Panasonic S5 User Experience

[Geoffrey]

Update on my broken S5 that no-one will be interested in:

Finally got it returned. Screen fixed. Gave it a test run and . . . none of the buttons on the back except play and veiwfinder buttons work any more including the focus type switch!! The camera is now totally useless. Can't believe it. 

Rang the repair company direct and they were surprised but at least contrite and back it will go. I suspect there is some small connecting wire they forgot to re-attach but then didn't think to press any of those buttons to test it since the screen works fine (and all the buttons and wheels on the top).

I did enquire of the company I bought it from that really I should be able to ask for a replacement camera. They agreed but claimed stocks are non-existent and supply times for new stock is months away, all due to the pandemic. Do I believe that? Dunno but I decided pushing it would only stress me out even more so repair again it is. 

Sigh.

[thehebrewhammer]

I made a decision to return my camera. Hopefully the seller (amazon, third party) takes it back without issue. I found the focus peaking to be totally inadequate for manual glass, coming from the GH5 or S1 or even an old Canon with magic lantern.

[Geoffrey]

And I got mine back from the menders, and finally it is working fine again. Now to get used to it all for a second time.

Shame you couldn't get round the focus issue thehebrewwhammer but sometimes you have to just accept something isn't working for you.

[Mark Romero 2]

19 hours ago, Geoffrey said:

And I got mine back from the menders, and finally it is working fine again. Now to get used to it all for a second time.

Shame you couldn't get round the focus issue thehebrewwhammer but sometimes you have to just accept something isn't working for you.

Glad to hear it's back in your hands. Hopefully it is working fine now.

[thehebrewhammer]

22 hours ago, Geoffrey said:

Shame you couldn't get round the focus issue thehebrewwhammer but sometimes you have to just accept something isn't working for you.

Thanks,

I have to admit that I was ready to put down my GH5 too quickly to get all my equipment a bit more aligned within one system - for what, better highlight roll-off? And that was the wrong call. It's a great camera and I never miss a shot with it.

[Andrew Reid]

On 4/23/2021 at 9:18 AM, mercer said:

Log profiles will be noisier than standard Rec709 profiles. Those profiles have sharpening and noise reduction built into the picture profile. With that said, shooting in lowlight with a log profile can be a waste of time. The point of a log profile is to maximize dynamic range. If you're shooting in lowlight the range of available light is drastically minimized. So if you want to shoot log in lowlight, you either need to introduce more light or raise your ISO. Since log profiles are built around a curve, it's good to know how the curve works, so you can expose for the curve, or you can ETTR (expose to the right) and then pull down your exposure in post. That should take care of the noise.

As far as the flickering, what hertz setting do you have your camera set to?

LOG shouldn't be noisier, you're just seeing more of the noise in the shadows. After grading, all that should go back to normal.

Shooting LOG in low contrast situations where there's just a narrow band of luminosity in the scene - I'd agree with you there, but then you may still need to match colour to the daytime scenes with a specific LUT.

Sometimes you do need a wide dynamic range in low light at ISO 3200 as well, there might be a brightly lit interior in the shot or bright street lights.

Definitely ETTR in low light. Better to select a high ISO especially with a dual gain sensor, than to under expose at say, 400, and ramp up the shadow noise in post.

[mercer]

3 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Definitely ETTR in low light. Better to select a high ISO especially with a dual gain sensor, than to under expose at say, 400, and ramp up the shadow noise in post.

I've been thinking about buying an FP or S5 for the dual gain option. Have you tested it with the FP? I'm mostly interested in the internal recording modes, so I'm curious how well it works with the 8bit CDNGs? I understand it's part of the architecture of the sensor, just not sure if the bit depth would have any effect on the color information even with a dual gain sensor camera?

[Andrew Reid]

They are both extremely good in low light, S5 perhaps even more so to my eye.

Haven't done anything scientific in terms of testing the dual gain yet. Good idea for a blog post though.

[zerocool22]

So I am trying the self timer for creating some selfies, but whenever I hit the photo button it focuses on my face while I am right in front of the camera, then I run back to the background where I want to be standing, but then the camera doesnt refocus. (I am using an S5 with EF adapter and tamron 24-70mm g2.)

Does anybody know how to fix this? 

 

Thanks,

[Stathman]

@zerocool22  I think the best solution is to put the lens in manual focus mode.

Focus the point you 'll be standing, hit the button and go!

I believe this way will be 100% in focus. I wouldn't rely on AFC with an adapted lens. 

Cheers

[MrSMW]

@zerocool22 I don’t think you will have much, if any chance, trying this with a non-native lens and even then…

Certainly not in face tracking mode, the key to which is tapping the yellow box once it has found a face, ie, that yellow box needs to be activated to track.

So many people are unaware of this and Panasonic hardly help their cause as they should really do a bit of shouting about this fact!

The ONLY mention I have ever come across is on the YouTube channel of Luca Bona.

Photo Joseph…who seems like some kind of Panny spokesperson maybe (?) may have mentioned it but not seen this point stressed by anyone but Luca.

Will it work with an adapted lens?

Maybe…I don’t know, I only have L Mount lenses, but if you can’t tap that yellow box, it’s not going to track!

You could however try the oval box AF which might work?

The non-face tracking won’t work either as you need to again set it and tell it by tapping in order to instruct it what to track.

I think PDAF is coming however.

The FP-L has it but it’s a bit crap as things stand. I suspect firmware will improve it.

I think the GH6 will have PDAF and if so, then I think it will be a sign that at least all future Panny and Sigma cameras will have PDAF and I think Leica will have to jump on that ship, because if they don’t, all 3 are going to sink faster than the ill-fated passenger liner of 1912. “Iceberg, dead ahead!”

[Michael S]

On 6/24/2021 at 10:01 PM, zerocool22 said:

So I am trying the self timer ...

Does anybody know how to fix this? 

Using the imaging app to remotely control the camera over wifi, possibly using the camera itself as the wifi access point?

[zerocool22]

10 hours ago, Michael S said:

Using the imaging app to remotely control the camera over wifi, possibly using the camera itself as the wifi access point?

Yeah this is something I already tried. Take a while to set up though. So was thinking about getting a remote control.

[Mark Romero 2]

On 6/24/2021 at 1:01 PM, zerocool22 said:

So I am trying the self timer for creating some selfies, but whenever I hit the photo button it focuses on my face while I am right in front of the camera, then I run back to the background where I want to be standing, but then the camera doesnt refocus. (I am using an S5 with EF adapter and tamron 24-70mm g2.)

Does anybody know how to fix this? 

 

Thanks,

The old-school method is to take the camera with you to the place where you WILL be standing, focus on your tripod head from that spot, make sure the focus on the lens doesn't change, then put the camera back on the tripod and go back to the EXACT spot you were standing when you focused on the tripod head.

The distance from you to the tripod head is the same as the distance from the tripod head to you 🙂

As far as using a remote, I can try with my pixel remote later and see, but (obviously) with adapted lenses it will have to be af-s. 

[herein2020]

On 5/28/2021 at 2:28 AM, thehebrewhammer said:

I made a decision to return my camera. Hopefully the seller (amazon, third party) takes it back without issue. I found the focus peaking to be totally inadequate for manual glass, coming from the GH5 or S1 or even an old Canon with magic lantern.

 

I have been saying this for a long time, the focus peaking on the S5 is horrible to the point of unusable; I have to punch in to focus and it seems that then sometimes focus peaking is decent but its still better to just look at the screen and try to gauge sharpness that way. The focus peaking is definitely nowhere near as good as the GH5.

[Mark Romero 2]

On 6/28/2021 at 6:35 PM, herein2020 said:

 

I have been saying this for a long time, the focus peaking on the S5 is horrible to the point of unusable; I have to punch in to focus and it seems that then sometimes focus peaking is decent but its still better to just look at the screen and try to gauge sharpness that way. The focus peaking is definitely nowhere near as good as the GH5.

I don't know if I would call it horrible... but then again, maybe you haven't tried focus peaking on an Olympus E-M1 MK II (which is undeniably a "fun" camera, but focus peaking doesn't seem to be its forte).

[MrSMW]

I wouldn’t call it terrible either, merely ‘OK’.

 

[herein2020]

@Mark Romero 2 @MrSMW For me it literally almost never appears and when it does its hard to see. The GH5 was far better in this regard and of course Canon with their triangles is second to none. It is probably made worse by the EF adapter and EF lenses.

I can definitely say its the worse of any camera I have used; but I have never used the Olympus; even my Canon Rebel's focus peaking is better.

[herein2020]

On 4/29/2021 at 3:53 AM, IronFilm said:

Watch all of this interview with my sound god hero Simon Hayes, he goes into what it takes to record excellent top notch sound even under raining conditions on screen:
 

 

Great video, and yes I do try to pick ideal locations when I am able to, but with events you have no control over things like that. It also makes sense that they are able to get that level of audio with dedicated sound guys big budget, etc. I have resigned myself to always having to struggle with audio.

 

In other news I did get the XLR adapter to be more reliable on the S5. I now set the XLR module to line or mic level first and turn on the camera with nothing attached. Once the XLR module turns on and is detected properly, I then turn off the camera and connect the XLR cables. I then turn on the camera one more time and switch the switch from line or mic to phantom power +48v after the cable and mic are connected. 

With this process in this order it has worked flawlessly so far.

[projectwoofer]

On 6/29/2021 at 3:35 AM, herein2020 said:

 

I have been saying this for a long time, the focus peaking on the S5 is horrible to the point of unusable; I have to punch in to focus and it seems that then sometimes focus peaking is decent but its still better to just look at the screen and try to gauge sharpness that way. The focus peaking is definitely nowhere near as good as the GH5.

I’m using my S5 with 9 different vintage manual lenses and the focus peaking works as it should. No problems here.