With the announcements of the new full frame mirrorless from Sony I was thinking of the challenge faced by the engineers and sales teams at son,pan,can,nik,pen,etc.

How impossible it must be to design and bring a camera to market with a mind on what will be required of it in 3.5-4 years time. I say 3-4 years because to have a decent shelf life a camera must have certain features which are thought out so that even someone considering buying the product in the twilight of its availability will be confident of its continued relevance. You wonder how many of the products being announced and released in the next few months will have that longevity in our minds?

It seems an impossible goal that few companies are positioned to deliver on. The main problem with cameras being released now is that many of them will not be products that can be significantly updated or refreshed for two years. The very idea of releasing an electronic product with a firmware and NOT updating it each quarter and giving it new features seems itself outdated and guarantee of obsolescence.

Probably this post does not belong in a GH3 thread but I wonder how panasonic is facing this type of challenge with the GH3.

Is it known if the GH3 will support UHS-I transfer mode?

TBH I don´t know why a full frame camcorder would compete with a "small" hybrid camera..

Thing is, most manufacturers opt for "enough" improvements to sell their equipment without any real view for further improvement (of the same product). There is a possibility for differentiation here; if a manufacturer indeed would take a genuinely modular approach with continous firmware + hardware updates, they could potentially get a very loyal circle of customers (much like RED). However, that would also put the price a bit above the "latest tech".

Personally; I think the actual camera / picture making box is very much expendable. There´s other equipment that retains its value in a completely different way, like optics, lighting, supports e.t.c. and above all; SKILL is in the end the only thing that can turn equipment into something useful.

@Kihlian @RRRR I wasn't comparing the Sony VG-900 to GH3 they are very different offerings. It was just that the VG-900 made me think about the speed of progress and how manufacturers hedge against it.

@Aria I agree.

It does look like the GH3 will stand unique in it's offering.

@svart I keep reading dimensions for S35 that peg it as larger thany # quoted for the GH2 (and much closer to 1.5x crop APS-C) in terms of the longest side. How would one measure the GH2 sensor dimensions to find it the same as S35?

In either case, regardless of the accuracy of the measurement, I can agree that DOF is rarely a limiting factor on the GH2 and the option to use fast lenses like the Voightlander f/0.95 options makes both shallower DOF and improved lowlight performance possible.

Nonetheless, there are a lot of beautifully cinematic applications that could work very well with a properly implemented FF sesnor. So I keep rooting for a DSLR (or other) that does for that sensor what the GH2 has done for M43: help show it in best light, video-wise, for a mass-market.

As much as I love the GH line the thing about these new FF cams is that they also have the APS-C crop modes with allow you to tame that DOF if that's what you need for that scene. A cam like the VG900 will have an advantage in that regard, cuz you have 2 camera looks in one. If Nikon hadn't dropped the ball on the D4 it would be a monster of a camera with FF, DX and CX crops. If they had gotten the processing right and delivered the same quality across each crop mode that would be an incredible camera value. In some ways it still is, if you don't mind the softness at FX and DX mode. To be honest those scenes where you'd most want to use the shallow DOF would be on shots that aren't super critical for super sharpness.

GH3 has it's ETC mode and multiple high frame rates so there's that, but they can't match that FF look if someone wants that. I think that having a GH3 as the main cam and a FF just for what it offers in order to augment the kit is about as good as it gets. The GH3 being a more affordable system makes it perfect as a supplement to a FF cam. The GH3 would really shine at the long end. I'm thinking the GH3 will be the ultimate sidekick for just about any camera.

@Aria

I really do not care about "FF look".

@Vitaliy_Kiselev, you know it's funny cuz as i've shot things using my Rokkor-X 50mm f1.4 and 85mm f2 I often get more shallow DOF than I need. I can't imagine how hard it must be to keep focus with a FF. I have seen some scenes that had that really strong DOF look and it worked. It's all in the way it's used. I couldn't take it for an entire film tho. It has to be used sparingly and for a purpose IMO.

More important to me than DOF is DR. If Pany could give us a really improved DR with improved highlight handling i'd be ecstatic. That and 4:2:2 color. Those are really my top hopes for improvements in the GH3. To get that in camera with the high bit rate Intra sounds tasty.

@Kihlian

How? Hacked physics?

@thepalalias

I think key here not at F8, but "above F8", like F32 :-)

I see it like FF cameras are very limited for overall video use. Bad in low light conditions (you need to step down a lot to get a reasonable focal plane), bad for controlling focus. The optimal span is between s16 and s35, for most video/film work. With that said, check out Playground by Tati if you can find a high resolution copy. Shot on 70mm film. No shallow focus whatsoever. Brilliant use of the medium. (unfortunately for Tati, it didn´t work out financially, he had bankrupted himself personally to complete the movie and most theaters couldn´t even show 70mm copies - suffice to say it didn´t last long in the cinemas when it first came out - legendary film, nonetheless).

@AKED Wooha! That's a really good news! So you will be able to text (maybe images) live-blog the press event? :)