Good morning everybody! Well there was a lot of big news last week. Canon announced their newest flagship, the EOS-1DX Mark III a 20.1mp professional DSLR offering the latest advancements Canon can muster up including a 191 point AF system, “Head Detection” (wtf?) technology, 4K video and 5.5K Raw video, just to name a few of the things available in this jam packed camera.

Nikon also announced the D780, a 24.5mp DSLR in the legendary D700 line and the successor to the very popular D750. Perhaps destined to be the greatest, and some say the last, in this line.

Nikon also showed, under protective glass, the Nikon D6 flagship DSLR. No specs were given however but we can guess it will have enough of the things it needs to make it competitive with the 1DX MKIII.

It seemed to be a big week in the camera world last week and Sunday morning is a great time to talk about it so let’s start!

LATEST YOUTUBE VIDEO

Here’s a video I made earlier in the week. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to post it, but I decided to do it just to get something out for you guys. The video starts out with a “new” old school singer you never knew existed! 🙂

It’s really a bit silly, but that’s just me being me. Hey listen, I love cameras! I know there’s so much serious work that goes into the manufacture of these cameras. The serious electrical and optical engineering have already been done, I don’t need to add to that seriousness. The worst thing I could do is act like a pretentious dweeb who knows it all so I’ll just be the dweeb who don’t know nothing 🙂

Also in this episode, I reflect on the “low budget” look of my videos. You guys know I tell it like it is and I know my early videos on YouTube had cringe worthy production, and hey I’ll admit they’re still cringe worthy but we’ll continue to improve. The majority of early YouTube efforts are cringe worthy anyway so learn from me and make better videos if you want to try YouTube!

When I was a kid my Dad always said “Don’t make fun of people” because as he noted, it always comes back to you. Well, of course I didn’t listen and I’m paying for it now!

When we were kids, we would stay up with Dad and watch the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, David Letterman, then Jay Leno, etc. But once in a while, we’d scan the channels (there weren’t that many in the 80s and early 90s) and we would see a man named Joe Franklin on WWOR, Channel 9 in NYC.

Joe Franklin was the king of vaudeville and nostalgia and pretty much started the late night, late show genre but never got his just desserts because he wasn’t national like Johnny Carson, he was local to the NYC area. Later on, he eventually got more of the recognition he deserved when Billy Crystal imitated him on Saturday Night Live.

Mr. Franklin had a really low budget look to his shows and if you weren’t paying attention you might have even thought his show was “boring” because of his low key speaking style but if you actually paid attention to his shows, they were actually quite entertaining.

Towards the end of his television run, they started using “Axel F” from Beverly Hills Cop as the theme song for his show and when they did that, I just about lost it! I thought it was the funniest thing ever!

Anyway, at the end of my YouTube video, I’ve included a clip that I posted only to social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook last year and it’s called “Joe Franklin’s Revenge” because when we were younger, my friends and I would record ourselves making fun of his shows and now he has come back to get the last laugh! 🙂

I know this is not what you expect when you are watching a “camera review” site but as I mentioned in the last article, camera reviews are passe man! I want to do things differently. I will continue to keep you guys informed and share my experiences with you but I believe that whenever you put yourself out there in these videos is you got to remember the bottom line is that is stuff is strictly for your entertainment 🙂

LONG LIVE THE DSLR!

So with all the talk of the imminent death of the DSLR why did Canon and Nikon come out with these cameras when it seemed like they finally embraced Mirrorless? As I mentioned in my DSLR VS Mirrorless YouTube video last year, the “Big Dawgs” Canon and Nikon are very comfortable making these “big ass” cameras 🙂

 No seriously, these two companies have been eternally embraced in a legendary rivalry. While both are on the cutting edge of camera technology and while both offer some of the best and most advanced cameras on the market, both camera companies are also philosophically old school to the bone.

The big DSLR flagship cameras represent their greatest. It represents strength, it represents power. The big bodies can be traced back to many models including the Nikon F and the Canon F1, the F5 vs EOS-1, the D1 vs the EOS-1D, and so on and so on.

And let’s face it, even though making cameras as big as these pro models are really unnecessary with today’s technology, they still represent an undeniably powerful and maybe even fearsome look. Just like the huge SUV’s that nobody needs, it tells people that the person driving it is the Big Daddy, the Bull of The Woods! And that’s what Canon and Nikon want with their HUGE DSLR cameras!

Now imagine if Canon came out with the big bad 1DX MKIII and Nikon’s F6 were to be a smallish mirrorless looking camera? Nikon would never live it down how “wimpy” their flagship might look if that were the case. It may sound silly, but I think this is real folks as you can see by this week’s introduction of these two new behemoths.

MY PERSONAL OPINION OF THE NEW DSLRs

While I can understand why Canon kept the 1DX at a relatively low 20.1 megapixels, I personally believe they had room for just a bit more megapixels. I understand that the camera is aimed for those people who really need to get the shot, ie, sports photographers, photo journalists, wedding, etc, and that 20 megapixels is plenty. Heck, I said myself most of us won’t need more than ten megapixels!

I mean yes, in reality not many people will need more than 20 megapixels but still, in a world of 30-50mp and even 100mp in some medium format digital cameras, surely they could’ve squeezed in a few more quality pixels for us!

In 2020, 20mp is a bit too low for me. Not because I need more mps but because I would want more for my money if I had the money to buy one! Even their own mirrorless EOS R has 30.3 megapixels!

My old Sony A7R, released in 2013, has 36 megapixels and yes if I’m deliberately looking for it, I can see a difference in details between 36mps and the 16-24mp cameras. Not all the time mind you, but if I’m looking for it, I can see it.

The original 1DX was released in 2011 and had 18 megapixels, so come on Canon this is 2020, you should have made the 1DX MKIII at least 25-30 megapixels. Just my take on this! What do you think?

As for the Nikon D780? I think it’s going to be a great camera but I’m not really sure it’s going to be an image quality improvement over what they’ve already put out with the D600/D610, D750, D800, D810, D850, etc, etc. At this point, it seems like just a product refresh.

The D6 I’m curious about! As I said, no one yet knows the specs, but it’s not hard to guess a 20-25mp pro DSLR with all the amenities you’d expect like 4K video, etc.

Really, at this stage, we have such an abundance of great and capable cameras on the market and on the used market that these cameras are not really necessary as far as image quality is concerned but probably only being put out to keep the market alive.

It almost seems as if the Canon R and Nikon Z mirrorless, while successful, are still not at the heart of Canon and Nikon’s game. Like they just made them because that’s what the market and the masses are demanding they make. But it’s not their true love.

It may take them a little more time for Canon and Nikon to fully cross over into Mirrorless territory but at this point, the big bad assed DSLR still remain what these two Camera Legend companies love most.

What do you think of the 1DX Mark III? The D780? The D6? Feel free to drop a comment and happy Sunday good peeps!

 

Pre-Order The NEW Canon EOS-1DX MK III Now!!

The rest of us mere mortals could probably get by on the hot new and way more affordable Canon EOS 6D MKII!