Olympus sells Imaging Business

[Super8]

57 minutes ago, newfoundmass said:

The power of the GH5/S, the Pocket 4K, etc. is that you CAN use it for a feature and get great results.

When?  This is crazy fanboy talk. 

Of course any independent film can be called a feature film.  That doesn't help your argument.

The run and gun statement doesn't work for the P4K does it? Big an bulky when rigged out and no AF.

It's sad that advice is thrown around the EOS and people spend thousands on gear and get investors involved because someone said "The power of the GH5/S, the Pocket 4K, etc. is that you CAN use it for a feature and get great results."

Have some standards and support the DP's that suggest using cine cameras when they're called for.  I little homework and investment in time would get you much better results that are great.

[kye]

Great conversation.  

@Super8 I don't really mind if MFT has a 'look', and I guess in retrospect I wouldn't have thought that having a look was a bad thing, after all the 'FF look' is an often used phrase and that is normally referred to as a desirable thing, not a liability.

I have a theory that once a camera is above a certain level of quality, you can match it colour to any other camera assuming you have enough skill in post.  I figure that I'm either right or wrong, and by pursuing it then I'll learn a lot either way, so some months ago I bought a BMMCC in order to be able to shoot it side-by-side with the GH5 in identical conditions and try and match them.  I chose the BMMCC as it has a reputation for excellent colour and there's no way I can afford an Alexa, so this was the best compromise.  People also like the motion cadence and other aspects of it, but I'm not there yet in my comparisons.
The project is ongoing (although got paused during covid times as due to my day job I had less spare time and energy rather than more) but did manage some colour matching I thought wasn't too bad.

I'm curious to get your impressions of the below.  The first one is GH5 in 150Mbps 4K 16:9 HLG mode, the second is the BMMCC in 1:1 RAW graded with WB and CST only.  I'm not that pink in real life but I'm probably not too far off it - office worker tan lol.

Also, are you seeing the plasticising of the skin in this GH5 shot?

Once again, genuine question.  I don't doubt that things like skin texture are negatively impacted by compression, the question is how keen is our judgement and how much are each of us willing to tolerate in their images.  Personally I'm not that picky, and for my purposes it's totally fine, but getting your impressions might help to calibrate the discussion.

Here's the GH5 shot graded via a WB and CST (although the GH5 HLG doesn't actually correlate to either rec.2100 or rec.2020 so it's not a perfect conversion, which is super annoying) so I don't think anyone would think this is a nice grade (or let's hope not!).

 

[leslie]

15 minutes ago, kye said:

 

 

Here's the GH5 shot graded via a WB and CST (although the GH5 HLG doesn't actually correlate to either rec.2100 or rec.2020 so it's not a perfect conversion, which is super annoying) so I don't think anyone would think this is a nice grade (or let's hope not!).

 

i have two words for you kye...... spray tan. 😀 I like the shot and how the light falls away,  I must be kind of peculiar, because i actually dont mind this grade.  By the way where did you get your colour checker from ?

With olympus potentially going the way of the dinosaur, do you guys think theres a lens or camera worth grabbing before things go pear shaped ? 

[Super8]

1 hour ago, kye said:

Great conversation.  

@Super8 I don't really mind if MFT has a 'look', and I guess in retrospect I wouldn't have thought that having a look was a bad thing, after all the 'FF look' is an often used phrase and that is normally referred to as a desirable thing, not a liability.

I have a theory that once a camera is above a certain level of quality, you can match it colour to any other camera assuming you have enough skill in post.  I figure that I'm either right or wrong, and by pursuing it then I'll learn a lot either way, so some months ago I bought a BMMCC in order to be able to shoot it side-by-side with the GH5 in identical conditions and try and match them.  I chose the BMMCC as it has a reputation for excellent colour and there's no way I can afford an Alexa, so this was the best compromise.  People also like the motion cadence and other aspects of it, but I'm not there yet in my comparisons.
The project is ongoing (although got paused during covid times as due to my day job I had less spare time and energy rather than more) but did manage some colour matching I thought wasn't too bad.

I'm curious to get your impressions of the below.  The first one is GH5 in 150Mbps 4K 16:9 HLG mode, the second is the BMMCC in 1:1 RAW graded with WB and CST only.  I'm not that pink in real life but I'm probably not too far off it - office worker tan lol.

Also, are you seeing the plasticising of the skin in this GH5 shot?

Once again, genuine question.  I don't doubt that things like skin texture are negatively impacted by compression, the question is how keen is our judgement and how much are each of us willing to tolerate in their images.  Personally I'm not that picky, and for my purposes it's totally fine, but getting your impressions might help to calibrate the discussion.

Here's the GH5 shot graded via a WB and CST (although the GH5 HLG doesn't actually correlate to either rec.2100 or rec.2020 so it's not a perfect conversion, which is super annoying) so I don't think anyone would think this is a nice grade (or let's hope not!).

 

Not much to go by in those images.  IMO all 3 are under exposed. The blacks are crushed and the first tow are over saturated and the 3rd one under saturated.

You have to ask yourself which of the 3 are closer to capturing you and the lighting set up.  Not enough information in these 3 shots to really comment about them.

[noone]

I find it interesting that Canon makes a lot more cameras THEY call "video" cameras (and including several for professional use) than they call "cinema"....I wonder  why that is and what anyone could possibly want with a non cinema camera that is no good for stills and is called "professional" with a tiny much smaller than m43 sensor ?

On Canon Australia's site, they have 19 listed in their "video" camera section and 9 listed in their "cinema" camera section.     Sure some of the video ones are consumer but many are not and equally, 2 of the 9 cinema cameras are the HD only high sensitivity cameras that I have never heard of anyone actually using (though I am sure they do).

[kye]

1 hour ago, Super8 said:

Not much to go by in those images.  IMO all 3 are under exposed. The blacks are crushed and the first tow are over saturated and the 3rd one under saturated.

You have to ask yourself which of the 3 are closer to capturing you and the lighting set up.  Not enough information in these 3 shots to really comment about them.

They were shot as a stress test and thus are very high DR - I'm about 50cm from a naked 150W halogen bulb and there is no-fill in order to stress-test the DR.  IIRC the exposure was setup so that the whites were just below clipping, and the blacks are definitely clipping because the scene is >13 stops.  

You're probably right about the saturation on the first two, but I would have thought that would expose issues in skin-tone even more than a more neutrally saturated image?

I figured that the test was a good one as it was the GH5 compared against an uncompressed RAW image in 100% controlled test-conditions.  I'm simply trying to get a baseline for what you deem as "doesn't hold up", which is a subjective judgement.

[kye]

1 hour ago, leslie said:

i have two words for you kye...... spray tan. 😀 I like the shot and how the light falls away,  I must be kind of peculiar, because i actually dont mind this grade.  By the way where did you get your colour checker from ?

With olympus potentially going the way of the dinosaur, do you guys think theres a lens or camera worth grabbing before things go pear shaped ? 

lol about spray tan.  I'd be the last person to need one!  The Micro sure makes all reds go pink and saturates things pretty strongly.

The colour checker is a data colour and I just got it off ebay.  They're quite reasonably priced (for a colour checker anyway) and the reverse is a big grey card with a greyscale on the side, so useful for setting WB on location if you need to do that.

In terms of grabbing Olympus stuff, I'd wait for the prices to all drop and then peruse the bargains.

[noone]

4 hours ago, Super8 said:

Not how it works.

Profit margins might shrink but production cost don't go up because Olympus goes under.  Smartphones, cameras, even games systems keep SRP at a certain spot decade after decade.  The PS4 might not make much per system sold but they count on additional purchases.

 

Try this... think of a simple product, any product you can have made locally.

Ring them up and ask for a quote for ONE, then a quote for 500 and then a quote for 15000.

By your logic they will all be the same but I am betting it will be very different for each.

Now a modern AF camera is a lot more complex and is made up of many parts and a lot of those parts are made by other companies.

Olympus rings up Sony Semi Conductor and orders 200,000 20mp M43 sensors they are going to get a much better price per unit than if they just order 50,000 and the same thing will apply to all the other parts makers.     

As a result, a camera made with a run of 200,000 is going to be cheaper per camera to make than one made in a run of 50,000 even if the company makes the same profit per camera (though I would think they would want a larger profit per unit on smaller runs to justify making them).

They are not going to make a larger run than they think they can sell.

 

[Super8]

9 minutes ago, noone said:

Try this... think of a simple product, any product you can have made locally.

Ring them up and ask for a quote for ONE, then a quote for 500 and then a quote for 15000.

By your logic they will all be the same but I am betting it will be very different for each.

Now a modern AF camera is a lot more complex and is made up of many parts and a lot of those parts are made by other companies.

Olympus rings up Sony Semi Conductor and orders 200,000 20mp M43 sensors they are going to get a much better price per unit than if they just order 50,000 and the same thing will apply to all the other parts makers.     

As a result, a camera made with a run of 200,000 is going to be cheaper per camera to make than one made in a run of 50,000 even if the company makes the same profit per camera (though I would think they would want a larger profit per unit on smaller runs to justify making them).

They are not going to make a larger run than they think they can sell.

 

That's not how it works.  The reseller, whole sale world is much different than you seem to realize.  Everyone needs to make a profit and it's not selling directly to the local guy. 

Case in point let's use a camera company. Let's use RED.  RED set the market based on the cost of traditional camera model and has stuck with it. They decided to charge a certain price and let the market adjust around their price.  They didn't panic and start slashing prices. 

Black Magic on the other hand has a different business model.  Sell for less but sell more product. 

Does it cost 300x more to make a RED camera?  No it doesn't.   RED can sell one camera package to Black Magic having to sell 6 to 9 to make the same profit. 

Camera companies that produce lenses also have a different model than the ones that only sell camera bodies.  The smarter companies will offer 3 cameras at different price points with a wide range of lens selections.  They will offer a echo system that people can invest in. 

I would be worried if I was Black Magic.  To survive the has to move a lot of product.  They can't all of a sudden come out with a $15,000 camera.  The lower priced cine cameras are taking profit away from Black Magic so much that they lowered the price of the BMP6K to $1,995. 

Companies have to live or die by the price model from the past.   Canon or any other company cannot raise prices because parts cost more or tariffs are higher.  The Sony PS5 might be great and could cost $950 US but no one would buy it. 

If Fuji goes under and also Panasonic that doesn't mean Canon or Sony's prices will go up.  We have to many camera makers as it is.

 

 

 

 

[noone]

6 minutes ago, Super8 said:

That's not how it works.  The reseller, whole sale world is much different than you seem to realize.  Everyone needs to make a profit and it's not selling directly to the local guy. 

 

Of course it is how it works.

Even going to a site like AliBaba in China to buy small numbers of stuff the companies quote different prices for different order sizes.

You really do not think Sony is going to sell sensors cheaper to companies who buy larger orders?     That Oly would have got a better rate when they sold (made) many more cameras a few years ago?

Look at cars?   You never heard of fleet discounts?

I give up.

[SteveV4D]

6 hours ago, Super8 said:

 

This is the contradiction about your post and defenders of the GH5.   You can't make the statement about about not matching MFT with Super35 sensor and then turn around and say "see the C300 Mark ii still it doesn't offer 60p 4K which the GH5 offers. " This is fan boy talk that doesn't address the issue. 

And based on 90% of EOS community how many people are delivering 4K 60p?

 

so now the argument is about photography on the GH5?  Wha? That's a little bit of a reach.  Photography is not looked at well on the EOS.   I personally love photography and it drives my cameras buying decision but the BM6K is ALSO NOT A PHOTOGRAPHY CAMERA.

I think you're over analysing this whole thing.  You see issues that are not there.  How far do you take this.  Would you compare a 1" sensor to fullframe.  Does a a fixed lens camera compare to an alexa.  Does a £500 camcorder compare to a Red.  I'm not defending the GH5.  I just don't see the problem.  You seem bothered that the GH5 can't produce results on the level of a C300.  I don't.  I am not asking it to.  Maybe because I never use the high end cameras.  I take it on its own terms.  And yes, its not perfect, MFT has limitations compared to S35 and fullframe.  It has advantages too.  

I use 60p not to deliver, but for slowmo in my shots.  The fact that the C300 mark ii not having it, is not really an argument in defence of the GH5, more a casual observation.  Pros and cons of different cameras.  

As for Photography, its not about that.  Its about the fact the GH5 is designed to be a different tool than a C300.  Its designed to do both stills and video.  Again, its not an argument.  Merely an observation.  Like saying a spoon is not a fork, even though you use them both to eat with.  

As for the P6K, you're right, its not a hybrid.  So what.  I'm not sure I see why you're so worked up about it all.  Accusations of fanboy do you no credit.  At the end of the day, we work with what we can afford and what we like to use.  If the GH5 doesn't work for you, don't use it.  But for other users, it can be our bread and butter.  

[Super8]

17 minutes ago, SteveV4D said:

As for Photography, its not about that.  Its about the fact the GH5 is designed to be a different tool than a C300.  Its designed to do both stills and video.  Again, its not an argument.  Merely an observation.  Like saying a spoon is not a fork, even though you use them both to eat with.  

As for the P6K, you're right, its not a hybrid.  So what. 

You brought up that the C300 doesn't do photography but at the same time you've brought up the P4K and what it can do as a m4/3 camera.

It's easy to find contradiction in your comments but don't get worked up because I do.

 

Quote

I think you're over analysing this whole thing.  You see issues that are not there.

I brought up issues as to why m4/3 probably won't be supported much longer.  This ties into Olympus and this is why it's in this thread. And for this reason I don't think m4/3 cameras like the Gh5 should be recommended.  That's the part where you tell someone the GH5 is worth investing in and they spend $2,500 to $4,000 to rig it up.

I didn't bring up major issues but they are issues with image quality when it comes down to it.

Quote

I'm not sure I see why you're so worked up about it all.  Accusations of fanboy do you no credit.  At the end of the day, we work with what we can afford and what we like to use.  If the GH5 doesn't work for you, don't use it.  But for other users, it can be our bread and butter.  

Sure if you already own a GH5 sure. What are you going to do? pass it on and sale it to get a better camera?  Sure you could but the GH5 checks all the boxes and is cine quality, right?  This is my biggest issue with the GH5 and that's the none stop defending of specs without the image to back it up. 

The BMPCC was great when it came out, right?  How come it's not still supported?  Why didn't BM just keep increasing the specs and release II, III and up versions?

Hopefully this conversation shows you that a 2015 cine camera, C300 II, holds up better than a 2017 GH5.   Not that the GH5 was ever suppose to be the C300 II at all.  I give the GH5 the credit for pushing the market into a good spot. It has great feature that even cameras today don't have.  The Gh5 was just crippled by Panasonic. 

Quote

I use 60p not to deliver, but for slowmo in my shots.  The fact that the C300 mark ii not having it, is not really an argument in defence of the GH5, more a casual observation.

60p at 4K of inferior image means what exactly?  This is why it's so hard to get to the bottom of what cameras have what and which ones delivery the best image with the best features at the best price that fits your budget. 

 

 

[Super8]

39 minutes ago, noone said:

Of course it is how it works.

Even going to a site like AliBaba in China to buy small numbers of stuff the companies quote different prices for different order sizes.

You really do not think Sony is going to sell sensors cheaper to companies who buy larger orders?     That Oly would have got a better rate when they sold (made) many more cameras a few years ago?

Look at cars?   You never heard of fleet discounts?

I give up.

Of course the buying one or buying 200 gets you a different price for bulk orders.  In no way does this prove your doom and gloom argument. 

So you know how many and what price Olympus paid for it's Sony sensors?  or that if Olympus sold/made more cameras they would have bought more sensors? That makes no sense what so ever about why Olympus went under.

_____________________________________________________________________

Here the rest of my last comment that you didn't read.

________________________________________________________________________

Case in point let's use a camera company. Let's use RED.  RED set the market based on the cost of traditional camera model and has stuck with it. They decided to charge a certain price and let the market adjust around their price.  They didn't panic and start slashing prices. 

Black Magic on the other hand has a different business model.  Sell for less but sell more product. 

Does it cost 300x more to make a RED camera?  No it doesn't.   RED can sell one camera package to Black Magic having to sell 6 to 9 to make the same profit. 

Camera companies that produce lenses also have a different model than the ones that only sell camera bodies.  The smarter companies will offer 3 cameras at different price points with a wide range of lens selections.  They will offer a echo system that people can invest in. 

I would be worried if I was Black Magic.  To survive the has to move a lot of product.  They can't all of a sudden come out with a $15,000 camera.  The lower priced cine cameras are taking profit away from Black Magic so much that they lowered the price of the BMP6K to $1,995. 

Companies have to live or die by the price model from the past.   Canon or any other company cannot raise prices because parts cost more or tariffs are higher.  The Sony PS5 might be great and could cost $950 US but no one would buy it. 

If Fuji goes under and also Panasonic that doesn't mean Canon or Sony's prices will go up.  We have to many camera makers as it is.

 

 

 

[noone]

2 minutes ago, Super8 said:

Of course the buying one or buying 200 gets you a different price for bulk orders.  In no way does this prove your doom and gloom argument. 

So you know how many and what price Olympus paid for it's Sony sensors?  or that if Olympus sold/made more cameras they would have bought more sensors? That makes no sense what so ever about why Olympus went under.

_____________________________________________________________________

Here the rest of my last comment that you didn't read.

________________________________________________________________________

C

Oh I read it, I just think you are full of shit!

I am out of this.

[leslie]

37 minutes ago, Super8 said:

That's not how it works.  The reseller, whole sale world is much different than you seem to realize.  Everyone needs to make a profit and it's not selling directly to the local guy. 

Case in point let's use a camera company. Let's use RED.  RED set the market based on the cost of traditional camera model and has stuck with it. They decided to charge a certain price and let the market adjust around their price.  They didn't panic and start slashing prices. 

Black Magic on the other hand has a different business model.  Sell for less but sell more product. 

Does it cost 300x more to make a RED camera?  No it doesn't.   RED can sell one camera package to Black Magic having to sell 6 to 9 to make the same profit. 

Camera companies that produce lenses also have a different model than the ones that only sell camera bodies.  The smarter companies will offer 3 cameras at different price points with a wide range of lens selections.  They will offer a echo system that people can invest in. 

I would be worried if I was Black Magic.  To survive the has to move a lot of product.  They can't all of a sudden come out with a $15,000 camera.  The lower priced cine cameras are taking profit away from Black Magic so much that they lowered the price of the BMP6K to $1,995. 

Companies have to live or die by the price model from the past.   Canon or any other company cannot raise prices because parts cost more or tariffs are higher.  The Sony PS5 might be great and could cost $950 US but no one would buy it. 

If Fuji goes under and also Panasonic that doesn't mean Canon or Sony's prices will go up.  We have to many camera makers as it is.

 

 

 

 

seems either greedy or selfish to sell one item for a large profit. Good for you if you can get away with it i guess. Seems kinda like extortion to me, i prefer bm's business model better If bm cameras get much better, easy to  see red going the same way as olympus and the dinosaurs. 

I had a look at lemac the place i got my p4k from yesterday. they have the p4k, p6k and even the blackmagic Micro Cinema Camera is all listed as out of stock. Either their really popular or covid 19 has stuck again, perhaps it a combination of both. Not sure what stock levels are like in other places.

[Super8]

46 minutes ago, noone said:

Oh I read it, I just think you are full of shit!

I am out of this.

How?

I gave you RED's business model and Black Magic's.  Two ends of the camera world that make good product.   Not sure why comparison is bullshit.  

It shows companies approach business two different ways.  IMO it shows you have room for high and low pricing with everything in between.  If the industry tanks like you say it will this shows we will still have camera choices in the same price matrix.

Some history:

https://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/dslr.htm

This shows the model and price of Nikon DSLR's from 1999 to the present.

Here's one example about camera prices staying the same year after year but feature getting better.  

21 February, 2002: The D100 is announced. It's 6 MP and 3 FPS for $1,999. This is Nikon's first lightweight amateur DSLR camera. It was an N80 with digital guts. It wasn't available for sale until June, 2002. It was a sellout with long waiting lists for a year after its introduction.

In May 2003 the D100 dropped to $1,699. In December 2003 it dropped to $1,499 where it stayed for a year or two. In May 2005 it dropped to $999.

 

Notice the $1,999, $1,699, $1,499 prices from 2002.  This doesn't include the higher priced camera either.   Same price points as today.  This means back in 2002's money we were paying more for cameras than today.

(This is true for game systems, and other electronic over the years).

Camera prices didn't go up after the financial crash in 2008-09 and they won't increase if we lose a few more camera companies.

[SteveV4D]

1 hour ago, Super8 said:

You brought up that the C300 doesn't do photography but at the same time you've brought up the P4K and what it can do as a m4/3 camera.

It's easy to find contradiction in your comments but don't get worked up because I do.

 

I brought up issues as to why m4/3 probably won't be supported much longer.  This ties into Olympus and this is why it's in this thread. And for this reason I don't think m4/3 cameras like the Gh5 should be recommended.  That's the part where you tell someone the GH5 is worth investing in and they spend $2,500 to $4,000 to rig it up.

I didn't bring up major issues but they are issues with image quality when it comes down to it.

Sure if you already own a GH5 sure. What are you going to do? pass it on and sale it to get a better camera?  Sure you could but the GH5 checks all the boxes and is cine quality, right?  This is my biggest issue with the GH5 and that's the none stop defending of specs without the image to back it up. 

The BMPCC was great when it came out, right?  How come it's not still supported?  Why didn't BM just keep increasing the specs and release II, III and up versions?

Hopefully this conversation shows you that a 2015 cine camera, C300 II, holds up better than a 2017 GH5.   Not that the GH5 was ever suppose to be the C300 II at all.  I give the GH5 the credit for pushing the market into a good spot. It has great feature that even cameras today don't have.  The Gh5 was just crippled by Panasonic. 

60p at 4K of inferior image means what exactly?  This is why it's so hard to get to the bottom of what cameras have what and which ones delivery the best image with the best features at the best price that fits your budget. 

 

 

You're a funny guy.  If there are contradictions in my post, its because I'm not taking this discussion as seriously as you.  I'm lying in bed at 6.30am in the morning, passing time cos I can't sleep.  😄

I'm a happy user of the GH5, but would I recommend it now.  No.  There are better options now and like you, I feel MFT will be less supported as time goes on.  Plus the features originally seen in MFT, like 10 bit recording are being passed now to fullframe hybrids, where arguably they are getting a better image as a result.  Full vlog as opposed to vlog l for example. I've also never doubted that a C300 image holds up better than a GH5.  If I could afford one, I'd happily own one.  

If I was looking for hybrid camera now to compliment my Pocket 4K and one day 6K, I'd go with Fuji.  Though I'm looking to see what the R5 and R6 brings to the table.  But I have to measure any money spent with the limited number of jobs where I'm shooting both photos and video, to justify any large expense.

Back to Panasonic, I feel they crippled the GH5 more with a lack of decent AF rather than image quality in my opinion.  As for 60p, its a bonus.  If your client asks for slowmo shot in 4K and you own the Canon C300 Mark ii, what do you do?  Argue that Canon is one of the 4 major brands in the filming industry.  And has a much better image than a cheapy camera that can do 4K 60p.  😄

I'm teasing of course. 

You've spoken before of people you've hired using the 6K Pocket and you've not been happy with the results.  You've now spoken of people you've hired using the GH5 and not been happy with the results.  

You've spoken also of your preference of the Canon image over the Pocket 6K and now over the GH5.

That tells me one thing, you should maybe think of hiring people who actually use Canon cinema cameras.   Its a novel approach for sure, but I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say, you might just be happier with the results.

[noone]

Just regards this thread and Olympus (I am out of the other stuff in this thread), what have we learned that we didn't know ten pages ago?   

Olympus does not think the camera division is profitable (and it has made very few profits in the last decade ...see Andrews separate thread)...What else does there need to be!

Sony used to be the largest shareholder in Olympus but sold a large chunk of their shares a few years ago and sold the 5% they kept in 2019 (did they KNOW something?)....they will still lose if Olympus falls as that means one less sensor customer 

 

 

[kye]

@Super8 Is there anything you can show us where specifically the GH5 have plastic skin tones or where you can't get the same look?

I keep asking because there are people who I have spoken to at length and whom I respect that believe that there is a difference, but I can never get enough information about what they're looking at in order to be able to see it myself.  It's easy to point to a video shot in glorious light with a cast and crew that are on their game and say that a different setup can't do that, because the only evidence against that statement would be a video exactly the same but shot on a different camera, and at sunset and with the light and breeze just-so it's not possible to replicate.  My questions is about what specifically can't be matched.  I am literally interested in someone pointing at part of a still frame of a video and saying 'see this thing here..  FF doesn't do that' or 'see that there..  MFT doesn't do that', or 'see how this thing moves here...  and now see on the other one how it's different...  if you can't see it then watch for the way that X does Y'

One resource that I found very interesting was this: https://www.yedlin.net/NerdyFilmTechStuff/MatchLensBlur.html  The basic idea that you can match blur on different crop factors isn't the headline here, it's that Steve Yedlin is saying it (he'd know!) and is probably the most thorough analysis I've yet found.  

He doesn't talk about availability of lenses, but he definitely discredits the people that straight-out suggest that you can't get shallow DoF on a smaller sensor.  He also doesn't talk about if there's a 'look' inherent in various sensor sizes, but he rules a whole bunch of variables out.

I'll be the first person to admit that wider lenses with wider apertures that are sharp wide-open aren't available for MFT, and maybe that's the 'look' that you're referring to, but that would only apply to shots where there needs to be a larger aperture - MFT can easily match a FF 50mm at F4 for example, so in that particular shot it can't be the lack of lenses contributing to it.

I'mm also be the first to admit I haven't got any glorious images to post that will "prove" the GH5 does hold up, but even if you gave me an Alexa I think I still couldn't do that - the weak link in both setups would be my skills in post!

I'm also half-suspecting that it's actually not the camera at all, but everything else.  What I mean is that film-making is a very deep and very difficult thing to do and get spectacular results, and by the time that you're good enough to do all the other stuff right you are spending so much money anyway that of course you just rent an Alexa for the shoot.  So in a way I question if it's not that it's not possible to do on smaller sensor cameras, maybe just that it isn't done on smaller cameras.

You're saying you can see the look, I want to also be able to see it.

[SteveV4D]

1 hour ago, noone said:

Just regards this thread and Olympus (I am out of the other stuff in this thread), what have we learned that we didn't know ten pages ago?   

Olympus does not think the camera division is profitable (and it has made very few profits in the last decade ...see Andrews separate thread)...What else does there need to be!

Sony used to be the largest shareholder in Olympus but sold a large chunk of their shares a few years ago and sold the 5% they kept in 2019 (did they KNOW something?)....they will still lose if Olympus falls as that means one less sensor customer 

 

 

I don't think Olympus has been taking its camera division seriously for a long time.  No doubt those working in it gave their best, but policy decisions come from above.  I can't blame them I suppose.  It's a diminishing market that is getting harder and harder to stand out in.  

Do I lament their loss; not really, as I only grabbed lenses from them in the last decade and even that was years ago.  They say competition is good, but Olympus hasn't really been competing. Aside from a loss of another brand, the camera industry carries on.  

It'll be interesting to see where the camera industry at this price level will be in 2 or 3 years time.  5 years ago, it felt defined by Sony giving us regular fullframe 4K cameras, Canon giving us crippled cameras and Panasonic rolling out a GH every 3 years.   Now I've no idea what the future holds.  Will there be a GH6, Sony A7s3?  What will BM do next?