Panasonic S5

[Samuel H]

Yes, if the AF is good, that's what I'd have to weight: two $2k bodies plus $4k in lenses that may lose resale value fast, or two $3.5k bodies plus $4k in lenses that may hold their value a bit better. I think the current savings are worth the risk, a $3k buffer helps a lot.

If either of them had an APS-C version the decision would be A LOT easier (say, two $1.5k bodies plus $1.5k in lenses, and if it's Sony E then I even have the lenses already). I'm probably going to wait till covid is over and I can actually use the camera a bit more, to see if APS-C gets a boost on any of these camps...

(decision to wait also helped A LOT by the fact that any change away from my a6000+a6500 for photography means getting new software because my non-suscription licence of lightroom won't support any of the new cameras)

(this sounds like a huge expense for a hobby but currently I'm using a6000+a6500+p4k, which is $3k in cameras, and my lens set, including only the ones with AF for sony and the ones with m43 mount for the p4k, is around $2k, so, I'm living in the ballpark already; wow this is an expensive hobby XD)

 

[ahalpert]

What $4k of lenses are you considering?

Are you considering the C70?

How far behind the full-frame cameras do you think the APS-C cameras are in terms of ISO performance?

 

[jdv]

As a long time GH5 owner and lover of Panasonic (I think I have 5 different varieties of their cameras)....

I think at $2,000, the S5 is dead in the water barring a miracle in auto-focus fix. But even then Panny will have a hard time moving these cameras in an great numbers. Frankly, if Panny doesn't use this new camera as a loss leader by pricing it much closer to a $1,000, then they'll be condemning their consumer camera division, esp if the auto-focus is anything less then perfect.

Canon has a built-in massive advantage in lens selection and user base. Presuming Canon wants to avoid that class-action suit brewing in many early adopters minds right now by actually uncrippling the R5/6, Canon will maintain its massive lead. Even if they don't, all R related products are flying off the shelves despite the massive negative publicity. Impossible to even buy the EOS to R adapter right now anywhere new; RP's price has actually gone up since it was released.

Simply put, without over heating issues I would have already switched to them.

Sony, with vastly improved colors, huge lens selection, unreal low-light performance + dynamic range, and great IBIS also very attractive. Again, if the A7sIII were $2,000 I would have already bought one. Both brands are now very very tempting....

...More tempting then what Panasonic's offering. As much as I love the menu systems, toughness, and ease of use, the lack of useful auto-focus is a crushing negative as is the uncertainty of the brand. Canon's colors are better, and maybe even Sony too at this point. IBIS on both has caught up to, and maybe surpassed Panny. Sony's dynamic range is better; Canon's lenses are better. Both have vastly more lenses to chose from and will obviously be making them for years- probably decades - to come.

In other words, there's no reason to buy a Panasonic unless you're already committed to the brand/mount. Which is why the $2,000 price is straight up insane if they expect it to draw in new buyers. I was hanging around to see if Panasonic would announce a GH6. They haven't and at this point, I have serious doubts as to if they will.

And frankly, because Sony and Canon have caught their FF cameras up to what the GH5 could do - indeed, have surpassed in most ways, esp auto-focus - it's hard to imagine what a GH6 could even offer to counter these new cameras. Panasonic has already hinted that their future MFT products will be aimed at nature photogs (the rumored new 46 MPX sensor would be in line with that), and that's a mile away from what I want as a narrative shooter.

I'm a Panny fan boy - I love their cameras. But Panasonic is longer in a position to price their cameras at or near Canon or Sony. The notion that someone would buy the S5 as their first full frame camera over an R6 or A7sIII for $2000 is wishful thinking. Sure Panasonic will sell some of them, perhaps even enough to justify not shuttering the division, but that's gonna be about it.

You want me to invest in L mount glass? Then deliver a killer camera at a price significantly less then Canon or Sony. Or at least a camera that comes close. There's nothing in anything I've read about the S5 to indicate that's what's happening. By going full frame without a lens line-up or useful autofocus, Panasonic has failed to capture that market segment, while giving up on the MFT market. Perhaps if Panasonic has stayed the course in MFT things would be different....

But it's not.

So I'll hope that the $2000 is MSRP only and the street price is much cheaper. I'll hope that the auto-focus is now usable. I'll hope the colors are improved. But I fully expect those hopes to be utterly dashed within the week, and so I'm hoping I pick right between Sony A7sIII and Canon R6.

Which sucks.

 

[Samuel H]

Lenses: for Sony it would be the Sigma 85mm f/1.4 (the new one), Sigma 35mm f/1.2, and Zeiss Batis 18mm f/2.8. On the other mounts I'd have to think which ultrawide to get.

C70: no, because I'm looking for simething that can bring together my photo and video kits

ISO: I'd say FF is slighly above one stop better than APS-C, because that's what physics say (that's the ratio of the areas, and of the number of photons they get). But this is not too important for me: it's been ages since I've felt constrained by the ISO of the cameras (since I bought the original a7S, actually). I'd take the savings in $$$ and weight if there was an APS-C equivalent to the a7S III, even if it means lower ISO and less resolution in pics (those MTF curves are cruel on smaller sensors).

 

[Tom Roper]

It almost feels like everyone is waiting for all members of the cartel to reveal their hands before buying their next mirrorless, at least I feel that. The thing is, the one I have liked best to this point is the A7SIII, but for all its goodness it's just another 4k camera. Another holdback is choosing which lens mount to buy into and still have top tier AF. The R5 could have been, but the overheat timer has left it unsuitable, and similarly, it might be a problem with A7SIII 30 minute recording limit. I'm not liking the color I see from the Panny S1/S1H, at least it's not creating the same desire as A7SIII nor does the DR that S1H possesses reveal itself in a remarkable way. So lens mount is the highest risk choice to be made because once you do, your investment in it continues even if the camera body gets obsoleted by the next big thing.

With that backdrop, if I had to make decision now, it could be to see what the landscape looks like this time next year. Although my manual focus skills are not as perfect as Sony or Canon DPAF, I at least know what to focus on, and with a solid history of in-focus shooting with just the two fingers on my ring hand. This is where it gets controversial but I'm saying it anyway, the Pocket 6k makes a better image than any of the mirrorless cameras. It's got the mojo and the image quality and the look of that matter more to me than any other feature, but it also has the best tools, the BRAW/Resolve integration, the exposure tools like false color, the codec choices, the media choices, the audio options, the monitoring options, the menu system, the frame rates, no recording limits and the largest EF/EF-S lens ecosystem ever known. Image quality is the one feature I'm willing to immediately spend for. So if I was going to make a decision right now, which I don't have to do but if I was, my decision would be for the BMD UMP12k. I have a feeling the world will soon take notice of that camera, and game over for Arri and Venice.

 

[ahalpert]

Jdv - I largely agree. But sony IBIS is a mile behind Canon or Panny IBIS.

Tom - I'm not convinced that the A7SIII has a 30-minute limit in real-world conditions. Maybe if you're shooting continuously.

The UMP12K has less DR than the G2. I think that will hamper its ambitions. Arri also offers an ecosystem of accessories and workflow and reliability/support that you can't waltz in and replace. And arri users feel less price pressure

 

[Ron Evans]

Isn't that what 30min means shooting continuously. I would hope that shooting 10 min clips you could shoot till you fill the cards up or run out of battery. Maybe if you only wait a few minutes between these clips it still overheats and will shut down. I shoot for over to 2 hours continuous with my GH5 series with no problems shooting UHD60P. If a camera cannot do that I am not interested. Also, I am always on a tripod so do not need image stabilizers and switch them off on the GH5's. I think we will see the technology in the UMP12K in other cameras and I look forward to that.

 

[ahalpert]

"Real-world conditions" can mean a lot of different things.

It's rare that I truly shoot anything other than short clips in 60p. Even when I'm shooting 4K60p all day, it's usually only 50% shooting, 50% watching and framing.

My impression from the reviews is that only direct summer sunlight overheats the camera. Supposedly even 4K120p can be used without sweating the timer.

Whether I'm shooting an event or an interview, it always seems to be 24p for the longform stuff.

But yes, if there are overheating issues with my specific types of shooting, I'll have to jettison the camera.

BM is off my radar because I want AF for tracking shots

 

[Tom Roper]

The UMP12K has less DR than the G2. I think that will hamper its ambitions. Arri also offers an ecosystem of accessories and workflow and reliability/support that you can't waltz in and replace. And arri users feel less price pressure

Jury hasn’t even been selected yet on the DR. DR may improve also at the super sampled resolutions. But even if it doesn’t, I think the under exposure latitude of its novel RGB sensor and processing may end up a bigger differentiator for IQ. The teasers look great and we already know what they have achieved with P6k. BMD developed UMP12k sensor in-house. Although BMD have announced it is going public, I have feeling of what a perfect takeover/buyout target BMD could be for Apple and FCPX, or just ridding themselves of BRAW and Resolve, or leveraging it and the camera and broadcast chain into something new. I was thinking of this even before the going public was announced.

 

[Ken1212]

As a long time GH5 owner and lover of Panasonic (I think I have 5 different varieties of their cameras)....

I think at $2,000, the S5 is dead in the water barring a miracle in auto-focus fix. But even then Panny will have a hard time moving these cameras in an great numbers. Frankly, if Panny doesn't use this new camera as a loss leader by pricing it much closer to a $1,000, then they'll be condemning their consumer camera division, esp if the auto-focus is anything less then perfect.

Canon has a built-in massive advantage in lens selection and user base. Presuming Canon wants to avoid that class-action suit brewing in many early adopters minds right now by actually uncrippling the R5/6, Canon will maintain its massive lead. Even if they don't, all R related products are flying off the shelves despite the massive negative publicity. Impossible to even buy the EOS to R adapter right now anywhere new; RP's price has actually gone up since it was released.

Simply put, without over heating issues I would have already switched to them.

Sony, with vastly improved colors, huge lens selection, unreal low-light performance + dynamic range, and great IBIS also very attractive. Again, if the A7sIII were $2,000 I would have already bought one. Both brands are now very very tempting....

...More tempting then what Panasonic's offering. As much as I love the menu systems, toughness, and ease of use, the lack of useful auto-focus is a crushing negative as is the uncertainty of the brand. Canon's colors are better, and maybe even Sony too at this point. IBIS on both has caught up to, and maybe surpassed Panny. Sony's dynamic range is better; Canon's lenses are better. Both have vastly more lenses to chose from and will obviously be making them for years- probably decades - to come.

In other words, there's no reason to buy a Panasonic unless you're already committed to the brand/mount. Which is why the $2,000 price is straight up insane if they expect it to draw in new buyers. I was hanging around to see if Panasonic would announce a GH6. They haven't and at this point, I have serious doubts as to if they will.

And frankly, because Sony and Canon have caught their FF cameras up to what the GH5 could do - indeed, have surpassed in most ways, esp auto-focus - it's hard to imagine what a GH6 could even offer to counter these new cameras. Panasonic has already hinted that their future MFT products will be aimed at nature photogs (the rumored new 46 MPX sensor would be in line with that), and that's a mile away from what I want as a narrative shooter.

I'm a Panny fan boy - I love their cameras. But Panasonic is longer in a position to price their cameras at or near Canon or Sony. The notion that someone would buy the S5 as their first full frame camera over an R6 or A7sIII for $2000 is wishful thinking. Sure Panasonic will sell some of them, perhaps even enough to justify not shuttering the division, but that's gonna be about it.

You want me to invest in L mount glass? Then deliver a killer camera at a price significantly less then Canon or Sony. Or at least a camera that comes close. There's nothing in anything I've read about the S5 to indicate that's what's happening. By going full frame without a lens line-up or useful autofocus, Panasonic has failed to capture that market segment, while giving up on the MFT market. Perhaps if Panasonic has stayed the course in MFT things would be different....

But it's not.

So I'll hope that the $2000 is MSRP only and the street price is much cheaper. I'll hope that the auto-focus is now usable. I'll hope the colors are improved. But I fully expect those hopes to be utterly dashed within the week, and so I'm hoping I pick right between Sony A7sIII and Canon R6.

Which sucks.

I agree except, instead of marginalizing the brand name and future expectations on pricing, I would keep the price at 2k and try to get as many converts by offering an instant rebate say $1000 off or yet better create an aggressive combo launch special with a popular lens. Once you get enough converts you can stabilize prices and count on selling more lenses. But for this to work you got to come out swinging with one of the best AF tech out there. Meanwhile I wonder if Panasonic is planning on releasing anything else on the second, an updated cinema camera line would be nice as I am currently debating the Canon C300 III.

 

[ahalpert]

Jury hasn’t even been selected yet on the DR. DR may improve also at the super sampled resolutions. But even if it doesn’t, I think the under exposure latitude of its novel RGB sensor and processing may end up a bigger differentiator for IQ. The teasers look great and we already know what they have achieved with P6k. BMD developed UMP12k sensor in-house. Although BMD have announced it is going public, I have feeling of what a perfect takeover/buyout target BMD could be for Apple and FCPX, or just ridding themselves of BRAW and Resolve, or leveraging it and the camera and broadcast chain into something new. I was thinking of this even before the going public was announced.

They reported a lower DR number and that seems apparent to me in the footage.

Their design was intended to maximize color fidelity/information.

The 12K will have many uses and probably be the best tool available for certain needs/applications. But I dont see it displacing alexa/amira/venice. Maybe some of the REDs.

 

[ahalpert]

I'm old enough to remember people salivating over the possibility of great AF in the GH5 and then the S1

 

[Tom Roper]

"Real-world conditions" can mean a lot of different things...
BM is off my radar because I want AF for tracking shots

We're kind of, sort of saying something similar. Image quality is tops on my list, but it's not necessary for my occupational uses, it's more of a want, less of a need. AF tracking is tops on yours. Believe me, I know the appeal of it. For all my criticisms of the R5, philosophies, overheat timers, cripple hammers; one thing I haven't criticized is the image quality. And although CineD imatest for DR for the R5 has shown a below average number, I chalk that up to an unhealthy reliance of trying to put one number to define image quality. If anything, it shows it can't. The XT3 pulled a low number too. Is there anyone that thinks it suffers from less than great image quality? The Alexa puts up a great image quality and has a high DR number. Does that mean that everything putting up a high number for DR will have Alexa IQ? The answer is no. The S1H to me looks just like the GH5s, that's to say not bad, but it's not leveraging its high DR test number into something extraordinary. It's why I'm going to not be so quickly dismissive of UMP12k pre-release DR, least of all when it comes from an on paper only comparison to UMP4.6 from marketing materials. The image quality from what we have seen so far looks great, and I look forward to seeing more of it.

 

[ahalpert]

Yeah the 12K looks very pretty. It would be amazing if they could do DGO with it.

If you want high-resolution and high frame rates, I think it's an intriguing option. The same tech in a pocket would be cool.

But personally, I'd see a better return on investment by buying a C300III

 

[Tom Roper]

I agree about ROI on C300III, well maybe, kinda sorta again. If you can leverage ownership of one into a collaboration with other shooters all using it, then yes. But if you're alone with it, you're better off with your FS7 than I am trying to leverage my F55 on FS7 jobs. I can easily match FS7 look, but it's not an FS7 and if you want to mix in with FS7 collaborators you need an FS7 not F55, not Red, not Alexa. So accordingly the way I see it, anything you can rent puts you in the company of that camera. I can rent FS7 or C300II, maybe not yet the III, but those are not cameras I want to own. If I was going to be totally sensible and business minded about my need then A7SIII makes sense for sure because that great AF I can immediately put to good use for weddings and events, if I have the lenses I need for it, which I don't. That put's me back using what I have now, GH5/GH5s/P6k. The P6k can mostly replace both Panasonic cameras but one thing it can't be, is weather sealed, and you know the importance of that for what we do. But back to the A7SIII, it has another hook to it besides great AF, it has low light like no other. That's beneficial for work and play. But it's only 4k, requires new lenses that I can't use on anything else, which brings me to the last point, if I factor new lenses into the A7SIII equation, I could put what I saved from not buying them toward the UMP12k which takes almost all my lenses now, EF/EF-S zoom and primes, and cinema PL glass (yes I have 6 Sony PL T2.0 cinema primes and 1 Red 300mm T2.9 pro prime), and for that I already have the most important kit, matte box, slider, jib, shoulder mount, handlebars, Kessler Crane etc., and could sell the F55 and AXS-R5 raw recorder and AXSM media, and retain an option for renting C300II or FS7 when needed. Or, I can do nothing and see where we are at this time next year. rogar-Shock(DBG):

 

[ahalpert]

It's only 4K? I personally don't NEED more than that. Extra capabilities are always nice, but more MPs is a super low priority for me.

Getting new lenses balloons the total cost of the package, for sure.

But I can still use all my EF, R, M, F lenses without AF.

The only situations I need AF for are gimbal when tracking at close range, and interviews where a subject is shifting in a shallow DOF. (And even in interviews, I can handle it manually.)

So, a 24-70 f/2.8 would cover the vast majority of my needs on gimbal. I'm looking at a $4800 package for camera, batteries, adapter, lens, 82mm vari-ND. Skip on sales tax with B&H payboo card.

I'll think about other lenses later. If I also had a sigma 50 and 70-200, I would be largely set.

I'm not worried about replacing my ultra-wides because manual focus is fine there.

But in most situations where I'll use the a7siii, it will be on gimbal and my 70-200 would be on a different camera. And i only plan on getting one A7SIII as of now because it's really the gimbal camera that wants the AF.

Presenting the FS7/A7SIII as a pair is not a bad marketing ploy, either.

I can rent virtually anything with kitsplit or a number of other ways. But I like to avoid the time and travel to do so. You're basically extending your work day, possibly by a lot, and possibly also eating into your day rate.

So, my goal is to buy as few cameras as possible while eliminating as many rental situations as possible.

 

[DLD]

Don't tell your friend about Hasselblad, then again could be more hassel than it's worth.

he started off by wanting something small for trips. i recommended A6100/6400 with a pancake 16-50. I said, "At some point, you'll want to have an ILC, with the possibility of getting a zoom". He wrote, "Nah, X100V is really nice". Half a year later, he writes, "The wife and the kid want a zoom".

As a long time GH5 owner and lover of Panasonic (I think I have 5 different varieties of their cameras)....

I think at $2,000, the S5 is dead in the water barring a miracle in auto-focus fix. But even then Panny will have a hard time moving these cameras in an great numbers. Frankly, if Panny doesn't use this new camera as a loss leader by pricing it much closer to a $1,000, then they'll be condemning their consumer camera division, esp if the auto-focus is anything less then perfect.

Canon has a built-in massive advantage in lens selection and user base. Presuming Canon wants to avoid that class-action suit brewing in many early adopters minds right now by actually uncrippling the R5/6, Canon will maintain its massive lead. Even if they don't, all R related products are flying off the shelves despite the massive negative publicity. Impossible to even buy the EOS to R adapter right now anywhere new; RP's price has actually gone up since it was released.

That's right. This is one problem with cartels. On paper, they might have several cameras with similar features at a similar price point but the market will gravitate to the already dominant mounts. S1H did OK because it offered a little more than the other $4,000 cameras but Canon still got 40% of the overall market. Which is why its new releases will always start at the top selling lists. The company has a huge built-in customer base.

Side note - I mentioned in the Olympus thread that cartels work as a central planner but the planner can't always predict the customer's preferences and that can really destroy one brand. That is assuming that the planners don't have any ulterior motives beyond that. That isn't the safest assumption.

... Although BMD have announced it is going public, I have feeling of what a perfect takeover/buyout target BMD could be for Apple and FCPX, or just ridding themselves of BRAW and Resolve, or leveraging it and the camera and broadcast chain into something new. I was thinking of this even before the going public was announced.

Pure video is too small of a business for Apple to pay attention to. Cook isn't even moving for ARM, which is available for around $30B-$35B. Rumors have NVIDIA gulping up ARM. I can see Apple gulping up NVIDIA. (the relative market caps are ~ $325B for NVIDIA, $2.1T for Apple) That would be a big move.

 

[ahalpert]

Usually, larger entities gobble up smaller ones instead of gulping them down. Apparently gulping up means vomiting - I just looked it up. Sorry to be that annoying guy, but I always had an interest in the exactness of word meanings and in identifying possible misfires

 

[stoneinapond]

Apparently gulping up means vomiting - I just looked it up. Sorry to be that annoying guy, but I always had an interest in the exactness of word meanings and in identifying possible misfires

Gulping has nothing to do with vomiting, other than being a possible cause of it later. It is an act of rapidly swallowing copious amounts of liquid or food. And it's gulping down, never up.

 

[ahalpert]

Gulping has nothing to do with vomiting, other than being a possible cause of it later. It is an act of rapidly swallowing copious amounts of liquid or food. And it's gulping down, never up.

I've never heard "gulp up" but it appears in several unofficial online dictionaries:



Oh, don't forget you can also gulp for or in air. So, it works for gases, too