Prior to the Canon R and Nikon Z announcements, the Internet (and my In Box) was filled with "Sony is Invincible" messages. Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but you know what I mean if you read any of the mirrorless/DSLR fora messages prior to August. Sony was on a roll. Only Sony has the technologies needed. Only Sony will survive. Doom and gloom for everyone else.
Well, that settled out pretty differently. I suspect Nikon will have one of their best quarters ever this quarter. Canon users seem happy with the R.
It now seems we have Canon fora talking reasonably intelligently about the R, Nikon fora talking reasonably intelligently about the Z, and Sony fora talking reasonably intelligently about the A7/A9. Just as it should be. The Fan Boy anti-Canikon marketing campaign seems to have disappeared and been replaced with reasonable discussions for the time being. That makes you wonder whether some of those older anti-Canikon messages were Sony-fed FUD via anonymous posters.
Unfortunately, there's a new victim starting to emerge.
The new "you are doomed" format is m4/3.
I do have some concerns about m4/3: I don't know how you can continue to sell US$2000 m4/3 cameras that are as large as a full frame camera that sells for the same amount, for example. But that's a little different than "you are doomed." It really means that Olympus and Panasonic will need to double down on the things that make m4/3 unique. It'll be tough to stay close with pixel count or dynamic range when compared with full frame, for example. So size once again is what they need to pay closer attention to.
And that's a tricky area to master. The Canon EOS M5 is a pretty small camera, after all, with a bigger sensor and access to a lot of legacy lenses.
To me, a good m4/3 mirrorless camera really now needs to sit about where I've always wanted a compact travel camera to sit. I keep looking at the E-M10m3 and the Panasonic GX line (what happened to the GM?) as where I want something a bit more capable than what we currently have available. A "perfect" E-M10 matched with the trio of f/1.8 Olympus primes would be nearly jacket pocketable (obviously, both pockets), yet more capable than any compact I've wandered around with.
I'm also struck by the fact that there still isn't a perfect vlogger ILC that's supremely portable, and Panasonic's emphasis on video means they ought to be tackling that, and m4/3 seems perfect for that.
Ignore the "m4/3 is doomed" messages. Instead, tell Olympus and Panasonic what you really want in the format. Maybe they'll listen.
