Panasonic are so underrated for stills

[Andrew Reid]

My Leica M-P 240 got sold last month due to needing the money to keep EOSHD afloat and new gear coming in. Was sad to let it go but need to sell a LOT of my inventory to keep the wolf from the door at the moment. However before I let it go, made sure to do one last shoot with it, alongside my Canon 1D C and Leica M9. As far as colour science goes, I rate the 240, M9 and 1D C right at the top of the tree. The M9 has a special look with CCD but 1D C and the 240 are very very close, and much better in low light.

It got me thinking, what other cameras like the 1D C better known for video, are actually really really good stills cameras?

Panasonic G9 springs to mind with the amazing EVF and very responsive performance, fast bursts, all-round very big feature set for stills. E-M1 X I think is also underrated, it feels lovely in the hand, controls are fantastic, every bit the pro Micro Four Thirds camera it set out to be. Olympus colour science and white balance always nails the look you're after.

But I think the Panasonic S1H takes the prize.

It's better than a Leica SL2-S.

Better battery life, better screen, more features.

The main strengths for stills are the best EVF on the market, even better than the S1R and GFX 100. It's enormous and 5.76m dots!

AF is absolutely fine for stills in S-AF mode, decent light, native lens. It's very fast and reliable. Sure it's rubbish with Canon EF adapter and in 24fps video mode but don't mind manual focus with Leica M lenses on it - much nicer, and less heavy.

Dual native ISO full frame sensor, absolutely rocks in low light. 6K / 24 megapixel is enough resolution for me and makes for much faster performance, more responsive, smaller file sizes when shooting a lot of stills. It also has XPAN style wide aspect ratio settings, one of my favourite shooting styles so you can accurately compose in these modes, looks fantastic in black and white. Picture styles even have a film grain setting.

Built quality is amazing, the huge top panel LCD great for checking settings at a glance whilst leaving the back screen completely free of clutter.

Shutter mechanism feels so premium, better than Leica.

What's more it cost me £1800.

And that's before you even factor in the FX6 level video camera thrown in for free 🙂

[BTM_Pix]

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

But I think the Panasonic S1H takes the prize.

Word has it that the mark 2 is imminent and will apparently have the following :

• 50MP sensor
• 8K/60
• 6K/8K ProRes RAW (to external SSD as far as I can tell)
• Phase Detect AF

I suppose that would take care of your AF woes and it does all that at the  current price of the mark 1 then you might be flogging off more gear to get it.

It might change my Z9 plans as well. 

[Fairkid]

I love my S1 with the Voigtlander 40mm f1.2 LM, I feel like I can cover anything with that combo.

[MrSMW]

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

What's more it cost me £1800.

Ditto all of that but especially this. Traded a pair of S1R’s last week for another S1H. 

It’s not that I disliked the S1R’s and obviously their ultimate image quality is higher res, but in every other department, the S1H trumps it.

Looking forward to a S2H, but not in any rush and even if available later this year, isn’t a viable option for me in ‘23.

[PannySVHS]

4 hours ago, Fairkid said:

I love my S1 with the Voigtlander 40mm f1.2 LM, I feel like I can cover anything with that combo.

Wanna see that combo in action! 🙂

I love to take pictures with my GX85 and c-mount lenses. Not much into using cameras for a while now. Raw is a joy to use, great colours coming from this cool little camera. It´s a gem. Took less than 200 pictures in three years with the S1. Not enjoying the camera for photography. Holding a 5D in the hand is pure joy on the other hand. One of these silly things with cameras.:)

[fuzzynormal]

4 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

One of these silly things with cameras.:)

Yeah, I can't explain my attraction to Olympus, but there it is.

[MrSMW]

9 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

Wanna see that combo in action!

I have been toying with it…

Not necessarily that specific lens, but Voigtlander.

Around 12+ years ago when still shooting Nikon DSLR, I had this crazy idea to adapt a pair of M Mount Voigtlander primes to a pair of Panasonic GX1’s and shoot a wedding (stills only) with just that combo.

Went OK. Ish. The results I did get were good but it was getting the results, especially any kind of tracking as I don’t think the cameras had focus peaking? There were flaws in the capture process to say the least!

Anyway, Fuji announced the X100 and I bought the hype (which was real) and the camera and then went over to them exclusively for the next 9 years.

Roll forward to the present day. I have a Leica itch. I can probably afford a Leica itch but the reality is I can’t justify it.

I watch and read a lot of M Mount glass reviews and the general consensus seems to be that Voigtlander lenses these days are as good as Leica, but at a fraction of the cost.

I have just bought (re-bought actually) another Leica TL2 to use as my personal camera and as soon as possible, I am going to make it manual focus only.

Yes, I can use any of my Sigma Contemporary glass with it and initially will be using the tiny and compact 18-50mm f2.8, but would like to make it a fixed lens, manual focus compact ASAP.

To that end, I have decided on the Voigtlander 28mm f2 Ultron as this will give me an approx 40mm FOV in FF terms which is my ideal all round focal length.

It’s also going to be a test bed for both photo AND video work on my full frame S bodies.

I have the EF-L adapter from Fotodiox with built in variable ND. My plan is to adapt M Mount glass to that with an M-EF adapter so I have ‘internal’ VND.

My only real concern is getting the IBIS of the S1H to play nicely but it should if I set the focal length in camera and save the set up?

My ‘ideal’ would then be a 28, a 50 and a 75 (or 90), over 3 identical bodies such as any future S2H…but this is not a definite plan.

The only negative though is Sigma as in the Contemporary range of primes and compact zooms are perfect for my needs.

So why even bother considering adapting MF only M Mount glass? Because any real artist strives to be different, not for the sake of being different (ie, a contrived and artificial difference) but because they are driven to achieve a level of artistry or craftsmanship that drives them to further creativity.

That ethos is what led me to try those Voigts 12+ years ago followed by the move to Fuji (before they became a TikTok star) and now with L Mount.

L Mount, at least from the camera side of things is for me, the best and most interesting platform to create and be creative with.

[Fairkid]

The 40mm is a good lens as it can be found reasonably cheaply on the used market (compared to new price and compared to the equivalent 35mm f1.2), it handles nicely for video as there is no focus tab plus it focuses closer than most rangefinder lenses. Not mention the lovely look to the images it produces, even at f1.2

[MrSMW]

25 minutes ago, Fairkid said:

Not mention the lovely look to the images it produces, even at f1.2

Yes, the most recent Voigts are reckoned to be amongst the best wide open for edge to edge sharpness and with pretty good (as in minimal) flare which is something that also interests me as I like a very shallow DOF plus shoot into the light a lot.

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

16 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

Wanna see that combo in action! 🙂

I love to take pictures with my GX85 and c-mount lenses. Not much into using cameras for a while now. Raw is a joy to use, great colours coming from this cool little camera. It´s a gem. Took less than 200 pictures in three years with the S1. Not enjoying the camera for photography. Holding a 5D in the hand is pure joy on the other hand. One of these silly things with cameras.:)

GX9 colors are even better, at least to my tastes.

When I bought the GX9, was in a good bundle price from a friend, that had the 12-60 (the non leica version) included; my intention was to keep the lens, sell the body, and continue to use the GX85.

Instead, the (loved) GX85 gone. The GX9 was trounced because of the esxtra 4k crop, which is really a bad thing. But the return of the tilt EVF (loved it in my GX7), much faster operation, better eye AF, better colors (again, to my taste), and return of the dedicated AF mode switch, all this won me.

Now I'm on Fuji, but I still miss it.

[herein2020]

I tried to take pictures with my S5 but the EVF qualty was so bad that I never used it on a professional shoot. The S5 really cuts corners in the EVF and backscreen. I think there may be many others like me who tested the GH5 and S5 for pictures and subsequently dismissed Panasonic for photography. 

It did not help that with the S5 I wouldn't have been able to use any tracking or CAF modes for photography due to my EF lenses. For the few pictures I did take, I thought they were perfectly acceptable quality.

[PannySVHS]

19 hours ago, Marcio Kabke Pinheiro said:

GX9 colors are even better, at least to my tastes.

Now I'm on Fuji, but I still miss it.

You better get your Panny boy back then.:) GX9 better colours, ooc or raw photo. or do you mean video? GX9 with the cine D hack by @BTM_Pix offered working 200mbit HD, as one member has tested. Would love to check that out if it was offering any benefit over the slim 24mbit 24p AVCHD. Dpreview tested the HD of this cam to be close to the GH5 in the comparison chart. Crazy to witness how that whole library is going to be put in the dumpster by amazon.

[Thpriest]

15 hours ago, herein2020 said:

I tried to take pictures with my S5 but the EVF qualty was so bad that I never used it on a professional shoot. The S5 really cuts corners in the EVF and backscreen.

This has been my main problem with the S5. It's really difficult to see what you are doing. 

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

7 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

You better get your Panny boy back then.:) GX9 better colours, ooc or raw photo. or do you mean video? GX9 with the cine D hack by @BTM_Pix offered working 200mbit HD, as one member has tested. Would love to check that out if it was offering any benefit over the slim 24mbit 24p AVCHD. Dpreview tested the HD of this cam to be close to the GH5 in the comparison chart. Crazy to witness how that whole library is going to be put in the dumpster by amazon.

Don't even need the hack - the GX9 have Cinelike D and V natively with firmware 1.1 🙂 Used a lot with Leeming Lut, lovely colors.

My mentioned better colors were in stills - best colors in all the GXs that I had.

[MrSMW]

On 3/22/2023 at 3:55 PM, Andrew Reid said:

But I think the Panasonic S1H takes the prize

Is it going to be the subject of the first review on the new site?

Hope so…

 

[PannySVHS]

3 hours ago, Marcio Kabke Pinheiro said:

Don't even need the hack - the GX9 have Cinelike D and V natively with firmware 1.1 🙂 Used a lot with Leeming Lut, lovely colors.

My mentioned better colors were in stills - best colors in all the GXs that I had.

So stills in raw or ooc? I think with right white balance to taste the GX85 looks pretty good, but RAW is where the magic is. No comparison. The hack for the GX9 might be interesting for the 100 and 200mbbit codecs in HD. Quality of the GX9 in 1080p looks similar to the GH5 on the Dpreview comparison chart. GH5 has awesome HD quality.

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

On 3/24/2023 at 6:29 PM, PannySVHS said:

So stills in raw or ooc? I think with right white balance to taste the GX85 looks pretty good, but RAW is where the magic is. No comparison. The hack for the GX9 might be interesting for the 100 and 200mbbit codecs in HD. Quality of the GX9 in 1080p looks similar to the GH5 on the Dpreview comparison chart. GH5 has awesome HD quality.

OOC, very good JPGs.

[Emanuel]

Not only Panny, not only as far as stills realm concerns once some camera models from other manufacturers such as R5C for hybrid use as for instance too ; )

Let alone smaller sensor size factor capture devices to only mention something else : P

[PannySVHS]

20 hours ago, Marcio Kabke Pinheiro said:

OOC, very good JPGs.

I love the color response in Raw from my Pannies, Gx85 nowadays. Ooc jpegs sometimes and only just a bit.:) Have hardly shot any photos with my S1:)