Pana S9 is definition of an underrated camera

[newfoundmass]

I understand the backlash. You release a compact camera but have no compact lenses to go with it, EXCEPT the weird f8 lens it launched with. It just didn't make sense. 

There weren't a ton of reasons to get an S9 if you were going to need to use larger lenses anyway. 

I think it'd be really cool if they released some small f2 or f2.8 primes to go with it. 

[John Matthews]

Putting a cheap, well-designed Sony sensor in a small body with f/2 pancake lenses would be amazing. I would forgive the lack of mechanical shutter and hotshoe in that case.

Still, I’d like version 2 of this camera to have a flip-up, brighter screen and at least 1/500 capable shutter. 

[Andrew Reid]

Some of the smaller L-mount lenses off the top of my head.

There are loads

Yes Panasonic made a stupid mistake with the F8 pancake, they wanted something maximally small and cheap.

Whereas something like the Sigma 35mm F2 is a much more exciting choice, or a Panasonic pancake with equally fast aperture. Panasonic are messing up on the lenses side, although the recent zoom is an interesting choice it's still very slow.

That said I don't get the obsession with rigging up these small bodies.

We had it with the Blackmagic Pocket OG when that came out... People adding huge amounts of gear to it.

I can only assume it is only there to look more impressive at work.

Rather than for any genuine creative purpose.

The S9 is in my opinion a really creative tool... How about it gets used bare bones like that?

[John Matthews]

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

Yes Panasonic made a stupid mistake with the F8 pancake, they wanted something maximally small and cheap.

Many got that F8 joke of a lens for free. Guess what? MBP won't even take it today because that's how undesirable it is. It's more like a wannabe lens cap. The only lens that does the S9 justice (like I want) is the 45mm Sigma. Why? It's a L-mount, full-frame, relatively fast lens (and rather small). The fact is this: Sony, Canon, and Nikon have all come out with pancakes that are relatively fast (F2.8). Panasonic needs a 28mm f2.8 or a 40mm f/2.8 before I'd consider it at its current price. Remember, this is company that gave us the 14mm f/2.5 and 20mm f/1.7; both were decent lenses. These pancakes would actually make the S9 is a serious alternative and would convince others to buy it, even with its shortcomings.

If it is a video camera, why is there a PASM dial? If it is a video camera, why all the recording limitations? Many people see it as a photo camera without essential features of a photo camera and a video camera without the essential features of a video camera.

Don't get me wrong, I actually will buy it at the right price. If Panasonic or sigma don't come out with a pancake, I might pair it with the Konica 40mm f/1.8 as I think it'll do fine on it.

[Andrew Reid]

We clearly have a difference of opinion 🙂

Olympus did the same in 2012 with the body-cap lens (15mm F8)

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympus-bcl-15mm-f8

And the internet did not hang them for - nor did anyone claim that the E-M5 was useless as a result.

Too much importance in my opinion attached to a pancake.

The image in the S9 competes with an FX3.

Everyone with an FX3 seem to be attaching large lenses to it.

Why is it that in Sony land this isn't even a discussion about flash guns and pancake lenses... Because it's a cinema camera first, that happens to also be a full frame stills camera.

Rather than Konica 40mm f1.8 which has a long flange back and is no longer a pancake on an adapter to L-mount, you'd be better off with a Jupiter 12 35mm F2.8 or something LTM screw mount which will go on a Leica M-L adapter.

That will keep the overall appendage shorter than Trump's piddle widdle.

And if you really want to be brave, use it in 2x crop mode with a c-mount lens.

This way you get best of both worlds... a very portable pocket cinema camera with top of the league IBIS... which just so happens to be a full frame camera at the change of a lens and a press of a button.

I definitely think that a lot of the hate comes down to the branding and marketing.

If Sony brought out an FX3 at £1500... call it FX300, and it was exactly the same spec as the S1H but with phase-detect AF and Sony e-mount, people would be falling over themselves to buy one.

If Leica had brought out a Q with L-mount, for photography and cinema, for £1500... the same.

Because it is a LUMIX nobody gives a toss.

[MrSMW]

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

Because it is a LUMIX nobody gives a toss.

Less people give a toss rather than nobody and I think this keeps coming back to the same old chestnut and that is Lumix just are not in it in the marketing department.

It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do if your marketing sucks.

The raw tech/capability does not sell.

Cool people doing cool shit sells.

[Andrew Reid]

I think part of it is that there's just too much choice and competition, and people one just one body that does it ALL.

The camera market is a bit odd at the moment, because of such high prices.

If I were a new customer, wanting to upgrade from a smartphone - let's forget the used market, and the dumbed down cameras that treat smartphone users like idiots... I would go on Amazon and see a bunch of $1000+ stuff and spend that money on a new iPhone instead.

Things have got ridiculously expensive and it surely doesn't cost a manufacturer so much to ship a sensor in a box with a screen, and some glass on the front.

I think it's all a bit of a Japanese cartel really.

[newfoundmass]

Marketing and communication are both weaknesses of Lumix. They get held to a different standard, and that's unfair, but they need overcome that. 

I mentioned it in the other thread, but I'd still be shooting m43 if it didn't feel like they were abandoning it three years ago. From the lack of info on a successor to the GH5, the "WTF" releases (G100?!), and the focus on full frame, it just seemed like we were being forgotten. 

Even now, we really don't have much info on what Lumix is working on. That announcement later this month could be for literally anything. Could it be an update for the S1 line? A G200? Could it be a lens? Or a major firmware update? We have no real road map to give us an idea.

[John Matthews]

8 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

If I were a new customer, wanting to upgrade from a smartphone - let's forget the used market, and the dumbed down cameras that treat smartphone users like idiots... I would go on Amazon and see a bunch of $1000+ stuff and spend that money on a new iPhone instead.

It's all a bit unfair. Smartphones get to hide behind the idea of it being "just a phone" and "look at its great video and photos" whereas a camera must be excellent at video and photo. The bar is always so low for a phone, but if we forget the "phone" idea and just say it's a camera; then it needs to compete with similar priced cameras. Unfortunately, there's nothing on the market in the sub 300g weight and size range, which is what I think many people want to start with. It makes more sense to have a $250 phone that does most things and a decent $800 light and nimble camera rather than the $1050 phone that only marginally takes better photos than the cheap phone but comes nowhere close to the $800 camera... if that makes sense.

[Andrew Reid]

Of course a camera must be excellent in the $1000-$6000 price range.

When compared to other consumer items, that's a lot of money

They need to get the consumers back and stop this myopic focus on only existing camera users.

The way to do this is to get real about price and offer a very capable, well made camera for high-end smartphone prices.

But until there's a revolution in optics, it won't happen.

It might do when DJI get into the game with AI lenses, using the smartphone tech of the future.

Then you would have a camera using smartphone technology, multiple sensors, depth maps, AI and so on... But in the form factor of a Sony a7 minus the big chonk of glass on the front.

[Andrew Reid]

36 minutes ago, newfoundmass said:

Marketing and communication are both weaknesses of Lumix. They get held to a different standard, and that's unfair, but they need overcome that.

The product strategy has been a mess as well, for a long time. They diluted the brand with too many cheapo compacts and low-end mirrorless cameras, a bit like how Samsung did. The GH line was their saving grace, a lot of pros took the GH4 seriously as a small 4K camera. It also came along at a time when video was becoming a serious deal on stills cameras, a must-have feature. Panasonic was leading in hybrid video/stills, until Sony brought out the a7s. There was more competition not long afterwards from Blackmagic, and even Nikon with the D750 and D850 DSLRs. Before Z mount even existed. Then before long, everyone wanted a piece of the pie. Even Fujifilm, who had been staunchly pro-stills and anti-video for the longest time. Then the X-T2 and X-T3 were introduced, along with F-LOG and they have only grown in specs since then, and eaten Panasonic's lunch.

In this time, Panasonic continued to persist with Micro Four Thirds... We had the GH5 3 times over with different variants rather than a proper follow-up, and when that follow-up arrived it was without the one thing everyone asked for - phase-detect AF and the GH6 has been a total flop, as one look at the current second hand used prices will tell you.

The S series came too late to save them. Full frame is a commodity now, you can take your pick from all the manufacturers at less than $1500. People will tend to go with what they have lenses for... Which is Canon, Nikon, Sony. That's why Fuji stayed out the market. They decided to own the medium format market, and skim off some of the high-end full frame customers as well who were enticed by the larger sensor and higher resolution.

Panasonic should have come out all guns blazing with a full frame S1H just after the launch of the GH4, then they might not have bled out to the Sony a7s and A7s II quite so badly. They should have repositioned Micro Four Thirds as a Fuji X100 / Lumix LX100 style product - as small as possible, super small prime lenses, or fixed, and stylish as fuck to appeal to a younger audience.

But where Micro Four Thirds did at least generate a sizeable ecosystem for lenses that didn't exist before... In full frame, the decision to use L-mount with Leica and Sigma is not a good solution. Too much cannibalisation and not a coordinated approach. The Sigma 50mm F1.4 has to compete against the Panasonic 50mm F1.4 and visa versa... especially on price.

So they have been idiots and not done as Sony has done, which was to focus on a single mount for both crop sensor and full frame cameras from as earlier a date as possible and bring onboard not just Sigma third party lenses but Tamron and more. You don't need an alliance for this.

They were never going to achieve Canon levels of dominance and lock-in with lenses...

But they would have at least have a chance and could have competed with lower prices and a better range when Zf and Rf launched. Instead from 2018 onwards Panasonic has been practically starting afresh with a mount that isn't even under their control.

In terms of the marketing... Clearly there's been a desire to go for vloggers with shit like the G100, a complete waste of plastic, a desire to claim that the S9, much better camera, is for social media twats when it actually should have been a higher-end camera for street photography and cinema (just compare to Sigma's much better marketing of the Fp and Fp-L), and there's been some really public blunders too like inviting people to see the GH7 in Japan and then showing them an F8 lens cap lens instead.

And why the fuck did the GH1 not evolve into a LUMIX CINEMA line??

They had the perfect chance to do a Cinema EOS business and chose to give us a GF5 instead.

[John Matthews]

I’m trying to find a historical element to compare Panasonic to. I’m struggling because regardless of their non-success in the camera market, we’re still talking about an absolutely massive company bigger than many of the other players that is roughly keeping up with technology. I don’t think there are any. With the right investments and people, they’ll find a way.

[IronFilm]

On 12/13/2024 at 10:53 PM, Andrew Reid said:

What about the S9 as a video cam?

Nobody complains that you can't add a flash to a Blackmagic Pocket Camera

For sure, but the BMD's Pockets are marketed as cine cameras. 

While depending on who  you ask, the S9 is marketed as a hybrid camera or a photography camera. 

On 12/14/2024 at 5:32 PM, MrSMW said:

I think the only thing they really fluffed at the launch was that lens.

They could have simply launched the lens 6 weeks after the S9 launch. 

That way whatever negative flack the lens got, it wouldn't have bounced off and hit the S9 to cause it launch issues as well. 

  

On 12/14/2024 at 6:44 PM, newfoundmass said:

I think it'd be really cool if they released some small f2 or f2.8 primes to go with it. 

Even an f4 pancake lens with AF would have been more than ok.

But a fully manual f8 lens felt like they were taking the mickey? Unless it's being thrown in as some kind of bonus freebie. 

[Ninpo33]

11 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

For sure, but the BMD's Pockets are marketed as cine cameras. 

While depending on who  you ask, the S9 is marketed as a hybrid camera or a photography camera. 

 

  But a fully manual f8 lens felt like they were taking the mickey? Unless it's being thrown in as some kind of bonus freebie. 

The S9 was marketed as a “creator camera” big difference. That’s going to be 80% short video clips and photos for social media. If you understand the S9 in that regard it makes perfect sense. Gen Z are the target audience stepping up from a mobile device like an iPhone. Mobile devices don’t have mechanical shutters, sync flash, hot shoes etc… The f8 lens was wide and sharp like a mobile phone camera and everything is in focus, perfect for your video reels and vlogging. 
 

LUMIX obviously blew the marketing and the release and maybe misunderstood the desire for so many of us waiting for a new GX85 or new powerful rangefinder. However if you look at the S9 advertising you can see it wasn’t made for us filmmakers or pro photographers. In true Panasonic fashion, they gave us almost everything anyway and that confuses us.  We see the things it’s missing as opposed to the generous offering it is. I just found one for $930 on eBay so the market is adjusting and at sub $1k it’s a steal. 

[IronFilm]

On 12/15/2024 at 6:24 AM, Andrew Reid said:

Olympus did the same in 2012 with the body-cap lens (15mm F8)

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympus-bcl-15mm-f8

And the internet did not hang them for - nor did anyone claim that the E-M5 was useless as a result.

Because the Olympus 17mm 1:2.8 pancake had already came out 3yrs earlier? (and that wasn't even the only other pancake for the system either) 
 

With the magical benefit of hindsight I think Panasonic should have done or more of these three things:

1) released that f8 pancake several weeks/months after the S9, that way if it flops it doesn't drag them both down

2) released a more genuinely useful/appealing pancake (that's AF, and at least f4 or faster) before the 26mm f8 (or at the latest, no later than simultaneously with the 26mm f8 lens)

3) released the f8 at the same time as the S9 but make it very very clear in all the marketing material that this is a FREE lens for everyone who pre-orders the S9 (it's so much hard to complain against what is free??)

49 minutes ago, Ninpo33 said:

The S9 was marketed as a “creator camera” big difference. That’s going to be 80% short video clips and photos for social media. If you understand the S9 in that regard it makes perfect sense. Gen Z are the target audience stepping up from a mobile device like an iPhone. Mobile devices don’t have mechanical shutters, sync flash, hot shoes etc… The f8 lens was wide and sharp like a mobile phone camera and everything is in focus, perfect for your video reels and vlogging. 
 

LUMIX obviously blew the marketing and the release and maybe misunderstood the desire for so many of us waiting for a new GX85 or new powerful rangefinder. However if you look at the S9 advertising you can see it wasn’t made for us filmmakers or pro photographers.

True, perhaps if they'd only marketed it towards Gen Z / Gen Alpha social media influencers and had hidden it away from every photographer/filmmaker on the planet, then the launch would have gone fine? 

But it's 2024, it's nearly impossible for the photographer/filmmaker influencers to not also notice the Panaosnic S9 launch (heck, many of them even got invited to the launch!!) and to be commenting on the S9 from the photographer/filmmaker perspective as well. 

On 12/15/2024 at 8:45 AM, John Matthews said:

It's all a bit unfair. Smartphones get to hide behind the idea of it being "just a phone" and "look at its great video and photos" whereas a camera must be excellent at video and photo. The bar is always so low for a phone, but if we forget the "phone" idea and just say it's a camera; then it needs to compete with similar priced cameras. Unfortunately, there's nothing on the market in the sub 300g weight and size range, which is what I think many people want to start with. It makes more sense to have a $250 phone that does most things and a decent $800 light and nimble camera rather than the $1050 phone that only marginally takes better photos than the cheap phone but comes nowhere close to the $800 camera... if that makes sense.

I'm kinda doing this. I've got a NZD$199 phone. (about US$115)

And have put together bare bones very cheap and compact Fujfilm camera package. 

But it's still a total setup that's more expensive than your typical flagship smartphone. (and I've only got it so "cheap" thanks to my nerdy knowledge of what options exist + my relentless bargain hunting)

And it's much more bulky. (even though Fujifilm allows you to go quite compact, more so than if I was going FF) Using the fujifilm app (or waiting until I get home, then using the PC) is also far less convenient than simply shooting with the smartphone's camera. And in 2024 it's all about convenience for people. 

So unless you're a camera nerd like us, it's hard to go for the compact / affordable camera package + cheap phone vs flagship smartphone. (plus a flagship smartphone gives you non-photography benefits, for instance all of your mobile apps will be snappier)

 

Unless you're meaning a combo such as say a cheap phone with a Panasonic LUMIX LX10 or RX100 III / IV or similar-ish? That is much more portable, and thus arguably a more attractive option. However I'd say 95%+ of casual users don't see the difference between a LX10/RX100 photo and a flagship smartphone's photo. The gap between the "large sensor" P&S cameras and flagship smartphones has gotten a lot smaller. 

So then you're left with the next step up to at least MFT / APS-C sized cameras and a set of lenses, which means a big leap in size, and a drop in portability / convenience.

Still, the LX10/RX100 option does have some appeal, and I might get this as well before I move overseas. 

[IronFilm]

On 12/15/2024 at 9:11 AM, Andrew Reid said:

But until there's a revolution in optics, it won't happen.

I feel we've been experiencing a revolution in optics already because of two major changes:

1) much lower production costs in China. They could take classic designs and produce them for a fraction of the cost of what companies in Japan / Germany / Switzerland / Korea / USA / etc were doing it for. 

2) computer aided designs. In the past to produce new lens designs it relied heavily upon having deep intuitive knowledge of their craftsmen stretching back over decades of hard-won experience, and development would be a slow / expensive process of making physical prototypes then seeing and measuring the results. But now you can quickly iterate through designs on a computer, and model the results, greatly reducing the relience upon a craftsman's intuition and the need for making many prototypes. Instead you can just explore and check out the results via the computer. (of course having skilled optical designers & making prototypes still matters, but you can get away with much less of this, not having to rely so heavily upon it) This results in both more cheaply designed lenses but also more lens options as well. (such as all of the innovative designs being made by Laowa Lenses, I don't think that could have happened in the pre-computer era)

On 12/15/2024 at 9:30 AM, Andrew Reid said:

There was more competition not long afterwards from Blackmagic, and even Nikon with the D750 and D850 DSLRs.

The Nikon D500 too! Technically the first ever DSLR camera that does 4K. (well, first equal, with the Nikon D5. And not count the 1D C because that's a cine camera, and not count the GH4 because that's technically not a DSLR) 

Also the Nikon D5200 is worth a mention. I purchased the D5200 largely because of your great review of it on EOSHD.

If you wished to ignore 4K (which a decade ago, a case could easily be argued for that) then I reckon the Nikon D5200 was a more appealing camera than any of the 1080 cameras (at anywhere vaguely near that price point) from Panasonic / Canon / Pentax / Samsung / Olympus / Sony. 

Nikon did better at videography than most other people wish to give them credit for. 

On 12/15/2024 at 9:30 AM, Andrew Reid said:

In this time, Panasonic continued to persist with Micro Four Thirds... We had the GH5 3 times over with different variants rather than a proper follow-up

If only the professional division wasn't feuding with the consumer division, and had given us a pro camera with MFT (the "AF200"? the DVX200 or EVA1 with a MFT mount?!) then the slow development of the GH6 wouldn't have mattered half as much. 

On 12/15/2024 at 9:30 AM, Andrew Reid said:

They should have repositioned Micro Four Thirds as a Fuji X100 / Lumix LX100 style product - as small as possible, super small prime lenses, or fixed, and stylish as fuck to appeal to a younger audience.

The MFT ecosystem has a large appeal to a couple of key categories:

1) birding photographers / casual sports photographers. People who want massive telephoto reach, but without the usual financial costs or massive weight penalties that comes with. Combos such as Panasonic G9 + Panasonic 50-200mm f2.8-4 (or the Panasonic 100-400mm f/4-6.3!) is impossible the duplicate for the same low cost / low weight in the FF world. 

2) older photographers / travel photographers, they still want "a serious setup" with all the buttons & dials plus lens options that their old DSLR setups had. But they no longer have the strength / space for it. The likes of say an Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark IV with say a couple of primes + the classic trio of f2.8 zooms gives them that set up in a far more compact / lighter setup than a FF camera package. 

Making only X100 / LX100 products would alienate those customers just as much (or even more!!) as making a G100 or S9 alienates us filmmakers. 

On 12/15/2024 at 9:30 AM, Andrew Reid said:

So they have been idiots and not done as Sony has done, which was to focus on a single mount for both crop sensor and full frame cameras from as earlier a date as possible

I don't think Sony launched E Mount with the fully planned-out intention for it to be a FE mount, with support for FF. Rather they launched their mirrorless cameras, realized they're becoming very popular, and that full frame DSLR cameras are becoming very popular too (remember, when E Mount was launched then the Nikon D3 series of cameras were the only Nikon FX DSLRs that existed!!) thus they attempted to shoehorn their new FF cameras into their E Mount. (which luckily they could just manage to do! Unlike Canon/Nikon/Samsung, who were out of luck with being able to ever do this for their first generation mirrorless mounts)

Personally I can't be too harshly critical of executives in the 2000's for failing to predict that their new range of mirrorless they were in early product development for would one day need to support FF sensors. As who would have predicted in the 2000's that there would be so soon dirt cheap FF DSLRs such as the Nikon D600 or immensely popular affordable FF DSLRs such as the Nikon D750?

When Z / L / RF mounts launched, they had the benefit of hindsight, and the ability to learn from past mistakes, thus they were developed from Day 1 with the ability to support FF sensors. 

I don't think it's necessarily an obvious fatal mistake to support both MFT and L Mounts because they're two full stop sizes apart. 

Just like X mount and GFX mount, two stops apart. They're far enough apart, they can exist in their own niches. 

Doing say EOS-M and RF would however be a fatal mistake, they're too close to each other, and one of them has to die and disappear. (in this case, EOS-M)

On 12/15/2024 at 9:30 AM, Andrew Reid said:

And why the fuck did the GH1 not evolve into a LUMIX CINEMA line??

Because of the infamous infighting between the pro vs consumer divisons 😞

  

19 hours ago, John Matthews said:

I’m trying to find a historical element to compare Panasonic to. I’m struggling because regardless of their non-success in the camera market, we’re still talking about an absolutely massive company bigger than many of the other players that is roughly keeping up with technology. I don’t think there are any. With the right investments and people, they’ll find a way.

Samsung?

[John Matthews]

1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

Samsung

That would probably be close; however, Panasonic doesn't really have a phone. I got the feeling that Samsung had engineers from the camera department move to the phone department because they figured out that the camera part of the phone is the most important. They dumped the declining, hard-fought camera market for the up-and-rising phone market. Clearly, this paid off for them. Panasonic doesn't have this option.

Panasonic is doing what the car industry has been doing for decades- make a chassis and standardise as much as possible to streamline the process and leverage quality, suppliers, and tooling. It must be working because Nikon and others are now doing the same.

I feel like Panasonic is trending to be a more amateur brand and other brands like Canon, Nikon, and now Sony are fighting for the professional market. Of course, many pros use Panasonic stuff too. The problem is that if they are viewed "for amateur," they won't get top-dollar prices.

Does anyone know if Panasonic is specifically losing money in their camera division? I don't think we do. Consumer electronics is still a big part of their business, but who knows how the world might change over the next 5 years to get out. If they do, I don't really care. Their cameras will still continue to be a reliable way to get beautiful imagery for many years to come.

I picked up a Konica F-T3(n) the other day- it still works like a charm after 50 years and I suspect will continue to do so for another 50 years, probably outliving me.

It's a very recent thing to have camera release upon camera release. Frankly, it's unnecessary. The only thing I'm seeing is nth degree-type things. To circle back to the car industry, fins and not really meaningful improvements. It's usually AI crap where give up total control on where it focusses (and slow to set up) or 120fps 4k (so now your 1/2 second clip looks so much better versus the 1/2s clip in 1080p?). The audience will no longer enjoy your content if it's not 4k at 120fps? However, the audience will care if your AI messes up focus. I get the feeling it will soon be a "feature" to have a dumber camera... and we come full circle.

The 80's brought us AF, but crap, plastic lenses and bodies (on the whole). The 90's just continued the trend (also, they were butt-ugly). The 2000's started to give us digital with the same crappy lenses, with everyone trying to squeak out as much detail as possible. Then, we hit 6MP, the magic number that even Kodak has said to be the turning-point where digital finally had the same detail as film. Then video came to the masses and since then we've been striving for more megapixels and sharper lenses even though no one prints anymore and your grandmother's wrinkles look like crap because there's too much detail. Now, we want our digital to look like film with less resolution. Sorry for the rant- must be a full moon. 

[IronFilm]

16 minutes ago, John Matthews said:

That would probably be close; however, Panasonic doesn't really have a phone. 

Panasonic are big in the world of telephones:

https://shop.panasonic.com/pages/telephones

And they used to make lots of smartphones, but haven't in quite a while:

https://www.gsmarena.com/panasonic-phones-6.php

Anyway, I just gave Samsung as another example because they're a company like Panasonic who have a massive range of consumer electronics (such as TVs, or toasters, or microwaves, or whatever) and have (or used to have) mirrorless cameras as well. 

18 minutes ago, John Matthews said:

I feel like Panasonic is trending to be a more amateur brand and other brands like Canon, Nikon, and now Sony are fighting for the professional market. Of course, many pros use Panasonic stuff too. The problem is that if they are viewed "for amateur," they won't get top-dollar prices.

Makes it harder to get new blood in. 

If you don't see "your heros" (be it the sports photographers at F1 or the Olympics, or the BTS from your favorite indie fimmaker, or the lifesystle photographer on social media, or whoever) using a particular brand at all, then it's harder to see yourself buying that "unknown" brand yourself.

21 minutes ago, John Matthews said:

It's a very recent thing to have camera release upon camera release.

Yes, during the analog days then camera body releases were not released as furiously fast and frantic as we experienced it during the late 1990's and 2000's and early/mid 2010's. 

 

[MrSMW]

3 hours ago, John Matthews said:

I get the feeling it will soon be a "feature" to have a dumber camera... and we come full circle

I would happily go back to shooting film for weddings...except I worked out I would lose money on every job and my accountant says this would be a bad thing? 🤔

But seriously, tech has to progress or sales tank. That is just how shit works.

1080 becomes 4k becomes 8k becomes one day not so far away, 12k etc because it has to.

It does not stop individuals buying a €50 off eBay and buying a roll of 36, but they are a tiny minority of consumers.

Personally, I don't much care about the future of Camera Land as I am already at peak camera for my needs.

Yes, I would like it all within one brand/system and am hoping that happens sometime soon, but do need it and am not chasing it as such.

The biggest shame for me with tech is that it can overshadow craft. And that is pretty sad.

[MrSMW]

2 hours ago, MrSMW said:

It does not stop individuals buying a €50 CAMERA off eBay and buying a roll of 36, but they are a tiny minority of consumers.

😚