tgutgu wrote:
I think your analysis is right. For the E-M5, it took almost a year in Germany to see the first permanent significant price drops with many dealers still selling the camera at the original price. I haven't seen any camera performing like this. Even Nikon D600 saw a price drop very quickly.
So, it seems that GH3 sales, after the usual initial run, does not do quite well.
I bet there are three reasons:
a) Too large body. While there are some mirrorless buyers, who waited exactly for such a body, the amount of potential buyers, who are put off by the size, is much larger. Those buy E-M5 cameras or just DSLRs, especially when they already own a DSLR system. The GH3 is simply too big and not different enough to swap from DSLR to mirrorless. The E-M5 is significantly smaller, even with the HDL-6 grip. It has an appealing design, very different to the black classic DSLR design. The GH3 has the same problem as Olympus DSLR 4/3 products, it does not "transport" m4/3 main selling advantage: smaller size. The E-M5 does it. Initial reactions to the E-M5 usually were: "Wow, how small is it!" whereas the GH3 was received with: "Uff, it's that big?".
Also, the GH3's ergonomics is overrated. The placement of the button near the shutter demand finger acrobatics, and they are too easy to confuse. The camera feels too large in hands for traditional Panasonic body owners. This puts off too many loyal G/GHx body owner, making them switch to the E-M5.
It is a mistake by Panasonic not to evolve the excellent GH2 body concept, which is ergonomically better. The G5 shows, where a GH2 successor should have moved to.
b) The view finder. Although many people here deny it or claim that they could get used to: the GH3 EVF is far from being, what it should have been by end of 2012. In my opinion it is bad, most of people would call it fair, not optimal. However, for a flagship product at that price, it should have been excellent. Because the GH3 was released around half a year after the E-M5, the EVF should have been better than the E-M5 finder, which it isn't. It is not only the edge smearing but also that it shows details less clear.
For sales, that means that it is likely tat people looking through the GH3 finder when testing the camera in a shop, are likely to be dismayed by the finder. The finder is an important, if not the most important, part of a camera with a build in view finder. It is critical for the essential function of a camera: framing. So, based on the first impression of the finder, people may just refrain from buying.
c) Overrating of video. Many buyers simply don't have a strong demand to produce high quality video. Still photographers, which have tried video, realize that it is too much effort and time consuming to produce aesthetically good video, like they do with their stills. Results are often disappointing and the video function is less and less used. It was probably already so with the GH2, and despite of this, Panasonic even increased the video profile and marketing of the GH3. I consider this a mistake. Enthusiast photographers aren't as interested in video as Panasonic product strategy implies. Being marketed as a video camera, the usual stills photographers asks, why do I need it. The view finder is in part so problematic, because it is made for video aspect ratio 16:9, which only a minority uses as a stills aspect ratio permanently. So here it appears that the video aspect of the camera has negatively affected the photography aspect of it.. Additionally, Panasonic unfortunately dropped a unique feature of the former GH series: the multiaspect sensor, which would be ideal for such a hybrid camera as the GH3.
In the end, it is probably also the DSLR competition, which forces the GH3 prices to drop. With the D7100, Nikon set a new landmark into GH3 territory. The E-M5 is not affected as much, due to the unique design and its smallness. Stills photographers are also increasingly appealed by the Fuji X cameras, for which both, Panasonic and Olympus, have no answer yet. The GH3 is the antipode (and actually too much of it) of a Fuji X-E1.
It is unfortunate that Panasonic has such an unstable product strategy. With the movements from GF1 to GF3, from G2 to G3, and now from GH2 to GH3, they put off too many loyal customers, which mostly want improvements to their products, which they already own, instead of being confronted with completely different concepts, to which they don't agree. As a G2 owner, I would have never switched to a G3 (less controls, no eye sensor, too small). A GF1 owner was not necessarily appealed with the GF3, and now, there is no replacement for the GH2. So I switched to E-M5.
From a product strategy point, for the stills photographers, IBIS is probably a more convincing feature than video. Even more so as Panasonic is itself inconsequent by having too many unstabilized lenses in its own portfolio. As such a stills photographer has to pay a lot for the total hybrid concept of the GH3: view finder, no IBIS, larger lenses (OIS makes them larger).
With the GH3, Panasonic has disappointed too many and did not win enough, and is still not able to solve its classic US supply problem.
Thomas
