Sharp announces it's officially joining Micro Four Thirds system

Horizontal resolution for 8K video is 7680px, not 2^13.

@wolfie:

Pretty sure you’re responding to a sympathetic OP.

What is MTF?

Mean transfer function

I can't see Panasonic abandoning m4/3, especially with all the fans they have of their video.

There's like 7 articles on the front page about Panasonic a new m43 camera and lens, and you're here worrying that they are "dropping out"? Come on ...

@cameron2 they are obviously not dropping out NOW but they might in a year or two if sales do not hold up

The company that's constantly whining and whining pessimistically about poor sales going forward into the future, is Canon, not Panasonic.

Canon will be fine. They know how to survive. No camera company has proven to be better at managing costs than Canon.

And yes, I'm aware that sometimes that shows up in the image results. But give credit where credit is due: Canon is able to build, package, ship, and sell a complicated SLR camera -- with a lens included! -- for less than $500 at retail. And they manage to make a profit at that point.

Canon may outlast them all.

In other news Panasonic announces the G90 and updated 14-140 lens.

Doesn't matter, Panasonic has had the video user's mindshare, but Olympus has always had the stills mindshare. Sharp could always fill that void with ease.

I know how DPR users think. I DID NOT say you can't shoot great stills with Panny cameras, nor did I say you can't shoot adequate videos with an Olympus (Ok, maybe I am saying THAT, Oly still has, very much, a stills mindset).

Panasonic literally announced another new M4/3 camera today, and a new (updated) lens.

Canon is wandering in the weeds, and has been for years. Their overpriced, outdated cameras only survive because of their lens selection.

Now that the EF mount has been superceded, and Nikon has stepped up with excellent video output (ProRes Raw, no less)... Canon is going to get its ãss handed to it if it doesn't carry out a long-overdue management housecleaning.

All press releases about new member companies are issued by Olympus alone, not by Panasonic. This is because, even though Panasonic co-developed the MFT standard, Olympus is the company responsible for the administration. They own the MFT trademark and maintain the official website (four-thirds.org).

Yes. There are some - by Olympus, Sigma, Pana Leica and others.

Peter von Reichenberg, those you mentioned aren't Sharp!

Stupid to use a online calc for TV distance. i never can understand people they belive this shi*. there is no! tv distance, just yours, what u like and not a brainles calculator for tv distance -LOL-

"to use a 8k TV fully it has to be much bigger"

We're talking about cameras, not TVs.

There are lots of 4K TVs sold every day, and 8K video capture means the freedom to manipulate to produce higher quality 4K video as the final product.

Avatar uses a lot of computer generated graphics. but the actors are real.

I liked your post – it's a good point. Professional video though is well-lit. Home and documentary video is often not lit, requiring much higher ISO. M43 is simply not good enough at high ISO.

"But Avatar is a cartoon film. No cameras needed for that, just CGI."
Cartoon film ? Get a clue pal, watch the movie before you make a dumb post like that. And 10 people like it so we have many dumb people here.
https://live.staticflickr.com/7874/47490395732_45f25c28cf_o.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/7840/47543143491_a07fba462a_o.jpg

Just a bit outside.....

Panasonic is NOT leaving MFT.

Panasonic AKA Leica AKA Lumix AKA Leica ....

If Panasonic is leaving ... Leica will be dead in the water. It will become just another fuzzy memory of your parents collectibles.

Panasonic leaving? Maybe in your dreams.

MrALLCAPS - Panasonic have a huge range of M43 cameras which are very popular with photographers and videographers. There is no way they'll abandon M43.

But they do need to think seriously about whether they should continue with DFD focusing, or whether it is possible to substantially improve it with new algorithms. The DFD wobble in the EVF when using C-AF is very distracting and bad enough to turn away a lot of prospective purchasers.

MrALLCAPS - "most Professionals go with Manual Focus". As a former professional photographer (now retired) I can assure you that your comment is incorrect. It depends very much on the genre of photography and the preferred approach of the individual. There is no virtue in using manual focus in the manyfold situations where C-AF is superior.

Sharp has already announced plans for a FT format 8K video camera. If you’d read the article, you would know that.

That is my suspicion also, that Sharp are in it mostly for industrial ultra high definition security and surveillance cameras, not consumer cameras. There is a vast potential market for high definition shop surveillance and street security cameras and I suspect that the profit margins could be higher than for consumer hand held compact system cameras

Even smaller 1inch sensor video camcorders are doing well in camcorders today, as previous prosumer standard was 1/3 inch 3 CCD in Canon XF300 for example. Bigger than 1 inch, the Micro 4/3 is still going strong in GH5 for high bit rate video in 4K, so having 8K available in smaller cameras would be using for professional videographers. Not sure if the consumer market actually needs 8K, 4K I would think would be enough. But for large movie screens, for Pros, 8K is very useful.

To keep those long focal range lens down in size, over FF, micro 4/3 for video can be very useful and 8K is part of the future, for those pros who know how to use it.

I doubt they joined the mount to do cameras. Video cameras of course, stills -Nope.

Photo man, you didn't originally say still camera.
You were wrong and if you were a man you'd admit it.

Olympus is already using Sony sensors for many years.
And Panasonic will not end the m4/3 products. The m4/3 will dominate their sales many years from now on.

Fuji uses Sony sensors.

It's literally just Canon (and a bit of Leica) not using them, at this point.

Ooooo, "DPR don't care", that's very cynical. I think DPR do care. The problem is where do you draw the line. One person's trolling is another person's valid opinion.

Thorgrem doing something about people's opinions because they don't aline with yours happens to much today ...it used to be named fascism

@dave8 "doing something about people's opinions because they don't aline [sic] with yours happens to [sic] much today ...it used to be named fascism"

Your watered down and misleading definition of fascism does a great disservice to history.

Maybe stick to cameras?

Or your copy machine . Or your dentist’s office. Assembly robot maybe.

Osa25,
You are not looking at the right customers, IMHO.
People you are referring to mainly use smartphones. Vloggers may use something better than a smartphone, but they are not the majority of "real camera" users. Among "real camera" users, I am ready to bet there are many who use it to shoot stills only and just grab their smartphone when they want to record a video... Unlike you, I think there is room for still-only cameras.

caver3d - Denial, not just a river in Egypt.

Like I said - mindless comments. Try to be more innovative.

The camera industry is in general dying a slow death. Cell phones have already killed the cheap P&S market and the newer high end phones are now targeting even the higher end P&S's like the Sony RX100. The quality of these phones is for many (like me) good enough...I focus on my high end FF gear now.

The money in photographic equipment will be at the high end of the market and unfortunately for Olympus that isn't in M4/3.

So there are my reasons for what I originally said. You may say I'm wrong but I would bet a lot of money I'm not:)

the end game is truly a shame ,.............with oversized ff lenses on largish bodies or a cellphone ? not the world i voted for

ill take a pen f or a compact fuji with a pancake over any ff walkabout solution with a big lens

full frame is a limited fetish, sucking blood out of apsc and m43

things will settle down as full framers grow tired of 2 kilo nifty fiftys are re embrace the reason for apsc and m43 ..... the smaller lenses

for the forseeable future it will be either a cellphone or a camera
and i have trouble imagining it ff and nothing else a smaller format with arise as dominant in cameras not full frame and its large lenses

small drove the cell phone and smaller with drive the camera market forward despite the limited fetish of full frame

I'm sure box camera users felt the same way about the Leica Iiia.. That turned out well.

Portability and very good IQ. It's the future. Can't imagine dragging MASSIVE camera systems around ever again.

And Fuji has under 2% market share. Why not worry about that, instead?

My OMD is surprisingly not that far behind my 5DSR in terms of raw image quality. I also prefer the Olympus colour output.

umm box camera was the larger format ....but i get the point

@Clint "The camera industry is in general dying a slow death."

Not dying, but slowly and steadily contracting, and that surely must _feel_ like death for most of these companies.

"I focus on my high end FF gear now."

We would have never guessed from your comments. OTOH, your "high end FF gear" is just a toy crop camera to those of us with medium format, so you're going to have to up your spending significantly if you want to keep commenting here.

"The money in photographic equipment will be at the high end of the market and unfortunately for Olympus that isn't in M4/3."

For any amount of carrying, it's hard to go much larger than m43. For ergonomics, it's hard to go much smaller than m43. The range from 1" up to APSC is about the sweet spot for camera ergonomics, and that actually does matter.

If you're in a studio, or you have a Sherpa to carry your gear, then of course larger is better. I can't wait for the inevitable 4x5 sensors.

Samsung have great technology but there's no way on Earth I'd risk buying into a brand that completely abandons it's customers.

Have you forgotten the way they dumped on all the people who bought into the NX1, leaving them with no upgrade path, no lenses and no service?

BTW Olympus has a wide experience in damping their users also. OM, 4/3 were abandoned with NO proper support via adapters. All they said was just "It is time to move on". I was shooting 4/3 then, and I don't want to have an Oly again because of that.

jokes aside that NX1 was not that bad of a camera. It was really disappointing to see them pull out of the market when they finally made a good camera. That camera still goes for a good price.

For FT users Olympus made an E-5 in 2010. In 2009 they had already adapters and in 2013 they came with the E-M1 that could properly fast focus all FT lenses with the adapter. So the FT users had an nice transfer path.

Paul - Yes, Olympus are also guilty. They dropped out of the photography market completely at one stage, when they found that they weren't making enough profit from their film cameras. Fortunately by that time there were a huge number of OM bodies and lenses on the used market, so at least the abandoned users had somewhere to go. Then came the switch from 4/3 to M4/3.

Now it seems that they've made another serious error in producing the E-M1X, a vastly overpriced camera that will only appeal to a very niche market. I fully expect them to drop out of photography again within a year or two.

Keep expecting that. People have predicted the death of Olympus every year since I bought my MFT camera in 2010. Its hysterical nonsens.

The E-M1X is a niche camera, it's meant that way. The designed it that way. Just like the D5 and 1DX camera's are a niche in there systems.

I had a Samsung Gear S smartwatch years ago. Ahead of its time. On par with hardware Apple is releasing as “innovative” today. Samsung didn’t support it properly didn’t update or open up the firmware:OS to thrive And now we’ll Apple is the market leader.

Samsung is a Frankenstein - powerful but just lurching around.

Thorgem - Nikon D5 and Canon 1Dxii sell in big numbers to sports, wildlife, wedding, journalist and architectural photographers. They are not niche cameras. They are virtually indestructible, have vast lens ranges, superb servicing facilities, extremely high availability of specialist lenses for purchase or hire. And they produce stunning images in very low light levels.

The E-M1X can no way compete against them. It has only a very tiny potential market. There may be people who appreciate the body design and the lightweight lenses, but at anything above ISO 200 the results from FF will be far superior. The Olympus simply won't produce acceptable image quality in low light - high ISO scenarios.

Bla bla bla. Tell me genius how many % of Nikon dSLR sales is for the D5? It's a niche camera no matter how you put it.

Not a mindless comment at all. Olympus is going to abandon 4/3 or go bankrupt within 5 years...you heard it here first.

The big problem facing Olympus is that while some people like their squeeny-weeny bodies and can tolerate their indecipherable menus, the number of people who will settle for a 20MP camera that produces soft noisy images at anything above ISO 800 is very limited.

I'll take m43 ergonomics and proper weather sealing any day over small mount of noise hell I shoot my a7s at iso 12800 all the time yet dread holding it. I love noise.

RED - I can understand that. Olympus cameras have extremely good weather-sealing. I know someone who dropped an EM1Mkii into a river. We fished it out, dried it for half an hour in the sun, and it still works perfectly. Credit where it's due.

What utter nonsense. It produces tack sharp shots up to 3200.

Yandrosxx - If you are satisfied with Olympus at ISO 3200 I'm happy for you, but don't kid yourself. Compared to FF, it's soft and very noisy at high ISO. The Zuiko lenses are fine, but the sensors are physically too small to compete with FF or even with APS.

Check out the dpr studio comparison charts and the difference in sensor capabilities becomes blindingly obvious. And in real world scenarios it's even worse, as defocused backgrounds exaggerate the noise even further.

@Clint Dunn >You dread holding an A7Sii??? Bahahahahaha. Hit the gym bud.

Better practice reading comprehension.

entoman-horse sh*t. Nearly every real world scenario anyone shoots is ISO 3200 or less where any marginal IQ differences are none existent in actual production whether displayed on screens or printed out. Pick up any magazine that lists photo specs in the caption and count how many images were shot over ISO 3200. Out of hundreds its 3 or 4 at best. Count how many at ISO 6400; you may find 1 or 2 at best. Pick up the latest copy of PDN magazine. The inside cover is a shot from the Em1X at ISO 5000. See if you can see a bit of noise. I tried and couldn't.

Even Imaging Resource classifies the Em1 Mark II at ISO 1300, not the 800 you pulled out of ….

Is it that hard for FF users to realize the perceived advantages of FF systems really are just that inconsequential? Don't kid yourself, the difference between extremely good and excellent is … well not much, particularly when it only matters when shooting fast moving objects above ISO 3200. Which is …. almost never.

Olympus is much much more than a camera company,even if MFT goes south,it certainly won't bankrupt the company.

P1004K, that’s ridiculous. If you’re a true professional filmmaker, for theatrical release on a huge screen, it’s one thing. But for anyone else, it’s nuts. Like it or not, 4K itself is worthless for most people who have it. They sit too far away from a too small screen. 8k will be far worse. I sit 12.5 feet from my screen. I need a 105” screen to see full 1080. I would need a 210 screen for 4K, and a 420 screen to see 8k.

If you don’t understand how this works, you should’nt even bother to post.

Time still exists in caves.

If 4K looks unnatural to you then you either A) have poor gear or B) poor source material.

OMG, flattards that think 2mp (1080p) looks better than 8mp (4320p).

Right, people buying 4K HDR large screen TVs are stupid since you could put a cheap TV from Walmart far enough away and see the same image. We should all go back to 6mp DSLRs since we can't see any resolution above that.

P10004K,
"We should all go back to 6mp DSLRs since we can't see any resolution above that."

Wrong comparison...There is a difference in needs between shooting and viewing. You may need to shoot video in 8k or 4k to reframe/crop later or get a better 2k downsampled video, like you may need a 24MP camera when shooting stills to reframe/crop later, or get a better 6MP downsampled image. But how many people actually need such high resolutions when VIEWING ? Very few, except pros, or reach people who can afford a huge house to host huge screens. People who buy 4K HDR TV screen when a cheap 2K TV is enough are either stupid enough to waste money, or showy, IMHO. But I do not really care, this is not my money... ;-)

How many 1" sensor cameras and lenses do you think can resolve 20MP?

How many 1/2.3" sensor cameras and lenses do you think can resolve 5MP?

How many 1/3" sensor smartphone cameras and lenses do you think can resolve 3MP?

It's all the same question. I imagine your answer to those above questions would be "at least a few."

Multishot mode on the OM-D E-M1 Mk II already gives about "40MP+ worth" of resolution with good lenses and appropriate f-stops, and that means that the image delivered to the focal plane by the lens has that much detail.

Diffraction effects are milder than many seem to think, and for 8K in 4/3" format (sensor about 18mm wide due to the 16:9 shape, so about 2.2 micron pixel pitch) is fine at about f/4 and wider. Images from 20MP 1" sensors are not a "blurry useless mess" so long as suitable f-stops are used.

P. S. The DOF limits for avoiding diffraction effects at 8K resolution are of course the same in any format. For example, if f/4 in 4/3" then f/8 at twice the focal length and needing four times the ISO speed to get the same shutter speed in 36x24mm.

I don't think there's anything to be improved on the g9 or em1ii (except maybe crazy new sensor technology) .That seems like a peak, not a low point.

Androole, some are lower than others. Hopefully Sharp is smart and only plays to niche segments of high demand. I would question the sanity of anyone jumping into the camera market to make a $500 ILC in 2019.

Well no, an 8K cine camera is not going to be $500. That does without saying.

Obviously. So if Sharp is going to focus on stuff like 8K cine cameras, I can see things going well for them. If they try to cover the gamut, I don't.

Since 2016 Sharp has been a subsidiary of Taiwan-based Foxconn Group.
Headquarters Sakai-ku, Sakai, Japan; Taipei, Taiwan
Sharp employs more than 50,000 people worldwide.
Revenue ¥2.050 trillion (2017)
Operating income ¥34.67 billion (2017)
Net income ¥-24.87 billion (2017)[3]
Total assets ¥1.773 trillion (2017)[3]
Total equity ¥294.1 billion (2017)[3]

They make all the screens for iPads and iPhones as well as a huge number of other devices, not to mention a myriad of other tech. They are on top of the game, not just existing.

You'd be surprised. People think Hitachi and Toshiba don't exist either.

Marek1977: "They still exist?"
Excellent joke

I am glad that I keep you entertained