Most underrated cameras?

[Andrew Reid]

There are some things in life that are only highly rated in your head and yours alone. You stand drowning in a sea of indifference, trying to convince the resident Kanye West mouthbreather to listen Dream Theater's first album. With cameras for example, I've stood in the sea of indifference myself for a long time with the waves of stupidity lapping at my feet, making my socks all damp, as I try to convince the mainstream that Sony is not your best buddy, despite what Gerald says and that Canon is not the messiah but a very naughty boy!

So here are my top 5 most under appreciated cameras of the current era.

Please read on. Reading is also very underrated!

New blog post:

https://www.eoshd.com/news/what-are-the-5-most-underrated-cameras-for-filmmakers/

 

[wachkds]

Hi Andrew, Thanks for your great article .  You mention a vlog firmware upgrade for the S1R . I only see DMW-SFU2GU for the S1 model in Europe . Is this compatible with the S1R as well ? 

[PannySVHS]

This was a tasty read. I didnt even bother to make something to eat first in order to enjoy this article. I enjoyed it right away instead. Also a thing that sticks out about the S series from Panasonic is the practical absence of noise reduction at higher Isos. You won´t see any mushyness but fine grain. A7s3 does not offer that, but instead it shows mushyness at higher isos.

I have been saying it for a while now, my S1 is a pocket Varicam. I sometimes enjoy filming in S35 mode just for the special feeling of having a cinema camera in my hands. S35 makes me realize it even more, that this is a true cinema beast.

The choice of cameras in your article is aweseome, fun and fundamental! Now I hope I can do the image quality of my S1 justice instead of lusting for a Sigma FP.:)

[MrSMW]

My current pairing of S1H and S5 for hybrid use with mostly Sigma Contemporary lenses are not under-appreciated by me!

I haven’t had a wedding for 11 months now (and that was the first after 9 months without one…and as someone who normally shoots 25-30 a year) but I have been shooting a number of small commercial projects plus 6 ‘styled wedding’ shoots in the last few weeks and the quality of both the stills and the video blows me away every time.

I still haven’t quite nailed down my exact in camera settings or exact combo of lenses etc, but very close now…

The one thing I do know is that there is no other system I’d rather be using right now.

The FP I wanted to love but wasn’t for me, but their lenses are.

I like the idea of Leica but the reality is I’d rather have my S1H over both the SL2 and the SL2-S. No tilt screen is the main deal-breaker for me.

The future…

I’d like to see an S5H, ie a ‘pro’ level spec S5.

The level of tactility, the screen (the way it articulates and the resolution) the build quality; the way things click and turn, the shutter sound, the EVF…the S1H is easily the best camera I have ever owned.

Easily, it is just on another level.

Except for tracking AF where it’s on another level. A level below other camera brands. But fortunately, although I do use AF, tracking forward motion (where it’s least reliable) is less than 5% of my needs so that is my compromise.

If Panny would just build an H version of the  S5 it would be perfect for me.

But is it (S5/1) under-appreciated or are others just over-rated? I suspect less of the former and more of the latter.

[Andrew Reid]

3 hours ago, wachkds said:

Hi Andrew, Thanks for your great article .  You mention a vlog firmware upgrade for the S1R . I only see DMW-SFU2GU for the S1 model in Europe . Is this compatible with the S1R as well ? 

Yes I believe so, as the Panasonic firmware update page mentions you need it for some of the updates modes like Hybrid Log Gamma.

[kye]

No surprises here, but I'd say it's the Blackmagic Micro Cinema Camera.

A modular cinema camera under $1000 brand new, uncompressed Cinema DNG RAW at 60p, and a beautiful image.  

The image doesn't look like that second generation iPhone or camcorder that Canon love to imitate when clipped either..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMb6CR781Kc

With Resolve it superscales to 4K beautifully too.  You don't actually want 4K, you just got trained by the camera brands that 1080 is bad because they compress the absolute living crap out of their images - no-one is rejecting the Alexa 1080p because it's not 4K!  With great quality RAW images you can push and pull them in post and they keep on giving and this is pretty darn close to that...

Plus it's the easiest camera to grade that I have ever seen.  Great images just appear when you drop a LUT or CST onto them, rather than struggling for hours to get good colours.

[EduPortas]

I  was expecting Panasonic's own GH5s. It's had a strong price-drop recently and a chunky firmware update.

Very nice read.

On a sidenote: great videos, man. Poignant and certainly above the rest of the YT camera market crap.

[Caleb Genheimer]

Honestly I think what hurts Panny’s L-Mount beasts is their very own S1H perched high atop the pile. It deserves to be there, but a LOT of folks tend to shop between flagships, ignoring tertiary models. In reality… The S1/S5/S1R compare to everyone else’s lineups, and the S1H just… sits in its own tier. If they had sorted the AF, I’d probably have procured two and hung up my camera shopping hat for the next two decades. 

[Brian Williams]

I don’t know why I’m so happy to see my S1 at #1, I did it, I’m not one of the stupid customers!

It does deserve it though, they had me at 10bit+IBIS. And yes, the ergonomics are superior.

In terms of low light, doesn’t the S1 also have dual iso?

[Simon Young]

I'll go out on a limb and say that the Canon R5 is the most underrated HYBRID camera, especially after seeing how the A7sIII practically took over the Youtube circle jerk crowd in the blink of an eye.

The R5 got rightfully panned because of the overheating failure and extremely poor marketing, but take another look at it now. It's a brilliant stills camera with great autofocus, colors and resolution and the shutter sound is subliminal. It's also a 10bit 422 video camera that I for the life of me can't get to overheat when recording 4K standard (which I know is softer which I actually prefer) and the s35 oversampled crop mode is rock solid, it doesn't overheat no matter how hot the ambient temperatures are. 

Still better colors than Sony, very good rolling shutter performance and a huge amount of glass if you are willing to use adapters. And it feels like a camera, the ergos are perfect.

[wachkds]

12 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Yes I believe so, as the Panasonic firmware update page mentions you need it for some of the updates modes like Hybrid Log Gamma.

Hello Andrew, I digged a bit further and found this Panny pdf dated April this year, so it looks like Vlog is currently not available for the S1R .

https://www.panasonic.com/content/dam/Panasonic/Global/Learn-More/Lumix-s/feature_comparison.pdf

 

Best Pierre

[stephen]

4 hours ago, Brian Williams said:

In terms of low light, doesn’t the S1 also have dual iso?

Yes, it does. 🙂 With firmware coming on 10th of July, Panasonic made Lumix S1 irresistible to me. Full frame 6K BRAW from a camera that has gorgeous EVF, best in class IBIS (not that important to me, but thank you), 10bit 4:2:2 internal for the projects where BRAW is not needed, great low light, 60p,  the list goes on. And all this for less than 2500 Euro (Panasonic S1 camera + Blackmagic Video Assist 12G 5inch Recorder and Monitor). It's a great value and incredibly good camera for video and very capable for photo.

It's underrated because of the auto focus. But hey I use manual focus lenses all the  time.

Wish Panasonic to stay in this game. We need them.   

[MrSMW]

5 hours ago, Simon Young said:

I'll go out on a limb and say that the Canon R5

I for one wouldn’t disagree with you.

Stupid stupid stupid contrived business decisions that really do not deserve rewarding…but at the same time, for most users real world needs, I couldn’t disagree with you and it would be in a race…which it would likely win, with the XT4, for being my choice if the S1H didn’t exist.

The win would be mostly down to the glass options.

[Dave Maze]

couldn't agree more about the EM1X. I still use my EM1 mkii and mkiii every week. Don't see myself switching to anything anytime soon either. I really hope Olympus will have something great again soon to upgrade this. 

[Brian Williams]

11 hours ago, stephen said:

It's underrated because of the auto focus. But hey I use manual focus lenses all the  time. 

A little off topic, but a while ago I was playing with making an iOS app that would use the phone’s LiDAR and having the app connect to my BMPCC4K via Bluetooth to control focus. I sold that camera awhile ago and forgot about it, but recently I was playing around with a little Apple Airtag, and that thing, with my iPhone 12 Pro, can seemingly measure distance down to centimeters, if not even smaller. Now Apple hasn’t yet opened the Airtag to developers (if they ever will), but if they do I could see an app that tracks the distance of an Airtag and then sends that info to my S1 for focus, especially since Panasonic does already have an SDK for developers to build apps to control Lumix’s. Something like that could help level the playing field for Panasonic camera’s AF woes. 

Panasonic just switching over to phase detection could also help 😉

[Fox]

On 7/2/2021 at 12:00 AM, kye said:

No surprises here, but I'd say it's the Blackmagic Micro Cinema Camera.

A modular cinema camera under $1000 brand new, uncompressed Cinema DNG RAW at 60p, and a beautiful image.  

 

What lenses did you shoot that “L’échappée sauvage” with?

[Mr. Freeze]

24 minutes ago, Fox said:

What lenses did you shoot that “L’échappée sauvage” with?

You were basically only one click away from getting the answer yourself.

[Fox]

5 hours ago, Mr. Freeze said:

You were basically only one click away from getting the answer yourself.

Thanks for the hint 😉 

 

beautiful result!

[HockeyFan12]

I still prefer the colors from the C100 (with external recorder)/C300/F3 (with external recorder) to most cameras today. Preferred the C300 Mk 1 to the Mk2 and F3 to F5, but later updates fixed the F5 imo.

I also like the grainier softer look of sub-4K cameras. 😕

But I think that's mostly personal taste...

Today P4k/P6k/S1/fp seem like winners.... but S1 does have a magenta cast on skin.

EVA1 I think is underrated and has better color, but a hard sell given how cheap an S1 or S5 is.

[stephen]

6 hours ago, HockeyFan12 said:

.... but S1 does have a magenta cast on skin

True if you use ONLY Resolve color space transform from V-Log to Rec709. Magenta cast is easy to correct. You can do it once then save it and apply it on all clips. Or use corrective LUTs. Leeming Luts  is one good option. In his review of Panasonic S1, Gerald Undone showed that once corrective LUT is applied, colors on vector scope match. See at 12:59

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CphwVNgX32s

Here is another solution:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWzJG-822Iw

Having in mind you can shoot RAW with Panasonic S1 and adjust the colors as you wish, that's not a camera limitation but  your personal preference.

Like Blackmagic cameras and own one. What Panasonic S1 have and  BMPCC 4K (and even 6K) doesn't is full frame sensor. Not because am full frame or bokeh fanatic, S35 is more than enough for me. But because of lenses. Most lenses in photography before digital era are  Leica 35mm format (full frame). It's nice to use the lens at it's focal length as it was designed to be used and not with a crop factor. For example Helios 44M is 58mm in full frame land at a focal length close to what we call normal. In S35 it is a telephoto lens. And so on. Full frame camera makes my life easier when shooting with vintage and modern FF lenses, specially at the wide end. With speed boosters you can close to FF on Blackmagic but not exactly match. Still a small  problem. Also with FF you build a lens collection once and never worry again when new cameras arrive.