What's up with the g100 specs?

Tom Caldwell wrote:

cameralight wrote:

Tom Caldwell wrote:

Samuel Dilworth wrote:

What worries me about this camera is that the specs are really terribly off – not by a little – and yet Panasonic must have believed otherwise.

And here’s my point: if sales are poor as they surely must be, Panasonic may wrongly blame the failure on Micro Four Thirds generally rather than the botched marketing of this specific camera.

Agreed - if was made to be a failure - and it is hoped that it is regarded as a failed attempt rather than a failure of the M4/3 system per se.

I presume that there was a worry that not enough new camera bodies were being released for M4/3 since the S5 was being developed. Something had to be done, but one might have argued that simply fitting a 20mp sensor into a GM5 frame and waving a bit of stardust over it might have been a better approach and far less demanding on resources.

As the R&D cost of such a GM5ii would be minuscule then they could have sold it at a very attractive price and still made money.

But of course “video” has become the new watchword for any new camera as it would seem that it is getting very hard to find new stills features enough to make any new camera exciting enough to sell. “Video” has become the new sell-word.

So they make a stop gap brand new camera out of parts on the shelf and it is too large for the GM market, too close in size to the GX9, too side hinged for still shooters to even consider ignoring the rest of the video crazy design. Too underperforming for the real video users.

I also like the idea of a GM5ii.

The new (apparently much improved) viewfinder, mic jack and better audio that they did put in the G100 would have been much better added to a GX9 and called a GX10. And then offer it in two versions - one with the current tilty screen and one with a fully-articulated one for the vlogging crowd.

Though when they do get round to bringing out a GX10 I hope they also get rid of that damn 4K crop and give it the latest DFD algorithms from the S5.

The GM5 was and remains very good because it was simple, well built, tiny and a very capable camera. Being devoid of convenience oriented frills it could be made very small.

Being very small heat dissipation and other issues meant that it would be unlikely be able to support IBIS or good video. More energy using features would need a larger battery as well.

Remember that we are trying to keep the GM5ii tiny. Therefore the quite adequate and useful small evf could not be replaced by a large gloriously clear one. Nor could it have tilty -swingy screens either - a fixed touch screen is pretty good at supplying extra touch function keys that might otherwise stress the real estate of such a small camera body. Maybe a front wheel could be shoe-horned in and the rear wheel better located - but it is more a case that if such a tiny wonder ain’t broke then we should not think of anything that would add more than one square millimetre to its size.

Its principal feature in fact is the size. Add a few more square millimetres - “just a little bit larger” as the refrain goes. .... then gradually we get to be looking at a full-house camera body with all the features and “just a little bit larger” - the GX9 has it all (well nearly) and probably is made as small as can be made when potential camera body designers add in every little convenience feature that they think makes a camera buyable.

Even with the GX9 we get requests that the perfectly usable evf be replaced by a much larger clearer version which would immediately spoil the flush flat top lines that make a RF-Style camera much more packable. Many also love the GX8 which had a great evf but it didn’t sell well either.

The main issue that prevents the GM5 being updated - is simply “how does a company update perfection?”. By “perfection” as far as the GM5 design is concerned is “perfectly small, tiny ....” with what I consider “user conveniences” simply left out to make it that small.

Just as soon as the user conveniences are added back in to make it an “all round capable camera” then it becomes something else. Beyond updating the sensor and firmware there are few things that can be done for the GM5ii. As a result existing owners might not be that interested in updating their perfectly good present GM5 just for a new sensor. But maybe once they (eventually) wear out?

New users will see them as pocketable-only and others will not see it is advanced enough to be their all round only camera body - more as a backup. “Pocketable backup cameras should be cheap” as they are only for emergency use - so the market will not pay proper money for a tiny well built fully capable camera that does not come with those user conveniences.

So the replacement of the GM5 looks like a “can never win” argument. Unless of course there are enough of us around who can relish the GM5 (type) as a basic camera made tiny that retains all the necessary features to be a 100% regular camera to use with any M4/3 capable lens and can make images just as good as any other M4/3 body using the same sensor if only we could live without the “user conveniences” that now seem necessary to sell any new camera body. That I don’t think this will happen whilst camera consumers wear blinkers means that an update for the GM5 is unlikely.

But I still feel that a GM5 just as it is with an updated sensor requiring minimal R&D could possibly sold at a quite reasonable price. This time round there might be more interest in a tiny camera that was capable of doing quite big things and not simply a pocketable backup.

I think maybe you misunderstood my post - I was suggesting Panasonic produce both a GM5ii and a GX10 as separate cameras. Both would appear to require minimal R&D and engineering effort over what Panasonic already offers, so would not be so expensive to develop.

Then maybe merge the G9 and G90 into a single replacement body, and merge the GH5 and GH5s into a GH6 and that's an attractive line-up that plays to M43's (and Panasonic's) strengths.