In a major black eye for the manufacturer, Panasonic was caught in the act of using an image taken with a Nikon camera on the product page for its latest release, the Panasonic Lumix S9.
It gets worse. Not only was the picture taken with a Nikon camera, but it was also taken by a former Nikon ambassador.
It gets worse. Not only is Panasonic using the image to represent the capabilities of the Lumix S9, but it has used the same image in the same way for at least one other camera: the Lumix GH5S. What the hell is going on?
If you go to the Japanese product page for the S9, specifically the Animal Recognition section, you’ll see a beautiful picture of two European bee-eaters (in addition to a picture of a beagle, which I’ll come back to). “‘Animal Recognition’ supports birds, canines (including wolves, etc.) and cats (including lions, etc.),” reads the Japanese text.
If you were anything like me, you’d assume that this photo – specifically used to demonstrate the capabilities of the camera’s autofocus system – was taken with the camera in question. Or, at least, using the autofocus system in question.
We would be wrong.
This photo was actually taken in 2016. Not with a Panasonic camera, but with a Nikon camera, it was taken by former Nikon ambassador – Romanian photographer, Mircea Bezergheanu. You can see just as much if you do an image search using Google, as I did below:
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If you look at the image above, you’ll see that the link above is to the Romanian Nikon website and an article by Bezergheanu about how he photographed beekeepers (with much nicer images). The same article seems to appear here, on another Romanian site.
I asked Bezergheanu what camera he had actually photographed, and it was a Nikon D810 – not a Lumix S9. Nor the Lumix GH5S, whose Japanese product page is also uses an image (as seen in the second link in the Google search above).
Japanese retailer System 5 also used the image in its listing for a third camera, the Lumix S5II. While this is obviously not directly Panasonic, it certainly looks like it’s from a brand-supplied promotional material package.
So what does all this mean? Well, unless Panasonic doesn’t very good explanation (and I reached out for a comment but didn’t hear back as I wrote), this is a huge breach of trust for the brand.
In the interest of fairness, the product page contains the text “Images and illustrations are for illustrative purposes only.” However, also in the interest of fairness, you would expect that an illustrative image could be drawn from the vast library that must surely have been captured by the camera or technology in question.
If this had at least been shot with a different Lumix, using the same AF technology, it would have been acceptable to me. But when you present a photo as if it was taken with your equipment, but it was so obviously taken by a competitor’s camera using completely different technology… how can maybe be an accurate representation of your product?
And if you are misleading with pictures, pretending they show me what your camera can do, how can I believe anything else you tell me? Are the videos shot with Canon? Do the RAW files come from Fujifilm?
I don’t even think it’s funny – I really don’t know. Because you remember that cute picture of the beagle next to the birds? It’s widely available stock photography, as revealed by Photo Rumors. So how many pictures were there in this product listing for the S9 really taken with s9? Or the GH5S, for that matter?
This reminds me of the case (actually one of four) where Huawei was caught pretending that photos taken with a phone were actually taken with a camera (ironically another Nikon DSLR, the Nikon D850). Whether you think it’s disingenuous or downright dishonest, it’s a bad look for the company.
For his part, Bezergheanu was cool with Panasonic using his photo to promote the S9’s capabilities. “I am the subject of the international press,” he wrote on Facebook. “I also really want to try this device, so I invite them to La Colibe, Corba – an archaic Romanian village”.
Panasonic needs to respond publicly, and soon. You should probably remove Mircea’s photo from your website as well.
Check out the best Panasonic cameras (whose AF really needs no misrepresentation these days) along with the best L lenses for S bodies and the best Micro Four Thirds lenses for G cameras.