It’s all because of D800.

Canon released 7D two years ago with microlens and less than one stop improvement of noise, a significantly improved AF, a little more fps, a little more MP, a better video and a lot of new bells and whistles for a few hundred dollars more than 50D. It was received well and became the most popular camera for high end aps-c shooters.

Canon now releases 5DIII with microlens and (presumably) about one stop improvement of noise, a significantly improved AF, a little more fps, a little more MP, a better video and a lot of new bells and whistles for a few hundred dollars more than 5DIII. It is not received as well to say the least.

What is different between then and now? The only difference is there is the D800 now and there was no $1500 30MP 7D counterpart from Nikon then. Are those detractors legit? I think so and here is the reason. Camera is a competitive business not one that you can live on brand name alone like, say, in fashion products. Most consumers will only be happy when they got the (perceived) best product with the (perceived) best value and that’s true even for fashions. The product quality and value has to be measured against all others available on the market that they could buy.

GM has never made a real bad car in the past decades including even certain compact cars that did get a very good reputation. The only problem it had was its competitions started to make better and better cars while GM did not, at least not as fast as them. Just good enough can never be good enough when people have better choices. That’s my take on this whole situation.