Wonder if he is going to give up all of this gear and switch over to Sony!
In addition to his new Sony A9 he has the Olympus E-M1X . He likes them both. He still uses his Panasonic G9 for non-action subjects.
As a general point, it illustrates that we should be aware of the pressures on these 'ambassadors' when we analyse their opinions. Notice that he said they cancelled his contract. Too many here seem to think that 'ambassadors' are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. This gentleman seems to have a backbone.
Either the gentleman has a backbone or Sony made an offer he could not refuse.
If we accept him at face value as being reasonably honest, that isn't it.
It's still not zero. Plus, apart from any money, they get their name publicised, and a band of followers who don't know anything about photography, but like people who are attached to their brand. If there was no value in it, they wouldn't bother with the contract. Why is there a contract? It means that the ambassador has some obligations to the brand that they promote.
Sure, that's exactly it. But, don't pretend that 'ambassadors' are free agents.
He's not wrong and he's well-respected.
That sounds like a really bad deal for him. I was only a small time blogger and companies threw free stuff at me for review. A friend of mine reviewed books on a tiny blog and has a wall of books he got for free. I got a shelf full of games and a few devices.
We all know that Panasonic's DfD is not the best system for action tracking and while it is no secret, even to Panasonic, they do require 'ambassadors' and their dealers to show some respect and diplomacy in terms of constructive criticism. He may well have crossed the line. As he says, it is not a big deal to himself or ultimately Panasonic except that it does gain himself a good deal of respect from ordinary photographers and his followers.
Why do they 'require' ambassadors to do that? How was his criticism not constructive?
Sure, companies do what they do. The real point demonstrated here is that there is no reason to consider 'ambassadors' (for any company) to be anything other than shills, albeit competent often talented ones. As soon as they stop being shills, they are likely to lose that ambassadorship.
He was testing it against a static target just for focus accuracy.
Well, that is what he says. But we don't really know why Panasonic canceled his contract. The reason may be simply that he is no longer using Panasonic exclusively (which I presume is a prerequsite for being an "ambassador").
