that. Medieval rulers did not look to be loved, they looked for absolute obedience no matter what. Fear, used judiciously, was the tool they used to maintain power, not love. What the show writers did with her was the correct overall plot line. What was wrong about it was presenting it as an emotional response, when it should have been a more deliberate display of power for the sake of displaying power. This is what ruling is in an absolute monarchy.

Probably because Sony themselves are licensing the PDAF technology they are actually using. That being the case, they would not be able to manufacture sensors for a third party using the IP in question unless the third party held a license as well. Whoever holds the critical piece of IP may not be inclined to license it to Panasonic for various reasons. They might want Panasonic to cross license some of their tech for example, and Panasonic may not want to do that. Most of the big companies probably have some sort of cross licensing deals going on for various aspects of camera technology. So, some companies may be able to implement IP owned by a third company, whereas another company may not. The reason very likely is that Sony does not own the IP involved (or at least partially), so they can't license it. They can only make sensors for companies that HAVE licensed it from the patent holders. Alternatively, Sony owns some aspects of the IP, and other companies own other aspects, so they got together and agreed to cross license what they individually owned to each other so that all could use the technology (otherwise none could). Panasonic likely can't bring anything to that table, so they are cut out. This is how things work routinely in tech business, especially with complicated things like electronic gadgets. No one owns everything, they have to make many deals to get the IP that allows them freedom to operate. It may not seem fair, the company that can make the best product may not be able to do so, or make their product as good as it could have been, due to IP restrictions.

Junk can be made in either country, but, if you have ever dealt with a Japanese company you would know that they can be OCD about stuff, even things you might consider unimportant (which can be frustrating in itself). The chances of a quality issue slipping by are much lower with those sorts of values. But, with everything, that can be a weakness too - sometimes they get so fixated on smaller cosmetic things that they miss more important issues because they are not looking for those. It is different in China, if there is a short cut the manufacturer thinks they can get away with, they will try it, so you have to watch them like a hawk.

Not really. The table shows actual sales percentages over a period of months, whereas the second is a ranking of sales, probably a running weekly average. The latter would involve much smaller numbers, so there might be big differences in rankings involving fairly small number of actual cameras, especially when you get to the lower ranked cameras which are probably not moving much product. Something that sells 50 cameras a week might be ranked at 100th place for example, while something else that sells 60 per week could be in 50th place. On the other hand cameras in the top 10 could be selling hundreds or thousands of units a week. The models at 50th and 100th place would be "ranked" but essentially not be selling many units in comparison. Also, keep in mind that the ranking involves different packages as well. The a7III is in two spots for example, presumably one is body only and the other is kit (I can't read Japanese but that is probably what it means). The R could rank above the RP if it is mostly selling in kit form while the RP sales could be broken into separate ranking for kit and bodies with roughly equal sales, which would then rank below the R as a result. Or vica versa. But one camera is being split up into multiple slots whereas the other is not. The really big differences in actual sales would happen in the products at the very top of the list, the lower ranked cameras are likely not selling all that many units, and that can skew rankings, especially if there are multiple SKUs for a particular camera.

It likely won't have a true global shutter, just a very fast read speed so that for practical purposes it will act much like one. I am pretty sure that an a9 is a better camera than a S1 though.

You have no idea how cheap those things actually are. The actual cost difference for those sorts of things is a few dollars. The difference in manufacturing cost is probably on the order of around $50 or less, taking the whole camera into account. That might not sound like much, but keep in mind that anything manufactured you go and buy in a store probably costs about 1/10th or less of what you pay to actually to make. Then, depending on your margin size, those small differences in cost have a huge impact on your ability to make a profit. The rest is marketing/distribution/retail/overhead/profit. It varies depending on the industry, but that is approximately the cost structure involved.

You would be surprised. The production costs for an a7x model is probably not much more than that for a6xxx cameras. The main difference would come from slightly more expensive electronics in the FF cameras. There would be a small difference due to the materials used in the camera as well. But by far the largest cost component would be labour, since they have to be carefully assembled by skilled workers. That small difference in cost of materials has a big impact on the much smaller profit margin of the cheaper camera however, which is why those compromises are made.

2020 will probably have a a7RIV though, and what will that be able to do? Not to mention the a9II supposedly coming out late this year or early 2020. Those are the cameras that Canons pro MILCs will have to face off against. I had a look at the S1 (a local store has one on display). I did not care much for the form factor, it just seemed too big for my hands, and that is very important (for me at least).

They lead in a market segment that Sony doesn't really compete in though (namely the low end consumer segment). Profit margins are low in that segment, so even though they might sell a fair number of units, they won't make a whole lot of money doing it. They likely have to sell 10-20 M50s to get the same net profit a a7III makes. Actually, figures for the last few months have DSLR sales cratering bigtime. They are down to 50-60% of previous years sales. If you look at the BCN sales rankings for individual FF cameras, it is completely dominated by MILCs. The only DSLRs that feature at the top are the bargain basement Rebel types. It is primarily because the market is shifting to MILCs from DSLRs, and Canikon fans are skipping the first serious generation of MILCs from those manufacturers to avoid the "teething" issues. My guess is that their sales will pick up again when the next generation of the R/Z cameras come out. Assuming that they can compete with Sony's constant pushing of the envelope of course, and I have my doubts about that. Up until now they have largely had the DSLR world to themselves, but moving over to MILCs they will be facing up directly against some very formidable competition, and they won't be able to trot out the sales pitch that mirrored systems are just better. Time will tell. The camera world is in flux at the moment. As I have been predicting for the last few years, 2019 is going to be the year stuff changes

If you zoom in to 4K through a crop, you will actually be getting less than 4K due to debeyering. Lots of cameras have digital zooms, and have for a decade, it always compromises the image however.

Fuji and Nikon likely already have a patent position, or hold a license to use someone else's patents. That is why they can use the technology. Presumably Panasonic do not, so they cannot implement it even if they wanted to. Cost has nothing to do with it. Freedom to operate does. Audio codecs carry license fees, they are not free. The only people who need high end audio are those who do pro/semi-pro types of video. Not everyone shoots video. Why should a stills photographer have to pay more in order to subsidize the minority who shoots video? If you want those tools, you can get them, but it will cost you. Panasonic appear to have made the decision to separate those tools and the license fees associated with them and shifted those costs directly onto the users who want them, while keeping the cost of the camera itself down for most other users.

I expect their lens sales are going down as well. Some of the secondary lens manufacturers are producing very capable lenses these days. The old days where those sorts of lenses were cheap but inferior are gone. Plus, if Sony are dominating the FF market, the sales are going to go to lenses for those cameras. Why would you buy a Canikon lens to go on an E-mount camera when there are native choices that are just as good or better?

Wouldn't $1200 be closer to its actual value? It still has a way to fall.

Actually there is. It is called intellectual property. There are lots of things a company could do and would like to do, but can't, due to the IP position on the technology involved. If the IP is owned by someone else you can't just use it. Probably they have to license something to implement that, hence the fee for the upgrade.

Because those overall sales figures are for all camera types, not just FF. When it comes to FF, the a7III is the best selling camera. According to the BCN sales data as a whole the a7III outsells the FF DSLRs as well. It is the end of the road for DSLRs in the enthusiast market. The pro market might still be using DSLRs (but for long?) but that is not where most of the FF DSLRs are being sold. The vast majority are being bought by the prosumer segment. When those people stop buying those cameras they will no longer be subsidising the pros, and that means that DSLRs that might be produced in the future will cost a lot more in order to cover the development costs. At the same time they will be competing against MILCs that are just as good and likely increasingly superior as time goes by. How long do you think those pros are going to stick with DSLRs when faced by increasing prices and decreasing functionality compared to MILCs?

To make things worse for Canon and Nikon, the CIPA data over the last month or two shows a massive tanking in DSLR sales/shipments. MILC are down somewhat but are basically keeping an even keel keeping releases in mind. I think what is happening is that we are full swing into the shift from DSLR to MILC now. People with Canikon who have DSLRs will jump to MILCs on their next upgrade cycle, but are not satisfied with Canikon's first offerings for the most part. So they are just holding position and not buying anything. Buying a DSLR at this point is essentially buying into a dead system, so a lot of folk are just waiting, hence low sales (especially with DSLRs). If it carries on like this, Sony will be the dominant camera company in a few years, much like Canon are now. More likely the reason is that Apple wants cross licensing as part of any deal, and the companies with significant IP portfolios don't want that. BM can agree to those sorts of terms because their IP portfolio is more limited and less valuable. They don't have anything to lose, whereas the Canon and Sonys of the world do. The DSLR market is in the process of crashing now though. Sales today are ~60% of what they were a year ago.

The sensors in question are manufactured by Sony, but use Samsung's designs. Hence the Sony part number. Samsung make the same sensor themselves. They are identical, other than nuances resulting from the particular manufacturing procedures used. The reason they use Sony for this is that they need a lot of production in a short period of time, after which the plants would sit partially idle. It makes economic sense to pay someone else who also has a partially idle plant to pick up the slack to even out that burst phase. Since the Sony that makes sensors is not the same company as the Sony that makes cameras, there is no conflict of interest involved. Sony set things up that way precisely so that they can manufacture parts for competitors. The reason for being in something like the ILC camera market is the same reason Mercedes, Honda and Renault are in Formula 1: it would be a test bed for new cutting edge technology and a training room for their best engineers. They don't even need to make a profit, the benefits come in other ways. Panasonic is probably like that too. Not so for Canon and Nikon, who actually do have to make a profit on their products and cannot leverage R&D significantly through other activities (although Canon likely makes good money from licensing their extensive patent portfolio).

I doubt this will thing will catch on, it is just not practical from a size/use perspective. How do you hold it? Does it sort of flap around while you are using it? Is it too thick to fit comfortably in a pocket? How heavy is it? It is just one of those gimmicky "because we can do it" sort of things.

Really old gnomes whose eyesight is failing and have trembling hands. The young strong gnomes went to work for Sony and Panasonic.

They don't use the same sensors. The Sony company that manufactures them produce them on contract for major clients like Sony (camera subsidiary, which is independent of the semiconductor subsidiary that makes the chips), Panasonic and Nikon according to the designs the clients give them. They might be similar, but not the same. Sony also produces generic off the shelf sensors for minor clients of course, but those too are different from the sensors produced for major clients. Sony makes DPAF sensors for Samsung for example. Those are designed by Samsung (some are made by Samsung as well) using a license from Canon. Sony as a secondary manufacturer gets a sublicense from Samsung specifically for making those designs under contract. The sublicense would not allow them to make DPAF sensors for anyone else though, unless that company also licensed DPAF from Canon even though Sony are capable of making them. The differences between the Samsung and Sony sensors stem from the manufacturing process used in the respective plants, but the design is the same. A lot of people get confused about how this all works because they don't understand how manufacturing and supply chain management function. The deals with Panasonic and Nikon would work in a similar manner. They would end up with parts that have a Sony number but are still the clients design. There may be common elements in the manufacture, because the sensor would be manufactured in the same facility, but the design itself would be different. People keep on forgetting that the Sony that makes cameras is not the same company as the Sony that makes sensors. They might be owned by the same holding company, but they are run independently. Sensors designed by the camera company will NOT be available for other camera companies to use.

Well, you have your own forum. Focus on that and ignore him.

Ya, but your attitude basically was that anyone who did not share your opinion on a subject lacked intelligence and was an idiot. If they pointed out a flaw in your argument, they had "tunnel vision" and were "locked on to one tiny area", and consequently their counter argument could be dismissed as stupid. With that kind of an attitude, what sort of reaction did you expect to get from people? (Oh, I forgot, they were idiots). People don't always agree on things, and sometimes people are wrong, even you. Debate is healthy. Dismissing people as "lacking intelligence" when they engage in it from an opposing point is not.

The problem with the XC10 is that it was marketed as a "professional" hybrid, even though it was neither a professional camera (it was really aimed at wannabe consumers) nor a hybrid. This was obvious at the time and pointed out by many commentators. It was basically a camcorder stuffed into a stills like body, and that is just not a good fit. I think Canon had the idea that they would transform their XA/XFA/G line into a DSLR style body because that is what "consumers wanted", not understanding that people used that body style because they were hybrids, not because of the body itself. For pure video shooting (which is what the XC line was for really) the XA/XF/G body style is much more appropriate. I think they have realized the mistake now, and that is why we are seeing new camcorders with that body style instead of variations of the XC, which is what they should have done years ago in the first place. Camcorders may be obsolete in the consumer world but they most certainly are not in the professional world. I am not saying that people don't use the XC cameras, nor that no one likes them (clearly some do), but just that most of the ones sold were because at the time the XC were the only Canon camcorders that had those capabilities at that price range. Now that there are other more traditional options from Canon I suspect that the potential market for the XC line has shrunk even further. It did. It fell off the camera. I imagine that any reviewer would rate that as a negative, it is hard to post a glowing review of something that literally disintegrates and still stay credible. No. The core of DPR is it's forums, which are primarily for consumers using stills cameras. It is one the best sites for that, outside of Canon products (Canon Reviews forums is top dog for Canon stills products). The reviews section is fine in general, a spat with Andrew does not make that different. Obviously stills centric, but that does not make the site irrelevant.

Since they earn a living doing it, they are pros by definition. You not liking their opinion does not make it otherwise.

You think that everyone uses the same encoder? lol....