Last Chance to vote! 2014 Readers' Polls - best product of 2014

No product from Canon in the list = the world is full of mindless consumerism and camera owners who never shoot.

What makes you think that votes are brand motivated?

I predicted last week that they would just give it to both cameras. Make everyone happy and all (well maybe not the Canon and MFT fanboys)

Radphoto, some people see the glowing reviews of the D600-d610-D750, articles like "why we're not worried" and turning a blind eye to the D600 oil issue as proof of DPR bias.

As for the Amazon angle, it seems those same people would argue DPR is the pimply fanboy salesclerk pushing potential customers towards certain brands regardless of the boss' interest to make any sale. :)

Photog4u

A point not often made enough is most of the other subforums here feel exactly like you. They feel some other brand gets all the limelight while their precious brand of choice is getting the shaft.

I don't feel like Sony is getting the shaft here, but rather that the hosts could do a better job of maintaining their site as having less or no bias toward a particular brand so as to appear to be more credible. That's not to say they shouldn't shout from the mountain tops every time one or any brand does something so significant that it changes the landscape and direction of the industry, as was the case with the RX1 and the A7 series, IMO. That said, I would not hesitate for one moment, to purchase a Nikon or Canon or any Mirrorless kit, if it were produced to the specs of the A7S/A7II and add a little higher MP, 15 bit DR and 14 bit lossy RAW. My loyalty is not to a brand, my loyalty is to an excellent Mirrorless camera and IMO Sony is presently the leader in that particular realm.

Ha ha but that's exactly the point. What do you think all those EOS M or Fuji X owners talk about in their own forums day in day out? They also think their gear is awesome hence why they're there and not at one of the Sony forums with you.

You want DPR to properly pay homage to the revolution as you see it yet get upset when they approach most things in a product-to-product basis and end up dogging the RX1 for being a 2500-dollar P&S that can't even AF like a P&S, despite the tech behind it or complain about so-so jpegs and the work-in-progress AF in the A7 series.

Regardless of revolutions, every piece of photographic equipment is a tool and what matters is if it works or not. Opinions differ on what works best, best to get used to it.

Maybe there is something to what different people say in forums though, I mean where is the A7S review that was being done alongside the GH4? Where is the A77 II review? A7 II? A5100? What about NX1? X100T?

They manage to do timely reviews of Canon, Nikon and Panasonic, but can't be bothered with others? And don't give me that popularity contest, the A77 II and NX1 scored about the same in readers polls as the 7D MkII and the A7S scored much higher than it, A7 II topped its category and is likely to come out on top, equal or very close to top overall. What review do we get? GM5.

The device would still accommodate a second battery, which I think would mitigate the power issue, and the user would probably not leave the Wi-Fi on all the time.

The device would communicate by Wi-Fi with your smartphone, the smartphone's data plan would be responsible for uploading/E-mailing photos.

The device would communicate via wi-fi with your computers Wi-Fi network upon return home or to the hotel, etc.

pwilly;

"Obviously, the A7ii is getting clicks from non-owners".

Can you tell us about your insight about your "Obviously"?

Yes?

pwilly;

Can you show us where you found your " buying information" aka sales chart/ranking/unit# of A7-2 (and A7x) vs D750 in the USA market for example.

Can you?

Sony A7x is not in the top 100 DSLR's of Amazon. A58 was the highest at #40. The 750 before it was pulled was consistantly in the top 5.

Can you?
So you are suggesting a camera getting 8% of the clicks has less buying interest than a camera getting 2.8% of the clicks?

Everyone is out of stock on the D750 (probably because they yanked them all off the shelf to adjust the AF sensor) and just checking B&H they have all the configurations of the A7ii in stock, so does Amazon. Does that mean the A7ii is selling like hotcakes?

That must not be a valid indication.

pwilly;

Now, you think Nikon is in the mid of "adjust the AF sensor" to get rid of FLARE. Yes?

Before you go too far, just tell us the USA Sales Numbers please. Will you?

@Everlast
Long ago an article was written by the editors that explained where those numbers came from, and it wasn't just clicking on a link. For a click to count on a review, if I remember correctly, it was counted on the last page of the review.

"let alone owned an A7II"

A7-2 with kit zoom is sold out again from Amazon as a seller.

People still can buy Body only, but it was sold out a while ago.

It is not only "that's how they vote!", but also what people are buying.

It does not have to be A7-2 or A7x, but a6000 too.

As well as RX100x which is much better than LX100 for "compact, light and non-intrusive" imho.

BTW: LX100 can not be used for overhead or low position. Does not mention LX100 has no built in flash, but BIG. Plus even does not have a REAL auto lens cap.

LX100 is a fine example of Poor useability by today's standard.

@Everlast:
You are right. For me the A7II and A7R (maybe the II) are the best with just a few lenses (the Loxias, the 55/1.8 and the upcoming 28/2) and that is it, and I would be happy because it represents a setup, which is light, non-intrusive and compact. But this is really an expensive setup (and not a standalone system, far from it) and if I invest this much I do care about RAW quality and compression effects.

Never jude the quality of photography from the gear.

Never judge the quality of the gear from the number of people carrying it...

just a luxury to be honest.
Shows how hard these manufacturers have worked for us this year.

Both Sony and Nikon did a lot of amazing things this year to enhance our photography.

You're right you silly reader. You and your reader mates have made the site a cess pit of whatever it is you're complaining about....

The difference for most people with buying a camera now (internet age) and before is that they get access to many reviews instead of one or two and maybe what the shop assistant tells you from a print magazine and whatever the shop assistant told you.

The quality of the products is not related to the buying habits of the buyers.
My guess would be the quality of the products has gone up because people can now compare notes and identify design or quality faults far easier now.

Brick and mortar stores (where I live) are dying because they are unrepsonsive and do not deliver good service although I suspect the distributors are part of the problem the stores are not doing themselves favours.

As for DP review selling cameras - it's a non subscription site, they need some revenue.

But the real point of my reply is you cant adopt a position of detached superiority and judge us silly readers while you are one of us and are participating.

Your camera didn't place where you'd like?

jtan,

This has nothing to do with my camera. It is not my favorite sports team. I do not root for it. I use it. No, I coming from over 30 years in marketing, the last 15 planning and predicting consumer behavior, and the very last 7 deeply involved with the relationship between online and b&m shopping/purchase behaviors within the consumer electronics and appliance industry.

I'm describing two recognized behaviors.

1.) People shop reviews and forums and dismiss showroom interaction with the product. These people, we say, are shopping reviews. Reviews tend to commoditize products, reducing the profits that pay for innovation.

2.) People use a retail showroom to examine a product. They either "webroom," shopping the web and buying on a showroom; or "showroom," examining the product in person and buying on the web. These people, we say, are buying product.

People buying reviews congregate at review sites, promote group think, and blossom into a toxic algae bloom for brands.

No what you were doing was describing the users of this site as silly.

You do understand that for someone really interested in image quality and photography it's not possible to make a good decision about a camera without using it for some time and many countries don't allow you to return a products because you don't like them.

For us we need to rely on reports from other users because we can not rely on marketing people to provide us with good or true (not truth on a semantic linguistic technicality but real truth).

As a marketer you probably find it really challenging that us silly people can find out which products work and which suck and not have to rely on your discipline's distorted truths. Yeah forums make your job hard.

Could it be that the group think you describe is simply a group of people all deciding that the same product is good based on performance and suitability for their needs, instead of buying what your disclipline has told them to buy?

Ive no doubt the behaviours you describe are well known.
They are obviously behaviours that work well for people.

The irrational behaviours is that of a marketer calling the buyers stupid because the behaviour that works for the buyer is not the behaviour that is convenient to the marketer or their client.

NOTE I'm not calling you personally dishonest,but your field is at this point in history a field that tries to change peoples perception of products not by having good products but by exploiting and manipulating behaviours. Not an honest field.

"The quality of the products is not related to the buying habits of the buyers."

You wrote that, and it is pretty stupid. I tried. Bye.

This is in response to what?
Edited 30 seconds later: I totally missed it the first time...well played!

Oh yes indeed, that would be something :)
Only simultaneous general overview, may be the right

Lol, they did and it didn't do particularly well in the preliminary popularity challenge.

I guess I was too late to see that. Personally I think that dollar for dollar it's the best camera made. Nothing in it's price range is as good overall. I see that it was put up against cameras that cost a lot more money with the A77ii being by far the cheapest.

Mirrorless is more popular in Asia

A7 MII review, with many references to the D750:
http://blog.mingthein.com/2015/01/19/review-sony-a7-mark-ii/

I have the a7II, the Sigma 50mm F1.4 and had the a6000. I enjoy/ed using them all. I think they are good choices to be up there. The others on the list are nice products that I would love to try. I also have and enjoy using that 5D Mk3. It's a shame no Canon products made it to the list

@Marty4650

It matters if the A7II loses the vote by 0,1%. Then Everlast can blame you for voting for the closest rival because that defeat would have been the result of only a handful of people, considering the total amount of votes.

:p

@ bluevellet
You got me there, I was just reaching for my calculator when I went on to your comment :)

@ Marty
I was actually asking only if you voted or not, not which ones, because of your comment that people vote without owning any of the cameras. But left the comment a bit ambiguous, so that you might list them anyway :)