The Big Switcheroo
Snooze alert. If you’re not into gear talk stop here.
I feel like I’ve cheated and it feels a little wrong. But in the long run, I think this new love will satisfy me like no other. What am I talking about? I broke up with Canon and went with Panasonic.
I can hear it now…”PANASONIC?! Why Panasonic!?" Well before I get into that let’s talk about my long relationship with Canon.
I’d been using Canon for a while. I borrowed my moms 35mm AE-1 when I was 13 years old while we were on a family road trip. It was a trusty side kick. Sure, I toyed with the Pentax K1000 while in college because my mom wanted her camera back, but nothing ever came close to the Canon. In the 15+ years I used that thing I never needed it serviced (just saying that makes me long for the reliability of the film days). I’m not saying other brands were worse (I know the Nikon FE2 is a workhorse and Leicas wear a gold crown), it’s just the Canon did the job without any fuss.
Because of this I stuck with Canon when digital came around. I went from the Canon 20d to the 5d to the 5d Mrk II and just recently sold my Mrk IV along with every lens I owned (85mm f1.2 II, 70-200 2.8 II, 24-70 2.8 II and more). Enough has been said about the Mrk II and it’s video capabilities and how it changed the game for photographers (personally, I think the ability to shoot video saved that camera. The stills were pretty subpar). And an equal amount has been said about Canons downward turn since then. Like it’s inability to innovate, not jumping on the mirrorless bandwagon fast enough (technology I was skeptical of at first), and its lack of impressive video capability compared to its competitors.
Now to the present. I spent the past 3 years working in Ethiopia and my coworker mainly did video. He was working the Panasonic GH series. I was fortunate to shoot some jobs with them and really enjoyed the experience. I like the customizability of their bodies, the in-body stabilization, the video codecs, the ability to bake great sound into the files with the DMW-XLR1, and the fact they can shoot 10-bit 4:2:2, just to name a few of its features. As a stills shooter who’s been shooting more and more video, their video features were really appealing. Canon didn’t have any of this. Their Mrk IV was behind the times and their latest full frame mirrorless didn’t give me much confidence in their future.
Let me take a sidebar here. How is the image quality of the Panasonic? Great, as far as I can tell. And I’ve gotta tell you, there is this tendency in the photo world to dicker over which brand has the better Raw image. I’m not much of a technical guy but to me these arguments are pointless. Nowadays, nearly EVERY camera over $2500 takes superb images. Sure, maybe there are some slight differences but those differences aren’t noticeable to the majority of people looking at your photos. And who are those people? They’re everyday people, not pixel peepers or photographers like you and I. So if you and I can barely tell the difference between one sensor and the other, what’s the likelihood they will? (Steps off soapbox…)
But why not Sony? They’ve got great autofocus, right? Yes, they do. And I envy it (along with Canons). But all my life I’ve been a point➞focus➞recompose kind of guy. So the idea of doing the same with video or simply pulling focus never intimidated me. The fact that you can adjust the focus ring control gave me more confidence I would be okay with Panasonic.
One more thing to note, and this is just speculation, but I think DSLRs are dead. Mirrorless has taken over. I was convinced of this when I saw how much my top-tier Canon gear had depreciated (it was shocking).
So instead of letting my gear depreciate more while the DSLR ship sank I sold it all and went with mirrorless. Now I’m shooting with the Lumix S1. So far I’ve been really pleased with it.
But here’s the catch: Canon & Sony are expected to announce their new mirrorless bodies in the coming months (the R5 and a7S III respectively), though thanks to the Coronavirus I bet they won’t be shipping for a while. So I haven’t fully invested in Panasonic. Maybe they will announce something that changes the game? Maybe I’ll really want to go with one of them? If that happens, I can sell my Panasonics and jump ship again (thankfully I got a great deal on the S1 and wouldn’t loose any money).
I hope this was helpful to any of you who were looking into switching. If you’ve got questions or think I’m crazy let me know in the comments and we can fight it out over the internet like real men.