This is just one example of the dozen or so terrible design flaws that I know about in Canon firmware. As I see it, there are several possibilities.


One is that the Canon firmware engineers are all brilliant, and they hate to hoist such terrible camera designs on the poor unsuspecting public, but they are terribly constrained by some corporate problems.
  • Maybe they have Marketing Department Overlords, and when Marketing says they want to sell "14-bit", they force it on all the raw files, whether it's wasteful bloat or not.
  • Or perhaps it's some sort of middle manager or tenured employee who thinks 14 bits are beneficial, and either wont listen to reason or there is a culture of "don't point out the flaws of your boss".
  • Or possibly the paperwork to fix some of these design flaws is just too much overhead, so it's easier to leave the flaws as they are.



I've been a software engineer at Fortune 500 companies before and seen all these problems cause terrible flaws. When you first start there, you fight against the Machine and try to do good work despite all the road blocks, but your spirit will break eventually.


Another possibility is that most of the engineers on the firmware team are numpty divots that couldn't code their way out of a paper bag. I know that the sensor designers are brilliant for sure, but the firmware team is definitely wanting. Maybe they got sacked and the firmware was outsourced to Elbonia.