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Sounds about right…also being a resident 🤪

All hobbies are like this.

The Sony A7C ii is more like 514g vs. 486g for the S9. Electronic shutter would be great for a fast readout sensor, but I'm not sure that's in Panasonic's tea leaves. Actually, I think the S9 stacks up well to the Sony for short-form video (at least in the specs). For me, the lack of an EVF is actually a preference as there's one less thing to think about and shooting from the hip is preferable. Also, the S9 looks way cooler IMO (with a small prime or small zoom). Price is also a consideration.

I'd like to see Panasonic have success with this and increase market share -- to go on to release another compact with a much faster reading sensor + evf to outcompete Sony's A7C II (429g body). That is more appealing to me as a compact travel camera (of course much more expensive). Sigma's contemporary primes strike a great weight/performance balance and are just waiting for something way beyond the FP line to pair with on L mount.

Have been messing around with a friend's XA50 and love the AF, cLog3 and above all... the form factor. The process becomes solely about composition and storytelling. Anyway here's a frame I grabbed after shooting with it for about 2 minutes...

In France, they priced it at 2400 euros, but there's almost nothing off if you were buying each separately, probably because the 28-200 just came out. They only discounting primes: 18mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm. By far, the best deal is with the 18mm at roughly 2000 euros, tax included. Does Sigma have a suitable superzoom? I think the Panasonic one is fairly unique and I wish I had it over the 70-300, but I like the reach too.

There’s quite a few ‘R Us YT’ers Full of Shit’ videos already uploaded, I guess in response and there will be others. Gate opened.

Here's a top-down view of the S9 with the Sigma 45mm f/2.8. It looks like a really good size but still not pancake. BTW, this is how Panasonic really envisions you using this camera- phone in one hand and camera in the other. I can't do that as would rather be looking at the scene in front of me, not fiddling around on a phone that's way to big to operate with one hand anyway.

TL/DR: Old man+lawn+upset. Funny to me that this video is considered a "spill the beans" kind of deal. The information super highway has become what it was always destined to become. It's novelty gave it value. It's coasted on the early-year-legacy when it was a bit of a legitimate gathering space and access was a bit difficult. Even then, late 80's early 90's, I was interviewing corporate folks that were manipulating content. With the advent of Mozilla and Netscape they really began to realize the scale potential of things. Data tracking was a goldrush and they knew they'd be in front of the zeitgeist of citizen's respect of privacy. Yeah, privacy used to be a thing. People valued it. Anyway, as we all know, but seldom really grok the extent, we are the product. If you can segregate from Web 2.0 or find safe spaces, like this one, then you can remain slightly objective. But it's pretty hard. In this world right now the 99% of us are just things to be exploited. I mean, we were back in pre-80's as well, but there was a useful skepticism to marketing, it wasn't AS insidious, and it was a lot easier to avoid. I keep expecting a backlash and a shift in culture to forgo this intrusion into life, but then I look around and just end up typing ellipses ...

I'm no psychologist and I don't know the guy personally so I am no more qualified than anybody else to talk to motivations, but I took it as fully tongue-in-cheek, but if you take something else away from it, you're at least equally right (and maybe more right, who knows?). 😃 Sure, but so am I - and so are you, and so is every other person. The most important thing is to understand how people are full of shit. This is a huge problem. Factor into it that for a lot of people, especially if they could only afford one camera, they might have done research for months before they finally got it. For a lot of those people, a suggestion that they didn't make the right decision can instantly put them on the defensive and cause them to lash out. I'd guess that a huge majority of online dick waving contests about cameras stem from this sort of sensitivity. To follow on that, at least for me, any time anybody refers to their camera as a "beast," whether it be YouTuber or commenter or whatever, I instantly devalue most of what they said before/after. Cameras aren't beasts. They are tools. One should understand the positives and negatives of the tool and base purchase and usage decisions on those things.

I think Gerald does a good job. There isn't enough time for someone to both test every camera, and test any one camera thoroughly. If I'm thinking about buying or renting a piece of gear, I try to see reviews from both people who use that gear a lot, and from people who have used a lot of gear. It's impossible for that to be the same person. For example, I've there are people who have never touched an expensive lens in their life heaping praise on the flood of budget cine-style lenses (Laowa, DZOFilm, Meike, SLR Magic, etc). And they might be a legit artist who makes really good videos with those lenses. However, it's not that useful for a purchasing decision for someone to say Meike lenses are good, when what I really want to know is how it compares to the competition. I've seen people say how great the optics are on the only lens they own, while taking great images of great looking scenes, but I see other tests showing all kinds of problems compared to other lenses for the price. And then, by necessity, the person who has made the comparisons between 50 lenses spent all their time comparing lenses and not making art. So it takes both kinds of people to get a complete picture of anything. I would never take art advice from Gerald, but his reviews are great for that comparison overview. As long as you keep in mind what info you can and can't get from what he says.

To add... anytime gear becomes the center of discussion, there always ends up being flame wars. This camera is better than that camera. The features on my camera beats the features on your camera. My dick is bigger than yours. Blah, blah, blah. And the videos from YT get celebrated for it. If GeraldUndone posts a video about whatever technical, resolution achievement it becomes a fact and a must have. If Zedlin, a working Hollywood cinematographer, posts a video about how and why filmmakers are chasing the wrong thing... he's considered a dipshit.

One thing I think is useful to keep in mind is that anything published to YT is a part of the entertainment industry. That's why everything is about views & subscribers (the ratings system for free online content) and ad breaks and sponsored videos etc. The business model is the same - the owner pays to make content that will attract viewers and then sells that attention to advertisers. YT didn't call them 'channels' and have a TV as its icon by accident - everyone is running a TV station now. Some are trying to be community stations, attracting patrons of the arts rather than selling out, etc, but the game is the same. If camera reviews were part of science then there would be peer-review and the general goal would be to be well-respected and get funding through that mechanism. Sure, there are lots of corruptions to science with research funding politics and publishing etc but it's still a long way from being in the territory that the entertainment industry is. Only you can decide if a TV show / YT video is an informercial, a talk show, a documentary, or a public broadcast, but you should be making that decision when you watch.

I don't know... I think all of these YouTube personalities are full of shit, on some level. And that's fine. It's a niche market in and of itself and if they have found a way to feed their families, then it's no worse than many other professions. As long as you know where they're coming from, then I don't care one way or the other. They all follow trends amongst themselves, chasing each other's angles. The new angle seems to be... why YouTube content creating is soul draining and why I am getting out. A month or two ago, one of my favorite YT shillebrities posted a video with that topic and then he broke in the middle for a word from his sponsor... HAHAHAHA!!!!

So he's not saying he an expert, even on a subconscious, non-overt way? He's visiting many popular YouTubers and saying he's "grading" them, with a "promis" of some sort of evaluation at the end. I think there's something there.

I agree. My wife does artistic painting etc. as a fairly serious hobby (to the extent of exhibiting and selling it). At an exhibition it's usually the artists who are the most down-to-earth people in the room, as they know what's involved in creating, promoting and selling it - which is overall a lot of work (just like making decent video content is). Art critics are essentially product reviewers - they look at an art product and tell you what they think about it, sometimes implying 'meaning' in the work that I strongly suspect the original artist never intended (and who is probably dead so can't challenge the opinion). That's no different really to many other sales and marketing activities. He's on my subscription list and I watch some of his content if I'm in the mood for his style and I might be interested in the product he's talking about. But I think he's sometimes got an exaggerated sense of his importance, which grates a bit sometimes.

I always took that as tongue-in-cheek and as a device to add a bit of humor to what would otherwise be relatively dry videos of somebody showing him a bunch of lights on lightstands, etc.

First, I should say I like Gerald Undone's videos and I watch most of them. My criticism of him is that he portrays himself as an expert in 2 fields: 1) cameras; 2) YouTube setups (he walks around with a clipboard grading them). Now with this video, he is adding to his repertoire and he sounds like he portraying himself as a "moral expert" when it comes to the relationship with companies. Again, Gerald, the expert, and, as you know, "we should all listen to experts". I'm not a fan of "experts," maybe after watching F or Fake. It might sound like I'm being excessively harsh on him and I'm sure there are many who are much less of an "expert" than him, but I don't like that attitude. I think he's full of crap when it comes to him explaining how he takes the moral high road. I think he too, will take the cash when shown. That's just my opinion.

No. I said that based on the timeline that any panic that had been suggested to exist would have had to have been on BM’s side. The suggestion wasn’t mine obviously.

Exactly (GX85 + 14-140mm is my current travel cam). Versus the GX85 or GX9, you get 24MP stills, PDAF, a dual-gain sensor with good high-ISO performance, 4k50p/60p (albeit with a crop but so does the GX85/GX9 in 4k), a higher capacity battery, better stabilization, variable electronic zoom, a mic input, H264 and H26 10-bit recording at (in round numbers) 24/25/30/48/50/60p up to C4K, with higher resolutions up to 30p, at up to 4:2:2 and 200Mbps long-GOP. Viewed as a GX85 & GX9 successor, it makes a lot of sense, especially once the 18-40mm zoom is available. (At the moment, buying used from a dealer in the UK, a GX9 + 14-140mm would cost around £700 - £1000 so that's not a cheap camera either).

100^ on point. To think the only way to legit be into camera and video is to learn color grading is quite odd. I’m going to die someday. Let me have optimal color or near optimal with minimal work - for the platform of socials and YouTube. That’s it. This camera is a massive step in that direction. Panasonic is really stepping up whereas canon is just like huh

I'm not really sure what criticisms you're making. When I watch a Gerald video, the things I'm seeing are things like: What is the DR that he measured What features aren't available in which modes (ie, what the manufacturer won't tell you) What else did he notice about it, like if it overheated, or took 20s to turn on, or got corrupted clips, etc He's mentioned before that he has a standard checklist of things to test and does that for all his reviews, so assuming that's true then it's a semi-rounded take on the camera Maybe I'm missing all the times when he made comments that were outside his knowledge and experience? If he did then I don't remember him making them. The territory that gets tricky is when a reviewer is commenting on how good a camera it is overall (because that's subjective and not objective), or when things are outside their experience. I can read whatever I want about an Alexa 35 but I'd be talking out my backside if I told you that it was a good camera for a cinematographer to shoot a feature film on, because I have no experience of that. Perhaps the biggest criticism of that Gerald that I am aware of is omission of relevant facts. Is there some gotcha about the camera that wasn't in one of his reviews? Probably in every one of them. Are they deliberately withheld, and if so then why? or did he just not find them? Who knows, but it's worth noting that Gerald takes the most time to menu dive out of all the YT reviewers, and is obviously much more systematic in his approach, so whatever extent he's guilty of it then everyone else is guilty of it 10X or 50X more. Most YT 'reviewers' seem to just read out the marketing brochure, turn the camera on and wave it around enough to film a video long enough for a sponsor segment, and if they find a weakness then might mention it and might not... then proceed to tell you that it's a good fit for doing a bunch of things that they have no experience with at all. We can throw shade at Gerald, and no-one is perfect of course, but if we're going to get specific then perhaps we should refocus our attention to the worst offenders. Lots of reviewers making only positive reviews about a brand and then a "why I'm switching to X" video which mentions a dozen or so criticisms of their previous brand that somehow never made it into the original videos but would have been obvious from day one. Of course, if we're going to re-direct our attention, then maybe we should focus on those who actively oppose any genuine criticism of a brand, like the R5 incident which was easily verifiable by anyone who had one or had access to someone who did... Not being a critical reviewer is one thing, but voluntarily participating in a cover up is something else entirely.

You think BM panicked about the S9? Did they have bad intel? I really can't think of any potential customer for a full frame BMPCC who would be jumping ship for the S9 - though I'm sure there that once it starts shipping, there will be at least some YouTubers who will make videos about how they're dropping their current camera for the S9. Similarly, there was at least one who made one about how he was selling his Komodo-X to buy a Pyxis. I didn't watch the video, though - just saw the headline, shrugged, and thought "that seems like a weird choice, but you do you, buddy." I probably blocked his channel from my recs too since that's my default behavior when YT suggests "Why I'm changing from ______ to ________" videos to me.

Very interesting... The 12-35mm F2.8 and 14-140mm F3.5-5.6 are basically the same size, and when combined with the GX85 are about 120mm deep, so 140.1 mm deep is perfectly acceptable for a body + 7X zoom lens setup. An 18-40mm lens would be a very useful one as well, especially if it's shorter. I'm a big fan of having an ultra-wide, and although I've got 16mm and 15mm equivalent primes for my MFT cameras, 18mm is likely just wide enough for almost everything I have come across. Having some smaller lenses still, other than the prime just released would be the final piece of that puzzle I'd say. Maybe the lenses to back up such a small camera body will actually arrive with it. Very encouraging.