GH4 Panasonic GH5 coming in 2017

joe12south said:
Definitely under $2K. More than that and people will start seriously considering other cameras at the next price level up.
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Like what? Don't get me wrong. I hope it is sub $2K, but considering all the announced specifications plus rumored IBIS, one stop better, and full size HDMI port, what other cameras would you seriously consider if its price was set to $2499. Again I hope it is under $2K and we'll just tell panasonic we'd seriously look at other cameras if it's more than that!!
 
Olympus OMD EM1 was $1,300 upon launch and I doubt that MKII will be any more. Fuji XT-2 has an APS-C sensor and is $1,600 (about $2,000 with the battery grip, which extends its 4K recording). GH4 is back up to $1,500 (B&H is also offering a $200 in-store coupon or something like that) but that's mostly because there's a shortage of Sony sensors (several Sony cameras even seen their prices hiked over the last couple of weeks). A6300 is APS-C and $1,000.

My guess, $1,700 at the high end; most likely $1,500. Olympus will be very competitive and I am not even bringing up Yi's $500 "camera + 12-40mm lens" package.
 
bumkicho said:
Like what? Don't get me wrong. I hope it is sub $2K, but considering all the announced specifications plus rumored IBIS, one stop better, and full size HDMI port, what other cameras would you seriously consider if its price was set to $2499. Again I hope it is under $2K and we'll just tell panasonic we'd seriously look at other cameras if it's more than that!!
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It's true...nothing around this price range should touch the GH5.

Even with a smaller sensor, the 10-bit or 4K/60P will be so nice in this package if it all checks out.
 
Jim Simon said:
I bought my GH2 for $600. The GH3 came out at $1,200. The GH4 came out at $1,800.

I really hope that trend does not continue.
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GH3 (September, 2012 @ $1,300) and GH4 (March, 2014 @ $1,700) were facing different market conditions upon their respective introductions. GH3 was an evolutionary step in its class with an All-I compression while GH4 was revolutionary with its 4K among the DSLR's, where the lowest priced 4K unit was 1D C at $12,000. Nowadays, there are close to a dozen sub-$2,000 DSLR and bridge cameras, on top of a dozen camcorders and pro cine models delivering 4K (and often 4K Raw). The pricing power of the GH4 no longer exists.

PS. When GH4 came out, Panasonic had to shut down another line in order to double the production of their hottest model. On B&H "most popular mirrorless" charts, it had remained the leader for over a year and a half until the release of A6300. It, obviously, benefited from not having any ILC competition in the same price range for quite a while but those non-compete agreements have since expired and the sub-$2000 4K sector has once again became a free-for-all.
 
Jim Simon said:
That is why the 400 Mb/s should be an I-frame option.
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400mbps is not enough for I-frame only. It would have too many artifacts like the 72mbps I-frame only on the GH3. Think ProRes LT which can look nice but it does have artifacts. I would not touch 400mbps I-frame only with a ten foot pole just like I wouldn't touch the 72mbps mode or even the 200mbps mode on the GH4.

Just making an H264 encoder I-frame only is not enough as we have seen with the 200mbps mode on the GH4. That should be plenty of data since ProRes422 HQ and 24p HD only uses 176mbps but it clearly still ins't enough for the realtime H264 encoder.
 
The reason why I don't think the GH5 will have a huge price jump is because it would leave too much of a gap between the next model beneath the GH5. It would also push the GH5 into a new market segment which could hurt sales. Specs alone are not always enough to make people decide $1k more for a camera. Especially if a majority of the people don't really need 4:2:2 and 10bit.

We still have people who don't think external ProRes recorders offer enough quality advantage to justify the cost and many of those people could likely pass on a GH5 for that same reason.

We are also in a time when things like signal to noise ratio and dynamic range are more important to a lot of film makers than 10bit. This is why so many prefer to use the A7S even though it's HDMI output is limited to 8bit. They don't care. That is not to say not everybody is looking for 4:2:2 10bit internal. I just think Panasonic will really hurt market share if the price goes up too much. There are more important things people look for in a camera now than 4:2:2 and 10bit. I'm not saying those are not important but the GH4 is the only DSLR that has 10bit output right now but that hasn't stopped people from moving to other cameras for noise or dynamic range reasons. Improve on those then yes people will pay oodles of money for the GH5.
 
FWIW, the YouTube based reviewers are wildly in love with Fuji XT-2 (APS-C, 8-bit 4:2:2, oversampled 4K) that retails for $1,600 for the body only, $1,900 with a kit 18-55 lens and $330 more for the 4K time extending battery grip.

As an MFT camera, I doubt Panasonic wants to go head-to-head against XT-2 in pricing.
 
Here's some GH line pricing history to help our wild guessing:

GH1: With 14-140 lens (doesn't seem to have been available body-only for a while) suggested retail $1499.95 (https://www.dpreview.com/articles/9832133443/panasonicgh1price). Wikipedia says it was available body-only for $700 later in its sales life cycle.
GH2: suggested retail $899.95 (body only) or $1499.95 (w/ 14-140) (http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/DMCGH2/DMCGH2PR.HTM).
GH3: list $1300 (http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/panasonic-gh3/panasonic-gh3A.HTM)
GH4: list $1699.99 (https://www.dpreview.com/articles/5...lability-for-lumix-dmc-gh4?comment=1250822284)

So it seems that GH1/GH2 -> GH3 -> GH4 the price went up exactly $400 each time (except the GH2 appears to have been priced similarly to the GH1 if you consider that the 14-140 kit was the same exact price).

If they continue this trend, the GH5 will list at $2100. Personally, I'm in the camp that believes it will be sub-$2000 (but not much lower) given more competition nowadays, but I think they could still make a good case for $2100 because no other camera in this segment will offer what it does. It's also interesting to note that the street prices seem to settle around $200 below the suggested retail after some time (months? one year?) after release. So they could release it at $2100 to settle at $1900 a year out.

PS: Another data point - the new, very video-oriented FZ2500, which was announced the same day as the GH5, is also $400 more than its predecessor. They seem to like those $400 jumps.
 
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Thomas Smet said:
The reason why I don't think the GH5 will have a huge price jump is because it would leave too much of a gap between the next model beneath the GH5. It would also push the GH5 into a new market segment which could hurt sales. Specs alone are not always enough to make people decide $1k more for a camera. Especially if a majority of the people don't really need 4:2:2 and 10bit.

We still have people who don't think external ProRes recorders offer enough quality advantage to justify the cost and many of those people could likely pass on a GH5 for that same reason.

We are also in a time when things like signal to noise ratio and dynamic range are more important to a lot of film makers than 10bit. This is why so many prefer to use the A7S even though it's HDMI output is limited to 8bit. They don't care. That is not to say not everybody is looking for 4:2:2 10bit internal. I just think Panasonic will really hurt market share if the price goes up too much. There are more important things people look for in a camera now than 4:2:2 and 10bit. I'm not saying those are not important but the GH4 is the only DSLR that has 10bit output right now but that hasn't stopped people from moving to other cameras for noise or dynamic range reasons. Improve on those then yes people will pay oodles of money for the GH5.
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Panasonic said that the GH4 will not be discontinued. This gives the consumer a great option. Don't want or need 10 bit 4:2:2 internal then the GH4 is a cheaper and better fit. I think Panasonic has more features to rollout and that will make the GH5 more expensive. I really don't see it below $2K.
 
bumkicho said:
Like what? Don't get me wrong. I hope it is sub $2K, but considering all the announced specifications plus rumored IBIS, one stop better, and full size HDMI port, what other cameras would you seriously consider if its price was set to $2499. Again I hope it is under $2K and we'll just tell panasonic we'd seriously look at other cameras if it's more than that!!
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You hit the $2K mark and a lot of users will start seriously considering the Sony A7 options. Doesn't matter how you think the features compare, or how bad the Sony ergonomics are...those full frame sensors and low light capabilities have a siren's song to them.
 
I'd love to get a Sony mirrorless to compliment my FS7 but can't deal with the slew of issues (e.g. horrid WYSIWYG gammas, 8-bit Log recording, overheating, & 1/2 hour record limits).
 
emweb said:
Will the GH5 10bit internal recording yield better results than an external Prores HQ recorder?
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Uh, it depends (on the respective bit rates and codecs, among other things).

In any case, an Olympus big wig was just asked about the incoming EM-1 MKII MAP. His response was, "Slightly higher than MKI". That could be interpreted in different ways. Me thinks it'll be higher than the original $1,400 price tag of September, 2013 rather than its current, heavily discounted, $900 sticker. If MKII is then retailed for a nice round sum of $1,500, it'd be pretty hard to GH5 to jump $500 higher than that. MKII promises some killer specs too, with a lot of DR, 60 fps, auto-focus, pixel shifting high res stills, 237 Mbps IPB 4K, etc.
 
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