Panasonic S5 II (What does Panasonic have up their sleeve?)

[deezid]

4 hours ago, hyalinejim said:

I would love to see a colour chart shot with the same lens, lighting and settings on each in V-Log. There seems to be considerable variation in colour between some Panasonic models (GH series) and I'm wondering if the same is true for S5 and S5II

The color rendering, especially skin tones has been improved quite a bit in V-Log between the old S Series and S5II.
Much warmer skin tones.

However, the banding in near black areas (very similar to OLEDs after a bad Calman calibration) and also the heavy sharpening (similar to GH6) are quite concerning.

[hyalinejim]

41 minutes ago, deezid said:

the heavy sharpening

Hopefully Panasonic will include a -1 sharpening option in firmware update like they did before.

42 minutes ago, deezid said:

the banding in near black areas

I haven't seen it yet in any of my footage. To be honest, if someone regularly underexposes their footage by 4 stops they  probably have more pressing things to worry about than what camera body they're shooting on 😂

[Beritar]

22 hours ago, deezid said:

The color rendering, especially skin tones has been improved quite a bit in V-Log between the old S Series and S5II.
Much warmer skin tones.

However, the banding in near black areas (very similar to OLEDs after a bad Calman calibration) and also the heavy sharpening (similar to GH6) are quite concerning.

Do you know if the GH5II also has the heavy sharpening from the GH6 ? My GH6 and my S5II are very similar about sharpness, rough sharpening even at -5 with the standard profiles but also less fine details than S1/S5 and G9 because of the new "intelligent details" processing in the GH6.
I really hoped Panasonic didn't put these processing on the S5II but it looks even worse.

[FHDcrew]

15 minutes ago, Beritar said:

Do you know if the GH5II also has the heavy sharpening from the GH6 ? My GH6 and my S5II are very similar about sharpness, rough sharpening even at -5 with the standard profiles but also less fine details than S1/S5 and G9 because of the new "intelligent details" processing in the GH6.
I really hoped Panasonic didn't put these processing on the S5II but it looks even worse.

From what I’ve heard the GH5 II can have sharpening completely disabled, unlike most Panasonic cameras. 

[Alt Shoo]

Just curious. I totally understand wanting specific aspects of a camera to be a certain way and it’s cool to have discussions about it, but do we buy cameras to nitpick at the specs or shoot images? After a while it all becomes negligible. I can’t believe I’ve become the person to say this because I too was “geeking” over camera specs. After years of shooting I come to just use and appreciate the tool. Use the tools that suits your needs. 

[deezid]

20 hours ago, FHDcrew said:

From what I’ve heard the GH5 II can have sharpening completely disabled, unlike most Panasonic cameras. 

The older S Series cameras and GH5II and BGH1 are the only Lumix cameras with 0 sharpening in V-Log (L).
The GH6 and now S5II look much worse again in that regard.

[Beritar]

Another test between the S5II and the S5, this time with the Natural Profile (640 ISO) :

 

I'm not a fan of extreme sharpening but it's not really an issue if it can be dialed down enough, the important thing is to keep details.
The S5II uses a lot of sharpening at -5 but it also uses a lot of details filtering (look at the orange background) ,and of course adding sharpness in post can't help to recover details.
I think I never seen an imaqe quality so bad from a Panasonic camera of this price (V-Log has less issues but this is not the always the best profile for some situations).

[Emanuel]

4 hours ago, Alt Shoo said:

I can’t believe I’ve become the person to say this because I too was “geeking” over camera specs.

A perfect quote IMO ; )

3 hours ago, deezid said:

The older S Series cameras and GH5II and BGH1 are the only Lumix cameras with 0 sharpening in V-Log (L).
The GH6 and now S5II look much worse again in that regard.

In any way whatsoever, to look for perfection is anything else but not to fall into mediocrity :- )

[deezid]

On 2/27/2023 at 7:48 PM, Beritar said:

Another test between the S5II and the S5, this time with the Natural Profile (640 ISO) :

 

I'm not a fan of extreme sharpening but it's not really an issue if it can be dialed down enough, the important thing is to keep details.
The S5II uses a lot of sharpening at -5 but it also uses a lot of details filtering (look at the orange background) ,and of course adding sharpness in post can't help to recover details.
I think I never seen an imaqe quality so bad from a Panasonic camera of this price (V-Log has less issues but this is not the always the best profile for some situations).

That's what's also called the smartphone processing approach, apply tons of spatial and temporal filtering and another layer of heavy sharpening to compensate.

[PannySVHS]

What about Vlog for the S5 II and GH6? @deezid cheers

[92F]

Not everyone seems able to reproduce it? However for the AF of the GH5 all the Web spoke about it, finally.

A comparison in Standard PP mode with an R6 II or an A7IV would make it possible to better assess this less organic smoothing

[Beritar]

9 hours ago, deezid said:

That's what's also called the smartphone processing approach, apply tons of spatial and temporal filtering and another layer of heavy sharpening to compensate.

This is my thought exactly , Panasonic must want to target smartphone users, It's the only explanation and it's a very bad new.
But some people can't see the difference or sometimes prefer the over sharpening and mushy details of the S5II, so I am not surprised.

[PannySVHS]

Hi, didn't you state, that VLog for the S5 does not show this noise reduction and processing? @Beritar cheers

[Beritar]

5 minutes ago, PannySVHS said:

Hi, didn't you state, that VLog for the S5 does not show this noise reduction and processing? @Beritar cheers

V-Log on the S5II is way less impacted, it looks "almost" similar to my S5. It has slightly more sharpening (maybe more spatial or temporal NR from what I've seen in the CineD test), and tint is more green than the S5.
The real issue is with the standard profiles for the S5II.

[Beritar]

9 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

What about Vlog for the S5 II and GH6? @deezid cheers

About the GH6, I've not used it a lot but even with HLG and V-Log (H265) and I feel the details rendering is slightly different compared to the GH5, maybe because of some details filtering ("Intelligent detail filtering" from Panasonic) but there is a difference, like if the GH6 smooths and sharpens some details in the same time, a bit like with the S5II standard profiles but far less pronounced.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55RygnQqAbU

I think Deezid used the GH6 a lot more than me thought and said Prores has less noise reduction so maybe the details rendering is better than with H265. 

These days, many brands use a lot sharpening and different type of noise reduction, sadly most of the time there is no way to disable them.
It is true that there is no chance your clients could spot the loss of details, but I use Panasonic cameras since a very long time and I loved the way I could crop or extract picture from my videos while retaining a lot of details, like a true Jpeg picture without too much noise processing or digital sharpening. We can't do this anymore with the S5II standard profiles because there are too much processing going on internally, exactly like on smartphones.

[Al Dolega]

Very disappointing, the smoothing and sharpening are part of what we're trying to avoid by shooting on a "real" camera! I hope they've addressed this in firmware by the time my S5IIX comes in.

[newfoundmass]

Because it's Panasonic I'm confident they'll fix it with a firmware update. Any other camera company I'd be less certain but Panasonic has always been good about these things.

[Sharathc47]

13 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

Because it's Panasonic I'm confident they'll fix it with a firmware update. Any other camera company I'd be less certain but Panasonic has always been good about these things.

sean at Lumix live acknowledged the issue and said that it is because of Phase detect pixels. it's not solvable by just a firmware.  They are hoping to improve with next versions of cameras.

They use too much noise reduction like sony, it's in every S series camera. Otherwise a dynamic range of 12.3 with a 12bit adc is quite difficult. Wish they would use stacked 14bit adc sensors upto 60fps instead of nikon z9 sensor in future products.

[Beritar]

8 hours ago, Sharathc47 said:

sean at Lumix live acknowledged the issue and said that it is because of Phase detect pixels. it's not solvable by just a firmware.  They are hoping to improve with next versions of cameras.

They use too much noise reduction like sony, it's in every S series camera. Otherwise a dynamic range of 12.3 with a 12bit adc is quite difficult. Wish they would use stacked 14bit adc sensors upto 60fps instead of nikon z9 sensor in future products.

I don't think the issue is Phase Detect because V-Log on the S5II (while sharper than before) has not the insane sharpening and chroma noise reduction that the standard profiles have.
Moreover, nor my A7III and IV smooth details like this at low ISO and yet they use Phase detect.
There are just bad processing going on internaly on the standard profiles with the S5II.

[newfoundmass]

3 hours ago, Beritar said:

I don't think the issue is Phase Detect because V-Log on the S5II (while sharper than before) has not the insane sharpening and chroma noise reduction that the standard profiles have.
Moreover, nor my A7III and IV smooth details like this at low ISO and yet they use Phase detect.
There are just bad processing going on internaly on the standard profiles with the S5II.

Yeah, if it was because of phase detect you'd think it would impact every picture profile. I can't imagine it won't be fixed in a firmware so that the standard profiles at least get the same performance as V-Log. If it isn't something they can fix then shame on Panasonic.