What’s on the Horizon for LUMIX?

[Nevyn72]

I'm not either, the mini is the only thing Apple I've ever bought. It is silent and sips electricity so it was a relevation after spending years trying to build quiet PCs which I grew to hate after years.

Beefy electricity bills too if that is a factor. I've xbox SX and it uses about 200W, it's good for the performance but I couldn't be using it 12 hours a day, not that I would anyway.

My friend moved to Brittany and pays £0.04/kWh or something. His bill is around £3/day as he has a modern house with a heatpump so no other fuel bills.

I think you pay more in Holland and I pay £0.38/kWh but this place is scandellous... Hence you see why it is a factor for me

We pay about 90 euros a month for gas and electricity combined (2 person household), but I have to say we do have 12 solar panels and the house is highly isolated.
Laws in the Netherlands might change in the future, so i cannot say it stays this way but right now i'm not worried about the electricity costs.

Bit more information:
In the Netherlands, most people currently pay their energy costs on an annual basis (though we pay monthly installments). This means that the surplus energy we generate in the summer can be used for free in the winter. As a result, my wife's and my house annual electricity costs are approximately zero (Actually it was negative, we got money back).

This may change in the future, but then there could then be times when we can use a lot of electricity at a low cost or for free (we might even get money for using it), if there’s plenty of sunshine or strong winds, while it might be more expensive at other times. However, on an annual basis, the difference likely won’t be significant. Especially if you would use electric heating instead of using gas. Of Course this is what the government is trying to archive.

I know this is not for everybody in the Netherlands the case: Ours house has solar panels and is very good Isolated (Rated A by European standards). But if you have an old house and no solar panels you can have a bill three our four times as high.

 

[pdk42]

Sean said in that interview regarding the S9 that the design goal was to offer a camera that is very different to the already planned (or announced?) S5ii.

My interpretation of that is that a S9 with EVF would have been too much of an "alternative/competition" to the S5ii. I think now that the S9 and S5ii are established and sales of both were good, they can risk to offer in 2025 something like a S9 with EVF and a S1R and S1H replacement. Other factors might also play a role, but I guess this was one of them.

But you know, Sony. They have both S5ii-sized cameras (A7 range) and S9-sized cameras (A7CR ranges) - all with EVFs. As someone said earlier, better to cannibalise your own camera than let someone else do it. Seems to me there is room for both in a mature system.

 

[Oíche]

But you know, Sony. They have both S5ii-sized cameras (A7 range) and S9-sized cameras (A7CR ranges) - all with EVFs. As someone said earlier, better to cannibalise your own camera than let someone else do it. Seems to me there is room for both in a mature system.

Maybe this is why? Or not?

 

[dirk]

As someone said earlier, better to cannibalise your own camera than let someone else do it.

I agree. But maybe Panasonic did not want to do that at the early stage of the S5ii. Sony did the same by the way.

The Sony A7c was neither the first camera Sony launched after they got an advanced AF. It took Sony years before the A7c was launched and many other A7 SLR-body-style cameras were launched earlier. So, even Sony waited although other RF style cameras of other brands (i.e. Lumix GX85/GX9 etc.) existed beforehand

Seems to me there is room for both in a mature system.

I agree. But we have to be patient. Market share of Lumix is a lot smaller than of Sony.

 

[Jonathan-Mac]

With a lens roadmap that's updated vary rarely despite missing a whole load of lenses, I'm not expecting anything exciting at all from Panasonic.

All the exciting stuff comes from Sigma and third-party lens makers TBH.

 

[GeorgeHudetz]

Let's see, I'm probably the number 1 Lumix fanboy in Austria and part of Spain... but, for example, that Lumix took 6 years or more to implement PDAF when it was a popular cry among its customers... I don't know really what to think. Finally they did it and now they can say that "Lumix listens to its customers" years later.

By the way, Sean says in the interview that the S9 was planned years ago, when everyone was asking for a Lumix rangefider style camera... Then, why didn't they put an EVF on it? They would had gained many more photographer clients. Furthermore, the direct competing cameras already had it long before: Sony A7C, A7CII and A7CR. Not to mention Fuji.

Just two days ago an article came out in Dpreview about "Why camera makers don't seem to care about photographers, and why you shouldn't worry about that": https://www.dpreview.com/opinion/66...out-photographers-and-why-you-shouldn-t-worry

The PDAF observation is legit. Clearly there was somebody in the company who thought DfD could keep up with PDAF, and they believed it for too long. And that hurt sales.

As for the S9, perhaps it will historically be viewed in a similar way - a unique take on things that didn't work out. We have to wait and see. But in this case the S9 is (apparently) catering to a group that actually wants the things that make the S9 different from a regular camera. Fuji doing something similar seems to reinforce that it was a good decision, or at least that there is some kind of a market there. I certainly respect the company for trying to forge it's own path rather than just doing the same thing everyone else does, but, again, it's unclear how it will turn out.

 

[pdk42]

The PDAF observation is legit. Clearly there was somebody in the company who thought DfD could keep up with PDAF, and they believed it for too long. And that hurt sales.

Bizarrely, for a company who position themselves as the top video-centric hybrid camera brand, it seems that DfD was at its worst for video and acceptable for most photography users (except perhaps BIF).

But I think you’re right in saying that someone (probably a high up engineering chief) thought they could get DfD to work. And it almost did! There are some potential downsides to PDAF of course, so it wasn’t a completely crazy idea.

As for the S9, perhaps it will historically be viewed in a similar way - a unique take on things that didn't work out. We have to wait and see. But in this case the S9 is (apparently) catering to a group that actually wants the things that make the S9 different from a regular camera. Fuji doing something similar seems to reinforce that it was a good decision, or at least that there is some kind of a market there. I certainly respect the company for trying to forge it's own path rather than just doing the same thing everyone else does, but, again, it's unclear how it will turn out.

I hope the S9 does well. I equally hope they can deliver future cameras that suit me. And that means a camera with an EVF and a mechanical shutter.