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Warning about Panasonic g85/80 & lens


Hanriverprod
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As some of you guys know, I bought a new g85 and 14-140mm lens and both are unusable. I wanted to share this video and also confirm that my camera is also behaving the same way after further usage.

Besides this jerking issue, I also had several other problems. The lens had a rumbling feeling when zooming in and out. I called the Panasonic store about that and they said it was unusual and to bring it in for them to check. Also, there was a scratch/tiny crack inside one of the front glass elements. There was also a spot on the images, but I'm not sure if it's from the imperfection from the lens.

I'm going to see if I can get a refund for this camera tomorrow since the return policies in Korea are horrible for consumers. I just wanted to share this with anybody who is thinking about buying this to test it in the store before you purchase it. I was using dual is when this jerkiness became apparent.

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2 minutes ago, Chris Oh said:

Hope it's a defective unit.  thank you for sharing. 

It's not because that is not my video I posted :D

I wouldn't purchase this camera until it's known a firmware can fix it or they update the hardware.

What's messed up is I was just doing handheld shots and it looked fine, but then I got all caught up with these lens issues and a spot in the images that I didn't know this was an issue until I saw this video.

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Ah, what a shame...the video test is well done and clearly shows the issue. As the author from the video states in the comments, it looks like a 'tuning' problem on the IS...something that hopefully/probably? is fixable with a firmware update.

@Hanriverprod sorry to hear your bad experience man, I had a 14-140 in the kit with my G7...toyish build and you could hear moving parts around when slightly shaking it. It did work fine though, so I attributed it to the plastic build. Great travel lens, but sold it because of the slow aperture and because I mainly use vintage glass for video. Hope your refund or switch for another model works out.

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@Hanriverprod Thanks for sharing the video. Several other users reported the same problem over at YouTube. I guess I'll hold off buying the G80/85. I was watching an unboxing video this afternoon, and the 12-60 zoom that came with the camera wasn't smooth, particularly around the 25mm mark. That's another reason I'd avoid Panasonic lenses altogeher, though the G80/85 looks like a great camera once they release a firmware update for the jerky behavior. In that same unboxing video, the reviewer showed how the camera appeared to be wrapped in a thin piece of paper, which made him wonder if it had been properly packaged. I hope your problem gets resolved.

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43 minutes ago, jonpais said:

@Hanriverprod Thanks for sharing the video. Several other users reported the same problem over at YouTube. I guess I'll hold off buying the G80/85. I was watching an unboxing video this afternoon, and the 12-60 zoom that came with the camera wasn't smooth, particularly around the 25mm mark. That's another reason I'd avoid Panasonic lenses altogeher, though the G80/85 looks like a great camera once they release a firmware update for the jerky behavior. In that same unboxing video, the reviewer showed how the camera appeared to be wrapped in a thin piece of paper, which made him wonder if it had been properly packaged. I hope your problem gets resolved.

Can you share the video link?

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29 minutes ago, Samin said:

Can you share the video link?

At around 2:25 you can see the lens zoom ring is quite stiff, which is not ideal, yet he continues to say, 'this has got a nice feel to it, actually', as if trying to reassure himself. Baffling. I own both the 12-35mm f/2.8 and 35-100mm f/2.8 zooms, and they feel like cheap plastic to me. Even some of the lettering around the 12-35mm has worn off, something that has never happened to any of my other lenses. So cheaply made! To each their own. At 5:20, he shows the thin paper bag the camera comes shipped in.

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12 minutes ago, jonpais said:

at around 2:25 you can see the lens zoom is quite stiff, which is not ideal. At 5:20, he shows the thin paper bag the camera comes shipped in.

Well, I'm not planning to get the lens (I have preordered body only), and my G7 was exactly in same paper bag when I unboxed it can't see how that can cause an issues but I hope in case this issues is apparent in all G80's, firmware update would fix it otherwise thats not good!

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I've seen that kind of stabilization stutter before on electronic stabilization.  Whenever you switch the panning direction, it tries to stabilize the shot completely within it's cropped bondaries, until you exceed the boundaries and it needs to make a big correction.  So it may be useful for walking, but it would definitely not work at all when you do any kind of panning where you change directions mid pan.

Anyway, I think the stabilization noise is more than I want to deal with.  With an external recorder you can get better audio, then clean it up, but you only need to clean it up because of the sensor stabilization noise.  I don't think that step makes sense for me.  Not something that we should deal with from the latest Panasonic.  I'm thinking about getting the GX85 instead.  It's about $600 here with an extra battery and bag.

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10 minutes ago, Michael Ma said:

I've seen that kind of stabilization stutter before on electronic stabilization.  Whenever you switch the panning direction, it tries to stabilize the shot completely within it's cropped bondaries, until you exceed the boundaries and it needs to make a big correction.  So it may be useful for walking, but it would definitely not work at all when you do any kind of panning where you change directions mid pan.

Anyway, I think the stabilization noise is more than I want to deal with.  With an external recorder you can get better audio, then clean it up, but you only need to clean it up because of the sensor stabilization noise.  I don't think that step makes sense for me.  Not something that we should deal with from the latest Panasonic.  I'm thinking about getting the GX85 instead.  It's about $600 here with an extra battery and bag.

@Michael Ma Where did you find it so cheap? Grey market? It's selling for $800 at B&H.

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9 minutes ago, jonpais said:

@Michael Ma Where did you find it so cheap? Grey market? It's selling for $800 at B&H.

It's Korea's GMarket.  Right now 686000 KRW free shipping plus OEM battery and case, which is almost exactly $600 US.

http://shopping.daum.net/search/gx85

About 3 listings down, you'll see it.  Gmarket may now be accepting international orders.  However, it's very hard (I would say next to impossible) to navigate through the site unless you can speak Korean.

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40 minutes ago, Michael Ma said:

It's Korea's GMarket.  Right now 686000 KRW free shipping plus OEM battery and case, which is almost exactly $600 US.

http://shopping.daum.net/search/gx85

About 3 listings down, you'll see it.  Gmarket may now be accepting international orders.  However, it's very hard (I would say next to impossible) to navigate through the site unless you can speak Korean.

Yeah, I lived in Korea for 5 years, next to impossible for a foreigner to purchase anything online, not intuitive at all, yet I've managed to buy stuff online from Italy, Denmark and Poland even though I don't speak the language of any of those countries. It was very frustrating. And even here in Vietnam, it is relatively simple for anyone to buy online. Korean companies really make no effort to reach out to foreigners at all. When I was living there, it was a pain trying to find movies in the theater with English subtitles or even watch a K-drama on TV. Yet here, in Vietnam, a country nowhere near as rich as Korea, every theater has English subs for both Vietnamese and foreign movies, and K-Dramas have English subs as well. I should add that, while living in Korea, I spent practically every waking hour studying Korean, but that didn't help much.

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3 minutes ago, jonpais said:

Yeah, I lived in Korea for 5 years, next to impossible for a foreigner to purchase anything online, not intuitive at all, yet I've managed to buy stuff online from Italy, Denmark and Poland even though I don't speak the language of any of those countries. It was very frustrating. They really make no effort to reach out to foreigners at all.

Yeah, it took me a good 5 years of living here to get comfortable enough to do online shopping.  It always felt like pulling teeth every time I had to order something.  Now it's not too bad.

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And even those who are purchasing the G80 for vlogging are probably aware of the inexplicably awkward position of the mic jack, which interferes with the swivel LCD screen. I wonder whether anyone even asked Panasonic representatves about this issue at Photokina concerning the GH5. I imagine it will be the same.

20 minutes ago, Michael Ma said:

Yeah, it took me a good 5 years of living here to get comfortable enough to do online shopping.  It always felt like pulling teeth every time I had to order something.  Now it's not too bad.

At the time, I wanted to purchase a Samsung 840 SSD (not sure if the number is correct) to replace the hard drive in my MacBook, but even though it was available in the States, virtually impossible to locate in Korea. I ended up having a friend bring it over from the States for me. 

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Update on my g85 ordeal. This is a crosspost from a dpreview thread I opened there.

I took the camera back to the reseller store I bought it from and I showed them some footage. They agreed it was unacceptable. Then two reps separately checked the store model and saw that it behaved the same way. So the manager opened another new box and checked it and was shocked to see the same thing. That's three cameras back to back all showing video footage bouncing around with basic camera moves, pans and tilts. They gave me a full refund for both camera, and lens and I heard the manager call the Panasonic office and speak to someone there he knew. He asked if they were aware of this issue. They said they weren't.

Disappointed. If they fix this problem, it seems like it can be a wonderful camera for video, but unfortunately footage is unusable.

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