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Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands
09-07-2018, 09:44 AM
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Exactly, MILC evangelists keep trotting out the size argument, yet the best example of a mirrorless camera that has a size advantage over DSLRs gets put in the corner because its sensor is too small. What makes Olympus m43 cameras so attractive are their noticeably smaller lenses and it doesn't hurt that holding an OM-D E5 is a better experience than holding other MILCs, especially Sony models. Nobody uses a camera without a lens, yet the MILC evangelists pretend that FF MILCs can make the lenses mounted on them lighter and smaller than they really are. For still photography, Olympus is the only company that got the MILC experience right, yet the whole world knows that Olympus is doomed unless they come out with a FF camera. Just goes to show that the mirror in MILCs never disappeared, it changed from a reflex mirror to smoke and mirrors.
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Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands
08-31-2018, 08:13 PM
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You'e right, this does make sense, going with a bigger sensor than m43 is the only way to get better specs and even if 8K isn't necessary right now, developing a new system to last for several years dictates an 8K capable design. Panasonic also has no choice but to use a new (to them at least) mount and for video cameras the next big step up comes with 5 figure price tags, so it doesn't handicap them if there aren't budget lens choices available at introduction.
Panasonic is betting on mid-range video being its ace in the hole for the long term; you don't invest in a new mount for a new format with the processing requirements of a new high data-rate video format with the idea of coming out with something completely different in five years. I'm not sure there is enough of a market for a video-oriented camera system between the low end instant posting to Youtube equipment and the truly professional high data-rate systems, to keep Panasonic building cameras for another decade, but obviously someone at Panasonic believes there is.
---------- Post added 08-31-18 at 09:59 PM ----------
Really the only standardizing is the size of the sensor, how and why Nikon, Canon and Panasonic are trying to gain business is different. Nikon is abandoning its existing mirrorless business and trying to find new customers with a new mount designed to require new lenses, to reverse a loss of overall market share; Canon is trying to complement its existing mirrorless business with a new format to protect and grow its current market leadership and Panasonic is introducing a new mount and format to keep ahead of obsolescence and protect its current market niche. As for Olympus, any big investment has to come with guaranteed customers, so unless they can supply larger than m43 lenses or camera components to another company, I really can't see them entering a new, relatively crowded market (which FF or MF would be). The days when a manufacturer has to have an offering for every market are long gone.
Canon and Nikon can move in and out of the mirrorless business as they see fit (and the changing market for MILCs dictates), Panasonic and Olympus need to find a niche in the mirrorless business that they can be major players in, to keep their production facilities operating, Sony needs to maximize its return to the parent corporation or be sold off to a Chinese company and Pentax needs to make a profit with its current resources so that their 2 days a year with the Ricoh Company CEO are entirely uneventful.
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