Is Panasonic gear's reliability and durability levels comparable to Canon/Nikon gear?

In the fence here for a G7 kit and perhaps a 42.5 f/1.7.  Have only ever bought gear from "traditional" camera manufacturers: Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Olympus, Fuji, Minolta, and had never had reliability or durability problems from any of them, even after a drop or two onto concrete ground.  Sony and Panasonic are not traditional camera manufacturers: I saw that lack of experience in the Sony A7's wobbling lens mount and I have seen several old, used Lumix compact cameras that looked like gadgets ready to be thrown to the trash rather than the optical tools made to last decades that I am accustomed to see from the traditional camera manufacturers.  Already I've seen that all silver G7s sold on ebay have their paint finish chipped in some way or another.  So, I feel there is a big question mark hanging over Panasonic regarding reliability and durability.  How has been your experience with your Panasonic gear in these regards?

There have been a few threads and polls on this forum about the reliability of Olympus and Panasonic. Panasonic tends to score a bit better.

Panasonic was into selling cameras before Apple launched its first iPhone. Before then, both Panasonic and Sony have been heavily involved in video camera manufacturing. So I am a bit confused about why you think that they are not traditional camera manufacturers, or reliable.

Panasonic has been making cameras a long time.  Without figures at hand, their gear is likely to be as reliable and durable as any other camera makers including the "old Guard," and perhaps even more.

I have never had any reliability problems with my Panasonic gear, and I have had five different bodies and a bunch of lenses.   I have told the story many times of losing a GF1 in the snow for five week, finding it, and it works well today.

From anecdotal evidence on this forum, Panasonic cameras seem to stand up better than Olympus ones, but that might partly reflect the fact that more people on this forum have Olympus camera that Panasonic ones.

I think of Panasonic as a reputable company, with good solid products in general.

F.

I rarely read about Panasonic gear problems in this forum other than a few possible decenter issues with some newer lenses but that has nothing to do with long term durability. Some Olympus bodies like the EM1.1 have known issues - which I have experienced.

Over the past 13-14 years I have owned three Nikons, one Fuji, and one Olympus. My Nikon D200 was a real lemon going back in for service for different issues 5x over almost two years. My Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 version one went in 2x for repair, the vertical grip for my Nikon D200 wen in twice for repair. And my Olympus EM1.1 had the rear dial replaced after six months and only 3,000 clicks. I have owned roughly 30 lenses, many purchased Used, and only one Nikon, mentioned above, ever failed me.

Anyway, Panasonic seems to have a very good reputation.

Can't speak of overall reliability, but a search through these forums will show that Panasonic has a very poor record in repair service

According to the consumer association in the UK, Panasonic are the most reliable cameras , both at 1 & 5 years old, Sony the same at 5 years, Canon & Nikon about 3% behind. Taken from their user surveys.

shinndigg wrote:

Can't speak of overall reliability, but a search through these forums will show that Panasonic has a very poor record in repair service

That's not true if you live outside of the US, Panny service in the UK and in Europe is in my experience excellent.  For some reason Panny don't seem to take US customers as seriously as they do the rest of the world.

Finish on all plastic (ok.composite) cameras will wear off. Black pant metal bodied film cameras will "brass."

Don't confuse that with durability. In my experience, consumer and prosumer models have roughly the same level of reliability regardless of manufacturer.

Durability comes at the cost of pro level gear. (Which isn't to say that consumer and prosumer gear can't be durable).

As for build quality, in this day and age, it's a bit of a gamble on any high volume product.

If the G7 fits you needs, go with it and enjoy. Don't mourn the loss of plastic finish. All electronics are consumables.

Trevor Carpenter wrote:

shinndigg wrote:

Can't speak of overall reliability, but a search through these forums will show that Panasonic has a very poor record in repair service

That's not true if you live outside of the US, Panny service in the UK and in Europe is in my experience excellent. For some reason Panny don't seem to take US customers as seriously as they do the rest of the world

At least they take care of some of their customers. It has been a constant problem here in the states if this forum is any indication

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CaMeRa QuEsT wrote:

In the fence here for a G7 kit and perhaps a 42.5 f/1.7. Have only ever bought gear from "traditional" camera manufacturers: Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Olympus, Fuji, Minolta, and had never had reliability or durability problems from any of them, even after a drop or two onto concrete ground. Sony and Panasonic are not traditional camera manufacturers: I saw that lack of experience in the Sony A7's wobbling lens mount and I have seen several old, used Lumix compact cameras that looked like gadgets ready to be thrown to the trash rather than the optical tools made to last decades that I am accustomed to see from the traditional camera manufacturers. Already I've seen that all silver G7s sold on ebay have their paint finish chipped in some way or another. So, I feel there is a big question mark hanging over Panasonic regarding reliability and durability. How has been your experience with your Panasonic gear in these regards?

I have been buying Panasonic camera gear since about 2008; I think their gear is quite reliable.

ZS7, TS4, G1, GX1, G5, GM1, G5, GM5, GX7 and  "some" lenses.

Only issue so far is a possibly decentered 12-32 lens.

Reports of Panasonic service in Canada have been good.

Years ago there were complaints about the Panasonic service out of McAllen Texas. I've also heard that Panasonic has cleaned that up. in the last few years.

CaMeRa QuEsT wrote:

In the fence here for a G7 kit and perhaps a 42.5 f/1.7.

I feel there is a big question mark hanging over Panasonic regarding reliability and durability. How has been your experience with your Panasonic gear in these regards?

It depends on the model.

Bodies:

I own the G7's successor, the G85, and it seems to be a very well-built camera.

However, some of the earlier G-series cameras struck me as being "plasticky" and poorly-built.

My GM5 is a solid little camera, but it needed $315 worth of repairs because my sweaty fingers caused water damage to the rear scroll wheel and on-off switch. I was disappointed by this damage occuring in a situation which I considered to be normal use.

Lenses:

The kit lens used on the GM5 and other small Panasonic cameras, the 12-32, is very good optically but so cheaply constructed the metal barrel comes off. This happened to me, and many other people have reported the same issue.

My Panasonic 35-100 (small version) is also optically excellent, but also has a problem in that it is designed to be collapsible - which is great - but tends to collapse when I'm zooming out because the "hard stop" is too weak. (It's hard to explain to someone who hasn't tried the lens).

On the other hand, my other Panasonic lenses have no issues. These are the 7-14, 12-35, and 25/1.4. I also owned a 25/1.7 which, although mediocre in terms of image quality, didn't have any problems in terms of build quality.

I also own an Olympus E-P3, which I consider to have given good service, but even that camera had the mode dial fall off while I was hiking. My Olympus lenses have all performed reliably, but there have been several reports of the professional-quality 12-40 f/2.8 snapping at the lens mount. This has been reported many times in DPreview forums and, of the two people with this lens who I know personally, one has had the lens break at the mount.

In short, I'd recommend that before buying any body or lens you Google them and check out user reviews on Amazon, etc, to see if there are any issues with them. You should especially take the time to read negative reviews, as a very large percentage of positive reviews are written before the gear has been subjected to a reasonable amount of use.

S

Trevor Carpenter wrote:

shinndigg wrote:

Can't speak of overall reliability, but a search through these forums will show that Panasonic has a very poor record in repair service

That's not true if you live outside of the US, Panny service in the UK and in Europe is in my experience excellent. For some reason Panny don't seem to take US customers as seriously as they do the rest of the world.

Yes, I've also had very good service in New Zealand from Panasonic.

They organised a repair of my GM5 quickly, and it was returned within two weeks.

The OP doesn't say where he/she lives, so it's hard to know if customer service should be mentioned.

It does seem that customer service problems are isolated to the United States.

S

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I've been using Panasonic  gear for the past ten years or so, from little compacts up to my current mirrorless GX85 and never had them fail me. I had a compact that my sister dropped on the corner of a chair hard enough to render the part of the screen that hit the edge black but its been about three years and it still works.

Just as I got home and walked into the house from buying my GX85 another sister's dog jumped on me hard enough to break the camera strap and my GX85 hit our hard wood floors pretty hard, bounced a few times and ended up about five, seven feet away. I'm pretty sure my heart stopped for a few seconds and I had a small panic attack but the camera was fine. Haven't had any issues with it and its been eight months now, still going.

I've only ever had one Canon dslr and within the first fifty photos I started getting dead pixels and got even more after the next fifty. I know that's probably not typical of Canon dslrs. I've had several M4/3 cameras starting with the Olympus E-P2 ( which I sometimes still use.) and never had any reliability problems with any of them.

I found this interesting from lens rental regarding lens mounts breaking.

https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2013/12/assumptions-expectations-and-plastic-mounts/

Particularly this comment.

"When a plastic mount does break, people tend to freak out a bit because the lens is so obviously broken. From a repair standpoint, though, we love them. It takes 15 minutes to replace a broken plastic mount and the lens is as good as new. Metal mount lenses don’t break like that. Instead internal components and lens elements get shifted and bent. It can take several hours to return one of those to optical alignment."

Coming from a background of professional video camcorders, Panasonic seem to take reliability very seriously. I've seen interviews where they discuss how they adjust the feature sets of their cameras to ensure maximum reliability under any usage pattern. As opposed to let's say Sony. And I've yet to see a Panasonic camera fail in the few years I've been working with them.

Not everything is rosy though. Something will break sooner or later no matter how well built. And unfortunately their service network is severely lacking pretty much everywhere except the UK apparently. Just something to consider.

CaMeRa QuEsT wrote:

In the fence here for a G7 kit and perhaps a 42.5 f/1.7. Have only ever bought gear from "traditional" camera manufacturers: Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Olympus, Fuji, Minolta, and had never had reliability or durability problems from any of them, even after a drop or two onto concrete ground. Sony and Panasonic are not traditional camera manufacturers: I saw that lack of experience in the Sony A7's wobbling lens mount and I have seen several old, used Lumix compact cameras that looked like gadgets ready to be thrown to the trash rather than the optical tools made to last decades that I am accustomed to see from the traditional camera manufacturers. Already I've seen that all silver G7s sold on ebay have their paint finish chipped in some way or another. So, I feel there is a big question mark hanging over Panasonic regarding reliability and durability. How has been your experience with your Panasonic gear in these regards?

It is natural for people to have a weird eye on some non household name of the industry. However, wishing you to know that Panasonic indeed started its camera business since 2001. Same as other new players who took the advantage of the level playing ground on digital camera development, e.g. Sony took over Minolta/Konica, Samsung collaborated with Pentax, and Panasonic chose Leica and quickly teamed up with Olympus as well to start their new camera ventures.

All these originally electronic conglomerates has advantage having their own production of various electronic components that traditional camera manufacturers didn't have. From image sensor, CPU, IC board, drive motor, LCD and evf display unit to even battery and recently the application of mobile technologies etc... As long these new players can obtain/be licensed with the knowledge by their partners, they can get involved much quicker than before. During the early days of digital photographing when every players had to search for a way to success, there were all sort of strange/innovative/bold design appeared and basically IQ from most of the products are very similar to each other (indeed were not comparable to film, and were far from perfect as today). Because of the relatively weak electronic background of CaNikon, they finally realised that using the traditional slr design with electronic modification can give them the quickest, most efficient mean to withhold their long position of the industry that other new comers were hard to compete. Fuji, Samsung, Olympus and Panasonic, Sony with half hearted originally, moved to mirrorless and Canon/Nikon/Pentax remain their traditional dslr...

As long as any mirrorless can put their components inside a thick metal case, every brand can produce something as durable (in your sense) as the best from CaNikon. However, the major selling point of mirrorless is about size and weight. Having better material be invented (very often a plastic case might be more shock resistance, and easier to do WR than a metal case), and having size and weight in mind, those heavily armoured mirrorless would be limited to certain special class/flagship of cameras. BTW, don't look at a digital camera with the same eyes we saw a film slr, especially true for mirrorless. Mirrorless is technology driven products that improvement in sensor technology, in display unit, in CPU speed, in software etc would all make today's best mirrorless but so-so to-morrow, and be obsolete a few years later. IMHO it might be silly to put durability of a mirrorless very high on the list of requirement. Well before my gear failure I should have upgraded already. So I don't mind to use my Pany cameras in a much abusive way than I did for my film slrs. Use all non WR in all sort of climate (rain/snow) and change lenses just whenever I need to (dust/wet...). Except for the de-laminated issue of the LCD of GX1 (a common issue after long used), non of my Pany cameras has any problem/failure so far (use Pany exclusively from P&S, bridge to M43 since 2003).

Might be my extreme case would prove how durable a Pany camera can be. G1 + 7-14, non WR gear, dropped into a river. Picked up like water tank, dried it and can be shoot again 3 days later. Back home, Pany service Center inspected it and issued me a death certificate for insurance claim (because of very severe oxidation inside), but kept on shooting for 2~3 more years until its official retirement. Up to today It still refuses to R.I.P., looking 99% new outside, sensor surface has no evidence of its accident, shooting as normal as it is (but a few occasional crash need to remove battery) and indeed 7-14 is still one of my major lens today. I don't expect CaNikon can do much better than my G1 .

If I am you, I would better look at a camera of reasonable cost that I would upgrade it in 2~3 years... Longer than that would be a bonus. Unavoidably unfortunate might happen to electronic products. Under normal care we should have a peace of mind to have them alive during their usable life. A D70 might be a tough enough dslr. I introduced it to my friend in 2005. But who would still use such model nowadays?

Wow, I'm amazed by the 100% positive response you guys have given to my question!  I myself have owned quite a lot of Matushita/Panasonic products over my life, all of them being at the top of their game in reliability and durability, and the name has been the top mention in these regards for consumer electronics for as long as I remember.  I've only asked because Panasonic is not the top mention in photo gear, mostly because of historical and sales volumes reasons .  But seeing that I've gotten a deluge of only positive experiences, I'll definitively go ahead and get me a G7, in black of course.  I've got an eye at it because of its excellent SOOC video performance, something that has been very lacking in the Nikon, Canon, Fuji and Sony gear I've owned (somehow my sole Pentax camera, an MX-1 compact, which was basically a re-bodied Olympus XZ-2, had the best SOOC video IQ from all the digital cameras I've owned) and because I'm fed up with DSLR focusing issues and needless bulk.