Beritar

Yes I can really see a difference with my S5 since the first day I bouth the S5II. And the other profiles are even worse. I use a lot Natural and Cine-V in low light, there are just too much details filtering on the S5II with these profiles, it looks very similar to Sony (even worse than Sony at very low ISO) :

Yes the issue is with the standard profiles, the difference is obvious : However in V-Log they look very similar when sharpness and NR are set at 0 :

The S5II also uses more sharpening and details smoothing than before (S5 and S1), less in V-Log and HLG but still noticeable when pixel peeping. I "pixel peep" a lot because I use 6K to pan or zoom in post and with most profiles the 6K of the S1 really looks like a burst of raw photos and the S5II looks more like a burst of JPEGs with in camera sharpening and NR bumped up. And at this point even my old A7III (while noisier) keeps better details than my S5II in 4K.

Seriously I miss the S1 (but not its AF). In fact I almost don't use my S5II because I don't like it for low light even at low ISO. The rendering on faces is just bad because of over shaprening and (especially) smoothed out details. V-log is better but still not as good as before and not recommended for the cleanest footage, using underexposed LUTs to get ride of noise just doesn't work well because Dynamic range take a hit and above all you loose too much light doing this. If you don't crop a lot in your videos, I think you will like the S5II though, but in my case if Panasonic doesn't adress the image quality with the standard profiles and really want to target smartphone users, I don't think I will use their camera anymore. I was tempted to buy an S1 again but the AF is really not good with low contrast scenes or when using Sigma lenses, it even struggles sometimes in good light with Panasonic S lenses ... I also use the Sony A7IV (and III) and it has better image quality in low light, there are some noise reduction at high ISO but there is absolutely no smoothing like on the S5II at low ISO. So Sony has great AF and image quality in most scenarios but it lacks good IBIS with >20mm lenses and it has no Open Gate mode. It was really too much for Panasonic to make a S1 with the AF of the S5II ? I still hope.

I don't think the issue is Phase Detect because V-Log on the S5II (while sharper than before) has not the insane sharpening and chroma noise reduction that the standard profiles have. Moreover, nor my A7III and IV smooth details like this at low ISO and yet they use Phase detect. There are just bad processing going on internaly on the standard profiles with the S5II.

About the GH6, I've not used it a lot but even with HLG and V-Log (H265) and I feel the details rendering is slightly different compared to the GH5, maybe because of some details filtering ("Intelligent detail filtering" from Panasonic) but there is a difference, like if the GH6 smooths and sharpens some details in the same time, a bit like with the S5II standard profiles but far less pronounced. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55RygnQqAbU I think Deezid used the GH6 a lot more than me thought and said Prores has less noise reduction so maybe the details rendering is better than with H265. These days, many brands use a lot sharpening and different type of noise reduction, sadly most of the time there is no way to disable them. It is true that there is no chance your clients could spot the loss of details, but I use Panasonic cameras since a very long time and I loved the way I could crop or extract picture from my videos while retaining a lot of details, like a true Jpeg picture without too much noise processing or digital sharpening. We can't do this anymore with the S5II standard profiles because there are too much processing going on internally, exactly like on smartphones.

V-Log on the S5II is way less impacted, it looks "almost" similar to my S5. It has slightly more sharpening (maybe more spatial or temporal NR from what I've seen in the CineD test), and tint is more green than the S5. The real issue is with the standard profiles for the S5II.

This is my thought exactly , Panasonic must want to target smartphone users, It's the only explanation and it's a very bad new. But some people can't see the difference or sometimes prefer the over sharpening and mushy details of the S5II, so I am not surprised.

Another test between the S5II and the S5, this time with the Natural Profile (640 ISO) : I'm not a fan of extreme sharpening but it's not really an issue if it can be dialed down enough, the important thing is to keep details. The S5II uses a lot of sharpening at -5 but it also uses a lot of details filtering (look at the orange background) ,and of course adding sharpness in post can't help to recover details. I think I never seen an imaqe quality so bad from a Panasonic camera of this price (V-Log has less issues but this is not the always the best profile for some situations).

Do you know if the GH5II also has the heavy sharpening from the GH6 ? My GH6 and my S5II are very similar about sharpness, rough sharpening even at -5 with the standard profiles but also less fine details than S1/S5 and G9 because of the new "intelligent details" processing in the GH6. I really hoped Panasonic didn't put these processing on the S5II but it looks even worse.

If you shoot V-log there is almost zero noise reduction on the S5II, however I still prefer the V-log image coming from the S5/S1. But yes Panasonic really need to fix the image quality with the standard profiles.

From my experience (I have the camera since a month), the latitude is not the only downgrade, detail rendering (less in V-Log) and motion quality are also worse than the S1 and S5. But a lot of people will not see the difference, especially those who shoot in a very well controled environnement and those for whom 1080P is enough quality.

Another scene and "subject" :

For those who want to see the difference in image quality between the S5 and S5II (and the smoothing) : Cine-V2, ISO 800 V-Log is the only profile without this smoothing on skin.

I just saw there is NO smoothing in C4K ! The picture looks exactly the same than the S5 and S1. However 4K and 5,9/6K are impacted, and sadly V-log as well. You can see how some textures look in 4K, look at the green grid : There is a big difference about details rendering between 4K and C4K, 4K sometimes looks like upscaled 1080P with some textures like skin. I hope panasonic will fix this in a firmware update soon.

Like the GH6, the S5II uses a sort of digital aliasing/moiré filter to helps with repetitive lines. I use Panasonic cameras since the GH4 and there is something I really disliked about image quality on their new cameras since the GH6 and now I know what is it. This + the increased noise reduction on the standard profiles make the pictures sometimes weird/plastic, especially on skin. Fortunately, this digital moiré filter is a bit weakier in V-log but still there. To compensate the softening made by this digital filter, Panasonic has added more sharpening compare to the S5 especially with standard profiles, and (according to what I see on facebook) even in V-log when both camera have the sharpness set to 0. But the end result is not really good, the image looks sometimes weird mostly when there is motion or on the skin because it smooths some textures (like skin pores) and sharpen other ones (like eyelashes), so there is less details (despite higher in camera sharpening) than on the S5 and S1.

It is the 20-60mm kit lens.

I hope you will find this test useful :

I use both cameras and I'm not sure the S5ii IBIS is better. I need to make a side by side test with multiple lenses.

Good to know but I tried a lot of LUTs at ISO 320 and each time the noise was higher on the S5II compared to the standard/Natural/Cine-V profiles. For exemple, the S1 has a lovely picture in 6K with the standard profiles, noise free at low ISO, the S5II is noise free too in 6K but it uses the new details processing. Do you have some LUTs I could try ?

This is Standard profile, but Natural and Cine-D have the same new details processing. Some users suggest you can use a real time LUT with V-log to sort this out but this is not exactly the same because V-log can't be used below ISO 320. The good news is 8 bits V-log is not impacted. I really hope Panasonic will add an option to get ride of this new details processing.

The new "Active" IS is the name of the new stabilization. This has nothing to do with E-Stabilization which add a crop. Some "Pro" youtubers have mixed up with "Active Stabilization" from Sony (which is basicaly the same than E-Stabilization). From my test and compared to the S1, the new Active IS is great, you can walk with lenses between 20/85mm with almost no "jump" or wobbles (you must walk very slowly with a 85mm though). The IBIS boost fonction is improved as well, I tried with a 50mm and 85mm lens in 6K mode, even when cropping 1:1, the footage is super stable. Oh and the AF is great with Panasonic S lenses ! This is the first Panasonic camera with AF in my opinion. However there is a downgrade on the standard profiles about image quality, faces looks mushy like on Fuji or Samsung NX, even Sony looks better. Too much temporal noise/color reduction. V-LOG (8 bits/10 bits) is not impacted.

To have used the S1, S5 and the S5II, the S1 and S5 produce a nicer image quality than the S5II with every other profiles than V-LOG, too much details processing on the S5II.

V-LOG is unaffected. However the smoothing is there even with H265 4:2:2 with every other profiles, exactly like on the GH6. By the way,this is not a news about the GH6.

Superior about sharpness maybe but not about rendering and colors. I prefer my 50mm S Pro over the 50mm GM (I sold the latter last month). The 24-70mm S Pro has great rendering too and I don't think the 24-70mm GM II is as good except for sharpness but I only used the first 24-70mm GM so I'm not sure. I still have the 35mm and 135mm GM though, microcontrast is outstanding on the 35mm GM for an AF lens.