In Anticipation of Panasonic’s Announcement of the GH5

I’m no Panasonic hater, and I don’t mean to piss on your parade, but – anyone who thinks the GH5 is going to somehow render the Fuji obsolete is just fooling themselves. Not a few reviewers, comparing the G85 to the X-T2, ended up choosing the Lumix, not because of Panasonic’s stupendous color science, brilliant low light sensitivity or lightning fast AF, but because they need a camera with IBIS and flippy touch screen. And not a few readers preferred to have those features as well; and let’s face it, not everyone wants to shell out $3,000 for a new camera, battery grip and lens. The Fuji will still have superior dynamic range, vastly better low light performance, faster and more accurate AFC and exquisite color, as well as cleaner 4K than the GH5. Maybe you’ve forgotten, but the BMPCC didn’t have a flippy screen or IBIS either: serious filmmakers got it for the images it could produce. Sure, the Fuji is primarily a stills camera, but so is the Canon 5D; and I’ve seen more breathtakingly beautiful videos on the Web made with the Canon than with any other camera. And when Voigtlander produced fully manual primes without OIS, I didn’t hear anyone shout ‘fail!’ and many filmmakers still use them proudly. Their build and imaging quality is unsurpassed, as is the Fuji’s. So go ahead – enjoy your 400 megabits or bytes, your 4K 60p, whatever, but please don’t go  carrying on like Panasonic is better than Sony, Olympus, Fuji or whoever.