Panasonic S5 User Experience

[zerocool22]

Will panasonix fix the focus magnifier glass while recording? And also include the possibility to decrease the sharpness more? Or are there any olpf filters coming?

[Mark Romero 2]

9 hours ago, zerocool22 said:

Will panasonix fix the focus magnifier glass while recording? And also include the possibility to decrease the sharpness more? Or are there any olpf filters coming?

If you mean being able to punch in while recording? If so, I am not sure. It isn't available on the S1, but only on the S1H as far as I know (and I am only 50% sure it is available on the S1H).

[Roger]

4 hours ago, Mark Romero 2 said:

If you mean being able to punch in while recording? If so, I am not sure. It isn't available on the S1, but only on the S1H as far as I know (and I am only 50% sure it is available on the S1H).

Matt Frazer from Panasonic answers why it doesn't work in the S1H in this video at 47.55, a limitation of how they designed the flow of data.

https://youtu.be/lQ2cuFfcWB8?t=2875

 

[TheBoogieKnight]

It's available with external recording only on the S!H but I'm not sure if you can do it on the S5 or with the S1 with latest update.

[Thpriest]

Anyone used both the S5 and the Sony A7Siii? My heart says S5 as an upgrade from the GH5 but I have a client who only uses Sony and having a Sony could mean more work. But I've hardly ever seen anything that I like shot on a Sony DSLR (colours and texture). Whilst I'm loath to have 2 systems I'm thinking of maybe just getting an A7iii with a Tamron 28-70 to get work with this particular client (agency with lots of clients) and getting a S5 for my own jobs for my clients (events, weddings etc). Other than the AF on the Sonys (amazing) I'm just not convinced they are better than Panasonic.

I'd be selling all by m43 gear (GH5, GH5S, loads of lenses etc) and would take advantage of being able to discount all VAT.

Any thoughts are helpful!

90% video 10% photo. Lots of run and gun and I like to get everything right in camera for minimal tweaking in post.

[TheBoogieKnight]

19 minutes ago, Thpriest said:

Anyone used both the S5 and the Sony A7Siii? My heart says S5 as an upgrade from the GH5 but I have a client who only uses Sony and having a Sony could mean more work. But I've hardly ever seen anything that I like shot on a Sony DSLR (colours and texture). Whilst I'm loath to have 2 systems I'm thinking of maybe just getting an A7iii with a Tamron 28-70 to get work with this particular client (agency with lots of clients) and getting a S5 for my own jobs for my clients (events, weddings etc). Other than the AF on the Sonys (amazing) I'm just not convinced they are better than Panasonic.

I'd be selling all by m43 gear (GH5, GH5S, loads of lenses etc) and would take advantage of being able to discount all VAT.

Any thoughts are helpful!

90% video 10% photo. Lots of run and gun and I like to get everything right in camera for minimal tweaking in post.

I think the question is do you need 4k/120, the amazing AF and access to a wider selection of lenses? Two Panasonic S1s here but I'm seriously thinking of adding an SIII just for those things. I don't think the image quality will necessarily be as good but probably not too far off. I love my S1s in pretty much every way (other than a lack of 3k/60 10-bit which is coming in an update).

[Thpriest]

15 minutes ago, TheBoogieKnight said:

I think the question is do you need 4k/120, the amazing AF and access to a wider selection of lenses? Two Panasonic S1s here but I'm seriously thinking of adding an SIII just for those things. I don't think the image quality will necessarily be as good but probably not too far off. I love my S1s in pretty much every way (other than a lack of 3k/60 10-bit which is coming in an update).

Good points. I hardly ever use 100fps (PAL world!) The AF looks amazing on the Sonys. With my GH5/GH5S I really just use back button focus to get a shot in focus. I don't do too much tracking or focus racking. Lens selection is a problem, it's true. 

[Beritar]

9 hours ago, Thpriest said:

Anyone used both the S5 and the Sony A7Siii? My heart says S5 as an upgrade from the GH5 but I have a client who only uses Sony and having a Sony could mean more work. But I've hardly ever seen anything that I like shot on a Sony DSLR (colours and texture). Whilst I'm loath to have 2 systems I'm thinking of maybe just getting an A7iii with a Tamron 28-70 to get work with this particular client (agency with lots of clients) and getting a S5 for my own jobs for my clients (events, weddings etc). Other than the AF on the Sonys (amazing) I'm just not convinced they are better than Panasonic.

I'd be selling all by m43 gear (GH5, GH5S, loads of lenses etc) and would take advantage of being able to discount all VAT.

Any thoughts are helpful!

90% video 10% photo. Lots of run and gun and I like to get everything right in camera for minimal tweaking in post.

I used the A7SIII, the S5 and the S1. I returned the SIII because of the noise reduction, colors, IBIS, MP and sharpness.
I don't need the 120fps 4K 1.1x and the fast AF-C. My S1 and S5 with the S Pro 2.8 have very fast AF and good enough AF-C. And even if Sony has more lenses I prefer the Lumix ones. I had/have the 24-70mm GM, 70-200mm GM and 50mm Zeiss Sony 1.4, the Lumix Pro equivalent lenses are better (sharpness, bokeh and 3D pop).

About the S5, it's a great camera, but the S1 is even better (slightly better IBIS, better EVF, 6K internal next year etc ...) !
 

[MrSMW]

I have hummed and hawwed over the possibility of an A7Siii over one of my S5’s purely for the CAF and...well actually that is it.

Other than the fact that it’s twice the price and I don’t like what I have seen it capable of producing as much as the FF Panasonic, it’s not for me either.

4k 120p, or 100 in my case would be nice, but the times I’d use it, 1080 upscaled will suffice.

Pretty sure I’d be very happy with the Sony, but I prefer the Panasonic’s.

For low light stuff, the Panasonic’s also look better from comparison’s I have seen.

No one camera ticks every box. At least not fully for me, but the S5 ticks the most.

[zerocool22]

What do you guys use for photography settings? Have not shot anything serious video nor photo, but the pictures I take look kinda deadlike, same for the video so far. (coming from canon, sony, blackmagic, panasonic has been some years gh4 was my latest panasonic). I just sold my canon 6D otherwise I could compare them a bit. 
Only shot at night though so far. 

But somehow I am not enjoying taking pictures with the S5 so far. (is it the EVF, LCD that kinda looks boring? I hated the C100 and C300 because the onboard monitor) I already increased the contrast on the LCD as it didnt match the contrast of the EVF. So for now the specs look great, but I do miss the feeling of shooting with a canon 5D III (of all camera's I owned that one stood out for me, just because everytime I took a picture it looked like magic on the monitor)

[MrSMW]

Not really sure what you mean?

I shoot raw, for; subject, composition, framing, moment etc, ie with intent, but the resulting image is brought to life in Lightroom.

The S5 has a nice clean starting point and you can do pretty much what you want after that.

Having said that, because of what is now last year, I have shot less than 5% of the work I would normally do and most of that was with Fuji so not really used it extensively for photo.

[Mark Romero 2]

22 hours ago, zerocool22 said:

What do you guys use for photography settings? Have not shot anything serious video nor photo, but the pictures I take look kinda deadlike, same for the video so far. (coming from canon, sony, blackmagic, panasonic has been some years gh4 was my latest panasonic). I just sold my canon 6D otherwise I could compare them a bit. 
Only shot at night though so far. 

But somehow I am not enjoying taking pictures with the S5 so far. (is it the EVF, LCD that kinda looks boring? I hated the C100 and C300 because the onboard monitor) I already increased the contrast on the LCD as it didnt match the contrast of the EVF. So for now the specs look great, but I do miss the feeling of shooting with a canon 5D III (of all camera's I owned that one stood out for me, just because everytime I took a picture it looked like magic on the monitor)

When shooting photos, I shoot in RAW and I make sure that the picture style is set to something like standard, as it will affect how the monitor / LCD look. 

When shooting video in VLOG, I use either the built in monitoring LUT or one of the LUTs that I uploaded from the Varicam collection on Panasonic's site (like the nicest, or the Fashion Low Contrast, or something like that). When it comes to MONITORING the image while shooting video, I tend to prefer a pretty contrasty image since for the majority of my work (real estate) my main problems are keeping the horizon level and the walls vertical. 

[zerocool22]

I took some shots in daylight today, and compared my panasonic 85mm 1.8 vs my canon L 85mm 1.4. (close focus was about the same, 5 cm difference, autofocus might need to give it to the panasonic but quite similar, the canon is a bit warmer and less sharp so a bit smoother, and seems to give it a small extra pop, so IQ goes to the canon. Allthough that lens weighs as much as the S5 + the panasonic 85mm, so thats a big negative)

I am quite surprised about the good rolloff of the S5. The LCD and EVF of the panasonic S5 does look quite boring, to when you load it up in lightroom it looks a lot better(allthough it needs still some work). Thats something I miss from the canon camera's, it usually looks better on the damned mini lcd camera's then it does in post. But it makes the shooting experience a lot more fun, but i am told Leica is king in that department, so I might pull the trigger on a leica cam sometime for travel photography, too bad the video specs on Leica do kinda suck)

[herein2020]

5 hours ago, zerocool22 said:

I took some shots in daylight today, and compared my panasonic 85mm 1.8 vs my canon L 85mm 1.4. (close focus was about the same, 5 cm difference, autofocus might need to give it to the panasonic but quite similar, the canon is a bit warmer and less sharp so a bit smoother, and seems to give it a small extra pop, so IQ goes to the canon. Allthough that lens weighs as much as the S5 + the panasonic 85mm, so thats a big negative)

I am quite surprised about the good rolloff of the S5. The LCD and EVF of the panasonic S5 does look quite boring, to when you load it up in lightroom it looks a lot better(allthough it needs still some work). Thats something I miss from the canon camera's, it usually looks better on the damned mini lcd camera's then it does in post. But it makes the shooting experience a lot more fun, but i am told Leica is king in that department, so I might pull the trigger on a leica cam sometime for travel photography, too bad the video specs on Leica do kinda suck)

I guess I'm kind of confused as well, are you just unhappy with the way it looks on the LCD or after you post process it? Also, are you shooting raw or JPG?  If you mean the way they look on the LCD I agree with you; the LCD screen on the S5 just doesn't seem very good to me for either video or photography. I've never had such a hard time using focus peaking (it never seems visible on the screen to me), and after taking a picture or while shooting a video the screen seems to shift to some kind of lower power mode after a few seconds and the image gets blurry almost like it dropped the resolution by half or maybe the refresh rate of the screen.

The GH5 never did this, and none of my Canons do this. When shooting with the S5 I really am just putting faith in the provided tools and indicators because I've found it seems nearly impossible to tell how the final processed footage will look by looking at the back screen even with a monitoring LUT. I always feel like I am slightly out of focus when looking at the screen and the few times I've taken pictures with it I know exactly what you mean....the preview of the images on the back screen looks worse than after I post process them vs my Canon which makes every picture look perfect until you get them into Lightroom.

I don't believe in external monitors (one more thing to deal with when running and gunning as a OMB), but even if I wanted to use one the micro HDMI port would prevent me from doing that. I've reached the conclusion that I just need to ignore the quality of the image on the LCD and rely on the focusing tools, WFM, spot meter, exposure meter, focus peaking, etc. to know I'm properly capturing the image. I haven't used it enough for photography to have to adapt to its photography quirks.

[TomTheDP]

Focus peaking is pretty useless on the S1 and S5. 

[MrSMW]

2 hours ago, herein2020 said:

If you mean the way they look on the LCD I agree with you; the LCD screen on the S5 just doesn't seem very good to me for either video or photography.

I think the LCD isn’t too bad actually. The EVF is adequate at best. Pity they didn’t use the S1 one, but they had to cut corners somewhere I suppose.

But the LCD I think is pretty decent and only exists to give an approximation rather than a true representation of what has been captured.

Zooming in on pics to the max amount for one thing will always disappoint. These tiny screens just can’t do it.

So yes, don’t judge anything in camera and try and avoid shooting Jpeg, especially in tricky lighting.

But otherwise, the S5 for me beats anything I was previously getting from Fuji APSC which was/is excellent and far beyond the Nikon DSLR’s I was using previously.

I do believe we have been at that point where most kit will produce the quality, for some years now and it’s more a case of being able to shoot at ever higher frame rates, lower light, stickier eye AF etc that is the only difference these days.

[herein2020]

8 hours ago, MrSMW said:

I think the LCD isn’t too bad actually. The EVF is adequate at best. Pity they didn’t use the S1 one, but they had to cut corners somewhere I suppose.

But the LCD I think is pretty decent and only exists to give an approximation rather than a true representation of what has been captured.

Zooming in on pics to the max amount for one thing will always disappoint. These tiny screens just can’t do it.

So yes, don’t judge anything in camera and try and avoid shooting Jpeg, especially in tricky lighting.

But otherwise, the S5 for me beats anything I was previously getting from Fuji APSC which was/is excellent and far beyond the Nikon DSLR’s I was using previously.

I do believe we have been at that point where most kit will produce the quality, for some years now and it’s more a case of being able to shoot at ever higher frame rates, lower light, stickier eye AF etc that is the only difference these days.

The funny thing is...focus peaking worked better in the GH5, and I don't know if you have ever tried the GH5 but the screen is way better in the GH5. Either mine is defective or it is a power saving measure....but the screen looks perfectly sharp (like the GH5) sometimes, mainly when in the menus or right after switching to live view, but then it drops the resolution to the point where nothing looks as clear as it did; its still usable but definitely not as sharp as the GH5 or the Canons. One day I will try to get a before/after picture of the screen to show the difference. The problem is, it does not do it all the time so I haven't found a way to reproduce the behavior yet.

Another new annoyance of mine is there is no way to have the audio meter turn off automatically when switching to photography. Most of the display items can be set to just video or just photography but for some strange reason the audio meter isn't one of them...its either on or off.

 

9 hours ago, TomTheDP said:

Focus peaking is pretty useless on the S1 and S5. 

Good to know it's just as bad on the S1, have you used the S1H? Its the same sensor so I would assume its equally bad. Maybe because their AF sucks their focus peaking is tied to that, but its weird the focus peaking in the GH5 worked better IMO than the S5.

[MrSMW]

Never had a GH5 so nothing to compare to in that regard but my perception is it’s better than the camera I replaced, the XT3.

LCD that is, EVF seems about the same but nothing really that I have given much thought to in either case.

How are you switching between stills and video?

I have C1 set up for stills with every single thing I can do on and everything I can switch off, off.

C2 I have set up currently for 4K 50P which is my standard for video.

C3 for 4K 25P as one of my options because I have S&M mode or whatever it’s called configured for 1080 100p.

With my previous Fuji’s I never did any of this because despite using XT3’s for both stills and video, I had units set up and dedicated to either but never both.

I took the time with the S5’s to set them up as true hybrids.

You can set pretty much any and everything in the custom modes so it really is a dedicated stills machine with one turn of a dial and then turn again, it’s back to being a dedicated video unit.

Re. the focus peaking, I agree, it’s a bit shit and I think that’s connected to it being contrast based as anything with little to no contrast doesn’t show up in peaking so you need to judge it a little by eye. Not the greatest but I use AF far more than MF so not a real biggie for me.

[herein2020]

1 hour ago, MrSMW said:

Never had a GH5 so nothing to compare to in that regard but my perception is it’s better than the camera I replaced, the XT3.

LCD that is, EVF seems about the same but nothing really that I have given much thought to in either case.

How are you switching between stills and video?

I have C1 set up for stills with every single thing I can do on and everything I can switch off, off.

C2 I have set up currently for 4K 50P which is my standard for video.

C3 for 4K 25P as one of my options because I have S&M mode or whatever it’s called configured for 1080 100p.

With my previous Fuji’s I never did any of this because despite using XT3’s for both stills and video, I had units set up and dedicated to either but never both.

I took the time with the S5’s to set them up as true hybrids.

You can set pretty much any and everything in the custom modes so it really is a dedicated stills machine with one turn of a dial and then turn again, it’s back to being a dedicated video unit.

Re. the focus peaking, I agree, it’s a bit shit and I think that’s connected to it being contrast based as anything with little to no contrast doesn’t show up in peaking so you need to judge it a little by eye. Not the greatest but I use AF far more than MF so not a real biggie for me.

The top dial has two positions....one dedicated for video the rest are different photography modes and custom modes. I have all of my video menu items set up under the top dial position that has the video icon and the M next to it (right after S&Q). For photography, I use the icon that has the M for manual exposure. Panasonic calls that dial position with the video symbol the "Creative Video" mode and the camera automatically configures the screen for the most useful video settings which is why I use that dial position for video. If you go into the menu > Gear icon > First page > "CreativeVideo Combined Set" you can configure which features display just in the Creative Video dial position and what is shared with the P/A/S/M modes. The Sound Meter should be one of the options there but it is not.

I never use custom modes, I prefer instead to set up a custom menu and put my commonly changing settings in there; I would run out of custom modes if I tried to have one for each configuration, also, after putting the S5 in a cage, it is more difficult to quickly access the mode dial vs pushing the menu button especially when it is on a gimbal.

In my custom menu for video/photography I have the following items (in order)

• Rec Quality - to change the frame rate
• WFM/Vector Scope - The WFM is so large that I frequently turn it on to check exposure then turn it off to shoot the scene
• Image area of Video - I actually don't use this like I thought I would but its still there
• Photo Style - I've never changed this either it's always set to V-Log
• Zebra Pattern - I don't use this either, the WFM is way better
• Frame Marker - This is a really cool feature that I plan on using at some point to check my composition for vertical videos and if I ever use it for photography I will use the frame markers to properly compose in a 4:5 aspect ratio
• XLR Adapter Setting - Haven't had to change this yet but I don't want to hunt through the menu either if I need to adjust something there
• Sound Rec Level Adj - Haven't had to change this yet either but if I am not using an XLR mic and just a regular mic I need to be able to adjust the level quickly
• Headphone Volume - It stays at level 8 and is still hard to hear when monitoring audio (could be I need lower impedance headphones)
• Ex Tele Conv - I used to use this all the time with the GH5 to simulate a longer lens....but its not as useful with the S5 because at 60FPS there's already a crop and the feature gets disabled
• Luminance Spot Meter - I plan on using this one day when I have enough time to use a grey card but it hasn't happened yet

I probably need to go back in and remove Photo Style, Image Area of Video, and Zebra Pattern. I also need to instead add the Sound Meter since I haven't found a way to get it to disable when in Photography mode.

I might write Panasonic with a feature request to add the Sound Meter to the "CreativeVideo Combined Set" feature. Another thing that would be nice is if it had a feature like the S1H to filter all of the different rec modes. I only ever use 4K60FPS 10bit 4:2:0 and 4K 30FPS 10bit 4:2:2, it would be nice if I could get just those two options to display when selecting the rec mode. Instead I have to spend a few extra seconds making sure I picked the right version of each when switching modes (i.e. 4:2:0, 8bit, 10bit, etc). 

[mercer]

This video helps to explain how Panasonic's focus peaking works and its settings. With my past Panny cameras, I was often frustrated with their focus peaking implementation, but when you could see it, there was no question it was in focus. I ended up monitoring in B&W using red lines to make it a bit easier.