Panasonic S5

It's nice to see Panasonic doing something!

Would love for the cartel to finally allow them to have nice AF.
 
soarprod said:
Maybe a budget competitor to the Canon R6? Micro HDMI is strange.
Click to expand...

It looks to be way more compact than S1 - 5.2" x 3.82 x 3.3".

For reference, Fuji XT3 is 5.2 x 3.7 x 2.3", so this is an inch thicker but otherwise pretty close in size to an APS-C camera.

S1 is selling at $2,000 now. I assume S5 will be around $1,300.
 
Yes, it seems to be a smaller and lighter version of the S1 (899g for S1 vs. 630g for S5).

The S5 also uses a smaller battery (2200 mAh vs. 3050mAh in the S1), yet actually has pretty similar battery life. Part of this may be due to the fact that the S5 has a lower resolution viewfinder (2.36 million dots vs. 5.76 million dots on the S1) and slightly smaller screen (3 inches vs. 3.2 inches). Not sure if those changes would account for a 30% improvement in power efficiency alone though.

It seems like the S5 may include V-Log and 10-bit video recording features out of the box though, whereas this is a $200 upgrade on the S1. And the S5 even seems to have some of the 4:3 anamorphic shooting modes from the S1H as well as the same dual native ISO settings.

It's going to be very interesting to see what the pricing is like on the S5. Just based on the specs, it's hard to see a lot of people still buying the S1 if the S5 comes in at a significantly lower price point. Note that the Panasonic GH5 is currently priced at $1300 new with the GH5s at $1800, whereas this camera will be full-frame with more megapixels for stills and a lot of similar video recording specs.
 
Panasonic teased an S5 photo. Shrouded in darkness and obscured from light.

Looks a lot like the 2021 Nissan 400Z.
 
Kind of wishing this was a GH6 announcement instead of a small S1. Interested to see what they can pull off with M4/3rds given all of the horsepower in the R5 & A7sIII FF sensors.
 
Bassman2003 said:
Kind of wishing this was a GH6 announcement instead of a small S1.
Click to expand...

Agreed.

But If Panasonic has a handle on the autofocus, and the camera comes in at an attractive price point, with a weight that is less than a GH5, I'd be interested.

Except for having to get into a new lens system.....:(
 
stoneinapond said:
Agreed.

But If Panasonic has a handle on the autofocus, and the camera comes in at an attractive price point, with a weight that is less than a GH5, I'd be interested.

Except for having to get into a new lens system.....:(
Click to expand...

Bro, they don't have a handle on the autofocus. We all wish that they did. But it's contrast-detect DFD again
 
stoneinapond said:
Thank you. I’m well aware or the issues with Panasonic‘s DFD system. Perhaps you’re familiar with the expression “hope springs eternal....?”
Click to expand...

I've more or less reached the acceptance stage of grieving for Panny PDAF. Someone on the Newsshooter comments section on the S5 announcement post wrote the following:

Yes, Sony liscenses PDAF to Nikon, Fuji and Olympus. However, I'm told by an insider (this means "rumor") it's not....I repeat...NOT that Panasonic doesn't want or doesn't like PDAF but that it's Sony that is playing hardball "specifically" with Panasonic and would much rather sell them non-PDAF sensors. Why Sony is doing this to Panasonic "specifically"?...my source didn't say. So if true, that is anybody's guess.

Without PDAF sensor licensing, Panasonic knows they can't keep Lumix afloat against the competition moving down the road. Industry demand for superb AF is only getting higher and higher and contrast hunting will never compete with a phase-locked waveform system.

This is very much a desperate time for Lumix. Years ago, AF was not a massive movement. Today it is and tomorrow it will only be larger. Appealing to manual focus pulling customers will not sell enough cameras from now on. The market is changing.
Click to expand...
 
That would explain why the GH6 is not being announced. I don't think they would go forward with a GH6 unless they had some better AF. The two FF monsters just released just kind of set in stone that great AF is now the bar to clear.
 
I don't buy the "Sony doesn't want to sell a phase-detect" system to Panasonic. It's a different cripple hammer. That's all.

Because both Sony and Canon use AI to get the spot on face/eye tracking.

And because laser auto focus, should contrast detect not be sufficient, has been around in smartphones a long time and has gotten fairly inexpensive due to its popularity in the various car related technologies. Samsung couldn't get phase-detect on its 108 MPX model (Galaxy 20 Ultra) and gotten quite a few negative reviews on it. Surely enough, half a year later, Note 20 comes out with the laser and now the AF is perfect.

Of course, Samsung in a fully competitive global market. It can't fall asleep for a second.
 
Last edited:
DLD said:
I don't buy the "Sony doesn't want to sell a phase-detect" system to Panasonic.
Click to expand...

I agree, the argument on its face value makes no sense. I don't understand Panasonic's position given all the advances in autofocus that have been made, but I'm still an optimist when it comes to the company eventually getting it right. Until there's clear evidence of that this fool won't be parted from his money.
 
Here's a video From CDA-Tek showcasing their LIDAR autofocus module on the BMPCC4K:


Never mind the abrupt focus pulls - programming could easily change that.

My larger concern is threefold -

1. Since you're just taking a distance reading, what if your lens is miscalibrated? Doesn't PDAF care not for distance but just for results on the sensor?

2. In this example, it works very well in the center of the frame. Could this implementation work for all parts of the frame and for all focal lengths and could it track objects and eyes, etc?

3. The article says that the device monitors the distance to the nearest object. What if you're shooting through some leaves at someone? Seems like there is a lot of potential for foreground objects to foul things up

https://www.cined.com/pbc-pocket-cinema-camera-controller-update/
 
If you need continuous autofocus then maybe Panasonic is not the camera for you. Personally I never use continuous autofocus so not a problem for me. Touch autofocus works just fine though, which is what I use most of the time. I like to specify what I want in focus not what the camera thinks I want in focus. That is also a problem on the Sony camcorders I have so not restricted to Panasonic.
 
Sony hasn't made a new camcorder with their updated, best AI AF yet...everything in them is ancient.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top