Panasonic is looking towards the future of mirrorless

Oct 24, 2014 12:46 GMT  ·  By

This year Panasonic introduced the GH4, a 4K-ready camera that can shoot in this format at 30fps.

Even if the device hasn’t been out and about for long, it has become quite popular with consumers. At Photokina 2014, Panasonic took the opportunity to roll out a firmware update, which brought about things like 4K Photo Mode or the Loop Recording function.

But Panasonic is also thinking of the future of mirrorless cameras and is already sketching out the upcoming GH5 camera.

Panasonic working towards 8K too

As we already told you not so long ago, Sony has been tipped to be working on an 8K cinema camera, but the company is not the only one that believes this is the way to go.

The current GH4 can capture 4K video without the need of an external recorder, which means the footage can be stored directly on its own SD card.

But according to one of the company’s officials, the GH5 will come equipped with the capacity of shooting 4K video at 60fps and 8K video support too. Now this should give Micro Four Third fans something to think of fondly at night.

The information was revealed by Panasonic’s Todokoro Yoshifumi in an interview with Map Camera which revolved mainly on current products such as the Lumix LX100, Lumix GM5 or Lumix G 14mm f/2.5 II ASPH lens.

Sure, at this point everything revealed by the Panasonic rep might turn out to be just wishful thinking. But one thing’s for certain – the company has big plans while its mirrorless camera business is concerned.

As for other players in the mirrorless business like Canon and Nikon, they appear to be more guarded in slipping out details about future products from this department. But that’s not how Panasonic and Sony are doing things.

Is 8K even feasible?

We can only assume that 4K video in 60fps will look amazing, given the quality of 4K in 30 fps footage. However, 8K is something of an uncharted territory and not many device makers have ventured to talk about it.

Nevertheless, what’s certain at this point is that the technology still needs time to develop, as the Sony 8K camera is expected to go on sale in 2016. We shouldn’t expect the GH5 to go on sale any sooner, either.

Anyway, for the time being Panasonic is offering customers the possibility of picking up the GH4 camera which sells for a $1700 / €1342 a pop.