Davide DB

Having used both professionally, I'd go FX30 all day. The XS-20 is a fun photography camera, that does video pretty well too. It's just not quite up for pro level work in my opinion. The image is really good, the size is fun, and the color is pretty good too. It's kind of fiddly though, lacks a good selection of custom buttons, overheats a lot, struggles with autofocus a bit and has the SD card in the battery compartment, which is something I personally don't enjoy. 
While not being maybe "as fun" as the XS-20, the FX30 is more of a workhorse. Decent color, duel native ISOs, integrated Sony cinema features, solid autofocus, good cooling, easily riggable form factor and the list goes on. The major con is lack of a EVF, but I rarely use built in EVFs, so that doesn't bother me. 
Basically if I'm choosing a family camera for stills and some video, I'd go the XS-20. For professional video work, the FX30 is a much more reliable choice. 

I've just sold my 2016 Nissan at the same price it was in 2020.

On one hand, @EduPortas totally nailed it: price hikes are pretty much everywhere. This is a mature luxury market, so manufacturers can kind of do whatever they want. An item's price really just comes down to what a customer's willing to fork over. Before they even put stuff out, they do all these market studies. Nowadays, a camera's a luxury item, while a smartphone? That's a commodity.
Then again, the market's shrunk so much that all the costs just get dumped straight onto us, the customers. We've talked about this tons before, and honestly, my take on it is still spot-on:
 
Personally, I'm always looking at the underwater photography and video gear market, and prices there are just going through the roof. If the camera market itself is a niche, just imagine the market for people who take cameras underwater – that's like the niche of the niche!
Anyway, the biggest jump in prices happened around the pre/post-pandemic time. After that, things stayed pretty steady. But now, with those American tariffs, we're seeing price increases hitting the whole world. Basically, manufacturers are just spreading those tariff-driven price hikes across every market globally.
For example, let's look at a Nauticam underwater housing (from Hong Kong) for the Nauticam Sony Alpha 2020 (for A9II and A7RIV). The price was $3048 USD in June 2020, then it went up to $4127 USD in July 2022, and it's currently $4700 USD as of May 2025.
The Nauticam Sony Alpha 1 housing cost $4540 USD in July 2022, and its price remained pretty much unchanged until the Trump mess, when the price jumped to $5000 USD.
 

Lumix S line prices are rising again on the used market. Vintage and quirky Mft cameras too. I got an orange GM5 with a 12-32 lens and two batteries for a good price two years ago, with the box, everything in great condition except the leather case. They cost up to three times as much now of what I paid two years ago! Here it is, a flimsy beauty, a tiny S9 minus 4K 10bit, but with evf, mechanical shutter and hotshoe:)

I don’t think so and the rest of the world is facing price hikes to help cover the the stupidity/costs.

I don't know anything but in the last Media division S1 II review they showed a goggles linked to the camera used as a monitor or something like that. 
 

Funnily enough, a former client from 2014 contacted me today to say that she had 'lost' her wedding video and did I still have it?
After I stopped laughing, I thought hang on, it is probably still on Vimeo. And it was.
I thought it would look so dated and be an utter cringe-fest, but actually it wasn't and I was a bit surprised.
It was shot on the GH3.

@MrSMWYeah I agree, I pre-ordered the S1 right as it came out, did the same thing with the S5iiX, have shot them together on pretty much every job since, across a huge variety of use cases, never seen any kind of real, noticeable difference between them, at all. Ditto with the original S5, which I have also had with those other two cams on many dozens if not hundreds of shoots over the past several years.
I think people just always find something to complain about. Especially when it comes to super arbitrary, impossible-to-prove image-quality mumbo jumbo, i.e. "motion cadence," "video look," "micro-contrast" or "3D-Pop," etc. 

About at 16:50
 

I'll have to take a look at that!

I don't know anything but in the last Media division S1 II review they showed a goggles linked to the camera used as a monitor or something like that. 
 

As usual, Media Division has one of the best review
 
 

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen! One more round, one more ride!

As usual, Media Division has one of the best review
 
 

As usual, Media Division has one of the best review
 
 

I went with the GH6 again for for a few reasons...
1. Official Arri LogC profile - it's even embedded in the metadata, so FCPX reads it as Arri footage. For someone who will probably never shoot with an Alexa, I must admit it's a stupidly cool thing...
2. ProRes
3. IBIS
4. Flip up screen
Honorable Mention - I didn't realize how good the preamps in it were going to be. With good mic placement,  some of the audio is perfectly usable. 

I love the colors on my cheap GH6... oh wait... I'm using the Arri LogC profile...

As usual, Media Division has one of the best review
 
 

As usual, Media Division has one of the best review
 
 

It's definitely a fair question.  Fuji's is definitely not perfect, judging by my GFX 100 II, but it's generally usable.  That seems similar to what I've seen/heard of the S1R II and S1 II (Media Division did some pretty decent real-world tests and... they weren't outstanding)
And I'd put DJI's in a similar category, though it also requires the most comfort/familiarity, especially with the Focus Pro which uses a second camera with a second screen for control and because it's LIDAR-based, has a limited (but useful) range where focus even works at all.
They're all better than Red's, though.  Red's is in a category that I'd describe as "almost usable, but will probably break your heart if you try to rely on it."  😅
Sure, and Fuji with the GF 100RF as well at 5 grand.  Though it's also not clear how many of them they're actually pumping out of the factory.  It doesn't seem like they're shipping in thousands upon thousands of units.

Alright, drama aside for a sec!
You've likely already stumbled upon this thanks to our friend Google 😜 but this guy is obsessed with anamorphic lenses and, besides having dedicated videos, he uses them pretty much everywhere.
https://www.youtube.com/@cammackey
 
 

At the start of this Canadian video somebody says that although Panasonic paid for their hotel, travel and lunch, and that they rubbed shoulders with Panasonic people and consider them friends, that definitely in no way influences the positive opinions they have about Panasonic's products, which is nicely convenient, imagine how embarrassing it would be otherwise.
No matter which way the client YouTubers spin it, the S1 II price is too high and it is being released at least 2 years too late (and that is being kind, as the original was a 2018 launch).
My problem with it is not the extensive feature set and specs, it's that huge 7 year gap and the pricing strategy, along with the rest of the product strategy which is batshit crazy, and I put my money where my mouth is by refusing the invite by Panasonic to go and praise it along with a bunch of client social media click weasels.
There are so many similar options with better lens mounts to choose from now.
And the complexity is not always a good thing. Look at how much more fun the Sigma Bf is or the minimalist Leica approach.
Had the S1 II been 2.5k and the year was 2022... Sign me up.
But as it is, I am going to pass.
May get an S9 again though as it's now under a grand, it's a fun toy.
With regards to the 51st state of shilling, if you just ignore the impact this is having on independent media, the non-embargoed opinions and journalism as a whole, then it's a perfectly mediocre review that can fit on a single side of a4.
If you get big picture though, it's near enough fascism.
An entire media platform singing in tune under a corporate embargo.
Charlie Brooker should make a Black Mirror episode out of it. I might write one myself.
It would be far more enjoyable than making your average 2025 camera 'review'.

Not FX3II consider they just released in FX3A, the next Sony release is the camera with tilt EVF

Here is the summary: give Panasonic engineers a random sensor, and they give you the most video featured camera around that sensor that you could imagine. The problem is 1. Nobody gives them the state of the art sensor (or they don't like to pay high price) 2. They're asked to repeat themselves for similar sensor/bodies with overlapping customer target. 3. What they do is attractive for niche part of the hybrid market and not enough to absorb new customers. 4. "Similar offering to big three but at cheaper price" could kick the can down the road for a while, but even that strategy is no more with these prices. 5. When a market is saturated, and there are big players in that saturated market, the only way to survive is to be bold and different. Just like what Chinese discovered in the lens market, and so we're seeing 15mm macro! 

Everyone is approaching this in their own way I suppose.
YouTuber's want to bring the hype in their main role as client journalists, I use the term journalist very lightly, the aim to strengthen their access to future launches and to reward the paymaster. Of course they've also got an eye on the view-counts and click-revenue, it's all going down as the camera market shrinks. They need to hype stuff, to get the numbers up. The more the numbers fall, the more repetitive embargoed hyperbolic shit you will see from these channels.
Panasonic loyal users are approaching it from the angle of, well, we waited 7 years and still love our S1H/S1, etc. and the S1 II is by no means a bad camera, new sensor and lots of nice video modes, so £3000 isn't so bad and I will agree with them and the reasons they have for making the purchase.
I meanwhile am coming at it less from the specs and image quality side at the moment (I don't have the demo units and don't plan to buy it either), so coming at it more from the big picture stuff, the market strategy and industry POV especially where it concerns Panasonic's survival, and whether they are doing enough to take market share off Canon, Nikon, Sony and Fujifilm, so that their higher-ups can justify them existing for much longer. This is very important for me, as I have a long history with Panasonic's products and we can't afford to lose a brand as important as Lumix from cameras.
Plus I just want to see some fucking creativity.
I am so tired of the same old formula of camera design and the lack of a basic exposure feature such as an ND filter is a tragic joke at this point.