Bill Koepsel wrote:
Just got a Panasonic Lumix g9 , great camera, does great work, but now I heard 4/3 will die? Can this
Be true????
Not according to Mr. Michiharu Uematsu, Ms. Emi Fujiwara and Mr. Taku Kariyazaki from Panasonic:
https://photorumors.com/2018/10/15/personalview-interview-with-panasonic-on-the-new-l-mount/Panasonic says it sees FF and MFT format as different markets. It says it is planning new MFT products.
Of course it would say that---but in this case, the MFT cameras seem to have sold pretty well (although
Panasonic doesn't report sales by product line, so good numbers are hard to come by).
Nothing is certain in business, but to recreate the DMC-G line in APS-C format as L-mount
would cost Panasonic a lot of money and would be unlikely to result in a bunch of additional sales.
If anything, Panasonic's participation in the L-Alliance will tend to keep existing MFT product
prices lower--which is a good thing for consumers and will help keep sales robust.
From what I've seen with other manufacturers, Panasonic is probably not too thrilled about paying
L-mount licensing fees to Leica. I have no inside information, but I don't think it wants to put all
its eggs in the L Alliance basket.
Panasonic is a huge company with a lot of digital camera lines and as long as it stays in the digital
camera business, it's likely to have many lines.
Smart phone users who ware looking to move up to a digital camera will probably find MFT more
congenial than expensive L or similar products. As a very big company, Panasonic is looking for a
big market.
One question: why start a topic with a subject line that assumes MFT is dying: "is it dead? Or dying?"
you asked. Why the presumption? Repeating rumors in topic headings is not helpful .