Tony Sleep

Because, quite simply Canon learned the lesson of the 1980's and does not want to trash its DSLR sales. You will notice that the mfrs making the running in EVF bigger-than-pea sensors are all outsiders with little to lose in the DSLR sector.

That's the prevailing wisdom, and is propaganda with its own blind spots. You assert stills+video confers ability to survive as a pro, but there's no actual evidence for this. Of pro's I know who have retrained and adapted and invested in video equipment and software, I don't know any who have found it noticeably more viable than stills. They hope it will pay off, but it hasn't, and it is by no means clear that it will because - as Dan says - the demand is not there in UK. And lets not forget that video is a well-contended area, already overcrowded by experienced operators - many "gone freelanced" from the BBC. Your shiny new mammals could just be investing in a new way to starve.

Precisely.

Yes, you are right, extinction - or at least loss of most income - awaits those who don't adapt.

Whilst it's true that old media are dying, it's far from certain that new media have any sort of sustainable model capable of supporting content creation. So far it does not. With very rare exceptions like the WSJ the people making money are aggregators, not publishers and certainly not creators. Unless that changes somehow, by acceptance of paywalls perhaps, then PJ stills and video both have a lean future. Sure, there will be sponsors and corporates to work for, but that's PR, not PJ.

"So many people can take good photos these days."

No, they can't. They're miscalibrated. I once saw a transcript of a conversation between HCB and Koudhelka, about how many really good photos they managed to produce. They both concluded about 1 every 9-12m.

I agree that a pro's job is that of filling whitespace between the ads, and that degree of good is seldom required. But if we don't aspire to it and work at it, we certainly can't achieve it.

I speak as someone who has worked professionally as a photographer and occasional writer for 30 years. I can do both, but it compromises both. Like cooking and painting. If you're doing one you aren't doing the other, you miss stuff.
I seem to recall Dan Chung saying he found it frustrating trying to shoot stills and video for the G. a few years back.

It's really a ROI issue, driven by the publisher's quest for ad revenue eyeballs. Please don't dignify it as some sort of revolutionary new form of creativity.

Dan's right. The ecology of PJ has collapsed. Yes, there is a living still at the high end, albeit precarious. But how do people get that good without years of survival, practice and learning? The bread and butter stuff that sustained them, from whom a few stars might eventually emerge, has largely evaporated. It is not sustainable any more. And OK, yes, some are wealthy enough or have wealthy parents, to become trust fund professionals. But really, great photos get made despite the business nowadays, and I bet half the WPP winners are really struggling to make ends meet.

Correct up to the point you used the "job" word. There are almost no jobs in PJ now, and fewer remain by the year. You work as a freelance, ad hoc on commission, or via agencies, on spec at your own cost and risk, or not at all. This is at best a precarious existence. The days of company kit, car, salary and expenses are long gone.

..and anyone who's tried to do both at once, and/or write and/or interview, knows that this mostly leads to mediocre, compromised results. Entirely different bits of brain are involved and different modes of thinking, never mind having to be in 2 or more places at once, juggle sound, narrative, light and unfolding events. It's an idiocy imposed by accountants who think there's no great skill in any of it, that one person can accomplish in a few hours that which formerly needed 2 or 3. They can't.

I have huge respect for Dan, but don't understand his logic. Stills photojournalism has lost its economic base as agencies and crowdsourcing have whittled away the need to pay for professional material. It seems probable that video will follow the same curve, just a bit later. As he says, there are already many amateurs exploring video with impressive competence. They will eventually seek publication for a byline, as with stills.

As for professionals being slow to transition from stills to video, it's a different medium. Those who are most committed to stills are least likely to change simply because they don't have the same fascination with the moving image. Dan is an excepton.

Fascinating that so many commenters have either not read the "not post produced" bit (meaning these are straight transpositions from Raw), or have no clue what a Raw file looks like - and why flat, dull and exposed for the highlights is to be expected, and they are loudly and confidently wrong.

What a lovely company. Still, the counterfeiters will be chuffed to bits.

Very interesting combination of attributes, and promising. But aside from the question marks over pixel density issues and lenses that appear to be sized for similar "bigger is serious" marketing, I can see a potentially fatal flaw. Every camera I have ever used that has control wheels projecting from the back surface has suffered from the same problem, that they are hugely susceptible to being knocked off setting every time the camera brushes against your body.

Ergonomically this sort of control is just about perfect, but even with strong detents/friction you can never be sure the control is where you left it. You have to check actual settings every damn time before shooting, which ruins the flow of seeing, else risk ruined shots. Unless Sony have ensured the wheels are only "live" with the shutter is depressed, this is likely to be a huge issue. I look forward to reviews.