Pay to Play
 

OK, we all know what we'd like from Canon, and they're certainly hearing it from their own review site to threads and sites around the net. So, in case their listening, what's it worth to you?

I'd absolutely pay $200-300 for a firmware upgrade that allowed manual shutter, aperture and ISO control.

Don't give the bean counters any ideas.

This is simple stuff that they can probably modify in 30 minutes, then re-compile. But, as one person pointed out on another thread, he'll never buy another Canon lens if they don't make these changes, and that's a lot more than a couple hundred dollars to Canon. Of course, I already have $10K in Canon lenses and don't really feel like buying Nikon primes.

-S

In a heartbeat.

Throw in 24p and I'd put down $500 without hesitation.

No. I wouldn't pay for it. As has been pointed out, it's a simple fix, which would cost Canon next to nothing to include in a firmware update. This is not an added feature, just a fix to a significant problem.

We shouldn't be paying for patches to problem firmware.

Julian

How about this question instead...

How much more would you pay for a 5DmkIIa if it had full manual control, over a regular 5DmkII without them?

I want a headphone jack, too. :-)

How about this. We all pay $200~300 to someone who can actually hack the damn thing. Coz I don't think canon is going to fix it at all.
I still favor my XH A1 over 5D2, if canon fix the 5D2, I will sell my A1 right away.... I think canon knows that too...

Let's not forget the aliasing issues too. This is the biggest problem in my eyes.... From a recent film trip to new york... about 35% of the footage is ruined by serious aliasing.

Just spoke to someone in the higher echelons at Canon during WPPI in Vegas this week.

He wasn't 100% sure but he thought some of the coding for the functionality we're asking for was hard coded into a PROM.

If that the case he said we'll have to wait for a new camera, whether it's a 5DmkIIn or something new he wouldn't speculate.

But he assured me that Canon was taking all of our concerns seriously.

I told him that if they were to come out with an n version of the 5DmkII that they should offer some kind of upgrade option to avoid ticking off the early adopters and he agreed in principal and told me it would be a part of the discussions if he had any say in it.

For me to pay anything for it, it would have to have manual controls AND 24/25p. Then I'd be willing to shell out a couple hundred bucks or so.

Personally though, I don't think they would ever do anything like that. How would they protect against illegal file sharing?

Just out of curiosity, why do you ask?

My top 3 wants:
Full Manual Control
24P
Audio Control
(I haven't personally seen the banding, so if that's an issue, there is NO way we should have to pay for that.)
If they fixed just a few things, this camera would sell in unbelievable ways.

Well to answer your question in general, I asked because it's a discussion forum. Specifically I asked because of your last statement - that if they fixed these problems the camera would sell in unbelievable ways.
The economy aside (yeah we wish) I'm guessing Canon is already poised to sell an unbelievable amount of theses cameras.

I'm suggesting some incentive to produce a simple "Professional HD" Upgrade for the section of the 5DII market that they obviously, totally (in the words of GWB) misunderestimated.

There seems to be some surprise at Canon that high-end photographers, photojournalists looking to cross over, and dedicated videographers and filmmakers are frustrated over buying what turned out to be a point and shoot camera.

If they really saw 1080p Movie Mode as an add-on that no one would really take seriously, it wasn't stated that way in their White Paper claims. So playing the dangerous game of assumption, there's then the basic idea that the decision to make Movie Mode point and shoot was political/strategic.

I'm therefore floating the "what if" balloon. What if Canon offered a Pro HD upgrade specifically for whatever percentage of buyers who are disappointed and frustrated with their 5DII experience because it wasn't, in fact, developed with any serious HD shooting in mind.

As I've said before, it's one thing for Canon to claim that this is a high end photography tool not a professional HD camera. But how do you go from there to: Therefore we removed even the most basic creative and professional controls?

A professional HD firmware upgrade could be just the way to bridge the gap between the "I got the 5DII for photography and don't really care/haven't even tried that crazy HD thingy and the " I got the 5DII because of it's incredible new 35mm 1080p HD abilities".

Those that could care less wouldn't need or want it but all the rest of us want nothing more.
That's a huge rift in user expectations that Canon could resolve with a Pay to Play approach.

Huh? It isn't "problem" firmware. The auto-only movie mode in the camera is working perfectly *as designed.* It can't be characterized as a "problem" unless manual exposure control in movie mode was an intended feature which isn't working, but this is not the case. Such a feature wasn't included in the first place, therefore it's not a firmware "problem."

Actually, the jack is already there -- it's the A/V output jack (1/8th-inch stereo mini). On most Canon camcorders, this jack can be configured as a headphone output via menu setting. On the 5D Mk.II, what's missing isn't the jack itself but the phones output feature.

Maybe it's not so much adding features as it is removing them.

• Remove the autoexposure feature.
• Remove the autogain feature.
• Remove the noise reduction feature.

I guess they could make them optional instead of removing them altogether, but I'm not picky. I also have some features I would like removed from still shooting mode:

• Remove the JPEG histogram feature (which warps the histogram by 1-3 stops in RAW mode).
• Remove the analog ISO feature (which deletes up to 5 stops of highlights at high ISO; the old Canon 10D was the last camera without this feature.)
• Remove the raw tweener ISO feature (which increases noise at 1/3 ISO).
• Remove the angle of response feature (so raw data is left unchanged).
• Remove the film-simulation feature (stops recording every 12 minutes so you can pretend to "change mags" like film).

It's all in how you look at it. ;)

Agreed... but the *design* is faulty and for video, *that's* a problem which needs to be fixed. Canon is heavily advertising the camera's professional video capabilities (others have mentioned the Canon 5DII's white paper) and at the same time telling us that it's basically a point and shoot when it comes to video.

Julian

By the way, that was me who said that. They're not mutually exclusive concepts.

Judging the difficulty in say, cineform (or any software hard/software company)trying to get what seems to be simple piece of software to work correctly 100% of the time or, even me trying to keep my all four of my WinXP machines running (yesterday I had to use a hex editor to change hexadecimal code to get my hard drive to show up in a fresh XP install!?!?! No wonder my parents hate computers) I’d say that it’s a wee bit more difficult than we think!!

m

$300
 

Considering how quickly Canon fixed the firmware for the banding/black dot issue it seems unlikely that they are even considering an aperture fix in a free firmware update. Canon fixed the banding/black dot issue because there was an issue with the proper functioning of the camera, but I am guessing that they don't see aperture/shutter/iso control as an embarrassing problem they need to fix. If Canon offered a firmware upgrade that cost $300 for those that wanted to pay for added functionality it might make sense for them. I have no idea how many units have been sold, but if 1000 people bought the update that would be $300,000 for what seems like a simple firmware fix.

It might also make sense if/when sales slow and inventory starts to stack up, which could very well happen in this economy. News of a firmware upgrade would generate a lot of press and stimulate sales. If they still have a backlog of orders, there's not as much motivation to act - yet.

That said, I have no interest in Canon glass these days. Give me the update, and I will only shop for EF glass, since I'd get not only great video glass, but full photo compatibility. It's as simple as that.