Andrew Reid

Not bad. Pity the cripple hammer fell so hard on the camera in Europe and the US that it doesn't exist!

So a Nikon Z8 clone then?

1" is a known pre-existing sensor size for Canon and Sony customers (aka G7X and RX100 series). And also smartphone users (flagship 1" phones). So 1.4" is easy to understand, a bigger number, easy to do the marketing. Micro Four Thirds is not just a sensor size, but a system. So it would be very confusing to bring the rival system terminology into the mix.

Yes - stupid consumers with too much money = inflation

F5.6-F7.1 lens 🙂

It would only compete by being cheaper. That's why we need Panasonic to bring the updated S1 line, and their best technology. We've had so many cheap thingies from them recently, so it's time to up their game.

Yeah, I just don't feel like there's a unique reason to continue with Panasonic any more. For Micro Four Thirds, the OM-1 was the peak in terms of offering something different and fun vs the usual full frame work tools. For full frame, L-mount has gone backwards quite frankly from the S1H. Can anyone really say that after nearly SIX years there has been another L-mount camera that's better for filmmakers than the S1H? S5 is just a bargain bin version by comparison. S5 II had a few nice new features and the edge of affordability / phase-detect AF.... High-frame rates on the GH6 and GH7, a nice small full frame camera with the S9, but none of them are overall BETTER in every way than a 6 year old Panasonic S1H. And this is all rather disappointing because Panasonic are not supposed to spend 6 years going backwards. If it wasn't for my Sigma Fp-L I would have no L-mount cameras at all now. The SL2 is gone, S9 is gone, S5 II is sold and I just don't have any need for what it does compared to Sony, Fuji, Canon, Nikon and Olympus. This is why I think the problems at Panasonic are deeper than we think. I am a Lumix loyalist, a long-time early adopter and huge fan of what Panasonic did in the world of cameras, and not just with the GH2! To lose a customer like me is a very bad sign that they have fucked up.

There's a chance it might be an S5R that's coming. A cut price high megapixel body. A full frame rival to the X-T5 perhaps? Doesn't float my boat to be honest, but we'll see what happens. The S9 was also underwhelming at launch, turned out to be a nice camera for the current used prices of around 1000 euros. I wouldn't pay 1600 for it, but as a bargain small full frame camera it has a place.

Like I say I think it's curtains already, whatever they bring out this year is too late. People have moved on. The ones that do stick with Panasonic must be amongst the most loyal customers in the industry, in any industry. Anyway we'll see what they bring out at CP+ in Japan at the end of this month. If it's anything else with an old sensor in an S5 II body I'm not interested.

I like trash talking Panasonic at the moment! They deserve it.

If the S1R II has a different sensor to the SL-3 I'll eat my hat, but it would be a very interesting development if true. I can't think of many alternative high megapixel sensors from the Sony shelf that would fit the bill other than the 50MP Sony a1 chip.

Oh yeah can't wait to put a shitty Atomos on top of an OM-3. Amazing.

Yes please, that would float our boat. (Never thought Panasonic catching up to Sony's 2021 tech would be that exciting a prospect, but at this point I'll take it)

I just think it feels cheap and looks even cheaper, it doesn't have a fun factor or a uniqueness to it. Camera design by numbers. At least the big bulky old S1H had a glorious best in class EVF, really satisfying mechanical shutter and fantastic top panel display, as well as looking and feeling like a beast. Whereas the S5 series, Mark II included just feels like a kind of "me too, I want to be a Sony a7 as well" kind of camera, but it isn't as good as one. For events you are best off with a camcorder.

Welcome back! 1.5, to 2 stops to the right is a good exposure. I wouldn't bother with zebra, false color, histogram, just use the exposure meter (less clutter over the shot then) Nice shot of the lake. What ISO was this? R6 II is clean basically anywhere under 6400

It won't share the same body as the S5 II X. The EVF isn't big enough. The body isn't professional enough, it's mid-range trash. Much more likely the S1H II will come along in a coffin... aka DOA.

Why are you dragging the topic into aspect ratios when the thread is called "Panasonic drastic surgery"?

I'd rather pluck my eyeballs out. Just because the camera has a new body design, doesn't mean to say it is engineered by OM System. They are still using an Olympus parts bin and reusing the same components, reusing basically the entire camera again and again. Marketing, who needs that? Engineers? Nah. Man there is a reason the OM-1 has an Olympus badge, and the E-M5 III too, which is the basis for the OM-5. The OM-1 Mark II and OM-5 are *rebadged existing products* I don't know why that isn't registering with you. Therefore it is not OM-System but OLYMPUS who deserve 100% of the credit for the OM-1, OM-3 and OM-5, which are the basis for all of OM-System's current line-up = rebranded existing Olympus products. The OM-3 does have a new cosmetic makeover and swaps a few parts out of the OM-1 with the OM-5 like the EVF. OM System since the takeover have merely done a couple of firmware updates, a buffer memory increase and a shell reshaping. Plus a new logo. So I don't understand why you are giving so much credit, you're talking as if they have built a brand new system from the ground up and a brand new camera. That is fucking stupid.

You keep banging on about "innovation" without mentioning the elephant in the room which I've pointed out time and again, that OM System have innovated jack shit and all they have done is cut & paste from Olympus. You say it looks great, aesthetically pleasing and all that, well this is subjective but I think it looks cheap for a $2000 camera and certainly worse than the E-M5 III. The size difference between the OM-1 and OM-3 is not equivalent to the GH4 v GM1, the OM-3 is wider at 140mm wide and 500g vs 590g for the OM-1 and 135mm, so a GM1 it ain't. I'll leave you to get to know your cameras better but in terms of the OM-3 whatever floats your boat I guess!

Olympus perfected it and OM System inherited it, big difference. OM system have not implemented anything big and new since 2020. Because they are an investment bank, not a camera company and certainly not a Japanese engineering company. Wrong, Fujifilm has this on the X-T5 and more. Sony has a 160MP pixel shift high-res mode. Canon has had a 400 megapixel pixel shift IBIS mode on the EOS R5 since 2020. And now Nikon with the Z8 has a 180MP mode from 47mp. How hard is it to do a bit of research my friend on Google... These are great features by Olympus, not OM System. They are inherited from a group of engineers who OM System effectively fired. How do they intend to carry these features forwards and develop them without a proper engineering team? It's by no means a bad camera. I just don't see any reason at all to buy it over the OM-1. The styling is subjective, I think it's fake looking and fugly. If you want a powerful retro styled camera for $2000 you can get a full frame Nikon Zf or some of the best APS-C cameras on the market from Fujifilm. If you want the unique Olympus features and IBIS, with a much better EVF and better ergonomics and better grip and more... you can spend as little as $1000 on a used OM-1. So the OM-3, you'd have to really really really like the way it looks to spend double for a worse camera.

Back in the 1080p days, we had line skipping and it wasn't really 1080p in a lot of cases, so a full pixel readout was needed and that's why 4K was so attractive as it would overcome the binning, downsample to whatever resolution you wanted and looked great at 1080p in most cases. Now we have a similar situation with 8K vs 4K because a lot of 4K is pixel binned from a higher resolution sensor, and 8K is a way to get that coveted full pixel readout again. Funny how history repeats itself. Just like with fascism. Anyway where was I... The current debate around specs leaves out the creative side, and that's fine... as the two can be talked about independently and are relevant to the art of cinema. What bothers me about the current state of play though is social media influencers passing off the grading or camera matching work as somehow relevant to what the camera is doing, when actually RAW can be any look you like. I also see a problem with overkill. A lot of people obsess over resolution and then go out and shoot some boring advert for Instagram. There's a lack of critical thinking there, and maybe a bit of ego.

Actually it's the camera from 2021... the sony a1. We have peaked!

Yeah, the cinematography and moody grading overcame the lack of resolution. https://www.eoshd.com/lens/kendy-ty-t2i-one-guy-amazing-things-5-year-old-dslr/ But we still feel the need (myself included) to pixel peep. I suppose it's a hobby if anything - whether it has any real creative use, is open to debate... In some way it is relevant, but it all depends on what serves the content and story, and the lighting and cinematography. Sometimes, that demands a Hi8 camcorder!

At the specs level, an image is just the sensor + processing. The processing in-camera has come on a long way as the ASIC / LSI lithography has shrunk to less than 5nm. So from the GH2 to an X-H2 there is a HUGE difference in the image processing pipeline and codec. However, with RAW the processing is up to your workstation and your eye. So there the camera processing becomes irrelevant to a large extent. So what is 'image quality' with RAW? This is the sensor alone, at least 99% and the other variables like lenses, lighting, etc. all have a huge impact on a camera test. What is the end result you see on YouTube? This is the sensor RAW + human element and the processing in post, de-bayering and compression. So the sensor becomes now around 1/5th of the mix, and the other variables like grading make up the rest which is a lot. Now, forget the test shots and add into the mix the actual content (story, sound, characters, VFX) of a creative shoot and that makes the pixel peeping aspect of things even less noticeable, but that's not to say the technical stuff isn't still important and relevant. By the way... Have any of you shot MotionCam on a high-end smartphone, it really shows this... Cinema DNG and multi-frame computational RAW photography on a smartphone has a very similar dynamic range, colour and texture as your $30,000 cinema camera. You are exchanging sensor size for temporal processing power... aka speeeeeed. So it compensates for the fact that less light is being captured in just one frame. I also think that the important bits of filmmaking far outweigh the "gap" in look between a phone and an ALEXA. If the most important thing about a scene is whether there are some details visible in a window or not, there has to be something seriously wrong with the content.