Andrew Reid

Very nice. Proof that Micro Four Thirds has it's own look, and is cinema on a stick in the right hands.

It does look like they have thrown in the towel. The precedent for camera companies when they dump their high-end and pro stuff is not good. They loose the halo effect of these products and the brand takes a battering. Then they become totally reliant on consumer trends and the dreaded smartphones start pinching their customers, which doesn't happen at the Venice / Burano end of the market 🙂 Panasonic's core camera experience is still really good. But they need to show more imagination. More varied form factors, higher build quality, better ergonomics and dial feel, use the word Cinema in their hybrid and filmmaking orientated cameras i.e. Cinema Lumix GH8... Get their marketing together, it's a shit show, and really focus on getting a camera together that appeals to proper photographers, not the S9, but something like an OM-1 or GX9 with their best full frame sensor from S1R II. I sadly don't think they've got the commitment or the resources any more, I think Panasonic have done a restructuring and it has neutered the A/V and camera divisions.

I agree they have improved the specs a lot and the value for money in terms of the specs you get in a consumer body, 4K/120p on the R6 is something that really closes the gap to the R5 II and something I didn't think possible with a standard non-stacked, (not even BSI) sensor. By far the biggest problem for me is still that lens mount, and yeah the bodies are soulless to use. It's as if they saw the older Sony a7 cameras and thought AHAH let's make a camera as boring to use as that, it should have the soul of an office laserjet, the same finish and materials. The lenses are even worse. Ironically Sony are now far ahead on the fit, feel, finish and ergonomics of their bodies, things began to improve since the a7r III, a9 and a7 III. They are now dramatically improved with the a9 III and a1 II, although I still think the original a1 and the a7r V with their more angular grips look sleeker and more stylish. a1 II is a bit of a tubby chonk, needs to diet. Even the Canon R3 feels like it's a photocopier, there's just something about the materials they've used to finish the body and buttons that feels cheap and clinical. If you compare to Canon at their peak, it's a real step backwards.

Canon are absolutely the worst in my experience for the flimsy ports, thin circuitboards, cheap connectors and brittle ribbon cables (FPCs). Not seen how the R5C is built but usually the port is secured not even with a screw but sandwiched between two bits of plastic and the case, then the flex of the joint on the mainboard where it's soldered cracks the solder over time, you'd have to take the mainboard out and put it in the oven, risky business. To do a proper HDMI mod you would have to completely disconnect the port from the mainboard and reconnect it with a flexible ribbon cable. Then the cable would take the brunt of any flex over time, rather than the solder. The camera companies are too dumb to do that, and they don't leave enough space between the mainboard and edge of the case to fit a small FPC. With the IR cut filter over the sensor, I've never needed to replace it with clear glass of equal thickness, no focus issues so far.

Surely Panasonic must be looking at giving us something in that style before much longer. Rectangle, long... Maybe a coffin to put their fucking brand in. But if they do ever do another camera, that isn't an S5 with different sensor... Maybe it'll be the S1H II that gets the FX3 treatment, or it might even be an S9 II (seems a bit soon for the latter and for the former a bit fucking late though). Panasonic are acting even more strange at the moment because they have no pro video camcorders any more. Why not? What happened to the Varicam line? EVA? The GH7 could also have evolved with the times into a FX3 / ZR style body. Instead it STILL handles like a STILLS camera. Come on Panasonic. Wake up.

Open gate on a Canon stills cam? Never thought I'd see the day. A lot to like here. But also a lot I don't need. I am still majorly put off by RF mount. I can put a 5 dollar lens on my GFX 100 and it looks like a Noctilux. I can put a 3000 dollar lens on the Canon R6 III and it'll look sterile and boring, it'll weigh 6 tons and not look better than the 5 dollar lens on the GFX 100 so call me penny pinching but I am not very hyped about switching. The Canon RF lens line up is a dud and even if they do now have a $450 lens to counter all the cheap F1.2 stuff from China on Amazon, it ain't enough and for me $450 is still quite a lot of money for a cheaply built boring modern lens. A nice body to pick up second hand in 6 months for $2k for manual focus Canon FD glass though.

Nikon Zr hurts as it just seemed such an obvious move for Panasonic, they were well known for both the rangefinder-style form factor and the video features. There should have been a Panasonic Zr before a Nikon... The S9 was not it. On the one hand photographers are crying out for rangefinder style small bodies, which Panasonic did so well in the Micro Four Thirds days. The GX80 and GX9 are so much in demand now that the used prices are constantly going up...they are 6-10 years old! So what do they do... They go and launch one with no EVF and no mechanical shutter which is the surest way to piss off photographers imaginable. And on the other hand video folk are really in love with the Sony FX3 for some reason and the smaller form factor, FX2 is very nice for example with the nod to the latter mentioned stills features missing from S9. So Panasonic instead of doing an FX3 clone like Nikon and Canon... Go off on a complete tangent and do nothing. Not even an S1H Mark II. Instead we have the overpriced S5 bodies otherwise known as S1 II and S1R II. Great image quality and features but completely wrong marketing and design concepts.

Leica M Typ 240... 2012, this was before Panasonic got more involved with making Leica's stuff. I'll give this a 10/10. The whole motherboard slides out really easily. I baked it in the oven to bring it back to life from completely dead. The solder needed a reflow apparently. 200 degrees C at 7 minutes did the trick. Custom chips all over the place. Utterly beautiful mechanically and in terms of the quality of connectors, cables, lots of metal parts and brilliantly designed internals. Next up another older camera, Nikon D700. Very impressive motherboard with separate analogue to digital converters. Probably why the colour science still has the edge on the newer sensor designs with their inline on-chip A/D. Nikon own branded chips. By contrast in the newer Leica Q... It's actually a Samsung. And the lens relies on a LOT of digital correction, so it's certainly not in same league as a Leica M when it comes to the quality of parts or optics. End result in terms of the images is very nice though. We'll call it the Samsung Q. Onto Fuji now and I have fixed an X-Pro3 and the old X-Pro1. The original had a lot of Fujifilm's own CPUs inside. It's very well made but has a lot of traditionally soldered wires on the mainboard, old-school style. This continues with some of the newer models too. X-Pro3 was an easy fix, a ribbon cable (FPC) had come loose where the sensor plugs into the mainboard. Some tape over the socket had shrunk in the heat and pulled it ajar. Pictured above is the X-Pro1 circuitboard, it's more proprietary whereas X-Pro3 looks a bit more generic on the inside. Here is an oven bake of a Panasonic LX15 mainboard... The components can withstand very high-heat and usually cold solder joints are responsible for a wide range of issues. Unfortunately in this case I made a mistake with the stop watch and the card slot fell off 🙂 Here is a sensor with hot mirror... the IR cut filter glows pink in this shot. If you remove it you get an IR capable camera and can also shoot normally if you add the IR cut filter to the front of the lens instead. I think this sensor is from my Lumix LX100 II or could be Sony RX100, I forget 🙂 Now onto Sony and their smaller cameras are too tightly packed. FPC cables develop cracking over time as some of the metal is folded and bent too tightly to fit the smaller bodies. This is an RX100 and it's very common to see these fail on the cable that connects the lens. A relatively easy fix actually and replacement FPCs are $5 on Aliexpress. But I don't rate Sony's quality as highly as Fuji or Panasonic so far. Onto Canon and I have had a very bad experience so far with their modern cameras. The DSLRs were much better made (i.e. 5D Mark III which was easy to tear down and remove the OLPF back in the day!) They use extremely fragile FPC connection sockets and the ribbon cables themselves are brittle and cheap. Sometimes a few bends and they tear. Doesn't make for a stress free repair that's for sure. In contrast to Panasonic, with the lovely GX80 it's in a different league and take a bit of extra abuse by an amateur repairer. I've done a lot more than what I have time to post today but probably will do a deeper look at stuff for YouTube or the blog. I rate as follows the brands then... 1. Leica (the extra cost is noticeable on the inside) 2. Panasonic (they know how to sensibly build a camera and logically lay out stuff, and they don't scrimp on component quality) 3. Fujifilm (high repairability score and robust, sensible designs) 4. Nikon (high repairability but many of the newer cameras not up to high-standards they set during DSLR era) 5. Sony (they try to pack in too much) 6. Canon (really quite terrible, cheap cost cut components, and badly laid out) Stay tuned for more. I do this just for fun, and really enjoy it. Plus now I have a oven baked Leica 240 to play with 🙂

I would HATE to lose Panasonic from cameras. I have all my fingers crossed this is not the case.

It's a move away from "Pro" in the marketing of cameras. Part of this is because they know Lumix has no chance vs Canon, Sony and Nikon with press agencies and in the professional sports market. The autofocus situation never allowed them a toe in the door let alone a foot. But I also think it hints at something deeper. When Samsung withdrew from the camera market they also heavily cut back on pro marketing and support first. Not that Samsung's own PR people were aware of it (even days after the NX1's cancellation they thought they were still in the camera market!) They were fired shortly after.

I think it's the beginning of the end for Lumix.

Big markets of sports, journalists, news agencies, they need fast troubleshooting, fast lane repair, and so on. It does look like Panasonic has given up targeting these customers and will only be focusing on consumers, content creators and enthusiasts with future cameras. So does that mean no more high-end or pro cameras? (Could explain lack of S1H Mark II)

LOL. Why not just say that in the first place then?

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