Lumix full frame....

icemanonline

Some info..

                               
Wish I had the money and health.. But this looks promising...

Ice

rancidpunk

Amc mentioned this in the general thread too, does look promising as a viable alternative to Sony. Obviously early days, the proof of the pudding and all that, but it seems odd they can, seemingly, deliver a camera that ticks all the boxes where Nikon and Canon couldn't.
I appreciate they are obviously more mirrorless focused than Canikon, but they're still entering new areas jumping from m43 to FF.
Will Olympus follow suit I wonder?

AMc

Panasonic and Leica have plenty of history together and Sigma have decent m43 lenses so they all have common ground.  Olympus weren't mentioned as being part of the L Mount alliance with Leica and Sigma at Photokina today.
On the face of that it suggests Olympus won't be launching an L body or lenses but it could just be that Olympus aren't going to start undermining their m43 sales until they have a set up ready to announce and ship in reasonably short order?  Saying they were part of the alliance but not having anything to announce would - I imagine - seriously undermine the sales of the E-M1ii and the PRO lenses over the next few months.

There have been persistent rumours of a new high end Olympus OM-D next year which will be m43 not FF so my guess is they aren't going to join up.
(FT5) The new Olympus high end camera will be announced in January and feature a new MFT sensor - 43 Rumors

shotokan101

THE NEW LUMIX S SERIES - FULL-FRAME WITHOUT COMPROMISE - Panasonic UK & Ireland

snerkler

I've just posted on the general thread so I'll not repeat what I said there, but in terms of Olympus joining the party I'm not so sure. The fact Panny are partnering with Leica on this one, and that Sony still own a pretty big share of Olympus I'd be surprised. I hope they do though as people are questioning the future of m4/3 and I'd hate to see the end of Olympus.

Johnmcl7

It's not so much Canon/Nikon can't, it's that they won't - Panasonic have had a lot of success with their GH line because they've aimed to make the best camera possible without worrying about impacting their dedicated video cameras.  Similarly Sony have done well with their mirrorless cameras because they abandoned their DSLR market and didn't have to worry about losing sales elsewhere.

The new Canon EOS R is a good example of this as its mirrorless format means it should be able to offer more usable video but Canon have deliberately limited its video features so it doesn't even offer full frame video (crop only), noticeable rolling shutter effects and a limited selection of video modes.  They could have made a much better video device but clearly didn't want to whereas Panasonic will aim for the best video device they can.  In time I'm sure Canon will make a killer mirrorless camera in time so it makes sense for Panasonic to take advantage of the situation now.

Johnmcl7

Dpreview have a hands on of the pre-production model although there's not much more to add since it didn't even have power:

Photokina 2018: Hands-on with Panasonic Lumix S1R

The one takeaway is that it appears Panasonic have been very much focused on producing the camera that people want as the design seems to be based on customer feedback.

In terms of the future of micro 4/3 I don't think it's any worse for this announcement as it's an addition to the top end of the range rather than bringing FF down into the micro 4/3 range.  I think there is still a market for crop sensors which can offer much better image quality than phone cameras but without the bulk and cost of full frame cameras.  In time technology can improve to the degree it makes some markets obsolete but I don't think that's the case for crop sensor cameras, full frame camera still command a hefty premium and what stands out to me with the FF mirrorless setups is the size - the new Nikon Z mount 50MM F.8 is quite a bit heftier and more expensive than the older F mount 50mm F1.4G.  I realise it's because they're aiming for IQ but the difference in size and weight between the FF mirrorless and m4/3 mirrorless can be quite staggering.

I can very much see why Panasonic have gone this way as they appear to have been most successful with their GH series and there's clearly a lot of demand to offer a FF version.  With Olympus though they seem to be doing a good job with micro 4/3 and I'm not sure them moving to FF is a great idea given they're a smaller company and it is more specialist.  I've been reading a fair bit of discussion about Fuji's choice to stick with APS-C and offer medium format mirrorless rather than an FF option which I think makes sense particularly when the FF mirrorless market is getting more crowded.