Amazeballs

So lets see.. 1. Big bright focking screen 4.5-5 inches. Yes, we want that, we need that. If you are making a cinema camera in your S-line it should have that. With a reworked menu and proper monitoring tools. 2. Ability to add gyro stabilization in post. Panny already have e-stab that works on top of their awesome Active IS. So why not give us an OFX plug-in that works in every editing sofware and brings stabilisation to the next level.. again! 3. Some proper video specs. FF6k60p should be a minimum high frame rate option I would think. 8k? Maybe but not really that important. 4k120p should be there as well. 4. RAW is imminent I guess just wish they would add BRAW. Not really holding my fingers for that but one can dream right? I dont even know what else would I need. Some top tier DR probably cutting into Alexa territory.

I personally dont care if the current Panny AF is not 100% perfect. They will iron out all the quirks asap and release a firmware update. If that happend for Sony I would be serisouly worried though 🙂

I would go either being used A7S3 as it is still the best for video work or S5mk2 if you wanna be able to shoot hand held withoud the need for a gimbal. S5mk2 + Sigma 28-70 would be just 2800$ but I would wait for a review of how exactly Sigma lenses behave on a new Panasonic body. In theory it all should be fine as they have exactly the same AF motor design as their e-mount varience which works great on a Sony.

After the powerfull S5mk2 presentation I just wanted to summarize some cons and pros for both systems from perspective of a guy who owns a Sony camera but switched from GH5 mainly cos of the reliabilty issiues with Panny AF. Now ofc we need to take into account that S5mk2 is a baseline new Panny camera with PDAF. They will defeintly introduce updates to the rest of their lineup and it would be much easier to make up your mind in the future when we see all those camers. Nevertheless I just want to lay out what I already can see at the current market position. So this comparison not gonna be very camera specific as obviosly A7S3 beats S5mk2 in terms of rolling shutter and FF resolutions cos Sony is a leader of camera sensor production and they keep their best and newest sensors for themselfs exclusively. Ok lets do it: Sony Pros: - Lens lineup. Yes, an obvious one. E-mount has the strongest lens selection, with tons of options from a plethora of manufcatures. Tamron zooms are awesome and unique. Samyang primes are tiny, awesome and affordable. Sony lenses are quite compact themselfs (compared to Pany its noticable). And they all work more or less the same on Sony cameras. - Compactness of the system. You can have a very compact kit with a Sony camera. Both their bodies and lens selection lets you build a very manageable system in terms of size and weight - Recorded gyro data. That is a pretty cool option. I am currently experimenting with it using GyroFlow which is a much better software than the infamous CatsalystBrowse, I will share my experience on the topic later. Gyroflow already has a Resolve plug-in but its not that great. Future iterations might improve significantly. - Sony will always have the latest Sony sensor tech and that is a big factor of their sucesess And I kind of ran of out pros at this moment 🙂 Cons: - FIRMWARE updates almost never happen. Thats a very big downside for me cos I hate when companies treat their customers mostly like milking moneybags . And that seems to be a strategy here. - A very limited amount of video specific tools. Maybe you want false color, waveforms, shutter angle, opengate recording? Well keep dreaming or buy a Sony higher tier "proper cinema camera" for that. I guess FX3\30 does not classify as one. - IBIS is meeh unless you are using post-gyro stabilization which works only in specific modes (doesnt work in S&Q for example or 120fps) - Body ergomonics is meeh - HDMI output feed is terribly desgined. Panasonic wins here by a mile. In general Sony makes an impression of company that is not vert keen on listenning to their customers feedback and they would prefer to milk all of them to the last drop than to make them happy giving some relevant camera updates and showing some feedback and ability to listen. And for me its an important trait that I react to. Panny boy: Pros: - the new IBIS is just FUCKING AMAZING! Bravo Panny! You took it to the next level truly. - Panny update policy is one of the best in the buisness. You can rest assured that your camera will get relivant updates for the next 2-3 years or more with some sudden surpises along the way. - Panny ergonomics is quite good - their HDMI output layout is great! - All the video orieneted features that Sony is missing, Panny is actively adding to their cameras Cons: - Lenses. The obvious one. They are big, they are expensive, they are limited in variety. But.. their quality is quite good. Focus breathing compensation build-in is very appreciated. And Sigma lenses giving the system some lighter and cheaper options in nice. So its not all that bad but Sony still wins here quite firmly. - no PDAF.. haha. Well that in the past now. Huge con elliminated finally What else? Well we need to see the all new lineup refreshed to make an adequte judgement here so the time will tell. But for now Panasonic just raised from the underdog to a strong contender in my eyes. --- Border line. For now purely as a company Panny wins in my eyes. They are just more user friendly and video oriented and innovative beyond just sensor tech innovation.

Well, now I think going Pana S5m2 would be a very viable option, hehe 😁 If you dont mind the lenses ofc.

Now someone please (Megadap?) make a good AF adapter for e-mount to l-mount 🙏 I have a feeling that the next camera release from Pana could be my perfect camera, but I dont want to switch lenses at all 🤧 I love my emount lens collection..

Its kind of cool to see that Pana have sent a review copy to Camera conspiracies 🤤 The fact that new Pana AF is beating the shit out of Canon AF is kind of amazing. Did not expect that.

I feel like most of youtubers generally love this camera. Good for Pana, good for everyone. Win win.

I think it is very much competitive with the cameras above. PDAF, fantstic IBIS and lots of pro-video tools. Really glad they have finally made such a camera. I agree with Gerald that in terms of value for money S52 is the next A7III. I hope Panasonic sells a shit tone of them and more lens mafucatures will enter L-mount alliance.

thats the rumor

So one of the youtubers shares the following rumors: S5mk2 - 2000$ S5mk2X - 2200$ .. and it has 6k60 FF! If that will appear to be true (only 5 more hours till we can verify that), I say we have a big win for Panasonic. 6k60p camera with PDAF, very good IBIS and all the Panasonic goodies for only 2200$ frankly sound very tempting.

Sounds like a dick measuring contest. Have you actually read any of the arguments I was making in this thread? My comments on telephoto advantages of M43? My list of compared lenses? I gues you did not or it slipped your attention somehow. I think I am gonna end this discussion right here.

Dude you are making this "disturbed by the mere existence of M43" on the spot. I am definitely not disturbed by it in any way. My previous camera was GH5 for a long time and G85 berfore that. I actually like the system and would like it to be more relevant. But I also want to point out that the size advantage of m43 people are talking about is not really there in many cases especially if you want shallow DOF and FF lenses are actually more compact in many ways and even cheaper. Thats all I am saying.

Also Panasonic themselfs make a very appealing 20-60 F3.5-5.6 which is 350 grams/500$

And that is my point exactly. The lenses that exist on FF all have less weigth, are cheaper and have better ability to blur a background compared to the once that do not exist on MFT (except some cheaply made Chinese manual 0.95 primes). I am comparing different systems so for the sake of a porper comparison I need to make a confersion to make things clear. No they are not. Not in terms of DOF. And lowlight is debatable as well as bigger sensors usually have better lowlight anyway. For me 12-35 F2.8 zoom is not very usable precisely for reason of it having a F5.6 equivalent aperture to FF. And that is just not enough to separate a subject from the background for me personally. So you need either use primes or very expensive and quite heavy Panaleica 10-25 1.7 or 25-50 1.7. And yet they still only produce equivalent DOF to F3.5 on FF. Those are the zooms we should be comparing Tamron and Sigma offerings to. Lets take a closer look: Panasonic Leica 10-25 F1.7 690 grams, 1800$ Panasonic Leica 25-50 F1.7 650 grams, 1800$ Tamron 28-75 F2.8 540 grams, 900$ Sigma 28-70mm F2.8 470 grams 780$ Sigma 16-28mm F2.8 450 grams 900$ Tamron 17-28 F2.8 420 grams 800$ Tamron 20-40 F2.8 365 grams 700$ Albeit their focal length are not identical obviosly, but at least their appertures are a bit closer when we consider the crop factor. Seems to me thar FF lenses are way cheaper, ligther and have better reach. Oops. Here you go. Sony FE 28-70mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS. Just 300 grams and only 400$. And it translates to 14-35mm F1.7-2.8 so not exactly the same but very close. And its 400$ vs 700$ for Panasonic.

I completly understand if you dont like Sony cameras.. but in your examples your went for the biggest and heaviest zooms Sony can offer. That is not fair at all. Lets compare Panasonic zooms and Tamron alright? About telephoto, yes sure, no question here. Here is an example for you - Tamron 28-200 2.8-5.6 which in m43 equivalent would be 14-100 1.4-2.8 and its only 550 grams. You just cant get anything similar on a MFT system. Olympus 12-100 F4 weights the same. F4 vs 1.4-2.8 pretty substantial right? Or Samyang 24 1.8 - 230 grams (12mm F0.9 on MFT - good luck finding such a lens at this weight envelope and with a working AF). Even Tamron 17-28 F2.8 weight 420 grams - again, nothing similar on MFT. So in terms of weight and size - I dont see any real advantage except telephoto, though I guess Tamron could start making F8 lenses which would be resonalby compact (like Canon did). So again, if someones wants DOF than MFT is not that exciting. If you dont need lots of DOF - than MFT could be quite compact at least in term of lenses. And yes I agree - Panasonic should start making more compact cameras again. G85 size is very attractive. GX85 as well. That would be dope. With at least 4k60. I am all for ite. With a new Panaleica 9mm that would be a sweet combo.

I really dont see much of the size advantage for m43 xameras this days. Take a Sony a7c coupled with Samyang tiny primes or Tamron zooms and m43 just cannot compete. Yes they need to minimize the cameras but the lenses.. its physics, they wont be able to do anything about it. And yes, not eveyone is obsessed with shallow DOF anyway. For macro shots its a problem actually. But I think with current advancements in deep learning/neural networks it might be soon achievable to blur the background in post, we can already do it with depth maps in Davinci and if you already have some background separation with a natural bokeh it should be easier to expand on that with AI produced one.

Hmm.. thats not how it usually works. When a company gets a patent to a specific techonolgy like PDAF they start using it everywhere. Cos if what you are telling here is true, than we are bound to see Panasonic only to use most dated Sony sensor tech. That would make them unable to compete in the market. And I hope that is not the case.

Its a simple question of comptetion. FF 4k60 should be a defacto standadt of a video-oriented camera this days. OK 20% crop is passible but not 50%. Thats it. But I guess Pana is reusing an old Sony IMX410 sensor over and over again and that is sad in itself. If a PDAF is their main feature to differentiate from S5 its not all that great. Its important for the future of the system but just for the S5mk2 itself.. not so much. We need more after 2.5 years.

That is an unambiguous and obvious clue to what we all been waiting for the past 5 years! Hurray comrades!

4k60p apcs crop, really? That is not cool. Though depends on the price. Well the most important spec on the list is obviosly.. a PDAF 🐳

I sort of never heard about it before you have just mentioned ☺️ will try it out! Though OFX plugins are usually damn slow and for this one you would want it to be quick. I hope Resolve will improve on its own plugin a bit.

I like the blatant confidenace with which you spit out such statements. No biggie. Righ now l-mount has the second biggest lens selection after e-mount (around 105 FF lenses) and its growing cos Panasonic and Sigma are working on it. And other manufactures can join the alliance and start making lenses for it as well if the ever want to (unlike say for Canon RF). Now they have DJI - a very intresting and innovative player in the market. Tha main problem for them is the absence of a reliable AF. If they can solve it (and we all hope they will pretty soon) its hard to predict the future of the system. If more players will join it (like BM, and maybe some chinese\korean manufactures like Youngnuo, Samyang) it might become very relevant at some point. Lets see what Panasonic finally brings out with a S5II lineup. Crossed fingers for PDAF with some fancy AI features. Another imporant thing to understand is that both Sigma, Panasonic and DJI do have other profitable buisness so they can afford to invest into L-mount without an urge to make it profitable.

I went with F38 as well cos I bought into F22 for mounting a bunch of smaller accerories and they are sort of cross-compatible with some adapters. Will see how it goes pretty soon.

Maybe they'll just figure out how to generate realistic motion blur with a help from neural nertworks in post. That would actually be even better. You could use gyro for stabilisation and than add MB in post and no need for an ND 💁‍♂️