Where is Panasonic in this game?

Mac said:
jmarkham said:
Well, if you want increased resolution and more latitude /QUOTE]

But not everyone wants more resolution - I use diffusion on almost everything to knock down the edgy look already - I really dislike most of the big sensor, look how shallow my DOF is, overly crisp images - and I know many others do as well. We're not all nature or wedding photographers, and most of the 5D-style story-telling I've seen is absolutely hideous. My opinion, and I have the right to it.

Latitude, yes - but I firmly believe that can be improved without the need of a larger sensor.. I mean, look how far we've come in only a few years.

And with MFT that zoom lens doesn't have to be as big as that horrible slow and heavy Sony - that was the point of my comment above if you'd take the time to read it.
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Fair enough .. and I did read it BTW ...

And you're right .. each new generation of sensor fabrication technologies has improved resolution and bias / noise / latitude. But, the larger
sensor size (given the same fab) will have a physical advantage over the smaller sensor. The quantum physics is what it is..

jeff
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Canon seems to think they can make money on lenses. They have a whole new line of cine lenses for their new crop of EOS Cine cams. Lenses sell cameras. Every two years you end up getting a new DSLR but you keep the lens. Tie yourself to a brand and you keep buying the new version.

With MFT its not as easy of a sell because the format is so new and the offerings aren't as mature yet. That does concern me so I try not buy any more MFT lenses and have gone with more PL mounts. I'm very happy with the RED 17-40. This is my first PL lens and it performs the way a cine or video lens should.

Make great MFT video/cine lenses and sell more cameras in the future.
 
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"Make great MFT video/cine lenses and sell more cameras in the future."

Exactly... It continues to amaze me that after a year of people bitching on this board that Panasonic hasn't at least teased us with a zoom lens offering for the future... Or encouraged another manufacturer to fill the void.

BTW, I considered the 17-40, but decided on the HPX250 instead of the Red zoom. I can still use my primes with the 100, but I have a light, P2, AVC-Intra camera with a 22x lens for everything else - pain to have to travel with two cameras, but oh well - frankly no one is making one camera that fills the void left by my Aaton - and it's not like it isn't possible....
 
Zoom lens for the MFT for video / cinema? I don't think Panasonic is going to get into that. I'm sure they could
create a zoom for the GH2 / still people. But for video / cinema, it would be too much of a niche. And a niche
already addressed by Zeiss CP.2 (in the primes) and PL adapters if you want a cinema zoom lens that doesn't breathe.
 
"And a niche
already addressed by Zeiss CP.2"

Uh, excuse me? It's amazing how so many people seem to completely miss the point... Look, I don't know about most of you, but I come from the world of independent film production that was dependent on 16mm and super16 for over 40 years. There were a plethora of relatively light weight T2.4 or 2,8 10:1 zoom lenses for those formats, because not everyone wanted to carry around a huge unwieldy 35mm camera or shoot from an Elmac dolly or Chapman boom. That "niche" as you call it still exists - in much larger numbers than you may realize -

Stated simply - There is NOT A SINGLE decent range parfocal zoom lens for the AF100 - period. And ultimately that is going to hurt the MFT size because it is the single advantage it has over larger sensors.
 
Mac said:
There is NOT A SINGLE decent range parfocal zoom lens for the AF100 - period
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There aren't many native lenses for the Super35/APS-C formats either, unless you are able to afford a PL zoom, which will also work with the AF-100.

If you're willing to work with high-end consumer photo lenses, then the new zooms from Panasonic ( 12-35mm and 35-100mm ) or the new lenses for the new Olympus OM-D camera ( being announced along with 5 "pro" lenses on February 8th ) might fit the bill. I agree that it's crazy that it's taken this long for these lenses to show up.
 
Mac said:
"And a niche
already addressed by Zeiss CP.2"

......Stated simply - There is NOT A SINGLE decent range parfocal zoom lens for the AF100 - period. And ultimately that is going to hurt the MFT size because it is the single advantage it has over larger sensors.
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First part true only if talking about native MFT lenses ....but conversely...the MFT sensor can take advantage of more lenses than a large sensor camera and that gives it a serious advantage to the MFT AF100 user base.
 
Mac said:
"And a niche
already addressed by Zeiss CP.2"

Uh, excuse me? It's amazing how so many people seem to completely miss the point... Look, I don't know about most of you, but I come from the world of independent film production that was dependent on 16mm and super16 for over 40 years. There were a plethora of relatively light weight T2.4 or 2,8 10:1 zoom lenses for those formats, because not everyone wanted to carry around a huge unwieldy 35mm camera or shoot from an Elmac dolly or Chapman boom. That "niche" as you call it still exists - in much larger numbers than you may realize -

Stated simply - There is NOT A SINGLE decent range parfocal zoom lens for the AF100 - period. And ultimately that is going to hurt the MFT size because it is the single advantage it has over larger sensors.
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That's why I'm confused .. why does the MFT have an advantage over S35 or larger sensors? It might be *slightly* easier to design a parfocal
lens for MFT over S35 .. but .. no manufacturer would get their money back. There's not enough of a market to make it worthwhile.
That's why I consider it a niche.

MFT is a niche and MFT video lenses are niche within that.

IMHO, MFT is going to be a short-lived sensor format.

jeff
 
B4 lenses on m4/3 gives you a parfocal decent zoom range. Even if you pair it with the expensive ibe-optics it's still cheaper than most cine zooms. You can get something like 16-200/F3.6 power zoom lens. That doesn't seem to bad.
 
jmarkham said:
IMHO, MFT is going to be a short-lived sensor format.
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Well, the M4/3 format has been around for 3.5 years so far, and is backed by Panasonic ( they aren't going to disappear any time soon ) and Olympus ( who have their own financial problems, which have nothing to do with the M4/3 cameras ), and when looking at things from the perspective of the mirror-less camera market ( mirror box cameras are dying out, EVIL is the future ) the M4/3 format is the one to beat. ( Nikon has their new whacky Nikon 1 V1 and J1 cameras, it looks like they were intentionally crippled so that they won't compete against their APS-C and Full Frame cameras, stupid short sighted move )

Looking at the APS-C format, there are no APS-C primes right now ( the sole exception is the Samyang 8mm fish-eye lens ), while there are 9 new M4/3 lenses coming to the market this year ( Panasonic has 4, Olympus has 5 ) and several of these will be "pro" grade lenses. ( high performance, weather sealed, etc... )

Lastly the M4/3 format will finally get it's first "pro" camera, the Olympus OM-D cameras being announced on February 8th ( hopefully the GH-3 will be upgraded to a similar build quality ), so I would say that the M4/3 sensor market won't be dying anytime soon.
 
I think Shooter's point is that since the M43 sensor is a little smaller size wise, that lenses from full frame on down will work on a M43 camera. Granted there are the dreaded crop factors involved when using lenses designed for one format on another format, but the over riding point is that there is more glass that can be used on M43 format camera than probably any other single sensor size.
 
I look at M43 as a great camera format, and a poor lens format.

I like M43 format cameras for two reasons. Slightly smaller sensor coupled with a shallow flange distance, means I can use lenses for almost any other system as they can cover the smaller sensor and can be mounted with simple 'extension tube' style adapters.

I like Nikon F mount for lenses for the same reasons in reverse. The lenses generally cover full frame so they look terrific on the smaller sensor. And they have a very long flange distance so they mount simply to most other camera systems. F mount fits on Canon, M43, Red etc.

So having an M43 body allow me to use virtually any cine or still lens with a similar to S35 sized sensor. And buying F mount lenses allows me use them on most any camera I have now, and going forward.

(for the record, I only shoot narrative movies so fully manual, generally prime lenses are all I use. ENG or event shooters would have different requirements)
 
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jmarkham said:
There's not enough of a market to make it worthwhile.
That's why I consider it a niche.

MFT is a niche and MFT video lenses are niche within that.

IMHO, MFT is going to be a short-lived sensor format.
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i disagree. on film and video market, the only disadvantage it has right now is it doesnt have much ULTRAWIDE lenses. thats it. on the stills market it doesnt even matter.

anything else is fair game. each size have its own disadvantage. on compact camera market. ive seen aps-c sized cameras with lenses that are so huge. it doesnt make sense to be a compact camera anymore. and this mirrorless compact camera market isnt a niche. its growing and may soon replace dslr market.
 
dcloud said:
i disagree. on film and video market, the only disadvantage it has right now is it doesnt have much ULTRAWIDE lenses. thats it. on the stills market it doesnt even matter.

anything else is fair game. each size have its own disadvantage. on compact camera market. ive seen aps-c sized cameras with lenses that are so huge. it doesnt make sense to be a compact camera anymore. and this mirrorless compact camera market isnt a niche. its growing and may soon replace dslr market.
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I guess I should qualify my statement that I'm talking about video cameras .. not still. The trend is towards larger sensors (RED, Alexxa, etc.) the "mass of glass"
favors the 35 and above sensor sizes. A little unfair, but for market comparison, I equate MFT with super16...

MFT will likely have a longer run in the mirror-less still world .. but in mid-end video .. cost reduction in S35 and larger sensors will displace
MFT (IMHO).

jeff
 
jmarkha said:
MFT will likely have a longer run in the mirror-less still world .. but in mid-end video .. cost reduction in S35 and larger sensors will displace
MFT (IMHO).

jeff
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i foresee it lasting longer than what youre suggesting. in the endits the image that a dp produced that coukts not the size of a sensor. look at blackswan. i didnt even know it was shot on s16 until after.
 
jmarkham said:
The trend is towards larger sensors (RED, Alexxa, etc.) the "mass of glass" favors the 35 and above sensor sizes.
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The "mass of glass" in the motion picture world is PL mount cine lenses, which works perfectly with both Super35 and Academy format cameras. 35mm Full Frame Still Photo cameras like the Canon 5D MK2 are pretty much unusable with this "mass of cine glass" because the sensor format is too big. Yes you can use 35mm Still Photo lenses for motion picture work, but they are a poor substitute for real cine glass.

jmarkham said:
A little unfair, but for market comparison, I equate MFT with super16...
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...And this is your main mistake. The MFT format is a match to the 35mm motion picture Academy format, so all that wonderful cine glass will work with MFT cameras just like they work with Academy format 35mm motion picture cameras.

MFT is not going anywhere, but I have big doubts about the future of 35mm Full Frame Still Photo cameras being used for video production: The format is too big, and does not work with most of the cine glass available. Yes, it's a great still photo format, but I don't know about it's longevity for video work.
 
I'm not speaking of DSLR's ... I'm talking about video cameras with S35 and larger sensors .. like Scarlet, Epic, Alexa, etc.
DSLR cinema is/was kind of a fad (at least in the long run).

The issue with MFT with Cine/35mm glass is the 2x cropping factor.

The topic of the thread is "where is panasonic in this game" and my take is they would do well to get a camera with
an S35 sized sensor, Canon, Nikon and PL mount options at the 10k ->14k pricepoint. With SSD as the recording
media. And that's a complete kit .. not the RED erector set games.

Just my opinion ....

I'm not saying MFT is bad .. we love our AF100's ..
 
jmarkham said:
The issue with MFT with Cine/35mm glass is the 2x cropping factor.
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The 2x cropping factor ONLY applies when comparing MFT format to the 35mm Full Frame Still Photo format, NOT 35mm Motion Picture formats.

When compared to the current cine Super35 standard, the MFT crop factor is 1.3

When compared to the current cine Academy standard, the MFT crop factor is essentially 1.0

So MFT fits perfectly in to the world of Motion Picture formats.

jmarkham said:
The topic of the thread is "where is panasonic in this game" and my take is they would do well to get a camera with an S35 sized sensor, Canon, Nikon and PL mount options at the 10k ->14k pricepoint.
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I completely disagree here. Likely Panasonic and Olympus will continue to improve the quality of the sensors in their MFT cameras, and should be able to keep them competitive ( at least in the Indie and Prosumer markets ) with the Super35 format cameras.

The 35mm Full Frame Still Photo format is an anomaly in the Cine world, and I don't see it having much impact in the long run. ( Super35 and Academy video formats are here to stay )
 
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