Panasonic photo scandal: 77 cameras and lenses were marketed with images taken on other equipment

Panasonic has confirmed that a total of 77 cameras and lenses were marketed on its website using photographs not taken by those products. 

The news comes following the scandal that erupted last month, when it was revealed that images used to promote the Panasonic Lumix S9 were in fact taken on a Nikon D810. This led to social media sleuths finding dozens of examples of Panasonic products being promoted using photographs taken on equipment from Canon, Tamron and others. 

Panasonic issued a discreet apology on its website, admitting that it had used images from stock libraries instead of photos taken on its own cameras. This did not placate consumers, however, nor shareholders – who expressed their anger at Panasonic over this, and another scandal involving fraudulent certifications from a safety organization in the US, demanding the company explain itself more thoroughly. 

It is fair to say that Panasonic was less than forthcoming in its contrition, with president Yuki Kusumi seeming keen to deflect the blame: "We were not thorough in using our own sample images in the web advertising process. We left it entirely to external content production companies."

VP Yoshiyuki Miyabe was a little more forthcoming. "It's not that we infringed on any rights, and we're not writing lies [on the product introduction site]," he told the Sankei Shimbun. "The photos are from a camera catalog, so no matter how you look at it, [consumers] would assume that they were taken with that camera. I think we just lacked that kind of imagination."

Now, however, Panasonic has audited its website and announced the "completion of provisional corrections". Crucially, the company pledges that all images should be taken on its own products – and when not taken with the camera in question, images should be taken using a camera of the same mount and similar pixel count, with full details of the equipment listed.

The full statement from the company is below, machine translated from the original Japanese.

Completion of provisional corrections to the Lumix product site

We would like to thank you for your continued interest in Lumix products.

Regarding the recent incident in which inappropriate images were used through a stock photo service on the Lumix product website, we deeply regret that this incident was caused by our clear lack of awareness, despite being a camera manufacturer, of the images we use and the lack of an appropriate image selection and checking process, which is essential when creating a website for a camera product.

Up until now, we have conducted a detailed check of all images used on the Lumix product website, and have removed images using stock photo services. We have also made revisions to the Lumix product website based on the following principles: "All images used must be taken with our own camera products," and "For images taken with other models of our own cameras, images with the same mount or similar pixel count must be used, and the equipment used must be clearly stated." We have now completed our response.

Going forward, in order to firmly establish our commitment to the "examples" of Lumix products, we will continue to update our website this fall, for example by replacing images taken with other models of our own cameras with images taken with the relevant models. We take the opinions and comments we have received seriously, and will continue to work on improvements in order to regain the trust of our customers as soon as possible.

Please be advised that the following changes have been made to the site:

● Product sites where the above revisions have been implemented

・S series product site: 8 models
・S Series Lens Product Site: 17 models
・G Series product site: 6 models
・G Series Lens Product Site: 28 models

● As production has now ended, the site has been moved to a simplified page focusing on product specifications.
- Discontinued product site: 18 models

* The DC-GH7 website, which was added on June 6th, was created and published based on the above principles.

Scandals aside, the best Panasonic cameras still comprise some of the best Micro Four Thirds cameras and best full frame mirrorless cameras on the market.