I think a Panasonic FF makes perfect sense... not the death of m43!

Kevin Barrett · Aug 31, 2018

m43 already competes well with APS-C. FF is an altogether different market. Hype or not, it's where the attention is drawn.

Not sure that folks see the potential of Panasonic FF driving even more m43 sales?, especially if Panasonic (and hopefully Olympus) have devised a way to leverage m43 lenses to work in a 'crop-mode' on these new cameras.

Fujifilm has APS-C and MF

Canon has APS-C and FF

Sony has APS-C and FF

Nikon has APS-C and FF

Olympus has m43 and ??

Panasonic has m43 and ??

Both Olympus and Panasonic needed to do something...

rashid7 · Aug 31, 2018

jwilliams said:
eques said:

They have to, to be successfull. But the money spent on the FF R&D will be missing for M43. M43 won't be dead in 5 years, but there won't be much development any more and it will dry out.

Peter

Click to expand...

withering on the vine so to speak. Sadly.

007peter · Aug 31, 2018

Thank God for wise people in Panasonic management team. Unlike the hardcore M43 fanboys (fighting against the FF reality), its refreshing seeing a company management proving its own fanboys wrong.

Going FF address the Fundamental Issues against M43:

Poor High ISO Still
Poor High ISO Video
Lack of Bokeh Control

A fullframe Panasonic would have effectively have low to Weakness:

Panasonic already have IBIS
Panasonic already have good AF
Panasonic already have the best 4K Video without overheating
Panasonic already have good battery life (FF might shorten it somewhat)

Unlike still photography, you can't rely on ~~FLASH~~ when shooting continuous stream of video. If lighting is POOR, then you will just have to take the noisy video or upgrade to a Sony A7(S) for lowlight shooting.

I've seen many of my Ex-Panasonic Gh2/Gh4 friends forcing to upgrade to Sony for its lowlight filming superiority. They hate sony, they hate sony menu, they hate sony contro, but you can't deny the superiority of Sony lowlight video.

A FF Panasonic would address this major weakness. Bravo Panasonic for recognizing the need to stay competitive. Now Panasonic can charge beyond $2000 without making excuses for it IQ problem with smaller sensor anymore.

Raist3d · Aug 31, 2018

FoPar said:
Nikon Z system looks great.

Like an enlarged M43 system.

It ensures the long-term survival of the miniature 'Z' system, i.e. M43 which has many alternative benefits.

But APSC is dead in the water.

Over APSC? What? If anything m43rds is getting squeezed out.

Raist3d · Aug 31, 2018

rashid7 said:
jwilliams said:

eques said:

They have to, to be successfull. But the money spent on the FF R&D will be missing for M43. M43 won't be dead in 5 years, but there won't be much development any more and it will dry out.

Peter

Click to expand...

withering on the vine so to speak. Sadly.

Click to expand...

I will make a bold prediction .... that FF will die out in 10 years (except for rare pros).

My thinking is that the hardware and software tech, driven furiously by smartphone cameras, will make such stellar IQ from smaller sensors that we will no longer need to tolerate FF lens sizes.

Sheesh, we already are at the point of crop sensor “sufficiency”!

You should tell Panasonic which apparently is changing their strategy to introduce a FF format

Raist3d · Aug 31, 2018

that's kinda obvious to me now with the little hindsight of the rumors.

- Panasonic will be ready with an announcement

- The so called "super high end" Olympus will be most likely FF.

- Olympus has been quietly filing FF lenses patents in the last 2-3 years... what for one may ask? Well, now I think we know.

All the benefits that people say m43rds has over FF in the innovation size- scaled to native FF by Pany-lympus.

eques · Sep 1, 2018

rashid7 said:
jwilliams said:

eques said:

They have to, to be successfull. But the money spent on the FF R&D will be missing for M43. M43 won't be dead in 5 years, but there won't be much development any more and it will dry out.

Peter

Click to expand...

withering on the vine so to speak. Sadly.

Click to expand...

I will make a bold prediction .... that FF will die out in 10 years (except for rare pros).

My thinking is that the hardware and software tech, driven furiously by smartphone cameras, will make such stellar IQ from smaller sensors that we will no longer need to tolerate FF lens sizes.

I'd hope so, and this would be reasonable.

But I think, while most R&D goes into smartphone sensors and processing, cameras are way behind in sofware corrections and the gap is widening. So it will more likely be "good enough" smartphones (a term that has been applied to M43 a lot on this forum!!) and the real thing, i.e. FF.

Peter

eques · Sep 1, 2018

007peter said:
A FF Panasonic would address this major weakness. Bravo Panasonic for recognizing the need to stay competitive. Now Panasonic can charge beyond $2000 without making excuses for it IQ problem with smaller sensor anymore.

Right, except it will be 3000+. Wise Panasonic, indeed.

Peter

Raist3d · Sep 1, 2018

eques said:
007peter said:

A FF Panasonic would address this major weakness. Bravo Panasonic for recognizing the need to stay competitive. Now Panasonic can charge beyond $2000 without making excuses for it IQ problem with smaller sensor anymore.

Click to expand...

Right, except it will be 3000+. Wise Panasonic, indeed.

How do you know?

eques said:
Peter

Kent Ekasak · Sep 1, 2018

Like every industry, the ones who dictate the change are consumers not manufacturers..

.

IMHO, Panny has not much choice.. Even if they may come up with new world's best VDO AF on m43 format, but the fact is that's not enough to flight with 3 FF monsters and win.. By adding, say, GH FF series, while still maintaining m43, they have benefit of both worlds, and customers have more choices to choose from.. And FF is not new to them either, since Leica FF SL system is knowingly made by them.. If Leica chose them to OEM, it means something..

.

Good thing is.. I believe m43 will be more affordable and "must be" more focus, and hopefully return to its core strenghs: optimal weight/side/price/IQ with exotic features unmatched by smart phones..

.

I am sure Panny will play on both feet (FF + m43) equally at least for the next 3-5 years, and will re-examine the business outcomes along the way.. Consumers are the ones who will tell them what to do next..

.

Overall, as of today, it makes sense for Panny to expand more choices to consumers, and more weapons to flight monsters.. 2019 will be fun to watch..

HaoAndHui · Sep 1, 2018

Could it be possible that when Panasonic made FF for Leica, they signed some kind of contract that Panasonic cannot use / release similar camera for some time, and the agreed period will finish at some point recently so they (ie Panasonic) will release long waiting products just like a person looking for bathroom and eventually find one?

arbux · Sep 1, 2018

jwilliams said:
Kevin Barrett said:

A move to FF frees up Panasonic to focus their m43 resources on smaller, capable, compact cameras. Looks like a win-win for Panasonic fans and soon to be Panasonic fans.

Click to expand...

Although Panasonic is a large enough company to keep development going on 2 different systems, I just don't see it happening long term. My guess is that m43 will become primarily a video system. We'll see future cameras like the GH series, but we may have already seen the last of the still oriented cameras produced

Not sure if anyone ever had any issues taking pictures with gh series.

This whole " video oriented" crap is invention of olympus fanboys. Panasonic is as good still camera as best of olhmpus, but can also do great vodeo. How this was made into a problem is beyond me.

jwilliams said:
. They are already quietly killing off all the older models.

Unheard of. Killing older models without dedicated advertisements.

jwilliams said:
Look at B&H and see how many m43 cameras there are for sale.

--
Jonathan

Dunsun · Sep 1, 2018

eques said:
Kevin Barrett said:

FF Mirrorless is the HOTTEST segment in the ILC market and Panasonic is well positioned to take on Sony. It would be stupid not to have a contender in this space.

Click to expand...

If it were just Sony, I'd agree. but there is Nikon Z now and soon Canon.

Panasonic can, of course, develop the technology, the recent models show this. but I doubt, Panasonic can rival names like Nikon and Canon, and this is certainly a necessity for the enthusiast market.

eques said:

I'm hopeful for a FF version of the G9 and GH series. That would be a lovely first and "hard to ignore" entrant.

Click to expand...

Right, but it is not only about technology, but psychology. Olympus would have an easier start, but still a difficult one, when enterering the ring with Nikon, Canon and Sony.

eques said:

Just like anything else, it will take time to ramp up their lens line-up, but I hope they're smart and introduce this new camera family with several quality lenses that are beyond kit lens quality. Added plus, is if they add phase detect AF. one hopes that they've learned their lesson here.

A move to FF frees up Panasonic to focus their m43 resources on smaller, capable, compact cameras. Looks like a win-win for Panasonic fans and soon to be Panasonic fans.

Click to expand...

I disagree. Panasonic will have to focus on FF, and M43 will be more or less forgotten. Look at the A6xxx series of Sony and their APSc lenses. The same will happen to M43. M43 is a "matured" system, but this means, there is not much to be gained there any more.

eques said:

Regardless, it's great to see Panasonic not just sit on the sidelines. However, I do hope they jump in with both feet.

Click to expand...

They have to, to be successfull. But the money spent on the FF R&D will be missing for M43. M43 won't be dead in 5 years, but there won't be much development any more and it will dry out.

Sadly I have to agree.

eques said:
Peter

Radu B · Sep 1, 2018

If we start from the premise that Panasonic wants to do 8K video, moving to FF makes sense.

In order to reach the ~33MP needed for 8K

MFT the pixel pitch would be ~ 2.5 microns
FF pixel pitch would need to be ~5 microns

Considering:

GH5S - 4.51 microns pixel pitch -> that's a 10.2MP camera
D850 - 4.5 microns pixel pitch -> 45MP camera (with ~4 times the sensor size)

It would seem that 4.5 microns is the low limit for good video output in low light.

Apart from a revolution in sensor technology, they had to make this move in order to reach 8K. There was no other option

Bigger mount means bigger sensor, so more light gathered. Bigger pixel means more dynamic range.

The use-cases for MFT do not go away, but at the same time MFT can not deliver competitive 8K video in multiple shooting conditions using current technology.

Jon555 · Sep 1, 2018

Tons of competition and would take huge investment and so several years of losses. They're under pressure to make money. They sell under 500k cameras per year at present and most are the cheaper ones. What I can see is their using a bigger sensor for an 8k video camera (possibly ILC format). But that's tricky as what do they do for lenses? Could go EF as there's tons out there, then no money selling lenses but no dev costs designing them. They'd want to distance it from m43 to avoid losing sales (read - make very expensive).

arbux · Sep 1, 2018

Tommi K1 said:
Kevin Barrett said:

FF Mirrorless is the HOTTEST segment in the ILC market and Panasonic is well positioned to take on Sony.

Click to expand...

FF market is the MINOR LEAGUE in camera business. It is the most hyped, but least sold.

The market share of the FF is about 10-15% between manufacturers compared to all other ILC they do. The clear #1 is the APS-C among Canon, Nikon and Sony.

You're confusing unit sale vs money from sale. Sony abandoned aps-c and moved ff because this is where money are. Aps-c lens offering from canon or nikon is very poor.

Member said:
Even Nikon sells more D3x00 cameras than Canon, Nikon and Sony does sell FF together. And talking about the amounts that Canon sells APS-C cameras? Hah.... Welcome to major league!

Of unit sales.

Member said:
In the camera business, it is done on cheap APS-C cameras, exactly like a D3400 or 1300D and such.

FF is just like selling a Audi A9, BMW 8th series, Volvo S90 and so on. You don't sell those in masses, you sell everything else in expense of those.

Lets check now sony profits shoot up after introducing good ff cameras and lenses.

Member said:
FF is what you pay more for its name than for what you get.

Notjing beats mobile phone in that relation, since you need mobile anyway.

Donald B · Sep 1, 2018

Dr_Jon said:
Tons of competition and would take huge investment and so several years of losses. They're under pressure to make money. They sell under 500k cameras per year at present and most are the cheaper ones. What I can see is their using a bigger sensor for an 8k video camera (possibly ILC format). But that's tricky as what do they do for lenses? Could go EF as there's tons out there, then no money selling lenses but no dev costs designing them. They'd want to distance it from m43 to avoid losing sales (read - make very expensive).

Agree . If people won't a ff mirror less they would have them now. Lots of sales people on these forums at the moment . Or a lot of silly members.

Don

Kalin · Sep 1, 2018

Kevin Barrett said:
FF Mirrorless is the HOTTEST segment in the ILC market and Panasonic is well positioned to take on Sony...

I'm hopeful for a FF version of the G9 and GH series. That would be a lovely first and "hard to ignore" entrant...

A move to FF frees up Panasonic to focus their m43 resources on smaller, capable, compact cameras. Looks like a win-win for Panasonic fans and soon to be Panasonic fans.

Good points. And let's face it, every reiteration of the G and GH bodies has been taking them closer to FF-sized cameras. It's only logical that the sensor size should follow the trend

Then have two killer series of m43 cams - a GX/H series with a full grip and a GM with a tiny one. Even a total of three models will be enough. Two full featured ones and a small, economy, P&S type cam with a selfie flip screen.

Big Ga · Sep 1, 2018

Donald B said:
and then give us your thoughts

Don

My thought are:

1. It was disappointing that the only thing they really looked at was sharpness, with no mention of other factors such as subject isolation ability, dynamic range, ability to pull shadows etc. Might as well have thrown a good bridge camera or high end smartphone into the comparison.

2. Interesting that one of the two EM1 Mk2 images appeared to have a focus error.

Donald B · Sep 1, 2018

Big Ga said:
Donald B said:

and then give us your thoughts

Don

Click to expand...

My thought are:

1. It was disappointing that the only thing they really looked at was sharpness, with no mention of other factors such as subject isolation ability, dynamic range, ability to pull shadows etc. Might as well have thrown a good bridge camera or high end smartphone into the comparison.

Most good photographers don't need to fix mistakes.

Big Ga said:
2. Interesting that one of the two EM1 Mk2 images appeared to have a focus error.

User error not camera error.

Don

I think a Panasonic FF makes perfect sense... not the death of m43!

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