GEAR PANASONIC LUMIX S1H INTERVIEW
Masanori Koyama talks about why the S1H is ideal for next-generation filmmakers
A fter working for four years as an engineer in Panasonic’s compact camera division, Masanori Koyama switched over to the firm’s newmirrorless camera project 11 years ago and has been behind all the major new launches since. It’s his mission to work out what the market will want from its next camera, then oversee its spec, design and final delivery. Koyama has seen the market change from photographers using DSLRs to hybrid stills and motion picture shooters using mirrorless cameras.“Product planning is about strategy - deciding which cameras to launch to predict what users will want in the near future,” he says. He was in the right place at the right time when mirrorless cameras
mobile phones and social media, which helped Panasonic grow. “Now it’s much less about paper-based communication. Especially on social media, it’s not only about pictures, but also shooting video. Video has had massive growth and the GH series has always been strong in video recording, so it has been successful,” he explains. But Koyama realised the next step was to move on from social media users and tackle the needs of professional filmmakers and cinematographers who wanted the ultimate quality. And that required a different set of specs and a full- frame sensor for its low-light performance, as well as ability to more easily create a cinematic shallow depth-of-field.
were launched, and was quick to see their advantages for shooting video as well as stills. “I predicted mirrorless would not be just for stills, but for stills and filmmakers, as the technology used is similar to video cameras. A DSLR has a mirror that moves out of the way and takes one shot. Mirrorless is always capturing, so it’s far more like a video recording system. He continues: “We believed mirrorless systems were good for hybrid stills and video shooters. But in the beginning it was very hard to get people to understand this, especially as in the camera industry we had very big competitors, so we struggled to get accepted as we tried to compete with them.” But it was the rise in technology, especially the explosion of YouTube,
ABOVE Panasonic’s mirrorless champion Masanori Koyama with his team’s latest creation, the S1H
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PRO MOVIEMAKER WINTER 2019
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