Panasonic Mangers Michiharu Uematsu and Yoshiyuki Inoue have been interviewed by the DPreview team (Click here). Here are some interesting points:
1) It is not possible to add Focus Peaking and Zebra Pattern on the GH3: “We haven’t been able to offer it – because of the limits of resources and of the Venus Engine processor.”
2) And Panasonic also admits that they are rethinking the whole G product strategy. Something I suspected after the “non-GX2 release” in late 2012: “We are considering the next GX, that’s all I can say. It’s been better received than the GF series in European countries. Our first thought was that the people who would want our cameras were step-up users from compact cameras. Outside of Japan this hasn’t been true and some high-end amateurs have accepted the cameras.”
3) About the future compact camera strategy: “Maybe we should have a premium model, maybe with bigger sensor. However, that takes engineering resources and you have to worry about price and the extra quality it will offer people – if we can sell 100,000 or 200,000, we will make it”
4) And than some very honest words about marketing: “We have to consider how to market image quality. Other people can say “we have a bigger sensor,” but a combination of a not-so-big sensor and a brighter lens can be maybe better, but you have to explain F-number – it’s very difficult.‘”
Yep, we know it…it’s hard to make people understand that sensor size is just one of the many factors that do matter for image quality. I believe that usability and well thought features are now more important than a tiny difference in image quality. But as a filmmaker and photographer I can say that even most of my so called (pro) colleagues do not really understand this. And they keep wondering when tey see me using the [shoplink 28308 ebay]Olympus E-P1[/shoplink] with a [shoplink 15659]Nokton 25mm[/shoplink] lens!
