Photokina

Dpreview interview with Nikon: “video is too complicated for our stupid stills shooters”

Posted on by David Peterson

Wellllll…. that isn’t exactly what the Nikon spokesperson said, but it is a close enough paraphrasing!

Not only is this offensive to many of their customer base, it is also dumb of Nikon to ignore this growth opportunity for them.

Here is what he said:

“There are two types of high end users [using video]’ explains Kikaota: ‘those who started [their careers] shooting still pictures, but also there are a lot of customers who started with video. In our company we have two types of customer. It’s difficult to make one solution to fit for both of them.’ ..Shooting video with current cameras can often be quite complicated, we suggested. ‘[This] complicated operation is fit for the customer they started shooting from video. On the other hand there are professional [stills] photographers: they are not yet used to using video, their demand is easy operation. So there are two types types of people. It’s a big problem.”

What the hell Nikon!!! This is madness.

In a world in which the market share for dedicated stills cameras is massively declining each & every year, Nikon can not survive by focusing on only 1 or 2 niches, they need a broader platform to support themselves. The video/film world is an obvious & natural next step for them.

As Eric Calabros commented on this interview as well:

We’ve always been wondering why Nikon, that has no Cinema line to protect, literally resists to offer pro video features. and now, in this DPR interview, I can see why. They fear the pro video features confuse their conservative still shooter user base! Really unbelievable! Yea, maybe they’re right, many of their customers have no clue what video is, let alone stuff like log profile, focus peaking, color sampling, codecs, LUTs, grading,… and even if they need to record a short clip they want it to be just Start/Stop operation. But how on earth this can be justifiable excuse to not delivering features serious video shooters are asking for years? Just add a dedicated menu, or charge for Premium Firmware if you wish, whatever. Why it should be a “big problem” for a company that brought the video to the world of DSLR?

What many do not realise is Nikon are ahead of Canon when it comes to DSLRs  vor video (if you focus on only comparing their stock DSLR bodies, and ignore Canon’s Cinema line up as they’re not DSLRs), but the gain in switching brands is not really large enough for everyone (it is for some though) to make it worth switching. Because people’s very large investment in lenses (and other brand specific accessories, such as batteries and flashes) makes it a considerable expense (in time & money) to switch brands. Thus people tend to be stick with staying with the same brand even if the improvements are only quite small each time.

As if you’re going to switch away from Canon…. why not just go to Sony or Panasonic instead? That is Nikon’s problem in attracting video shooters away from Canon, they can’t just moderately beat Canon in the video world by little bits (like they have with the D5200, D750, D500, etc). Especially not while they’re stilling lacking a pathway up from DSLRs for video shooters.

Many many many of the thousands upon thousands of Canon DSLR video shooters moved on up to using a Canon C100 (and of course many then moved on up to the C300 after that, and a few even to the C500. Thus the huge Canon DSLR base of video shooters acted as a feeder network into their Cinema range, which in turn then encouraged more people to start out with a Canon DSLR for filming with).

Nikon needs to also bring out a higher end above that is focused on video to complement their video DSLRs (such as the Canon C100/C300 and Sony FS5/FS7 does).

As for their DSLRs, Nikon needs to just have one setting: “Unlock Pro Video Settings”

Default send it shipped out set to “Off”, but then users can switch it to “On” which will enable several more pages and submenus worth of video settings to be viewable. Then when it gets enabled you can have access to all the goodies such as Waveforms, heaps of codec options, LUTs, log profiles, 10bit 422 internal, and more! (is what I dream of!)

But when  “Unlock Pro Video Settings” is set to “Off” all that complexity is hidden away, and the user is presented with a simple interface just like Nikon has now for video. This is not a new concept in UI, this is often implemented on many devices already.

 

photokina-nikon

Confirmed: confidential Panasonic GH5 prototype exists, is being tested by users outside of Panasonic.

Posted on by David Peterson

UPDATE: nope, unfortunately it is just the Panasonic FZ2500 (unless Panasonic has another superzoom camera secretly under development it plans to release very shortly after the just announced FZ2500??? While an FZ2500 with a constant f2.8 lens would be wonderful, I highly doubt Panasonic is bringing out a new camera for this particular niche so soon after the FZ2500 announcement).

This does however strike me as very odd, that Panasonic lends “The Camera Store TV”  a camera marked “confidential“ which has been announced in all its detail, can be pre-ordered, and even has had many multiple hands on reviews online already. So why on earth mark it “confidential“??

Anyway, you can see for yourself by looking at this picture of the Panasonic FZ2500 and comparing it with the image from Jordan Drake, they appear to be the same:

bildschirmfoto-2016-09-25-um-08-38-38

First photo of the Panasonic GH5 in action out in the wild! There had been doubters as to if Panasonic is up to the stage yet of having a prototype Panasonic GH5 body to hand out to outside testers to try out the GH5 for feedback to give Panasonic, well you can’t get a clearer confirmation than this:

instagram-thecamerastoretv-gh5-confidential-prototype

https://www.instagram.com/p/BKvyqb-DPIo/

Clearly by just looking at the picture you can tell it is a Panasonic body! But if you need even further proof of this, you can see Panasonic Lumix Canada’s response on Instagram “Anything for you guys Jordan !!” (Jordan is the name of the videographer for The Camera Store TV) and on Twitter:

 

Next question is which Panasonic body is this?? Due to the placement of the viewfinder we can say there are only four possibilities:

1) Panasonic GH4 successor (a Panasonic GH5)

2) Panasonic G80 successor (a Panasonic G90)

3) this is just an old photo taken before the Panasonic G80 announcement (but only now being shared after the G80 announcement)

4) an entirely new line of cameras

 

As the Panasonic G80 only just came out, and we already saw the Panasonic G7 released after the Panasonic GH4 came out, it seems very unlikely there will be a Panasonic G90 coming out before the Panasonic GH5 is released.

While there is maaaaaybe a chance Panasonic is releasing a new line up of cameras, perhaps their take on a Canon C100 body but with a MFT sensor inside it? That however seems very unlikely.

If you compared this picture with the back of the Panasonic G80, you can see it clearly is not the G80. So we can rule out that possibility.

Thus the only reasonable conclusion we can have, is that this is the Panasonic GH4 successor, and we’re seeing here the first ever picture of the Panasonic GH5 body in action (and not just the mock up that Panasonic showed at Photokina hidden in a glass case).

How does this compare to the current Panasonic GH4 body:

panasonic-dmc-gh4-back

 

We can see this Panasonic GH5 prototype has moved the Q.MENU button up to be next to the AF/AE LOCK button, and thus presumably the record button has been moved elsewhere? I wonder where…. presumably on the top, like we can see here on the Panasonic GH5 mock up shown at Photokina:

photokina-panasonic-gh5-body-top

(one small notable difference between these two pictures however is that Photokina Panasonic GH5 mock up appears to have a button (small joystick?!) located between the AF/AE LOCK and the EVF, however you can’t see this in the Instagram picture? Unless maybe the angle of the photo means it is obscured by the eyecup, but I doubt it)

 

Couple of key conclusions we can take from this is that Panasonic is well developed along their process of bringing out the Panasonic GH5, so we can be very confident it is indeed on track to be released in the first half of 2017, and that it is very encouraging that Panasonic is actively seeking out and getting feedback from a wide range of top notch users (such as Jordan Drake, Illya Friedman, Griffin Hammond, Luke Neumann, Chris Niccolls, & Nick Driftwood, just to name a few). Means the Panasonic GH5 is sure to be an excellent and well polished product when it is launched! (just like the GH1/GH2/GH3/GH4 have each been!)