Panasonic "shocked, shocked" at idea of m4/3 rangefinder

With regard to the EVF cameras, I read a news story that the manufacturers have done market studies with and without the traditional SLR hump, and they've found that focus groups tend to prefer the cameras that resemble an SLR camera. It's just a marketing thing. Many people have a fixed idea of what a 'camera' should look like, and they tend to prefer those when buying.
 
Well, hump or humpless, if a camera came to market with a chip the size of the M8's but TTL focusing with Leica glass, and a bright EVF I'd be a-slobbering and a-drooling all over it. Time will tell.

Ben
 
Benjamin Marks said:
Well, hump or humpless, if a camera came to market with a chip the size of the M8's but TTL focusing with Leica glass, and a bright EVF I'd be a-slobbering and a-drooling all over it. Time will tell.

Ben
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I'm looking forward to eventual high-quality OLED EVF's that can be manually focused easily without engaging some sort of magnifying device. I'm sure it will happen in time.
 
IMHO you guys missed the most shocking part:
The lens part glass part software
Our visual system is part optics part software.
But a camera like this, with the lens that can only work on that body that knows how to alter the projected image!
I am yet 100% film, but this really make me willing to remain film forever
 
And notice: the lens is part software IN RAW!!
Whatever their justification I would not buy a camera like that for free.
I think the industry is really doing NOTHING. Sillyzation gadgetization coolization (colors of bodies etc.) and now pulling our legs with the hard software (may be tomorrow 90% software) lens.
Panasonic has a technology that recognize a number of specific persons. Now expect a war not on IQ, but to be the first to produce a camera that recognizes everybody on this planet
 
sure, as far as the rff niche is concerned. i am not sure if the mp is going to carry them into the future... which is already a few paces ahead.
 
The ‘cult of the mechanical rangefinder’ meets the market driven ‘homogenous dslr’ design.
Millions of opinionated, young, affluent consumers can’t be wrong. So a dSLR hump it is then.
‘faux dSLR’ is now an official, bleeding edge design concept, both m4/3 and Samsungs aps-c hybrid as examples.
If your technology deviates from current market offerings, just encase it in a SLR-esque exterior, Viola!
What’s the market for a faux rangefinder design anywayz?
Very surprised that the interviewer didn’t broach the compact APS-C hybrid subject. Just for a reaction at least.
How fast these formats change; seems standard 4/3 is already teetering on the edge. (As far as Pani is concerned)
For the m4/3 crowd, it’s get the product to market ASAP, before the next format (aps-c hybrid) has market influence.
 
Pistach said:
IMHO you guys missed the most shocking part:
The lens part glass part software
Our visual system is part optics part software.
But a camera like this, with the lens that can only work on that body that knows how to alter the projected image!
I am yet 100% film, but this really make me willing to remain film forever
Click to expand...

Pistach: I haven't made up my mind about this yet. Not sure I am shocked. I have a Panasonic LX-3, which performs this manipulation. But I think all cameras do to some extent, albeit with different parameters. My D3 or M8, for instance can use a custom WB and apply that to their RAW files. So a RAW file really isn't a sensor dump, regardless of what the camera co's have said. But suppose they could (and it seems that they can) "pre-correct" the barrel distortion that typically comes with cheap wide zooms. Why do you think that's a bad thing? It might put "lenses" of higher quality into the hands of more people. After all, no one "sees" with barrel distortion; and if your eyes did produce that sort of image "in camera" as it were, your brain would fix it up in a jiff as you "know" that straight edges don't bow as they recede in your field of vision. It isn't as shocking as a "slimming" feature or a camera that won't take a picture unless it "thinks" it sees smiles.

BTW, I didn't miss it. This news has been outraging photo-netizens for the past several weeks, so I didn't think it was new. What was new in the interview was the insight that Leica said "no thanks" to this sort of image manipulation (for reasons which have been the subject of intelligent speculation on another of today's RFF threads).

Quizzically,

Ben
 
Pistach said:
IMHO you guys missed the most shocking part:
The lens part glass part software
Our visual system is part optics part software.
But a camera like this, with the lens that can only work on that body that knows how to alter the projected image!
I am yet 100% film, but this really make me willing to remain film forever
Click to expand...

isn't this how human vision works, part optics part software?

😉
 
I'm not sure what the big deal is about lens corrections. It's all about hitting a price point in the market segment, and if software corrections help them get there, what is the problem?

If a customer wants top quality glass, designed without compromise, the option is there to spend more money if the buyer wants that...but the vast majority of the market that this camera is aimed at isn't going to care.
 
Roger Hicks said:
. . . and an expensive, complicated, mechanical coupled rangefinder?

Yeah, right. Joe has the truth of it. Oh: and it's Kobayashi.

Tashi delek,

Roger
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no, with autofocus like a p&s. manual focusing with a mechanical rangefinder will be leica and cosina's domain.

the feature i'd like most is a built in viewfinder with LED framelines that compensate for field shrinkage and parallax. maybe ricoh or sigma will come through for us on this point.
 
Bill, Roger, kuzano and maybe some others are arguing from a false premise. Yes, we are a niche market, but a niche market need not be "a market force" (a term someone else used, not one I am introducing) to be addressed. Epson/Cosina addressed the niche, and the fact that Epson has not committed to the dRF long-term is immaterial.

Zeiss has stated their interest, perhaps even intention, to make a dRF when certain technological objectives can be met.

Would this grow the niche into a market force? I think not. Actually I am dead certain it would not.

Bill, you may be "reality based", but how is that different from anyone else's self-assessment? Implicit in your statement is that you consider anyone who differs with you to be living in some sort of fantasy world, disconnected from reality. That does not mean that I don't value you as a person and forum member. We all live in our own reality. Perhaps a bit different approach and choice of words can keep our worlds from colliding; especially when the OP was an innocent reference to one part of an article where an executive from the (reputed) #5 camera producer feigns shock.
 
Good points

Good points

I know many LX3 users would love the camera more if they had an option to get the raw data without any corrections.

I wonder if Leica learned from this. With their M8 and 6-bit coding, they're certainly not opposed to doing some correction in selectable non-raw modes, so maybe it is with interchangeable lens systems that they draw the line.

Wiyum said:
But they did that exactly with the Panasonic LX3. And they liked it enough to market their own version, the Leica D-Lux4. And people seem to love both cameras. Is "interchangable lens" the sticking point, do you think?
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I'd be amazed if Panasonic has not considered an RF or RF-like design. Which isn't to say they'd actually make one, of course.

I know many LX3 users would love the camera more if they had an option to get the raw data without any corrections.
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Isn't that already possible with some third-party RAW converters? See here for example. I usually use ACR now (which does apply correction) but I recall that RawTherapee did not. I used PTLens to do it after the fact.
 
Trius said:
Bill, Roger, kuzano and maybe some others are arguing from a false premise. Yes, we are a niche market, but a niche market need not be "a market force" (a term someone else used, not one I am introducing) to be addressed. Epson/Cosina addressed the niche, and the fact that Epson has not committed to the dRF long-term is immaterial.

Zeiss has stated their interest, perhaps even intention, to make a dRF when certain technological objectives can be met.

Would this grow the niche into a market force? I think not. Actually I am dead certain it would not.

Bill, you may be "reality based", but how is that different from anyone else's self-assessment? Implicit in your statement is that you consider anyone who differs with you to be living in some sort of fantasy world, disconnected from reality. That does not mean that I don't value you as a person and forum member. We all live in our own reality. Perhaps a bit different approach and choice of words can keep our worlds from colliding; especially when the OP was an innocent reference to one part of an article where an executive from the (reputed) #5 camera producer feigns shock.
Click to expand...


who knew my brother was so smart?!!!

joe
 
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