Panasonic S5 User Experience

[ac6000cw]

28 minutes ago, MrSMW said:

 

...where he says it's HEVC (H.265), 4:2:0, 10-bit at 200 Mbps, which is the same as on the G9 (and I assume the GH5). 

So 10-bit 18 Mpixel stills... 🙂

[MrSMW]

Same result today, the 5.2k frame grab is slightly better than anything 4k as might be expected, but not quite up the Jpeg from RAW standards.

If Jpeg from RAW is a 10/10, I'd say the 5.2k grab is maybe a 7/10 and the 4k maybe a 6/10.

In conclusion, 8k is probably an 8/10 or even a 9/10 and I will be sticking to shooting stills in tandem with video 90%+ of the day, but for that other 10% when I need both exactly at the same time, just shoot '6k' video @ 3:2 and pull the stills off that.

We're close...possibly even there, with 8k and 5-6k is not that far off, but not quite what I need it to be.

 

[Stathman]

13 hours ago, MrSMW said:

On another subject, holy crap, 6k 10 bit 4:2:2 internal all-I.

Small correction. It's 4:2:0 actually. 👍 

[Mark Romero 2]

I know people were bringing up the particular excess red in Panasonic V-LOG.

One thing I do in Resolve is put a node near the end of the node tree that I turn off channel 2 (green) and channel 3 (blue). This means it only effects the Red channel. (Leave color space for the node as RGB)

Then if the red is too much, I bring it down a touch in the color boost or in the saturation (in control wheels palette). If you like working with curves, you could use the Y curve (since it is only affecting red channel, pulling down the Y curve will reduce only the red).

The HSL levels won't work quite as you expect, but sat vs sat and sat vs luminesce should.

It's quick and dirty but works pretty well. 

[Robert Patts]

 

6 hours ago, Mark Romero 2 said:

I know people were bringing up the particular excess red in Panasonic V-LOG.

 

I had the same problem when comparing the camera to my P4k. Even if sent at the exact white balance, the S5 had much different skin tones and had to have the tint/temp corrected.

Which leads me to the conclusion of this camera (Compared to the P4K)

S5 is a great camera that produces very sharp, clean images. Despite being shot in VLOG (With NR + Sharpness set to 0)  and with a Contax Zeiss 28mm, I still had to add blur to the footage to soften it a bit. At high ISO the grain is very fine, and pleasing. In the right settings it can produce a great image (Which can be said about a most cameras). IBIS is a plus. Huge plus. The 10bit codec holds up well, and I have no problem applying a grade via Dehancer. The LongGOP codec is not fun to work with, but then again nothing will edit as smooth as Prores/Braw.

So why did I return it. I feel something in the image is off. If you shoot a landscape / overview / nature, everything looks great. But as soon as you ad a person to the scene, something does not sit well. It is hard to explain. It has this look I am not a fan of, and I feel the motion is off. (I shoot at 25p and 180 shutter degree) Sunlight the camera is amazing. As are many. But as soon as you throw it in an uncontrolled light setting, it does retain the same nice look as the Blackmagic does.

The footage in the right settings looks great. But requires more massaging to get the look I want color wise.  

In the end I will be sticking with my P4K and will go down in a blaze of unstable shaky footage. 

[Mark Romero 2]

6 hours ago, Robert Patts said:

 

 

I had the same problem when comparing the camera to my P4k. Even if sent at the exact white balance, the S5 had much different skin tones and had to have the tint/temp corrected.

Which leads me to the conclusion of this camera (Compared to the P4K)

S5 is a great camera that produces very sharp, clean images. Despite being shot in VLOG (With NR + Sharpness set to 0)  and with a Contax Zeiss 28mm, I still had to add blur to the footage to soften it a bit. At high ISO the grain is very fine, and pleasing. In the right settings it can produce a great image (Which can be said about a most cameras). IBIS is a plus. Huge plus. The 10bit codec holds up well, and I have no problem applying a grade via Dehancer. The LongGOP codec is not fun to work with, but then again nothing will edit as smooth as Prores/Braw.

So why did I return it. I feel something in the image is off. If you shoot a landscape / overview / nature, everything looks great. But as soon as you ad a person to the scene, something does not sit well. It is hard to explain. It has this look I am not a fan of, and I feel the motion is off. (I shoot at 25p and 180 shutter degree) Sunlight the camera is amazing. As are many. But as soon as you throw it in an uncontrolled light setting, it does retain the same nice look as the Blackmagic does.

The footage in the right settings looks great. But requires more massaging to get the look I want color wise.  

In the end I will be sticking with my P4K and will go down in a blaze of unstable shaky footage. 

Thanks for sharing your experience.

I have to admit; I haven't had much of a chance this last year to shoot anything with skin tones (since I shoot real estate mostly), so I am probably not seeing the differences that you notice between the V-LOG and BRAW. 

Maybe you could link to a shot you have done recently on the 4K with skin tones in it? I only ask because there seems to be a lot of REALLY BAD sample footage out there shot in BRAW on the 4K and 6K cameras. I had been really contemplating getting a 6K for BRAW (since I edit in Resolve and have zero interest in going ProRes RAW). But a lot of the sample footage I had seen on the internets just looked bad. Maybe it was just the people who were posting it didn't know how to grade.

Also, maybe inadvertently, you bring up another point: while the Panasonic lenses are great for VIDEO, they might be too sharp for FILMING, if you know what I mean. I love the parfocal, minimal breathing, and linear focus of the 24-105 f/4. and for photos, I love the rendering and sharpness, and the 1:2 macro.  But most certainly I am going to have to invest in some sort of diffusion for that lens as I hope to take on more projects involving people.

[Robert Patts]

@Mark Romero 2 There is tons of bad footage on both sides, just due to peoples inability to grade and expose correctly. In regards to lenses, I use EF manual focus lenses. Even with an older Contax Zeiss, and a 1/8BPM I had to de-sharpen it in post a bit. 

If you look at this video, there are a few scenes that look just off. This is due to grading. Because, here it is again but with a "proper" grade. As I mentioned before, the Lumix lines require more "work" to get that nice look. 

I found an example here, that has a decent comparison of skin tones in the sun. But then again, everything in the sun looks nice. And nobody is moving. It is under mixed lighting and when people move where things look off and motion gets weird for the Lumix line. 

If you are shooting static objects, with no motion, it does not matter which camera you get. Get the camera that is easiest to fly on a gimbal. 

End of the day, it just a sensor in a box. It don't matter. BM gives me the nicest image with least amount of work. Lumix give me a nice image if I grind it a bit. Motion is off on the Lumix line. Don't know why. Could be rolling shutter or innate sharpness. I have tried the S1H....S1....and S5. All the same. 

But, if you shoot ADD fueled content like this, where it a bunch of quick cuts. Go for this camera. I have find projects shot like this is where this camera shines. 

[deezid]

Panasonic cameras don't come with good Rec709 conversions by their own manufacturer. Especially Gen 5 Film Extended is much superior over any Rec709 conversion Panasonic provides.

But all the color issues mentioned derive from that very problem and can be fixed with third-party conversions like these:

Color between both systems is an almost 100% match.

[TomTheDP]

18 hours ago, Robert Patts said:

@Mark Romero 2 There is tons of bad footage on both sides, just due to peoples inability to grade and expose correctly. In regards to lenses, I use EF manual focus lenses. Even with an older Contax Zeiss, and a 1/8BPM I had to de-sharpen it in post a bit. 

If you look at this video, there are a few scenes that look just off. This is due to grading. Because, here it is again but with a "proper" grade. As I mentioned before, the Lumix lines require more "work" to get that nice look. 

I found an example here, that has a decent comparison of skin tones in the sun. But then again, everything in the sun looks nice. And nobody is moving. It is under mixed lighting and when people move where things look off and motion gets weird for the Lumix line. 

If you are shooting static objects, with no motion, it does not matter which camera you get. Get the camera that is easiest to fly on a gimbal. 

End of the day, it just a sensor in a box. It don't matter. BM gives me the nicest image with least amount of work. Lumix give me a nice image if I grind it a bit. Motion is off on the Lumix line. Don't know why. Could be rolling shutter or innate sharpness. I have tried the S1H....S1....and S5. All the same. 

But, if you shoot ADD fueled content like this, where it a bunch of quick cuts. Go for this camera. I have find projects shot like this is where this camera shines. 

I wonder if shooting RAW makes a difference with motion. Definitely a puzzling figure. I don't think rolling shutter has much to do with it as a lot of cameras Blackmagic or RED don't have great performance in that regard but seem to have fine motion cadence. Could be sharpening though BM has artificial sharpening, at least on the Pockets. The S1/S1H seem to be pretty organic looking with sharpness though. Who knows...

[deezid]

13 hours ago, TomTheDP said:

I wonder if shooting RAW makes a difference with motion. Definitely a puzzling figure. I don't think rolling shutter has much to do with it as a lot of cameras Blackmagic or RED don't have great performance in that regard but seem to have fine motion cadence. Could be sharpening though BM has artificial sharpening, at least on the Pockets. The S1/S1H seem to be pretty organic looking with sharpness though. Who knows...

Honestly I don't see a difference apart from the worse RS performance on my S1H in comparison to a Pocket 6K, at least since FW 2.0 with noise reduction set to -1 which at least up till ISO10000 turns off any temporal noise filtering which badly affects motion.

Also I agree about the sharpening, my S1H especially at 6K looks significantly softer than the Pocket 6K using Braw. At 4K the S1H looks as sharp as the P6K though. 

[rosco]

I don't see that much of a difference.  Maybe pixel peepers can tell but the 95%of the audience watching on there phones don't care.  You can mimic color/film look on most camera nowadays with post manipulation software (dehancer/film-convert/Cinematch) or hire a good color grader/editor. Will it be a 100% match to a red/alexa, NO.... but it will be close.

[MrSMW]

So DP Review finally got around to reviewing the S5...

I was beginning to think they were shunning it or something.

88% and a pretty fair/accurate review.

Not that DP is the be all and end all of anything and most of their photography results galleries are a bit shite, but...

New firmware coming next week apparently.

I wonder if it will have anything significant in it or just be one of those, ‘bug fixes in the incidence of X’ updates...

I can’t see it being anything major but who knows.

[Lux Shots]

I have been submitting footage to a client using the standard V-Log LUT from my S1H, and they complained about too much magenta hue. I thought it was because I was boosting saturation too much (and maybe that did boost the red hues too much), but switching over to using the Nicest-709 LUT took care of all their complaints.

[TomTheDP]

2 hours ago, Lux Shots said:

I have been submitting footage to a client using the standard V-Log LUT from my S1H, and they complained about too much magenta hue. I thought it was because I was boosting saturation too much (and maybe that did boost the red hues too much), but switching over to using the Nicest-709 LUT took care of all their complaints.

The Nicest 709 lut seems pretty accurate in most cases, though I prefer the GHAlex luts. 

[Jimmy G]

On 3/7/2021 at 3:33 AM, Robert Patts said:

If you look at this video, there are a few scenes that look just off. This is due to grading. Because, here it is again but with a "proper" grade. As I mentioned before, the Lumix lines require more "work" to get that nice look. 

Methinks the first link (BEYOND - PANASONIC LUMIX by Studio ATYPICAL) provides a better understanding as to the latitude of what the S5 sensor can provide in a variety of lighting conditions (i.e. interior with windows vs. backlit with sky vs. ambient interiors vs. lit interiors vs. dark scenes with either ambient of studio lighting vs. etc.) and, as such makes for a better promo for the camera.

The latter (PANASONIC | Dare To Differ - Director’s cut by Ruslan Tolkach), IMHO (and to take nothing away from the artistic intents of those involved), quite frankly, with its heavy reliance on crushed shadows, strong color casts and digital effects, looks more like a promo for a LUT/SFX pack than for a camera that can deliver 14-stops of DR with both fabulous highlight retention and clean shadows at high-ISOs. Again, with no malice towards the artists, I got to thinking that perhaps a tool (read: camera) with lesser abilities could have succeeded equally in delivering the artist's intentions as it appears as though all of the previously mentioned sensor qualities were summarily unutilized, nay, rendered irrelevant...to the point that I got to thinking that maybe you had inadvertently transposed the links for the point you were trying to make?

:)

Jim

[Volks]

Good day. I am planning to purchase a panasonic S5. Please send anyone who has the opportunity through the file sharing service Prores RoW 5.9. I want to understand if my computer will cope with it.

Thanks for the help. 

[Volks]

3 hours ago, Volks said:

Good day. I am planning to purchase a panasonic S5. Please send anyone who has the opportunity through the file sharing service Prores RAW 5.9. I want to understand if my computer will cope with it.

Thanks for the help. 

I mean Prores RAW 5.9 

[MrSMW]

Who would be interested in an S5R? Other than me?!

I shoot roughly 60% stills and 40% video.

For most of what I do, 24mp is enough and I have the 96mp tripod hi res mode for landscape etc when it’s not.

There are times when I’d like something in the middle, such as the S1R.

I have just been offered a mint 1 job unit with 2x extra batteries for 1600 euros and am tempted.

My perfect stills camera is the Leica SL2 (only criticism, the lack of a tilt screen) but at closing on 6k euros with an extra battery, what does it have that the S1R doesn’t that I need?

Nada.

But my concern with the S1R is it’s a bit of a lump.

The S5-SL2 is my perfect size...all of which has got me wondering whether Panasonic might follow the S1 line and do an H and an R model?

An S5H paired with an S5R would become my new dream pairing.

I might just buy this mint S1R and give it a try...

I have some non-Covid shoots coming up where I really do need 2 cameras and have several suitable lenses including the 24-105mm f4.

I can always sell it on if I don’t get on with it or an S5R appears on the horizon...

Anyone else interested in an S5R or H?

 

[TomTheDP]

On 3/18/2021 at 2:33 PM, MrSMW said:

Who would be interested in an S5R? Other than me?!

I shoot roughly 60% stills and 40% video.

For most of what I do, 24mp is enough and I have the 96mp tripod hi res mode for landscape etc when it’s not.

There are times when I’d like something in the middle, such as the S1R.

I have just been offered a mint 1 job unit with 2x extra batteries for 1600 euros and am tempted.

My perfect stills camera is the Leica SL2 (only criticism, the lack of a tilt screen) but at closing on 6k euros with an extra battery, what does it have that the S1R doesn’t that I need?

Nada.

But my concern with the S1R is it’s a bit of a lump.

The S5-SL2 is my perfect size...all of which has got me wondering whether Panasonic might follow the S1 line and do an H and an R model?

An S5H paired with an S5R would become my new dream pairing.

I might just buy this mint S1R and give it a try...

I have some non-Covid shoots coming up where I really do need 2 cameras and have several suitable lenses including the 24-105mm f4.

I can always sell it on if I don’t get on with it or an S5R appears on the horizon...

Anyone else interested in an S5R or H?

 

I am interested in the S1H due to BRAW, they aren't that expensive used. The S1R is also very interesting, it can do 4k 60p with no crop. That said the video is pixel binned. I am sure the stills are absolutely amazing. I have to say 24mp on the S1 is more than I could ever need. I've punched in from a portrait shot to having just the eye in frame and it was still damn detailed. The only limitation I've had was shooting with a lens that couldn't render the resolution the sensor is capable of. 

[MrSMW]

Binned the S1R idea.

It was a very good price and capable piece of kit but falls short in one area mainly and that is no 4K 50p 10 bit internal.

I could go with 2 slightly different bodies and ergos etc, but I would like my clips to match for a better workflow.

OK, I add in drone footage, but due to it’s nature it’s not going to match exactly and that’s to be expected.

Ah well. FP-L gets a look next assuming they do announce it, but I think most likely it will be another S5.