Moving to Panasonic S5ii (hopefully)

A hacked Panasonic GH1 was my first camera that had decent video quality. Since then I have had many other Panasonics; LX100 was my first 4K camera, GH5 was my last micro43 camera. I have liked them all but wanted to have good AF and better low light capabilities. And I wanted to see if BlackMagic cameras have better "color science".

Currently I use two systems: I have handful of Canon EF mount lenses for BMPCC 6K Pro and another handful Sony FE lenses for Sony A74. I shoot travel and home videos, and really don't need all that gear. So I bought Panasonic S5 mark 2

I prefer to travel without stabilizers and trust camera's auto white balance, and if auto WB is not perfect I should be able to fix color  easily later on. This has not been problem for BMPCCs - when there is light, the footage just looks beautiful (the camara eats light - low light is noisy). With Sony Slog3 it has been hit-and-miss; sometimes I am just not able to correct color. Currently I think that S5ii auto WB is more accurate, and the codecs provide more latitude.

Here is a short test video, shot with the kit lens and various EF/EF-S lenses

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

If everything goes well, I am able to use some EF lenses with S5ii (pretty promising but not sure yet) and get rid of Sonys.

I think you are going to like the S5 II. It has excellent stabilization and V-LOG works well .

I can't speak to white balance though as I never use auto white balance and instead choose the white balance and then adjust it (pressing down on the wheel to go into the white balance adjustment matrix).

The thing with V-LOG is that in certain situations skin tones can get a somewhat magenta tint to them.

There have been a couple of S5 II vs Sony / Canon blind tests where you decide which one you like first and then the camera is revealed at the end. Most of the time I could tell which camera was the S5 II but about 30% of the time I couldn't.

I must admit that I don’t fully understand how WB works (I know how it works if I have grey card but not how it works for run-and-gun style shooting). With the BMPCC I just set it to 5600K and colors look good, regardless of the environment. I tried same with Sony, and also the presets (cloudy, sunny,…) and many times colors are off. I noticed that that I got better results if I just used auto WB (and locked it). Juan Melera’s Sony2Alexa LUT is good and provides nice starting point for grading. I used it also with the above test film (from vlog to slog3, and then the LUT). I might prefer it to the Panasonic Rec709 LUT or Resolve’s CST.

EduPortas wrote:

apekkpul wrote:

I must admit that I don’t fully understand how WB works

Pretty sure it has to do with the nature and intensity of the light the sensor is reading.

By selecting K degrees you're telling the camera the light you're working with should be read as X, independent of what our eyes consider "pleasing".

I've rarely selected manual WB in modern cameras. At least with Canon, Fujifilm and Nikon the camera always gets it right by selecting "Auto WB" in both photo and video modes.

I find the white balance gets it close to reality in Canon vs my old Sony A74. I don't care how many people post videos because Sony just refused to get the color temp in the basement to what it actually was. Tried AWB with AWB and white option. I had the cameras side by side Canon/Sony and in certain challenging lighting Sony was off which meant more editing.

I used manual white balance but at times I forgot to dial in the Kelvin and caused more issues because when using  SLOG it was hard to tell since the image lacked color and I found the slog assist bit off.  I did like how Sony offered a slow white balance change some thing shockless setting  if I recall which Canon doesn't have. Its a mixed bag between Canon and Sony. The Canon control ring allows kelvin adjustment so its much easier to use manual white balance settings - just turn the lens ring.

Sold the A74 and my old R6 after a year and now back to Canon with R6Mk2 and R5 but I forgot how you are limited in video settings with Canon compared to Sony but on the flip side I love the LCD panels in the Canon where with the Sony I always had it on high brightness which also drained the battery.

For mostly family videos trips , travels and personal vlogs for now the Canon with the RF 24 IS works well for me. The ibis wobble is under control at 24mm and the lens OIS helps but I wish there was a n RF 20mm OIS lens. With the 16mm RF without OIS lens the wobbles are to much and when I had the Sony with the 20mm no OIS the video was jerky due to a weaker IBIS.

I just sold my last Sony lens $$ so I might give the Panasonic S52 with the kit lens a try for a few months. Looking to see if any local dealers have the kit to touch and feel first.

Overall I would be happy to use any one of these if I could only have one camera.

Steve_tEkGuY wrote:

Sold the A74 and my old R6 after a year and now back to Canon with R6Mk2 and R5 but I forgot how you are limited in video settings with Canon compared to Sony...

How are the Canon R6 MK II and the R5 "limited in video" compared to Sony?

Do you mean compared to the a7S III, or the FX6 or FX9?

Or are you saying when compared to your (old) a7 IV, they are still limited in terms of video capability?

Yes, but so far I have had better experience with the Panasonic S5ii than A74 (although the latter looks sharper but might be due the lenses I have been using). Haven't tried S5ii yet in challenging environment; last summer I filmed a hike along the South West Coast Path, and especially in forests the colors were really difficult to correct.

Walking at the Exmoor National Park: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpRsIOllPXU

I bet you will be happy with the S5ii.

I like my Sony A1 for video OK, but its video color rendition is different from my Olympus. The Sony's capabilities and files finally convinced me to actually learn DaVinci Resolve Studio. I am getting to where I can put the little dots from the X-Rite Color Checker Video in the boxes on the vectorscope at 2x with Slog3 files from the A1. I stuck with Cyberlink Power Director for the Olympus and Canon camcorder video files for years after first buying the Studio version simply because it seemed like overkill for what I needed. With the Sony files and the 10 bit files now from the OM-1...I understand...LOL. I am (slowly!) learning to correct the colors, then adjust to taste. But I have a long way to go.

I understand now why a lot of Sony video shooters eventually become gimbal and Resolve experts.  Which reminds me, I need to charge the RS2 battery tonight for use on Saturday.

Joe Lynch wrote:

I understand now why a lot of Sony video shooters eventually become gimbal and Resolve experts. Which reminds me, I need to charge the RS2 battery tonight for use on Saturday.

Firstly, what's up on Saturday?

Secondly, I really wish there were an easy way to get the various color grading tools of Resolve to work on still photos. I guess I can, since in theory Resolve works on DNG files. Will have to give it a shot.

I have just started to use the spider web in Resolve (can't remember what the offical name is) and starting to like it. Good for making quick adjustments.

Off The Mark wrote:

Firstly, what's up on Saturday?

High school age private club gymnastics tournament.  May not need the gimbal.  Very crowded last two years and limited access, so probably just get to use the A1 and 35-150 Tamron zoom on a monopod.

I also use the spider web tool with Resolve. It is a a great tool to control color - and to increase saturation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep30n9Y05cg

Joe Lynch wrote:

Off The Mark wrote:

Firstly, what's up on Saturday?

High school age private club gymnastics tournament. May not need the gimbal. Very crowded last two years and limited access, so probably just get to use the A1 and 35-150 Tamron zoom on a monopod.

Sounds good. Have fun, and good light. The Tammy 35-105 would probably sell pretty well if it were available in L-Mount (at least by L-Mount sales metrics).

Off The Mark wrote:

The Tammy 35-105 would probably sell pretty well if it were available in L-Mount (at least by L-Mount sales metrics).

I would LOVE to try an S5ii with a Tamron 35-150!  That sounds perfect to me.

Last week I had a chance to test S5ii in Finland

A short postcard from snowy Helsinki and cold Joensuu:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoJT8lHj0bQ

I do like the colors, especially people/skin look better than I typically managed to get from Sony A74.

I don't know what your end use is, or will be, but when looking for a "Pro" video camera, Netflix has established a list of cameras that they want people to use when creating content for Netflix. Most of the list, as you can imagine, are high-end cameras; Arriflex, Red, Panavision, but also include high-end cameras from Canon, Sony and Panasonic.

What stood out for me was that the Panasonic S1H and the Sony FX-3 are the only two hybrid mirrorless cameras included in Netflix's list, while the Canon R5C isn't. If you are thinking of eventually creating video for the movie or documentary industry, then maybe you may want to consider the S1H instead of the S52.

Thanks, but this is just a hobby. It would be nice to simplify ’lens landscape’ since I have been using Canon EF mount and Sony lenses.

amberhawk wrote:

I don't know what your end use is, or will be, but when looking for a "Pro" video camera, Netflix has established a list of cameras that they want people to use when creating content for Netflix. Most of the list, as you can imagine, are high-end cameras; Arriflex, Red, Panavision, but also include high-end cameras from Canon, Sony and Panasonic.

What stood out for me was that the Panasonic S1H and the Sony FX-3 are the only two hybrid mirrorless cameras included in Netflix's list, while the Canon R5C isn't. If you are thinking of eventually creating video for the movie or documentary industry, then maybe you may want to consider the S1H instead of the S52.

Yeah, but WHY are the S1H and FX-3 the only ones approved for netflix?

Is it because of the all-i coedc? Because with an Atomos recorder, then one can record ProRes 4:2:2, which is all-i (as well as RAW).

Is it because the other cameras lack time code? Because you can jam time code to the S5 via the 3.5mm mic jack (with something like a tentacle sync).

EduPortas wrote:

Off The Mark wrote:

amberhawk wrote:

I don't know what your end use is, or will be, but when looking for a "Pro" video camera, Netflix has established a list of cameras that they want people to use when creating content for Netflix. Most of the list, as you can imagine, are high-end cameras; Arriflex, Red, Panavision, but also include high-end cameras from Canon, Sony and Panasonic.

What stood out for me was that the Panasonic S1H and the Sony FX-3 are the only two hybrid mirrorless cameras included in Netflix's list, while the Canon R5C isn't. If you are thinking of eventually creating video for the movie or documentary industry, then maybe you may want to consider the S1H instead of the S52.

Yeah, but WHY are the S1H and FX-3 the only ones approved for netflix?

Is it because of the all-i coedc? Because with an Atomos recorder, then one can record ProRes 4:2:2, which is all-i (as well as RAW).

Is it because the other cameras lack time code? Because you can jam time code to the S5 via the 3.5mm mic jack (with something like a tentacle sync).

More like bit-depth and Mbps, as well as the possibility of recording in a very flat log profile from the camera itself.

Well. the S5 has the same V-LOG gamut as the S1H, so the flat log profiles are the same.

And yes, the bit-depth is the same, along with the chroma subsampling (10-bit 4:2:2, or 10-bit 4:2:0 for the h.265 profiles). The difference for bit rate (Mbps) is that the S1H has INTERNAL all-i codecs, while the S5 has only internal Long GOP codecs. But again, with an Atomos V, the S5 can record in either ProRes 4:2:2, or in ProRes RAW, and with a Black Magic Digital Assist, it can record in BlackMagic RAW (BRAW).

Also, as far as I understand, the Netflix requirements are for when you are shooting on an actual Netflix production where it will be editied / graded BY Netflix. If you are going to shoot AND edit / grade yourself, and then want to sell your completed film or show to Netflix,  I don't think those requirements apply. Basically, netflix will buy any production if they think they can get people to watch it.