GH5 How interested are you in a GH6 anymore?

'Potato Jet, Peter McWhatsit, the Finnish Canadian and all the other guys are entertainers but not working for clients. So who cares what they think about 8K?'

I don't know about the other guys, but Potato Jet comes from a general videography business background and still regularly does work for clients.
 
They did release a lens for L mount. Disappointing to see them stay silent on the GH6. Each day that goes by forces the camera to be that much better to compete.
 
FWIW, Olympus has registered a new camera (in Russia). It's worth watching due to a possibility of a new, though not necessarily 8K, sensor.

PS. Olympus itself announced a 44 billion Yen loss due to the transfer of its photo-video division to JIP.
 
FWIW, the new Olympus owners did say that they will design the sensor and have Sony manufacture it. Now it remains to be seen whether Olympus and Panasonic depart from having the same camera in a dozen different bodies. It's possible that the new managers will bid adieu to the cartel.
 
So, the new Olympus management spoke ... and said nothing that couldn't be interpreted a hundred different ways. CP+ is starting but the news out of the gate are not overwhelming.
 
If Panasonic does not announce anything regarding the GH6 around the CP+ show then I think it is time to 'let go of the ski rope' so to speak. Once the Sony A7IV drops for $2,200 the GH series will not be able to compete and who knows how long if ever, it will take to get the thing to market.
 
Bassman2003 said:
If Panasonic does not announce anything regarding the GH6 around the CP+ show then I think it is time to 'let go of the ski rope' so to speak...
Click to expand...

https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/news/cp-2021

CP+ started on the 25th and the only camera announcement is FX-3 (which is mostly a rebadge of A7SIII), a Canon M50 MKII, which has been around a while in Japan, a Canon webcam and Pentax K1 with a wooden grip.

No GH-6, no A7IV, no R1, no Z8.

Sayonara.
 
I get the feeling there’s a lot of marketing strategy that goes into when new cameras get released. Looks like Sony is using a top down strategy releasing their top of the line first and gradually working their way down to make sure the lower end cameras don’t steal sales from the higher end camera. Either that or they’re waiting for A73 sales to fall enough to release the A74.
 
It goes beyond a pure product marketing strategy. The whole raison d'être of the photo-video industry is in question due to the advance of the smartphones. The demise of Olympus - and its half a billion in losses - must have hit close to home for a lot of the executives who thought that being in an all-Japanese cartel assures them of an easy ride for decades.

In terms of the product development, the general move is toward the bigger sensors, with full frame being a current plateau but with the medium format slowly making inroads. Technically, MFT could still be a viable product for the outdoor photography due to its reach but it also depends on Sony and Fuji keeping up prices on their APS-C cameras and that may not be what Sony wants to keep on doing in 2021 and beyond.
 
So, in an interview from CP+, a Panasonic bigwig said that they are "considering" GH-6. My take on this long ago was that they had GH-6 all ready but went with S//S1R/S1H/S5 instead. So the S-line ought to take care of the $2,000-$4,000 bracket with the full frame L-mount, while leaving ~$1,500 and below for the MFT.

But that may run into the upcoming Sony APS-C 10-bit cameras that are currently only 8-bit and into the probable (allegedly already being tested as R7) Canon APS-C R-mount unit. Therefore, GH-6 would need to up its specs, especially since its auto focus isn't on par with either Canon or Sony and, in the MFT video arena, it needs to outperform the Pocket 4K or any of the Z Cams.

All of the above leave Panasonic it with almost no choice but 8K.
 
The handwriting on the wall I would see is that they might not make it at all if market forces are too strong of a headwind. This is quite a change from where a lot of us faithfuls have been in thinking the camera was around the corner.
 
I still think a $1,500-$1,700 8K/40-45 MPX camera is feasible but it will eat into Panasonic's - and everyone else's - niches in the middle portion of the market at the time when there's a push upward in sensor size, not downward. If that's correct, then there may be more $700-$1,500 MFT models rather than $1,500+.

I am not sure what to make of Olympus's "we will design our own sensors and let Sony make them" claim either. Hereto, they shared sensors with Panasonic that were both designed and manufactured by Sony. Should Olympus dare to compete rather than cooperate with Panasonic, the MFT niche is likely to undergo major changes as well. And Sony won't look favorably toward a high resolution MFT sensor that outperforms its APS-C line either.
 
Panasonic's main problem for the past few years has been C-AF performance. If they can't catch up with Canon and Sony then they are going to slowly fade away...
 
I have to say, the footage from the A7sIII with S-Cinetone looks very nice. While a little bit more expensive all around, the A7sIII is pretty much the Gh6 performance everybody wants, just a different brand and sensor size. I would say, stopping down to f5.6 or f8 on the Sony is M4/3rds DOF and should be clean enough to work with. Going with f4 glass on the Sony is probably the best way forward. At least for many of us, but not Panasonic.
 
The α7S III is an impressive camera, maybe the best of its type. But it’s priced accordingly.

The GH5 (and GH5S to a lesser extent) was a hit because it was cheap. The GH6 will have to be a lot cheaper than the α7S III, too.
 
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