Canon at Focus on Imaging

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Its not really the model thing that I don't like, I do quite alot of model shoots myself. its the fact that so many photographers get caught up in the latest kit trap.

but I'm sure there many useful things to learn, and people who really do need to upgrade there equiment.

As I say I've not been.

Stuart
 
stu_the_flat said:
Its not really the model thing that I don't like, I do quite alot of model shoots myself. its the fact that so many photographers get caught up in the latest kit trap.

but I'm sure there many useful things to learn, and people who really do need to upgrade there equiment.

As I say I've not been.

Stuart
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I've been for the last 3 years and found it very useful. It's quite a large area and the kit sections are actually quite a small part of it and they tend to be quite central so easy to avoid if you go to the less central stands.
 
boyfalldown said:
they are a miniscule part of the show, but (purely anecdotal) every time I've been there they do seem to have an awful lot of dribbling blokes with 70-200's round their necks hanging round. So much so its a bit of a fight to get past
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So taking the Canon 1200mm and the Sigma 200-500mm is out of the question? ;)
 
micloi said:
So taking the Canon 1200mm and the Sigma 200-500mm is out of the question? ;)
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If you take em, don't forget your 1.4xTC, that'll show 'em whose boss!
 
Shedloads of them - it's a show full of retailers.

Look at the demographic in those Apple stores - ranges from kids to grannies. Contrast that with the hands-off, don't touch, password-locked nonsense in places like PC World.

And just because you don't want to handle something doesn't mean others don't. The success of Apple stores should show you why. Cameras in particular should be handled to see how they feel in the hand and how the ergonomics work for each person.

The idea that a manufacturer selling a product should actively discourage people from trying them out baffles me.
 
Hence why Jessops, Currys etc have now moved away from cameras in glass cases to having them on display with the alarm wires. People like to touch and feel. Of course, it would be better if the put batteries in all of them so we could try them all, as they only normally bother with just one.....
 
They're sizable though, with good stocks. Lots of bags etc as well.

My point was - try it on the Canon stand, wander over and buy it there and then....
 
jamesb84 said:
Do many people buy at Focus?
Also, I must be the only person in the world who hates the Apple Stores...my mac mini I researched beforehand, ensured I had my discount entitlement beforehand...marched straight in and said "I'd like this one, and a VGA adapter".

It's a computer, if I need it, I'll buy it...I know it's going to work and be the right thing for me. I don't need to caress it and use it. Didn't need to do that with any of my camera kit either.
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Apart from a couple of retailers who go there specifically to sell, it's basically about meeting customers, encouraging them to see how good the stuff actually is (difficult to convey with purely online sales) and hoping that they will look at competitors too, so that they realise why yours are better for them, and guiding people towards making the right buying decisions - that means having real discussions with real people about their real needs, not about selling things.

And the other real benefit for exhibitors is the feedback we get, not just about the products themselves but also about the website, customer service and so on.

It must be very hard to make selling profitable in itself, the cost of the stands, electrics, staff, hotels, display materials and so on is pretty horrific at all exhibitions - and yet the public for some reason seems to expect prices to be cut, even though the costs are much higher than for a normal shop:'(
 
Radiohead said:
Shedloads of them - it's a show full of retailers.

Look at the demographic in those Apple stores - ranges from kids to grannies. Contrast that with the hands-off, don't touch, password-locked nonsense in places like PC World.

And just because you don't want to handle something doesn't mean others don't. The success of Apple stores should show you why. Cameras in particular should be handled to see how they feel in the hand and how the ergonomics work for each person.

The idea that a manufacturer selling a product should actively discourage people from trying them out baffles me.
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couldn't have put it better myself..it's always nice to get a feel for something/see if it suits my needs before parting with my cash.
 
couldn't have put it better myself..it's always nice to get a feel for something/see if it suits my needs before parting with my cash.
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Does that apply to the models as well? :thinking: :lol::lol::lol:
 
Garry Edwards said:
Don't worry about it, it's still worth going because Lencarta will be there, on stand F32

More seriously, I'm not altogether surprised. Canon is basically an office equipment supplier, with the photographic side amounting to less than 1 string on their fiddle, so I expect that the marketing decisions are made by the people who sell expensive photocopiers, not by the people who sell cameras...

This is what happens in large companies, and given the cost of exhibitions in the UK I suppose we should all be surprised that so many do go, not that Canon and at least one other won't be there this year.
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Not true Garry. Canon's business if roughly 50/50 photo and office equipment. Cameras have always been hugely important to them (that's how they started after all) and it was actually DSLRs which were the biggest contributor to their profits jump last year.

I'm not surprised they've dropped out. Not the first time, either here or at major international shows like PMA. These things happen and they will have backed out before any contractual deadlines. Canon likes to do its own thing more than some others, and it doesn't make many mistakes overall - across the board in photography (compacts, DSLRs, lenses) they are still comfortably market leaders.

The cost of attending is huge and sticks out a mile on the balance sheet; lost profits are impossible to measure. A company like Canon can't go half-cock and the stand itself is very costly, plus all the staff/hotels etc. Ultimately, it's you and me that pay those costs. The show organisers would probably have given them the space free in the end, just to get them there.

The upside is probably that Canon will redouble their efforts to support other exhibitors with demonstration stock. There will surely not be much from the Canon catalogue that won't be available to play with, and to buy.

Some manufacturers need to be at a show like that, eg Lencarta, because they don't have a retail presence and need to build a brand image. But you can see Canon gear in any local shop, and even the exotic stuff can't be more than a short drive away for anyone. Probably less of a drive than getting to Birmingham.

It's not the same thing I agree, and I'm sorry they'll not be there, but I supect that from a profit and loss point of view it wasn't too hard a decision for Canon to make. There is always pressure to attend shows just because your rivals will be there; that's a weak marketing strategy ;)
 
Garry your comment about Canons business was a bit nutty to be honest. Not only do Canon call out the photography product figures separately for their investors, but it is also clear to see that those products provide an extremely strong and important part of the earnings and growth of the company. It took me less than 5 mins of googling to find: http://www.canon.com/ir/conf2010/p14.html which is a slide on their investor relations site.
 
dubcat said:
Garry your comment about Canons business was a bit nutty to be honest. Not only do Canon call out the photography product figures separately for their investors, but it is also clear to see that those products provide an extremely strong and important part of the earnings and growth of the company. It took me less than 5 mins of googling to find: http://www.canon.com/ir/conf2010/p14.html which is a slide on their investor relations site.
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I haven't looked at the figures for a long time, I talk to people rather than look at figures. My info is from a very senior member of Canon UK, and he tells me that the camera/lenses side is a fairly small part of their business and that the decisions are very largely made by the office machinery people
 
I guess my view of them IS skewed by the fact that I use their products :) Come to think of it. In retrospect I also realise that perhaps the numbers, which are global, do not reflect the state of the business in the UK which may well be different to what the numbers say. Someone within the company would certainly have the best view.
 
Garry Edwards said:
I haven't looked at the figures for a long time, I talk to people rather than look at figures. My info is from a very senior member of Canon UK, and he tells me that the camera/lenses side is a fairly small part of their business and that the decisions are very largely made by the office machinery people
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If you asked someone from the office equipment side of Canon, they would probably say the opposite. Big companies often have more inter-office rivalry than they do with the real enemy outside ;)

Canon's profits are a matter of record. They were only up 87% last year! :eek: And DSLRs were the major contributors to that http://www.photoradar.com/news/story/canon-profits-soar-in-87-in-2010
 
'Canon said its growth in 2010 was down to strong sales of Canon inkjet printers in Asia, along with high sales for Canon DSLRs such as the EOS 500D, EOS 550D, Canon EOS 60D (read our Canon 60D review), Canon EOS 7D and Canon EOS 5D Mark II.

Read more: http://www.photoradar.com/news/story/canon-profits-soar-in-87-in-2010#ixzz1EsbPRWX8
'

A contributor. We don't know they were THE major contributor from that.
 
HoppyUK said:
Canon's profits are a matter of record. They were only up 87% last year! :eek: And DSLRs were the major contributors to that http://www.photoradar.com/news/story/canon-profits-soar-in-87-in-2010
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yes - but look at 2009 when they fell by 90% - so if you look at the whole picture they've not actually increased by anything since 2008, and their 87% 'growth' was purely down to vastly improved trading conditions allowing them to recover lost ground

In that context 87% looks a bit misleading
 
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Well, whatever the profit contribution there may be from the photographic side in the UK, that's what I was told by someone who knows, and I tend to believe it, figures can be misleading sometimes...

Quite a few years ago, another high level contact in the same Company told me that they had closed down their training courses department to save money and then bought in exactly the same services from the people who had previously worked for them, but at a higher price. That turned out to be true too...

It's just the way that some large companies work. I know a Company with a massive portfolio of rental properties. They hardly carry out any small repairs, such as leaking roofs, they leave the problem until a major repair is needed, just to keep the cost of routine maintenance down on their figures:thinking:
 
boyfalldown said:
yes - but look at 2009 when they fell by 90% - so if you look at the whole picture they've not actually increased by anything since 2008, and their 87% 'growth' was purely down to vastly improved trading conditions allowing them to recover lost ground

In that context 87% looks a bit misleading
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Yes, totally misleading! As you say, just recovering lost ground after they took a similar tumble in 2009, like everybody else did with the global recession.

But Canon Inc is undoubedly looking good, and projecting profit growth of 21% on sales revenue up 11% in 2011 http://insurance.finchannel.com/Mai..._Profit_Drops_as_Digital_Camera_Prices_Fall_/ And it seems to be the photo division which is mainly driving that through DSLRs and ink-jet printers (consumer photo products, rather than business machines?) in the fast growing markets of Asia/China/India.

The point is, photography has always been massively important to Canon, and continues to be. To suggest that they pulled out of Focus because cameras are somehow unimportant to them plainly nonsense. They've just got a different way of slicing the pie.
 
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