Canon interview at CP+ (increasingly important that we do increase development speed)

DPReview interviewed Mr. Go Tokura, Group Executive ICP Group 2, Image Communications Products Operations, Canon Inc. Some excerpts:

Dual Pixel AF is a technology which has huge potential for mirrorless cameras. A lot of our readers are still very hopeful for future Canon enthusiast mirrorless models. Is there anything that you would like to say to them?

Obviously I can’t be particularly concrete when talking about our future product planning, but this is something that we are looking at. Something that is under consideration. There are some features, such as AF, which have not yet caught up with DSLRs, so given the current state of affairs it would be a little unrealistic to say that we will suddenly start offering a professional mirrorless camera. There’s still a performance gap that needs to be addressed.

If we assume that at some point in the future Canon will create an enthusiast or professional mirrorless camera, what are your benchmarks?

This is just my personal opinion. In my view there are two key features that have to be addressed. The first is autofocus, particularly tracking of moving subjects. The other is the viewfinder. The electronic viewfinder would have to offer a certain standard. If those two functions were to match the performance of EOS DSLR camera performance, we might make the switch. Tremendous progress has been made in electronic systems.  However in terms of AF, pro-level AF functions, and the range of shooting situations that professional photographers can respond to, there’s still a gap between DSLRs and mirrorless systems.

One of the areas where we’ve been pleased to see improvement from Canon is in sensors. What are your priorities in terms of sensor development in the future?

Increasing resolution and increasing sensitivity are ongoing objectives and that’s not going to change, but on top of that, as I’ve mentioned there’s an emphasis on merging stills and movie functions. So two priorities for future sensors are lower power consumption and increasing processing speed.

Read the interview…

There is a part in the interview where Mr. Tokura says ” […] it’s becoming increasingly important that we do increase development speed”. :-)