Geoffrey

Thanks for the detailed replies Mark and Mr SMW. Definitely moving towards the 50mm Lumix (helped by it being the cheapest!). Also intrigued by experimenting with a cheap manual vintage lens as long as I can work out what adapter I would need. I have noticed occasional warpy edges with IBIS on the 20-60 but only in quite extreme situations (i.e. zoomed right in and high wind making staying still impossible) and even then you had to look for it to notice it. Does anyone use the other image stabilisation features on the S5? I have always stuck with just IBIS.

So maybe the 85mm then? Thinking about it an 85mm could be useful. The only thing there is that I quite like to get physically quite close, so an 85mm would then be much too close (this is very clear from Shane's video). What is my normal range is a good question and one I have considered. I guess a few feet (single figures) from the subject but it does vary quite a bit from very close to distant. I do use zoom a little but often I stick with either zoomed out fully or slightly in to avoid any image distortion (and as you the dictated higher aperture values). This is also because handheld, with heavy zoom this increases the handling wobble markedly. But then would this instability be the same problem with a prime lens like the 85mm? I am not clear on this. I use zoom much more on the tripod and then tend to be further away. The other factor is image quality - prime lenses produce better images, no? But is that, that big a factor? I don't tend to do aps-c crop as I shoot 50p HD. I may move to 4k in future but am not in a hurry as I am not geared up for the file sizes and processing power at the moment. 1080p 50fps on the S5 looks great to me anyway. Given everything I do wonder if a 50mm might be best. rather than the 85 (also happens to be a lot cheaper). Hm, decisions.

Yes the video is very good. I watched his video on the Panasonic S Series Prime Lenses as well and it made me think one of these might be a good purchase. I have the LUMIX S 20-60mm F3.5-5.6 so the question is which one would be a good complement to that? The 20-60 actually has the closest focussing distance compared to any of the prime lenses (12cm) so can't improve on that so I am thinking either the 35 or 50mm? Then there's the 24 and 85mm . . .

Very useful info thanks folks. I will definitely try the 1-area + face option. So far my work using CAF is solely based around keeping a talking head in focus, with me (and them) moving around a bit to add some dynamism, all hand held, all outdoors (sometimes in quite challenging, off-the-beaten-track environments). I rarely use zoom but do move away sometimes for a longer shot or let the subject walk away. I like using ultra close-ups too so you see the real details of a face. I think the best bit of advice here from SMW is to keep the camera steady as much as possible and nothing too rapid; don't ask too much of the CAF system basically even if you think it should better. I only use the one camera, and one lens (S 20-60mm F/3.5-5.6), with a Tascam 4-track mounted underneath for a stereo pair of DPA 4060s mounted on top (for good ambience - very important to my stuff) plus a radio mic receiver (Sennheiser G4), connecting to a COS 11D on the subject. I run a line out from the Tascam into the S5 as back-up and guide for audio syncing. I can very easily lift this off a tripod as a single unit and go handheld and this is crucial freedom to be creative without lots of faff. I can get phasing issues with the mic set-up but having the radio mic and stereo pair on separate tracks, I can fix any of this in post if need be. I would like to expand my lens collection but am a bit unsure what I would really benefit from as have little knowledge, and they are not cheap. Like most I like shallow depth of field when focussing on the subject but also deep focus when capturing vistas as cutaways and for longer 'pastoral' passages. I also like real close-up detail of natural things like leaves etc

Thanks very useful info. I have rarely used tracking AF as have little need for it. I did look at the S1H but at twice the cost of the S5 (and yes, the weight) it was no good for me. I have not tried using 1-area with human detect on, always used just human detect but will give it a go. What is the real difference? The (potentially) smaller focus window of the 1-area? Presumably you have to point the 1-area at the person and then the human detect kicks in? But if they move outside the 1-area, what happens then, the focus still follows them? Do you use 'Quick AF' or 'Fast' 1-Area moving speed? I have not quite worked out what these really apply to and not sure they have any real effect on CAF.

Well yes it does close the gap faster but I think because you are moving, the lock on the subject seems to stick better maybe because since you and the camera are moving it is keeping check on it more? Might just be luck though but I like the effect anyway. But I do admit, because I am relatively new to using CAF, I have less high expectations of its capacity perhaps. One thing that has helped is that lock on the subject you can do that the video outlined some pages back. Given your experience here - do you have preferred CAF settings (I mean the fine tuning settings deep in the menu)? EDIT: apologies I just see you have already posted these. Very useful, thanks. I shoot 50p (1080 - don't have the gear for 4K editing) so that is good.

Do you think it worse with tracking people coming towards the camera than going away from it? With people coming towards you, one thing I have found is if you walk slowly towards them at the same time it works much better.

Sound points. I am wondering about price differences here too. I bought the S5 because it was noticeably cheaper than Canon and Sony brands of seemingly similar ilk. I had always been a Canon man till the S5 but the cost, including a lens, and features (compared say to the Sony A7 and C300 - a have used a C100 extensively which has no human detect CAF) made the S5 the one. I had read about the CAF and its issues but wasn't bothered as till that point, I almost never used CAF being a tripod only / old-school observational doc film sort. But funnily enough all the talk about CAF on here made me curious and I began to explore it and it has been a revelation and got me into a different kind of more spontaneous filmmaking which I like but still feel quite a novice at. So I feel a sort of debt to the Panny CAF! No doubt in time I will want something better and it would be good to experience a more reliable system to compare sometime.

Yeah, understood. I admit to having little experience on other cameras with CAF (or V-Log) but have read the Sonys are 'better' but I do wonder how much better in the conditions you describe (V-Log etc)? If 85% = 0%, in effect for certain situations, what percentage success is OK, as none of them work 100%? We do ask quite a lot of these machines! My impression from the OP was they wanted a cam for holidays and stuff and I would say the S5 CAF is totally fine for that (yeah you get a bit of pulsing too but not much and only really notice it if you look for it which most people wont). Maybe this is the difference - total professional reliability versus more general use, use where some technical failures don't matter. The question I would have there, is the S5 a fully 'professional' camera to be totally relied on? Given the price, I would say it is definitely not and so should be judged accordingly

I really do not agree with this. You just have to practice with it. i have used human detect CAF loads and with a considerable success rate. It isn't a 'coin toss', it is user experience and practice that gets it to work best. I get it that some cannot be bothered with this and just 'want it to work' but the S5 is all I have so I persevered. And it does work. That is how it stands.

I have been using the S5 human detect continuous AF quite a lot recently. I shoot using the CineD2 profile (standard kit lens) and mainly outdoors, hand held. It works pretty well and am a bit baffled by the criticism it gets here. Maybe that is because people expect 99% success with it when in reality it is more like, I dunno 85%? I suppose with crucial commercial shoots this becomes an issue. But, with practice you get to know when it falls over - mainly too dark or too bright and movement is too rapid (so practice with it really does help like most things). Avoid that and it works the vast majority of the time very well and I love the look it gives. In fact as I have got experience with the S5 generally, I have grown to love it more and more, faults and all.

I am not sure what you mean here Mark. Page 85 is not that in my version. The mini jack socket on the bottom of the Zoom is line out not mic. Maybe you mean the one on the detachable mic at the top? What you can do is lower the level of the line out considerably if needed to connect to a mic only camera input. But the S5 can swap between either. I did wonder if using the mic input on the S5, and lowering the Zoom output might help as maybe the chip is a better quality in the S5 (assuming they are different chips)? But that is a bit counter-intuitive, so doubt it.

This is true but using an XLR adapter and the Zoom seems overkill (and I don't have an XLR adapter). And it then also depends on the quality of the preamps in the XLR module. I have a Juiced link 4-channel mixer which is great and low noise and you will be thinking just use that then! But the problem is I use 3 mics and mic phase issues between mics (ambient stereo pair and a lavalier) have been a problem so I need to record them as separate tracks to fix in post, hence the Zoom H6. What I cannot do is raise the line out level of the Zoom as it is fixed at 0dB (which in fact means -10dB as stated). This is exacerbated by the S5 line input which is also set at -10dB, so overall you are losing 20 dB of signal. But the phase inversion should not be happening either way. I need to do some more tests - I mean it could be the Zoom line out.

This is a strange one and I suspect no-one will have come across it but I was doing some recording the other day using a Zoom H6 and the S5. I used the line out of the Zoom to connect into the camera so I had a guide track for synching the zoom audio in post. The Zoom line out is specifically designed for such a scenario (stated in the manual). But here's the thing, after careful tests and some head scratching I came to the unavoidable conclusion that the phase on any input into the Zoom was inverted once it is laid down as the S5 audio track. The cable is an unbalanced 3.5mm so it cannot be that so that leaves either a problem with the Zoom line out (unlikely) or the S5 line input (more likely). Either way this is clearly a factory fault. There is nothing that can fix this at source and it is easy enough to invert the phase in post, and in fact mixing both signals in any final project is very unlikely anyway, but still, it should not be happening. One other fairly obvious observation is that the noise floor of the 55 is noticeably higher than the Zoom which is pretty pleasingly quiet. This is not helped by the fact the Zoom line out is fixed at -10dB so you have to have the S5 at 0dB input at least. Anyone who cares about sound quality and is recording in a quiet environment would do very well not to use the S5 for sound unless you have a high quality mixer that enables you to lower the S5 input level to -6dB at least..

Yeah I still struggle sometimes with focussing on the S5. Mostly I get it right now but every shoot there is something that is not quite right. It is most difficult when the subject is backed by other detailed material and the focus peaking is just not kicking in properly. With just the naked eye, even with the the enlarged view I struggle, especially in certain light conditions. Autofocus is OK and I do use that but getting rid of that pulsing in the background seems impossible. Any tips on the fine settings for CAF?

I realise that in fact an X/Y stereo mic could actually exacerbate this problem rather then solve it. The solution I need is actually something like the Zoom H5 or H6 and synch in post.

Thanks for this thread - exactly what I am grappling with at the moment. Right now I use a Sanken radio mic / Sennheiser setup for the mono voice (moving around freely outdoors) and a spaced pair of DPA mics mounted on the camera on a bar. All mixed in the field via a Juiced link 4-channel mixer mounted below the camera. I can easily use it all hand held and have great freedom moving around which is what I need (having separate devices, trailing leads etc would make life so much harder and in the end, worse footage as a result). The setup works very nicely and gets a wide ambience and nice focused vocal which is what I want ... but phasing issues occur especially when I get closer to the Sanken mic and it can compromise things in a way that annoys. I need to solve this rather unpredictable problem and the most obvious thing is to replace the A/B DPA pair with an XY mic, so the info on this thread is invaluable. From what I have read, the SVMX or AT8022 look like the best bet. The Sanken CMS-50 looks lovely but the price is way above anything else and too much for me but maybe the BP4025 is also in the running here. Do let us know how you get on with the SVMX.

I have a more general basic question for those experienced in such things. Watching live TV panel interviews the other day I was wondering how they do the thing where they cut between a wide shot of the interviewee and close up of the same person but with exactly the same angle of view. It looks like it is the same camera as the angle is identical and this is why it works, rather that being a jump cut (I mean it sort of is but does not jar). Is it some kind of auto zoom that can be clicked when desired or is it two cameras somehow positioned so the angle is the same, and the cuts are done by the director in the control room? It is a very simple, standard technique but it occurred to me I did not know how it is done and it would be a useful thing for me on a project I am working on right now.

Thanks for the detailed info Michael. The upshot is then that it will be better quality to do 'live' cropping in camera. What I should really do is practice doing smooth optical zooms as well though!

I had not thought about it like this so interesting. It does not really come up in the same way with what I do - I just need to frame the shot right and I only adjust frame size after occasionally, mainly due to a technical failure on my part!

Live cropping mode. Anyone used this? I tested it out and it works quite well but I was wondering is it really doing anything that you could not do in post anyway? Correct me if I am wrong but in terms of zoom (as opposed to panning) it is a digital effect that can be exactly replicated in an NLE by zooming in on the image to the same percentage i.e. Full frame HD to APS-C (which seems to be all the camera can do, over 20 or 40 seconds. Quality would be the same wouldn't it? What I really want is an auto optical zoom but that is not a feature. One odd thing that I keep doing and can't quite work out why is that when setting up the camera / shot I seem to do something towards the front of the camera that changes the LCD screen to a Preview menu setting page that i then have to cancel. Anyone know what is causing this?

Thanks for the advice re autofocus testing And yes I have one of the top function buttons assigned to peaking - I had just never noticed the P going on and off., till now! On a tangent, I am finding the CineD2 profile really nice for autumnal colours. My new favourite. I have also gone back to doing everything in HD as I just don't have the storage and power for editing 4K. Plus HD on the S5 looks great anyway. Interesting watching Andrew's video on the main forum page about the obsession with tech and I would add obsession with pixel count to that.

Yep that's it, many thanks! And it will now be really useful as I spent some time today trying to work out whether peaking was on or not (you know how that isn't always clear from the screen in dodgy light)

Yes I mean in human / animal mode. I have tried this but not had any joy but then I have found once the yellow box appears it works anyway (but the suggestion in the video is it could work better). It is almost impossible to test without another human subject but I have a shoot on Thursday. Have you used the method when there is only one subject so nothing to choose from?

I tried this but I cannot get any special yellow tabs to appear. I am not sure what this video is saying. Yes you can select a human target to focus on when there is more than one but of there is only one the box turns yellow (if it works) and that's it. At least that is my experience. Anyone else watched this video and got what he describes to actually happen - what do you press to get the tabs to appear anyway, he doesn't make that clear.