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I just want an S1H in exactly the same body but a bit lighter, with the updated real-time LUT and AF. Done deal.

That Sigma APS-C zoom is lovely on the S9 in 4K60p

Your post has way too little info. Closing the services where? France? How did you find out - on the phone? On Google? On instagram? On the back of some tea leaf? You know the rules of the internet my dear... When you find a post, cut and paste the post into your post about the post. Otherwise you keep people guessing what the fucking source is.

Some of these criticisms are primarily valid for older/shittier focus-by-wire systems, though. The Canon EF 85/1.2L has a famously terrible focus-by-wire system that made almost nobody ever want to use it - not only is it non-linear, but it's also a little bit laggy. Of course, its focus motor is also slow and a bit loud. I still use mine sometimes, though, for photo shoots - the image is really nice and models who are staying more-or-less still are a decent use case for a slow AF motor. Anyway, the Panasonic 20/1.7 pancake is in a similar situation. It's old, relatively noisy, and slow, with no ability to be switched to linear response. It's fucking awful to use in manual focus mode for that reason - and yeah, AF mode also aint' great. On the other hand, I think most or all of the first-party lenses for Fuji GF are focus by wire. They're either linear or switchable to it (and I set the option in the camera and immediately forgot since there's no way I'd switch it back). When manually focusing, the damping is nice and the lens is responsive and accurate. It really feels like focusing a proper lens. Though many of those lenses also fall into your category of spending a lot of money. I think that all of the PanaLeica lenses are either linear or close enough to it that it felt linear to me. Some of the older ones are pretty affordable now - like the Summilux 25/1.4 asph goes for about $300 used. Worth confirming that they all have linear response, though - I only had a few when I shot M43 and that was a long time ago so I could be misremembering. Otherwise, I feel like the Olympus lenses with a focus clutch also were linear-ish, but maybe I'm crazy there too. As to the thinking behind a "non-proportional" focus was, I think, that for photos, you could get rough focus quickly by turning the dial fast and then get a really precise critical focus by turning slowly. At least that's what they said. I think the bigger thinking behind it was "we can make this lens for less money as well as simplifying the design by removing the coupling between focus ring and lens elements"

But that way they would have to redesign all the cameras. There is no space for PANASONIC on the front 😜

I also just saw that this is from the same company that did a kickstarter for the Alice camera. I think there are still crowd funding backers waiting for delivery on that one - the campaign ran in 2021. Here is a reddit thread where the OP deleted their message, but you can see a lot in the comments about huge delays with the last camera and as of 2 months ago, the company was responding to people saying that they're finally shipping. https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/1brpul5/deleted_by_user/ According to one comment, the new camera seems to just be the same as the old camera (due to the previous version losing in a trademark dispute in court), but with a new name and software. So... at least that means there's less risk on them taking 4+ years to ship this one. Anyway, my recommendation is now even more strongly to just get a used OM-5 or similar. Buy from a reputable used vendor and it'll be in your hands in a few days. If they actually ship this camera someday and you're loving what you see from it, you can sell the OM-5 and buy the Caira at that time.

Look, I was on a beach with rough seas and I wanted to do a very simple thing: a focus transition between the sand in the foreground and the breaking waves, all at F2.0 with the ND filter. At that moment, I had the old Lumix 20mm F1.7 mounted, which I really like for its rendering and colors. But it was simply impossible, partly because the focus ring (like many Lumix M43 lenses) is not smooth and absolutely not pleasant, and also because it's impossible to "feel on your wrist" the two focus points and move between them. Damn it, it's not rocket science. It's a trivial thing that anyone can do after five minutes of practice. In the end, swearing, I remounted the vintage Yashica 28mm and voila! I truly don't understand who the hell even had the thought that a "non-proportional" focus (that's the correct term IMHO) could be useful for anything. So, the old 20mm F1.7 pancake is absolutely useless: the firmware doesn't support proportional focus, the motors are of a very old design, and apparently, it's not brilliant for video even with the GH7. Panasonic thinks that everyone who shoots video with the GH7 is willing to spend 3600 Euros for the 10-25mm and the 25-50mm lenses. They are crazy. It seems to be a blanket that is too short. All the technological effort has been concentrated toward continuous AF with A.I. algorithms and specialized sensors, and now that we have almost succeeded, we are no longer able to do what we have done for a century: manual focus. Unbelievable.

That is a very good analysis! Thank you!

Same here, I've always been super happy with the build quality of every Lumix camera I've ever owned. I am starting to wonder about the GH6 screen and if there is some sort of defect with it because I've seen several other people on various forums mention the same issues I had, and my second body gave me a scare just the other day when the image on the LCD was shifted slightly to the left (back to normal now....) This is exactly how my problems started on my first body and eventually the image wouldn't flip itself to the correct orientation, it would be shifted off center and would flicker every now and then before completely dying. The only thing I could think of at the time was having the camera in some light rain, maybe somehow the weather sealing for the whole screen mechanism isn't great?.. Who knows.

I've never had a Panasonic really break on me. It did happen to me with an Olympus E-P7. It had faulty IBIS. I sent it in and they eventually replaced it with an E-M5iii (an upgrade). I was super happy. Not it's the same service today.

I had the LPS Red service included with my GH6 when I bought it new, and unfortunately had to use it the next year when my camera screen started glitching out and eventually died. Other than the fast turnaround it was a huge headache and the communication from Lumix Pro Services was terrible. I had to pay out of pocket for shipping both ways, an inspection fee, and then parts and labor. The third party repair facility was great, but there was a glitch in the LPS system showing on their end that my camera wasn't registered even though I had proof on my end. I could never communicate with anyone at LPS efficiently and the email tag back and forth was incredibly slow and nothing was ever resolved and did not get the said warranty coverage. Maybe I'm the only one that has had this issue with them, but then again maybe this is why it's going away.

I had no idea it existed and send my stuff to a place in Paris and a company whose name I forget… And Panasonic Lumix told me to do this with no mention of these so called pro service so 🤷‍♂️

Didn't know A7siii has this saturation issue

1) This didn't go well for Sony when they released the QX100 and QX10 years ago. It also didn't work well for Olympus with the Air A01. Of course, none of them stuck a stupid bullshit "AI" label on the end of the camera name so who knows, maybe that's what was missing. 2) Fuck GenAI. Of all the things I want integrated in my camera, that's at about the rock bottom of the list. 3) Note that at least 3 of the 6 testimonials that they include (screenshot below) don't actually say anything positive about the camera. "That's very different" is not an endorsement. In fact, where I live, saying "that's different" is usually a form of backhanded insult. 4) It looks like it only supports wifi connection to the phone without a wired option. In a best-case scenario, screen lag will be tolerable. Go to any reasonably-crowded urban area, though, and enjoy the slide show and/or "connection lost" messages. 5) Even though they say you can choose from over 100 M43 lenses, I'd be worried about magsafe supporting any moderately heavy lens. Even if it does, the camera will be really unbalanced. 6) When Caira goes out of business, there will be nobody left to update the app and the camera isn't usable without it. Cross your fingers that Apple doesn't change some necessary API during an OS update. 7) Super early bird pricing is $695. You can go buy a used Panasonic G85 in like new condition for about $430. You can get an OM System OM-5 in like new condition for about $760 or in excellent condition for about $690. The G85 is cheaper and pretty good - at least on a spec sheet, they seem similar - a little bulkier, maybe. The OM-5 should be at least as good of a camera, also is quite small (not as small, of course, but very small by modern camera standards), and will keep working whether or not OM Systems stays in business or decides they want to stop making cameras. 8 ) Phone cameras are already very good these days. Mine is more than good enough for any of the sort of images/videos that they seem to be promoting on their site. If not, I'd probably just get a newer/better phone and not some janky add-on. 🙂 9) Small company + Kickstarter means you'll probably be waiting a good long time and/or never actually receive the order. Even though they say they have 500 mainboards already in stock, actually building and shipping hundreds of units is a really hard challenge that a lot of kickstarter projects don't take into account - and sometimes not even due to fault of the creators. My 4x10 film camera that I ordered from an established brand (Ondu) who already made/shipped lots of pinhole cameras for years beforehand took WAY longer than expected, at least partly because suppliers kept sending out-of-spec parts to them. The owner is a really great guy and we had some nice conversations when I asked my camera hadn't come despite that he said they were caught up on orders (turned out that their tool to collect shipping information lost a bunch of responses so he had to go manually collect them from a lot of people). So anyway - for me, Caira is a hard no. I'm basically the opposite of their target market, though.

Hi! I just saw this Kickstarter project: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cameraintelligence/caira-worlds-first-ai-native-mirrorless-camera It’s an MFT camera that attaches to the iPhone and uses the phone as monitor and for operation. I find it interesting because I have a number of MFT lenses and I always wanted a camera with the UI of an iPhone. I of course see the downsides regarding handling without physical buttons etc. The AI features are a nice gimmick, even if I don’t know how useful these really are… What do you think?

I did find a post that said it will still exist, but under the “My Panasonic” name. Maybe because no one was actually using it, they just decided to move the service under the Panasonic brand. Personally, I think they should just get rid of the Lumix name altogether and fully embrace Panasonic. That way, people would immediately know what it’s about and wouldn’t have to think about—or explain—that Lumix means Panasonic too.

Greetings Fellow Creatives, Been super busy, but managed to create a couple of new tracks to share with the community: "TRAIN TO 4th SECTOR" (LoFi) "OFF-WORLD DESOLATION " (LoFi) https://soundimage.org/sci-fi-14/ CUSTOM MUSIC FOR YOUR PROJECTS I recently finished a full custom score for "Warbound," a strategy-based RPG. Starting on a cool 2D cyberpunk game called "Futurika." If anyone needs some custom music created, feel free to reach out! https://soundimage.org/custom-work/ Have a good week! 🙂

I have a bad feeling about this, but does anyone actually use these services? What does this mean for Lumix?

Pixel binned raw 4k120 of ZR has the same amount of details of FX3, if not more, which is a native 4k sensor

Finally got ZR yesterday. After changing all the settings like I have them in Z6iii, except Zebras and Vignette for R3D, got to test it a bit too. 1st, the screen is really good, you can change almost everything needed via the touch id and new menus quite quickly and intuitively. Need to figure out still what I need to set on those 4 custom buttons really. The grip is tiny but feels ok in the hand. Still, with heavier lenses like 1kg 50 f1.2 and 135 f1.8 having the L shaped gage’s bigger grip seems to be a must, as it also has the Arca-swizz base plate for easy tripod use too. Quickly tested R3D NE vs NRaw to R3D hack with ISO 800 and 6400, and R3D NE was a bit cleaner in the shadows and seemed to hold the colors better too. The Z6iii EVF and all of it’s buttons in muscle memory seems still of course more convenient to use, but there is no going back to timy 3.2” screens after this. In various Panas and Z6iii I almost never used the screen. Cinema tools has made a false color LUT, propably have to buy and try that too, if setting the zebras to 245 for R3D highlights does not work like zebras at 255 for NRaw. The build quality seemed robust, but the shutter button needs a bit heavier press. Could not find the focus limiter in the menus either. Hopefully the weather allows to take both ZR and Z6iii outside, and see how the ZR handles, and what the footage looks like.

I think the mechanical systems that allow the back LCD to tilt behind the optical axis as well as opening to the left for selfie orientation are more complicated and require more parts than what Nikon is using in the ZR, and this would make the camera heavier, larger, and more expensive (would make it less attractive for many people, and it might not solve the problem it currently solves). Higher-end models will no doubt be made over time with different solutions to how the LCD turns into different orientations. The Z8 and Z9 offer a screen which does not tilt forwards (selfie orientation) but it does retain the LCD approximately on the optical axis.

I could never understand the "accelerated" manual focusing, it makes things just more difficult and unpredictable. Nikon fortunately have firmware updates to most of the S-line lenses (exception: 14-24/2.8) that feature what people call linear manual focusing (I'm not really sure what is linear in it, what it does is make focus ring position and focus distance correspond to each other in a bijective relationship at least within the power cycle of the camera). What's even nicer is that you can choose how much you have to turn to achieve a given focus change, so it is adoptable for different users and needs. I think the focus by wire should never have been accelerated by default in any lens. As for the priority on autofocus, mirrorless so-called hybrid cameras and their lenses are a bit more (still) photography-oriented than video, and so the needs of the stills shooters come first in most models. Autofocus is very useful when you want consistent focus on the eye, for example, or when shooting action subjects (again, stills). For some things (such as when multiple subjects at different distances have to be sharp in the frame, and the best way to achieve this is to focus in between them) manual focus is better but manufacturers chose to prioritize ease of use than the needs of skilled users. Lenses with mechanical manual focus are of course available, natively and via adapters, for those who prioritise MF.

at certain point, the lens industry is more for other things than the iq. canon l lenses are a good example, dust free, build quality (fine for me on this), af, optical is (fine for me in certain situations). they are working horses, but not creative tools. use another example, vintage voigtlander heliar lenses are so good for portrait. not sharp, but good enough, great oof, just right on the spot for human faces, even better in bw. even 50 years ago, they did it right.

If only they had opted for the S1H/S1RII/A7RV style mech 🙈 It’s not a dealbreaker (for me) but might just have sealed the deal for me as this kind of fundamental, but so easily could have been included. I work exclusively off the LCD for both photo & video and simply prefer it behind the camera, in line with the lens and not on top or off to one side.

Seems like another hidden cost of the internets obsession with AF. The more everyone screamed about it from the rooftops the less that manufacturers cared about anything else. The worst thing about the camera industry is the BS that the online communities prattle on about. Now we have clinical lenses and megadollar-megapixel cameras that fill up your card in 10s flat with 8K 60p RAW and require all kinds of Film Emulation in post to get rid of the sensation that digital scalpels are being hurled into your eyeballs when you look at the footage. No wonder vintage lenses have never been more in-demand. ...or vintage point-and-shoot cameras or digicams for that matter.