Isaac GP .com

Bye bye Canon

Since 2005 I have been a user of Canon photographic material, with which I have made more than 500,000 photos. Today, I have nothing more of this brand, I have left Canon.

Since then I have owned:

Before Canon I used Nikon. And before Nikon I used Olympus. I changed from Nikon to Canon with the beginning of digital era, and because Nikon started making bad decisions: their cameras were from APS-C at first, they only developed DX optics for crop format, and they began to encrypt the Raw …; also I had just bought a 24-85mm and it had dust inside. I know that it was not my fault, because I had it for very little time, didn’t use it much, it was not the typical dust and it was very far inside … surely a result of friction of some element. Nikon technical service did not consider it a factory failure and they wanted to charge me for fixing it. For me at that time, Canon was not a serious brand, photographically speaking, because they made office supplies like printers, etc. I didn’t consider them focused on photography. But they made the 5D, which was FullFrame and had a consistent price. I bought the 350D to see if the Canon convinced me before making a more serious investment. I liked Canon 350D, so I sold all the Nikon equipment and switched to Canon. Although I have to say that I never felt happy with Canon, because the photometer – Nikon had a name for it and in Canon it was always a stranger, and for the ergonomics among others.

Problems with the CPS

  • Complete equipment (camera, lens and flash) with an unidentified failure. I send all components to the technical service. They checked that separately all parts work correctly, but when they were assembled together then they failed. They detect the fault, but not the cause, so it will exceed the normal repair time. Being a CPS member, they give me a replacement equipment. They decided to send me back some parts of my equipment and send to Germany technical service the part that they thought was causing the failure. They asked me to send back the replacement equipment. I said no, because as they had sent me back some parts of my equipment, they wouldn’t be able to recheck if my complete equipment works without failures after the reparation. I didn’t want to find myself again with my complete equipment which doesn’t work correctly and be obliged to send it again to the technical service. I have my photographic equipment for making pictures… not for sending it again and again to the technical service. Canon calls me to discuss the situation, very angry. I tell them that I prefer to continue with the replacement equipment until mine is completely repaired as they offer in their campaign to the CPS Spain, and as an answer I receive insults and my CPS account is deleted.
  • Canon offered a Wacom as a gift for the purchase of a 5DIII body. After the purchase I made the paperwork, they told me that in 15 days I would receive the Wacom, but it did not arrive. After several emails they finally tell me that the Wacom model of the offer had been out of stock. I asked then to be exchanged for a superior model, or to get a refund of the money. They gave me a negative answer and they sent me an inferior model and a “welcome pack to Canon Photography” as compensation. Fight with CPS Finland and as always, a big waste of time.

And also

Canon was convinced that their brand would sell itself, copying the advances of other brands such as dust cleaning copied from Olympus, etc.
I was beginning not to be happy:
• Very old optics, little renovation
• There was aberration or lack of focus with people who were intensely illuminated in theaters, for example.
• For many focus screens that I bought I never achieved a good focus manually, I was forced to use Live in View.
• Little dynamic range, a lot of noise …

Each new equipment left me unsatisfied, to the point that the differences between models were starting to be ridiculous. I initially thought that by upgrading to the latest model, it would have advantages such as less noise and better dynamic range. But I realized that I was throwing away money with Canon. The innovation was minimal, ridiculous, trusting that their clients had nowhere else to go. It is the only brand that has obtained that customers have done alternative firmware, Magic Lantern, to eliminate all the limitations that Canon had imposed on the camera software.

Message to Canon

Canon, bye bye!

I have promoted your brand in the courses and talks that I gave, on my website, I have been CPS for many years. But I do not like what you’ve become. I have sold all my Canon equipment to change to another brand. I hope one day you stop copying Fuji, Sony, Olympus or Pentax, who are doing very interesting things, and start having your own proposals.