So, why isn't Canon 'cool?'

[back alley]

So, why isn't Canon 'cool?'...

each morning i ask the same question about myself?

 

[Keith]

So, why isn't Canon 'cool?'...

each morning i ask the same question about myself?

I think you're cool Joe ... but you lost just a little coolness when you abandoned your lifelong commission as an RFF mod! lol 😀

 

[kuuan]

Market leader like Toyota? Really cool!
That is part of the problem, they are the market leader and the market leader is never* cool. Microsoft anyone?..

being flamboyantly cool like apple i find disturbingly uncool, Toyota and Microsoft rather unpretentious and cool 😉

 

[back alley]

I think you're cool Joe ... but you lost just a little coolness when you abandoned your lifelong commission as an RFF mod! lol 😀

that new hat has gone to your head...(see what i did there?)

 

[wakarimasen]

Dear wakarimasen,

Maybe the answer lies in the fact you seen to have a preference for Nikon and if that is so why would you need any justification for your choice?

Unless of course, you think it's the wrong one? 🙂

Keep what you like, but please don't become one of those serial switchers I see all the time on photo message boards.

Regards,

Tim Murphy
Harrisburg, PA 🙂

I fear I'm too mean to become a serial switcher. If you had said 'serial hoarder' we might have been in business... :bang:

 

[p.giannakis]

I shot Canons for 10 years. Then sold some of them and replaced them with Minoltas. Then switched to numerous Pentaxes before Olympuses came along. A few years ago I acquired a number of Nikons.
Last year sold much of my gear. I kept 2 Canons (EOS-1n RS and EOS -5), two Nikons (F4s and F90s) and one Olympus OM-2n. I also have a Leica. I can't tell you which camera is cooler than which, all of them felt so cool to me.

 

[sevo]

I think film makers would agree with most of what has been said in this thread. Canon is THE camera to have if you are an indie film maker.

Whatever brand, a DSLR is not really the best thing to shoot cine with - codec and format problems aside, they are a massive lump of useless (for the task) packaging around a sensor, and adding cine peripherals grows them into a unergonomic, fragile mess. People use them because they have nothing better, but hardly because they are desirable. I know of no cinematography student who'd pick a DSLR (of whatever brand) if he could also lay hands on dedicated video cameras like the Blackmagic PCC or up.

 

[sevo]

I think that they are all really just one firm (all owned by the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi) that decided to split the market in the late 1940s.

A nice hypothesis, however only Nikon was part of the Mitsubishi keiretsu, while Canon was part of Fuyo. And nowdays that is quite irrelevant, the keiretsu system did not survive the Japanese economic crisis.

 

[Roger Hicks]

It is true, they built a prototype. But that doesn't mean they "introduced" TTL metering, as they were neither the first to come up with the concept, nor the first to put it into production. Further, Pentax went with stop down metering, which turned out to be a technological dead end. Topcon went with open aperture metering which is what every SLR uses today. Sort of makes the whole Pentax issue simply a "detour" through technological history.

Pentax also liked to claim they invented the layout of the typical 35mm SLR, but they were beaten by Edixa. Wirgin's Edixa Reflex already had the right hand advance lever, pentaprism, bottom rewind button, and so on in 1954. In fact the Edixa Reflex was only the second camera with a right hand advance lever, right after the Leica M3. . .. .

No, no: this is sophistry and rhetoric. Wulfthari has told us so. He has also told us that he knows far more about camera history than the rest of us. Why shouldn't we believe him?

Cheers,

R.

 

[Wulfthari]

No, no: this is sophistry and rhetoric. Wulfthari has told us so. He has also told us that he knows far more about camera history than the rest of us. Why shouldn't we believe him?

Cheers,

R.

I never claimed to know more about camera history than other people, this is what you people are claiming when you are trying to negate the historic importance of model like the Spotmatic or the Olympus OM-1 or...just write the camera you don't like here.

In this case the argument of stopped down metering is flawed as M42 doesn't allow to do that (unlike bayonet mounts) unless you use some tricks like the pin used of Fujicas, the electric connectors used by Pentacon or the modified mounting used later by Pentax that nevertheless creates some compatibility problem.

However this discussion has become silly, ad personam and off topic, therefore I disengage to "debate" with you any further, unsing Mar Twain's immortal words:

"Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference"

 

[ForestCap]

The more stuff nikon makes in China and Thailand, the less cool they get. Most of their stuff is now unfortunately.

I reckon Vietnam will be the next target to be bashed as a camera manufacturing country.

Is it true once upon a time Made in Japan was considered garbage and junk?

To OP: Nikon is considered to be "cooler", however most people use Canon. Just my observation.
I always pay attention to the camera brands I see at multiple places of interests in both Sweden and China. In Sweden it's occupied overwhelmingly by (Aps-C)Canon, while in China it's much more diverse, you could see more Olympus, Fuji, Sony, Nikon, and even Pentax 😉

 

[Roger Hicks]

.. . "Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference"

And of course, George Carlin's — 'Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.'

I bow to your greater experience.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

. . . Is it true once upon a time Made in Japan was considered garbage and junk? . . .

That was certainly the case as recently as the 1950s, when I was a small boy. But then, the same was true of Germany in the 19th century. In both cases I suspect that the perception arose chiefly from cheap toys, though in all fairness Soichiro Honda's first venture into making piston rings did not start well.

Cheers,

R.

 

[xayraa33]

A nice hypothesis, however only Nikon was part of the Mitsubishi keiretsu, while Canon was part of Fuyo. And nowdays that is quite irrelevant, the keiretsu system did not survive the Japanese economic crisis.

That Nippon Kogaku supplied the lenses on early Canons is a good clue that both companies were at one time joined at the hip.

 

[Roger Hicks]

That Nippon Kogaku supplied the lenses on early Canons is a good clue that both companies were at one time joined at the hip.

Not really. It was (and is) quite common for manufacturers to buy in lenses from specialist lens manufacturers. Kodak, for example, used Rodenstock and Schneider lenses while Rollei used Zeiss and Schneider. I don't know whether there was any other relationship between Nippon Kogaku and Canon beyond buyer/supplier, but I certainly wouldn't treat the presence of one manufacturer's lenses on another's cameras as any sort of clue, let alone a good one, that they were "joined at the hip".

Cheers,

R.

 

[sevo]

That Nippon Kogaku supplied the lenses on early Canons is a good clue that both companies were at one time joined at the hip.

It is not that hard to read up that they were part of entirely different keiretsu (and before the war, different among the big four zaibatsu).

 

[Kent]

I shot Canons for 10 years. Then sold some of them and replaced them with Minoltas. Then switched to numerous Pentaxes before Olympuses came along. A few years ago I acquired a number of Nikons.
Last year sold much of my gear. I kept 2 Canons (EOS-1n RS and EOS -5), two Nikons (F4s and F90s) and one Olympus OM-2n. I also have a Leica. I can't tell you which camera is cooler than which, all of them felt so cool to me.

Quite true.

And it not only the manufacturer, it' also the camera model.

Nikon generally is pretty cool to me, but then there are really cool models and those which aren't.

Nikkormat FT2 = cool!
Nikon F = cooool!
Nikon F3 = veeeery cooool!

Nikon F60 = kinda nice, but not cool at all...

etc.

 

[Dralowid]

Well, when I was younger I thought the Pellix was a very good idea and rather cool. Hmmm. I also thought the Canonflexes were cool. I was impressed by the thinking behind the Dial. Some of the movie cameras 814(?) were quite something. Being a Leica bloke I was never too sure about their rangefinder cameras (though I got on well with that Yashica/Nicca thing).
The Demi and the Canonet were not bad either. I could go on.

So I think I remember them being 'cool' in the 60s and perhaps early '70s which is, I guess, a little after the time when Japanese products were still looked down upon by those committed to Western European stuff.

Remember, Japanese stuff always came with a gold 'quality' sticker...Practicas didn't.

 

[xayraa33]

I personally don't buy it, "Canikon" is more than a jab in the side and a good snicker and it happened many decades ago and still present even today.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JstJAxtubEA

 

[maggieo]

Ever since the ubiquitous AE-1 in the 1980's, Canon has been the Toyota of cameras. They make excellent, mass-market photographic appliances, along with some stonking fantastic high-performance stuff, but the public knows them for the Camry of cameras, the Rebel.