John Matthews

I've seen this before, but usually it's with channels (especially old ones) that have been hit with copyright strikes and such. Mattias's channel take down seems to be voluntary and perhaps political.
I simply don't have the hard disk space to save all the videos I really enjoy, but it makes me really sad to say goodbye. It feels like it's the digital equivalent of burning books and erasing history. Personally, I don't think I could do that. Then again, we don't know the exact circumstances. @Mattias Burling, care to respond?

I'll have a dig and host them here if I find the mother lode

I just commented on the Lumix Live weekly upload asking for a modern, small MFT camera- most liked comment. IMO, there are so many people, for whatever reason, want this. It could be practical or nostalgic for the Lumix fans. Just do it Lumix.

That’s about the sum of it John.
Except I’d swap out the word ‘reassure’ for ‘excite’.
To quote a famous movie line, “build it and they will come”.
In the case of Panasonic Lumix, build it and they will come, but of as much importance, build it and they will stay. But if they already buggered off elsewhere because instead of telling them something they wanted to hear, you said nothing and 🤷‍♂️

I have the Sanity hacks (not 100% sure), Apocalypse Now (Drewnet), Cluster X (Drewnet), and Cluster X (Moon). I wish I took better notes. Why are personal view forums down? That's a good site.

I'll genuinely appreciate that a lot. Please preserve the gh2 history, don't let it vanish

No manufacturer is going to reveal a future product before it is ready to be sold unless they are in dire straits and their current products have zero chance of selling.
 
To me it seems that manufacturers consider small cameras more entry-level and make a progression so that in each level up, most aspects of the next higher-level camera is better than the level below, except for size and weight, and the cost increases along with weight, features, performance, and quality. Since Panasonic have (more expensive) 35mm full-frame cameras, they have incentive to make the micro four thirds products less in most ways, to motivate people who can afford the FF to go with it instead of the MFT. Sony does emphasize small size and low weight throughout their stills/hybrid camera lineup. A small camera is more difficult to make more powerful (in terms of performance, image quality, high end video codecs etc.) and people will invariably complain about whatever its flaws may be, be it lack of efficient codecs, overheating, operation etc. 
 
IBIS makes the camera significantly more expensive. In the small sensor class, IBIS would be useful (just as it is with larger cameras) but it would increase the camera size, weight, and cost, all three factors noticeably, hence reducing the advantages of small size, light weight, and moderate to low cost.  And this class of cameras is competing with smartphones as well, due to their pocketability and communications abilities. It's just a tight place to be in. Probably this is why Nikon discontinued the 1 series and Canon their M system. 
 
Full-frame telephoto lenses have also gotten much smaller and lighter in recent years. 

Why would anyone use MFT today?
They want a small, capable camera setup (under 500g with lens); They want high-end telephoto quality without the extreme weight. Almost everything else can be done with a larger sensor without too much weight penalty, which is the point. You'd think in this interview he'd at the very least mention that there's a small MFT camera in the pipeline. Instead, they say they're committed to MFT (and simultaneously discontinuing lenses like the 20mm f/1.7). They've had that G100/D since 2021, using the same tech as from 2015, only worse (no real IBIS). Meanwhile, the now old and abuse GM5 is poised to pass up cameras like the GH6 on MPB. Does anyone need more proof than that to know there's a serious want for consumers today? Come on Panasonic! Get your $hit together!

That tracks.

I really appreciate you taking the time to come post about this on here - I was wondering what happened and I'm glad I found this thread when I checked again recently.
I found some of your old videos + reviews really entertaining and useful when I was considering trying blackmagic cameras, so thanks very much for that. I have a lot of fondness for some of those videos, and if I'd realised the channel would completely disappear I probably would've saved them. 10 years from now it would be nice to be able to look back on them.

Well, there's one hell of a metaphor in the "context" of this.

"Tsumura-san confirmed that photographers who compose through viewfinders “strongly request the inclusion of an EVF,” and that Panasonic is considering the balance between compact size and EVF inclusion as they work to “meet the expectations of as many customers as possible.”
LOL. GM5 anyone?

Yes, I don’t get it either.
You are in the full-frame LUMIX ecosystem and are considering a new camera and on your interest list is the latest options from Nikon and from Sony. You are increasingly tempted to jump ship even though it’s a big move.
Which one of the below options do you wish to hear?
A: We are working on a new flagship camera that will be launched in the Summer.
B: Expanded horizons, creative direction, global market strategies, Operation Epic Bullshit, waffle waffle waffle, blah di blah di blah.
I didn’t watch it and haven’t read a single word of it but 100% sure it wasn’t A:
A perfect example of how not to retain customers.
There is a saying which applies to all business and that is no matter the size, small, medium or large/international, just because you are in business, doesn’t mean you are any good at business.
Some companies are more clueless than others…

Agree this is a waste of time. They should say "a cinema camera is coming" or "the S1ii is our cinema camera". Either would help a lot of consumers decide what their next move is.

On the cined web site, there is a text version summarizing the interview - much less time-consuming to digest.

This reminds me of using my old Sony camcorder with the 5.1 surround sound microphone. I would shoot with it, then in post be able to isolate each channel and choose which one to use and ignore the ones that were just location noise. Pretty handy without much effort when shooting.
This might be similar in that sense.

Fair enough. I just wish they'd spent time and resources elsewhere. I want a small, up-to-date, Panasonic M43 camera, not an overly complex version of a on-camera mic. This seems like a great product for 2010. But what do I know, maybe this THE MIC, the one that everyone was waiting for. What I can tell you with 100% certainty, people are ready and willing to pay vast sums of money for old gear, only because it's small. What happened Panasonic? The whole miniaturization of components thing has been apparently disregarded. 

Fair enough. I just wish they'd spent time and resources elsewhere. I want a small, up-to-date, Panasonic M43 camera, not an overly complex version of a on-camera mic. This seems like a great product for 2010. But what do I know, maybe this THE MIC, the one that everyone was waiting for. What I can tell you with 100% certainty, people are ready and willing to pay vast sums of money for old gear, only because it's small. What happened Panasonic? The whole miniaturization of components thing has been apparently disregarded. 

It's great they came out with something new, but I wish they'd spent their time elsewhere. This product just doesn't seem like a priority. If audio is the priority, I'd rather a set of 2+ wireless lav microphones that connect and record to the camera via bluetooth or wifi. Why hasn't anyone done that?

Getting prepped for my next trip and have further refined my setup.
This trip is a quick trip to China, but it's also a test case for a trip I'm taking later in the year to Europe where the packing approach will be minimalism.  Unlike the way I like to travel in Asia, the Europe trip will involve changing accommodation every few days, so packing and unpacking and hauling bags around will be much more of a pain, so I'll try and travel really minimally.
As such, my approach for this trip is "when in doubt, don't take it" and see what I actually use.
So the setup for this trip is:
GH7 14-140mm F3.5-5.6 zoom, which I use during the day at F5.6 which means my 1-5 stop vND is enough 12-35mm F2.8 zoom, which is a great walk-around lens after dark Takumar 50mm F1.4 with M42-MFT Speedbooster (with bokeh insert) for "night cinema" iPhone 17 Pro setup (Neewer phone filter mount, K&F 1-9 stop vND, MagSafe Popsocket) The GH7 and zooms are self-explanatory, so here's the 50mm F1.4 setup.
I have played around with "inserts" and ended up with a pretty extreme design, so this is a test to see if the vertical edges are too strong a look for me.
It's made from the sticky part of the post-it note, and a layer of sticky tape over the top to keep it a bit more together.  It sits between the speed booster and the lens, and I won't use the speed booster for any other lenses while travelling so this  will stay in there and protected, so doesn't need to be that robust.

It's a strong look in some situations and quite "painterly" in others, so I'll be curious how it goes.


For my iPhone 17 Pro, it's a phone most of the time and a camera only as a backup, so I searched for a setup that would:
Protect my phone from drops (I dropped it on the last trip and the screen shattered, despite it being in an Apple case - the only one available at the time...  sigh) Still be right-sized for getting in and out of pockets etc Have a vND solution for when I want to shoot and use 180 shutter I'll spare everyone from the rant about the options out there (everyone wants you to buy into their "ecosystem" now) so I ended up with the Otterbox Defender Series Pro case, which makes the iPhone feel even larger than it did in the Apple case (which doesn't seem possible but is true), but seems very robust.
The vND is the Neewer phone filter mount, which sort-of clips onto the phone (It's designed to screw onto and clamp the phone but you're clamping against the screen, so I wouldn't tighten it that much).  It's designed for a naked iPhone, so I had to modify it (and the Otterbox case) slightly where it interfered with the Otterbox case to get it to sit a bit flatter.  It still doesn't sit flush, but it goes on and seems to be fine.  I haven't got around to actually taking it out to shoot with it, so that remains to be seen.
I paired it with the K&F 1-9 stop vND, which boasts 18 layers etc, but doesn't claim to be a "True Colour" one like the 1-5 stop ones do.  It doesn't have hard stops and I think it still gives the X at the max amount, but I'll see how I go.  Not having an aperture sure sucks considering you're not really losing having shallow DOF.  
That is all combined with the MagSafe Popsocket as a safeguard.  I've used the adhesive popsockets before and they're great for giving a much better grip on the phone, but I wasn't sure how strongly the MagSafe would be.  The Otterbox claims to have magnets in it that strengthen the MagSafe connection, and this might be true.  It feels quite sturdy actually, and I tested it to require 1.75kg of force to pull off, compared to the 1.45kg of force it took to pull it off my naked iPhone 12 mini.  No idea what strength a naked iPhone 17 Pro MagSafe connection would have, but it's not terrible.
Lots of compromises involved, but it's really my backup camera, and the Otterbox case is very grippy, so I'll see how I go.

Come on John...  everyone knows that anyone who wants better footage than a smartphone can provide is 100% totally fine with a camera the size of a microwave oven that looks like a Borg prototype!
Being slightly serious though, it's easy to criticise, but as someone who wants flexibility and better sound options, this is FAR better than the previous options, so it's a welcome addition in my eyes.  The worst enemy of progress is criticising everything that isn't perfect in every conceivable way.

It's great they came out with something new, but I wish they'd spent their time elsewhere. This product just doesn't seem like a priority. If audio is the priority, I'd rather a set of 2+ wireless lav microphones that connect and record to the camera via bluetooth or wifi. Why hasn't anyone done that?

Yes.
This to me is just a somewhat expensive, limited use, vloggers device that has zero serious use case for my needs.
I already have 2x Sennheisers that fill this role at €150 for the pair of them.
 

If it were half the price it'd be interesting but there if a lot of cheaper good gear out there. But it's good to see them innovating.
I'm enjoying the S1mk2, I feel it's a big step up from the S5mk2. I hope it survives the summer! 
Panasonic now has quite comprehensive line up for all budgets.

Looked at and decided very quickly it isn’t for me, but good to see LUMIX making stuff they at least think folks want.
What they really want however is an S1H mk II in an FX3 style body with the screen mech from the S1II and the screen from the ZR.
Then they will truly win the crowd and strut like gods of low-mid film-making.