Comment by josephg

I think it goes both ways for sure. My Sony mirrorless camera is incredible - and there's been lots of R&D work over decades that have made my camera possible.

But I got a DJI Ronin (handheld gimbal) the other day. Its a gamechanger. With the camera mounted on the gimbal, I can do handheld shots that you could easily use in a blockbuster movie.

The only downside is that the whole thing (camera + gimbal) is a very awkward package. The weight is in the wrong place. And that means the gimbal needs to be bigger and bulkier to compensate - which in turn makes it even more awkward to use. You could make a much better product by integrating the gimbal and camera. Put just the lens and sensor on the gimbal, but move the screen, battery and CPU to the "outside" package. Then you could shrink the gimbal itself and remove all the mounting hardware and manual weight adjustment sliders.

Apparently DJI has started making $10k cinema cameras along exactly these lines. I really hope the Japanese camera brands take notice. From a product standpoint, its a big deal - and I'm sure it won't be long before DJI makes much cheaper video cameras that start seriously eating Sony & Canon's market share.