Antony Shepherd commented here about the new Panasonic G9II:
"So, if it's as big as a full-frame camera, and costs around the same, then why not just get the full-frame camera? That just sounds odd to me. Wasn't one of the basic points of micro 4/3 cameras that the cameras could be smaller and lighter?"
The way I look at, it's a case of unrelated conceptual frameworks colliding, as it were.
It's a funny situation, kind of. On the one hand, you have "this is a smaller sensor, so everything can be smaller, more compact, and more portable." On the other hand, you have, "higher quality / more expensive stuff has to be bigger." Japanese camera companies are certainly not the originators of the bigger-is-better concept—if anything, I'd be inclined to lay that at the feet of Americans—but they seem absolutely devoted to the proposition when it comes to marketing cameras. "Better and more expensive" almost always means "bigger and more complicated." When something like that is consistent and persistent, it becomes a signifier—meaning, it telegraphs a message; in this case, "I'm better than others and I have more money than others do." Once "big and complex" becomes a signifier of status and luxury, then you're stuck with it. You can't redefine "better" in a different way. Every now and then someone will make a weak attempt to go against the grain, but not enough people catch on and the attempt fizzles.
For instance, when it comes to single family homes (which I think are among of the worst consumer products on the market, in need of a thorough rethink), signifiers include excessive size, architectural excrescences galore, deluxe materials festooned arbitrarily about, and sybaritic amenities such as hot tubs, saunas, wine cellars, and home theater rooms with huge billowy leather-shrouded loungers in rows. And of course middle-class people spend the most money on the kitchen, so the kitchen has to be in the living room where they can show it off. A different definition of "luxury" might be: a house that is "just big enough," energy efficient, designed for safety and low maintenance, intended to be long-lasting, beautifully crafted, and thought-through from the start to be age-in-place friendly. But that is not how we define luxury.
Thank heavens for Leica, which is different enough and independent enough that it can go its own way. It does follow a different definition of luxury. The original "Barnack camera" was conceived to be small and portable, and, with the M10, the digital M actually got smaller than its predecessor. And even Leica's outgoing high-quality flagship, the S3 (discontinued in July and not slated to be replaced until 2025), is pretty simple, even by comparison to a mid-level Japanese ILC.
But the G9II is actually not that "big" when you consider the much smaller lenses. (Most TOP regulars know this, I know.) That's where you save the weight and size. Look for instance at both identical-looking cameras, Micro 4/3 and FF, with equivalent 24–70mm lenses of exactly the same speed. Not subtle!
Mike
(Illustration courtesy B&H Photo)
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Featured Comments from:
Brian Fisher: "Railfan photographer here. Yes! Smaller lenses and the knowledge that I'm using an aperture two stops brighter than I would have with a full frame body. If I don't need it to stop motion I get to drop my ISO."
Jason Melancon: "I use Micro 4/3 professionally (location portraiture). Micro 4/3 cameras were not even possible for me to use professionally until they became large enough to be comfortable in my hand for a shoot of many hours. And I don't have particularly large hands. The smaller Micro 4/3 cameras are fine for EDC [everyday carry —Ed.] or vacation/trip snaps but those are different use-cases. Even though the Panasonic S5II/G9II ergonomics feel good to me, certainly good enough, I would have been happier still if the G9II matched the slightly larger grip size of the G9. As Mike points out, the weight savings, which is meaningful, is in the glass, particularly zooms."
Håkan Andersson: "I totally buy the argument about the lenses being smaller. I shoot with a G9 today and enjoy the 'full' size of that body but really appreciate the relatively small lenses. Another striking comparison is if you mount the 70–200mm on a full-frame body and compare that with the 'equivalent' 35–100mm on a G9. I'm quite tempted to get the G9 II (mainly for the upgraded autofocus) but I'm afraid I will miss the top-plate LCD quite a bit. Why on earth did they get rid of that?!?"
David Comdico: "The benefit of a big body that houses a small sensor is for video. You can shoot all day and it will not overheat."
Thinking about cameras and this issue— could this be part of why the Mamiya 6 ad the Mamiya 7 were never as successful as they "should have been"? Because they were notably small.
Posted by: David Dyer-Bennet | Monday, 18 September 2023 at 01:19 AM
Thinking about cameras and this issue— could this be part of why the Mamiya 6 ad the Mamiya 7 were never as successful as they "should have been"? Because they were notably small.
Posted by: David Dyer-Bennet | Monday, 18 September 2023 at 01:24 AM
"Once "big and complex" becomes a signifier of status and luxury, then you're stuck with it. You can't redefine "better" in a different way." This is exactly the issue with modern mechanical watches. Ponderous and blingy, the contemporary man jewelry.
Posted by: Kodachromeguy | Monday, 18 September 2023 at 04:02 AM
In the first Jurassic Park film (sorry Movie) doesn't the lawyer asks the kid who is messing with the Night Vision Goggles in the back of the car- "are they HEAVY- then they must be expensive" to paraphrase.
Posted by: martyn elwell | Monday, 18 September 2023 at 05:39 AM
You say "..Japanese camera companies are certainly not the originators of the bigger-is-better concept—if anything, I'd be inclined to lay that at the feet of Americans—but they seem absolutely devoted to the proposition when it comes to marketing cameras".
I dunno: take the Sony RX100 series ..very, very small, and they just got better and better; better sensor, better lens, better viewfinder, higher-speed slo-mo (for videos), brilliant stabilisation ..terrific cameras! ..and they disappear into the palm of your hand.
What about Sony's little WX350? ..Perhaps you've been looking only at BIG cameras, and so haven't noticed any of the great -s-m-a-l-l- cameras.
Look at the marvellous (except for battery life) Sony A7 series: small and light (..though the lenses have got bigger). I think there must have been an eye cast towards Mr Maitani, and his outstanding reduction of the SLR to the size of a screw-thread Leica with the OM-1 and OM-2.
The Japanese have been great on miniaturisation (remember the first teeny Sony pocket transistor radio, the pocket Walkman, the teensy high quality 'earbuds'?)
"..And even Leica's outgoing high-quality flagship, the S3 . . . is pretty simple, even by comparison to a mid-level Japanese ILC.." ah, but now you're writing about apparent complexity, not size. Many Japanese cameras have an enormous menu of opportunities, but - once set how you like them - you may never, ever have to touch a menu again.
Like car dials and gauges ..you don't HAVE to keep staring at the oil pressure gauge, the oil temperature gauge, the fuel gauge (unless you're getting low), the engine temperature gauge, the rev counter: they're there for an occasional glance now and then, that's all.
Same with multiple-option camera menus; set and forget.
Posted by: David B. | Monday, 18 September 2023 at 07:04 AM
There have been many small m4/3s bodies over the years, but Panasonic seems to have stopped building them for the moment. The G9 II is a bit bigger than the OM-1, which are flagship models with all the bells and whistles, but no one ever compares them with Nikon D6 or Canon R3.
To bolster the "why does m4/3 still exist" argument, it might make more sense to compare with APS/C, except that only Fuji really sells an APS/C system that can be considered complete, i.e., lots of lens choice. It's difficult to beat the current m4/3s lens choice.
There was a funny comment on an m4/3s site at the time that dpreview looked like it was going to disappear. One commenter wrote that with dpreview gone, maybe the shilling for "full-frame" would stop. (I can't find the link right now.)
One could look at it from another point of view, not unlike with single family homes. Why do people want houses that are too large for them? Why do people want "full-frame" systemsin the first place? In the early days of D-SLRs, you might have made the case that people had an arsenal of older lenses so it made sense to buy compatible bodies. But that argument was a crock of nonsense, judging by all the new lenses introduced since, not to mention the move to ful-frame mirrorless, which means buying even more new bodies and lenses.
Very little of this is rational.
Posted by: Robert Roaldi | Monday, 18 September 2023 at 07:10 AM
If you drive a small car (historically and globally known as a... car), you're literally never far away from the reality that in America bigger is better. It's right in your face as you gaze underneath the lifted SUVs and trucks exceeding the speed limit and passing you on double yellow lines.
Your phrase "architectural excrescences galore" made me laugh and brought to mind one of my favorite movies, an older Australian film called "The Castle" that is, as my Aussie wife would say, chock-a-block with memorable gags and quotes. It's also the film we facetiously refer people to when they ask about life Down Under.
Jump to 9:18 to see some real architectural excrescences.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fUL75TeNrI
Posted by: ASW | Monday, 18 September 2023 at 09:13 AM
>>when you consider the much smaller lenses.
This is especially evident for wildlife photography. Compare a 600mm Canikon f/4 with the 300mm Olympus f/4. Both have the same reach. Only one is easily hand-holdable without spending 4 hours a day on the weight machines in the gym.
Posted by: Bill Tyler | Monday, 18 September 2023 at 09:47 AM
A welcome post. Lense size is the key. That’s one reason M mount lenses remain popular even though they are manual focus.
Posted by: Jack Mac | Monday, 18 September 2023 at 10:14 AM
I have a G9 and an S5 II . They are very similar in size. I use both but use the longer zooms on the G9 for the very reason you illustrated. I also have an SR1, which is a real brick but makes lovely files. I understand that the G9II is basically an S5 body with a micro 4/3 sensor. They all do the job and are well built, so a hands on appraisal is called for.
Posted by: James Weekes | Monday, 18 September 2023 at 10:24 AM
An astute and obvious, albeit poorly marketed example that today’s cameras should be smaller packages on the whole, body plus lenses. And, yes, there’ll always be a demand for bigger and perceived “better”. This re-affirms my belief in 4/3, though, and Panasonic has made the correct call in producing a similar body for both, facilitating more than a few correlated possibilities between the formats, covering what’s left of the ILC market better. I’m hoping the next breakthrough in camera/lens design will address this discrepancy in formats, perhaps with some new adaptions of floating anamorphic lens elements?
Posted by: Bob G. | Monday, 18 September 2023 at 10:25 AM
There are two parts to a camera's physical size and exterior look. Besides the obvious way these meet the needs of the person behind it, the other factor is how it it perceived by those in front of the camera, whether as a formal subject or just someone within the environment that the shooter is operating.
Sometimes a large camera can give the photographer "instant cred" especially among the uninitiated to the camera world. This might be just what you need, or it can be a detriment when you want to remain unnoticed such as a street photographer might wish.
It was always great in the film days that you could grab a big Nikon F3 with the MD-4 attached and "look" the part or palm a Leica M6 and disappear into a crowd and yet put the same film stock in both cameras and get results that didn't differ in terms of the capture specs.
I'm sort of enjoying this today with my Fujifilm system. I have a tiny X-E3, a moderate X-T2 and X-Pro2, all with the exact same sensor and processor so I can replicate the film thing about picking my camera for the situation with no compromise on the final image. It is nice to have choices.
Posted by: Albert Smith | Monday, 18 September 2023 at 10:47 AM
Leica is always expensive, from 193x onwards.
Posted by: Dennis Ng | Monday, 18 September 2023 at 11:03 AM
Agree with your conclusion; my preference is a medium or large camera with small-ish lenses. If the camera is too small, the ergonomics suffer, but relatively tiny m43 lenses keep the overall size/weight down considerably, most dramatically if you are carrying several lenses.
Posted by: AN | Monday, 18 September 2023 at 11:20 AM
Mike wrote in part. "For instance, when it comes to single family homes (which I think are among of the worst consumer products on the market, in need of a thorough rethink), signifiers include excessive size, architectural excrescences galore, deluxe materials festooned arbitrarily about, and sybaritic amenities such as hot tubs, saunas, wine cellars, and home theater rooms with huge billowy leather-shrouded loungers in rows."
This is what magazines and newspapers and the internet would have you thinking and apparently believing. I've spent my life living in and among single family homes that lack all or any of those "architectural excrescences". I have visited homes of people with the means to stuff an oversized home with all of the above and have seen none of them. Maybe a pool table or two.
But, as with cameras, it's their money.
Posted by: Speed | Monday, 18 September 2023 at 11:57 AM
When I decided to dive into M4/3, I first looked at an Olympus EM5. It was uncomfortably small in my hands. My first camera was a Lumix G5 - still too small but tolerable. I soon upgraded to GH3 (better) then a GX8 (love the camera’s size but not the style), and finally the G9 arrived. The size is almost just right and it has more features than I need . It is absolutely the best camera for me. I can put it and all 15 of my lenses covering 7.5 fisheye to 600mm equivalent in a LowePro AW400 backpack and it all weighs less than 20 pounds!
The G9II looks like it will be the “perfect size” for me and I doubt it would affect my carry weight very much. I don’t think many who already use a G9 would be bothered by the size. However, for me it has even more features I do not need and the G9 is sufficient for now. I do not need phase detect focusing, more megapixels, or improved video features in a camera used for still photography only.
I have been waiting to see what they would do for the G9 follow up. Now that it is out, I will likely buy another G9 and put it on the shelf until my current G9 fails while continuing to us the GX8 as backup.
What new camera would tempt me? I would love a G9 with a 16 mp sensor (or better yet a 12 mp sensor) with the new technology. After all, today it is very easy to up-res the file to much larger than 25 mp, especially if you have less noise to start with! Also, a setting to disable and remove all video centric menus to simplify things would be nice and probably easy to do. However, I know all that is a pipe dream!
Posted by: Paul B | Monday, 18 September 2023 at 11:58 AM
I was actually an M43 user, up until a couple of years ago. It was the weight comparison that actually exited me from M43.
My EM5 was getting rather worn out and obsolete. I wanted a one lens solution for hiking and travel. I had already started using a D810 with various prime shift lenses for my architectural photography.
To cut the story short. I discovered an EM1 with the 12-100 lens weighed about the same as a Z7 with a 24-200. I went for the Z7. I could have gone for the Z5 or 6 to save money.
The D810 had already made me a bit dissatisfied with the M43 sensor. My EM5 just could not match the creamy colour and tonal transitions of the D810, or even a D700 used to test the FF waters.
Shadow detail recovery with my D810 was on another planet compared to M43. M43 is fine for "easy" light situations.
For small camera duties, I have a little LX100 and my new iPhone 14 is surprising good in this department too.
For travel and hiking the Z7 +24-200 is surprisingly lightweight, and no hassle to carry slung over my shoulder.
I believe the M43 moment has passed. Panasonic has made the same error with this G9 that Olympus made with the ridiculously big EM1X.
As for lenses. Up to 200mm if you can live with F4, FF lenses are not so much bigger or heavier than the M43 2.8 lenses. The Olympus 7-14 2.8 is a beast of a lens, heavier than my Z14-30
Posted by: Nigel Voak | Monday, 18 September 2023 at 12:09 PM
I never understood opening up the kitchen to the living area for practical reasons. For builders it saves money and I've noticed the builders reduce room sizes as the open concept appears large enough. People have followed along to the open concept living as people love to follow trends.
Regarding M4/3 camera size, I went from a Nikon D300 to a Lumix GX7. I loved the small camera and lenses for travel and street photography. But the GX7 was a bit small for my hands as buttons got in the way of my thumb for carrying with a wrist strap which is my preference. The Lumix G9 seems to be the perfect size for carrying for me. The G9 is still smaller than a D300 and as you perfectly point out the lenses are a huge difference. The Nikkor 24-70 2.8 vs the Olympus 12-40 2.8 pro in size is amazing in length and weight alone.
Posted by: Dan | Monday, 18 September 2023 at 12:26 PM
The woman you probably should have been chasing after all your life is an architect named Sarah Susanka and she used to live in Minneapolis but now lives in North Carolina, I'm told. She wrote a fairly revolutionary book some decades back called "The Not So Big House." That's turned into a writing franchise. Her idea are quite interesting.
https://susanka.com/not-so-big-house/
Posted by: John Camp | Monday, 18 September 2023 at 01:02 PM
Despite all the hullabaloo around this bold camera last week (some made exiting reviews without even touching the camera) the preorders are according to mirrorlessrumors.com extremely low. Hopefully a wake-up call for Panasonic.
Posted by: s.wolters | Monday, 18 September 2023 at 01:30 PM
Plus one on here for everyone that says M4/3rds weak point was tiny hard to use bodies. I use it professionally as well, and use both Panny and Oly (even tho the Oly is barely useable), and always had a problem with the body size and “handle ability”. It’s the small and sharp lenses that are the key. I’ve often thought that Oly just needs to make a body with simple, easy to understand dial settings, on an Om-1 body and call it a day.
Posted by: Crabby Umbo | Monday, 18 September 2023 at 06:29 PM
Mike said:
A different definition of "luxury" might be: a house that is "just big enough," energy efficient, designed for safety and low maintenance, intended to be long-lasting, beautifully crafted, and thought-through from the start to be age-in-place friendly. But that is not how we define luxury.”
Made me think of:
“Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier. Social subjects, classified by their classifications, distinguish themselves by the distinctions they make, between the beautiful and the ugly, the distinguished and the vulgar, in which their position in the objective classifications is expressed or betrayed.”
Introduction from:
Distinction:
A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste
by Pierre Bourdieu.
Posted by: Sean | Tuesday, 19 September 2023 at 10:10 AM
The OM-1 with a 100-400mm zoom offers the top AFC performance at the lowest price and smallest, lightest kit for potable wildlife shooting: half the weight and half or less the price compared to any of those 500mm or 600mm zooms on full-frame. If the G9ii can perform better AF for wildlife, its 100-400mm kit would be even less expensive and a few more pixels per duck.
For those assuming a 500mm or 600mm on full frame will have better image quality, the need to crop to DX/APS-C in order to match the view as 400mm on m4/3 will reduce IQ to the same as any 20MP m4/3 sensors from ISO 200 and up:
https://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/PDR.htm#Nikon%20Z%207II(DX),Nikon%20Z%209(DX),Olympus%20System%20OM-1,Panasonic%20Lumix%20DC-G9,Sony%20ILCE-1(APS-C),Sony%20ILCE-7RM5(APS-C).
Posted by: Tony T | Tuesday, 19 September 2023 at 02:06 PM
Comparison of the Panasonic G9II and GM5:
https://camerasize.com/compare/#913,570
The GM5 shows just how small an EDC m4/3 ILC camera can be, and it has an electronic view finder! I don't understand why camera makers are resistant to including a protuberant grip on their smaller cameras. It's needed even more if one has large hands.
Posted by: jp41 | Wednesday, 20 September 2023 at 01:26 AM