Lumix S5II & S5II X: Long Term Review

in the last few years we've seen a category of video cameras really take over and it's what the Lumix s52 belongs to and the best of those cost around four thousand dollars like let's say the fx3 but there's another category just below that that have the same potential image quality if you're shooting 30 frames or 24 frames per second so when you get to the Lumix s52 and see that it's about two thousand dollars it's natural to wonder what's the catch well I've been shooting with it for about five months now I've had it on that long-term loaner plan so Panasonic has lent it out to me along with a bunch of lenses and when I first got it I just had nothing to shoot it was cold winter and I didn't release an initial review I just podcasted about it but now I've traveled with it I've used it extensively in studio out of studio and I can finally report does this work for full on Productions I brought the camera on a road trip from Calgary to California and also to Istanbul Turkey so I'm gonna be just showing a bunch of that footage and pointing out some of the good and bad I discovered while I was shooting it we're also going to be talking about the s52x which is just being released now and haven't spent as long with but most of it is exactly the same as the s52 just a few bonus features and an all black design for 200 more this video is sponsored by Nomad and their new stand one magsafe charger first of all image quality it is fantastic the log image is very flexible this is a requirement for me and so I just listed a few other cameras that you know are very small and flexible one that I wouldn't use right now is the Canon r62 and I don't even like to use my Canon R5 anymore for video because the log does not have enough dynamic range the highlights really do clip there is less flexibility in the colors all the other brands I just mentioned Fuji Sony Lumix they are all doing a proper log profile that is very easy to grade and work with this has a dual gain sensor so most time I mean they're shooting at ISO 640 or cranking it up to 4000 and both can come up with a very clean image as long as you've exposed it correctly and with Lumix having been the underdog for a while because it had a lot of focus issues previously it made them focus on adding more features that were being neglected by other camera brands a great example is that there is still no shutter angle in the more expensive apparently Cinema Camera Sony fx3 of course the s52 has it and importantly open gate this is something that every camera needs to have soon where you're able to use every pixel on the sensor meaning that with a traditional full frame sensor the image is slightly taller than what you'd traditionally use in 16x9 so you have a little extra space to crop if I paid for those extra pixels on my sensor I want to be able to access them every camera manufacturer needs to be doing this soon and Lumix was the first to do it at this price point in all the shooting scenarios I've been in with this camera the image quality has never let me down which is not something I can say for my Canon R5 there's a lot of times where if I slightly under expose it it's extremely noisy or if I over it expose it the highlights are clipped this is just kind of safe as long as it looks right on the LCD I'm able to work with it later that's also something that I can't always say for Sony that wants to be a little bit Overexposed this wants to be correctly exposed even though it is using a Sony sensor I just find it very easy to just judge where the exposure should sit just by looking at it I also spent time testing the s52x which has a bunch of more professional features only certain people are going to need these and if you don't know whether you do or not that means you probably don't even with these higher quality codecs I prefer to shoot in a more compressed long got format that is in the s52 because I don't have enough storage to shoot these giant file sizes but if you do here are a few samples of them shooting in all eye I didn't see any examples where it offered a better image quality mostly it'll just be more friendly to your computer while you're editing it plays back a little more smoothly shooting prores if you really zoom in sometimes you can see a bit of a difference in sharpness but it is not significant and not worth it for image quality if you're going to shoot prores it's because you have a prores workflow there also seems to be a very small shift in gamma it gets a little bit darker when you're shooting Perez the s52x bundles in some great features for professionals and if you need them you know who you are they're not things that I'm going to be using most of the time it's actually the black design that I like the most what I'm really waiting for is the next Lumix something just one step above this like the S1 H2 or whatever it's going to be there are some Pro features that I really want to see that aren't in this x this is a small bump not a Next Generation leap a few more features s52 gets right frame markers it's actually what I've assigned the front button on my camera to do is just turn on and off 16x9 frame markers so that when I'm shooting open gate I can see where the crop will be it's got all the video assist tools like Scopes waveforms things you would take for granted on a cinema camera but they're not there on all these other Cinema compact cameras I mentioned and the ability to bake your Luts directly into the file so this means you either have cinematic colors right out of the box or if you're going to be matching to another camera system you can match the gamma and Gamma to other log profiles but we really need to talk about the autofocus on here because just quick tests when I initially got it don't tell the whole story it took a while for me to really understand it but first a word from our sponsor Nomad and especially their new stand one magsafe charger if you head over to nomadgoods.com stallman you'll see a landing page for some of my favorite accessories they make and actually if you've noticed my Apple watch Ultra here I'm wearing their modern leather band everything they make is such high quality which is part of why I love having them as a sponsor every product they create is so thoughtfully made with the highest quality materials like the stand one for example I've had other wireless chargers on my desk and sometimes my phone just doesn't charge because maybe the camera bump is too big and raises the Qi Wireless too far away to make contact or the charging is too slow there's only five watt output so it doesn't make a big difference but they've really thought through all these things the stand one it has a very firm magsafe connection and lots of room around it so whichever version of the iPhone you're using as long as it's got magsafe it'll create a firm connection and be charging at a full 15 watts that is official mfi certified and as fast as you could hope for from a wireless charger the magsafe also means that you can just rotate your phone so if you're watching video on your desk at the same time easy to do that it can even charge airpods Pro on it so if you're looking for Apple accessories with the same quality materials and design as the Apple products you're using definitely check out Nomad again that URL is nomadgoods.com stallman you can check out a few of my favorites there let them know that I sent you and thanks again to Nomad for sponsoring the video now let's be real about this autofocus here a lot was promised Lumix was like this is gonna fix the issues that we've had because with the gh6 I loved the image that came out of it but but it's had so many Focus issues I can only use it in certain situations this has been going back for a while for them so the fact that the added phase detect was a huge deal in my day-to-day run and gun shooting it worked most the time it will usually find a face it will usually latch onto it if I'm just shooting objects like around the studio as long as I position the cursor in the right area it generally will move to the right spot hold on to it most of the time it doesn't do a great job of latching on like if you touch the screen and move around it is not as intuitive and I don't like that I had to change a bunch of the default settings to get where I want it maybe the biggest thing it's AF is missing is a proper face only autofocus which I'm used to having on the Canon C70 like if I get up and walk out it doesn't refocus on the back of the scene when we start getting really expressive and talking with my hands it still focuses on my face not my hands which is actually really important I've had this issue with the Canon R5 as well just every single camera should have a face only mode meaning anything that's not a face does not get autofocus and there is an issue that seems to happen every few days where the autofocus is so completely wrong that I missed the shot it'll start by generally being in Focus then it'll do some big hunt back and forth and then just sit there way out of focus and it doesn't see any objects or any contrast and it doesn't know how to get back to focus you kind of have to manually move it back before it finds it again doesn't happen a lot but it does ruin the shot if it happens so how to rank autofocus right now is Sony is first especially with the new AI stuff they're doing that's going to be incredible when they trickle it down to the rest of the line Canon is second and then I think Lumix is third and I forgot Nikon makes cameras too sorry I haven't used a Nikon in a while and then Fuji is like last it's been getting better but the s52 is quite a bit better than the xh2s and if you're thinking about using Lumix for your photography too I was doing that on my photos in Istanbul and autofocus was pretty solid for that a little worse than the Canon I usually use but overall I didn't miss any important shots the colors come out great the dynamic range is nice and since I didn't create a full video while I was there like a vlog or anything I just want to say that trip was amazing that city is beautiful and we really want to go back to Turkey to see the rest of the country and everything in Istanbul we missed there is so much Beauty there we did also create some nice Instagram reels so you can check those out follow me at stalman and my wife at Anya B it was so inspiring to shoot now let's spend a second on the Lumix lens lineup right now what they did with their primes is amazing this is their 85 millimeter 1.8 and this is their 24 millimeter 1.8 notice they're almost exactly the same so when you're using a gimbal you can just swap them out without any sort of rebalancing they all fit very comfortably in your bag it's such a good balance between size image quality I love these primes and a huge consideration was that they don't breathe something that Sony has been working on through software where it crops in on the image and edits out that shifting zoom in and out as the lens focuses it just doesn't happen on these lenses they are already optically corrected it's really impressive I love it also very nice bokeh the blur circles are smooth they don't have the weird onion rings there are a lot of lenses with ugly blur but this set from Lumix does not have it I brought the 70 to 200 to California I wish I had brought it to Istanbul too because it's amazing very sharp great form factor great image stabilization this thing was fantastic I do want to try out some of their other zoom lenses because I know there's more but if you're considering entering the Lumix system that is one thing to consider there are less lens options than some of the other manufacturers like Sony especially they have so many lenses out there however you do have access to everything that Sigma has released since they both are part of the L Mount Alliance but hopefully Lumix continues to diversify their lens options I actually used this the 20 to 60 millimeter which is their kit lens with a variable aperture I use this a lot which I never would have thought I dislike variable aperture I try to avoid it all the time it's what 3.5 to 5.6 that's not convenient to work with but it's pretty sharp and it came out pretty good and it's actually just so Compact and such a good zoom range that it won me over I am now convinced 24 to 70. that is not the correct default 20 to 70 that's where we should be going I like that Sony did one all these default zooms should be just a little bit wider I've also been spending time with sigma's mc21ef to L mount adapter which opens up some interesting possibilities in studio I've been able to work with a lot of my EF lenses because that's what I use most of the time and suddenly every lens I've ever had works very well what's most amazing is that the autofocus actually completely works this is something that was kind of promised when I was shooting Sony like oh adapt your Canon to the Sony Mount and you can use all your old lenses this never really worked out in reality it does work very effectively using this Sigma adapter but of course this is not an autofocus lens on here right now this is the Astra hori 28 millimeter f13 Pro Blends I was just playing around some macro shots earlier today there's a bunch of stuff that every camera needs to do well for me to be using it often it checks them all off it's got full size HDMI which I find very important the buttons are large and clearly labeled they press firmly which is much better than how Sony has all of their custom labels so you just look at it you know how to use it other people complained about it but this dial on the back is a serious problem it always accidentally adjusts I set it to Synchro scan so that adjustment is only one degree at a time but it's still a problem then if I walk outside and I need to crank my shutter because I have no ND filter I can't do it quickly because I'm in synchroscan it's got dual SD cards a nice flippy screen the fans are on the top so it never overheats that has not been an issue a single time for me in a lot of ways it's kind of felt like a smaller camera than it is because of that great image stabilization with all my other cameras I feel like I kind of need a gimbal or to rig it up a bit make it heavier to get the stability that I'm looking for the Ibis and electronic stabilization here is so good that I feel confident just hand holding it much more often while I was traveling I didn't end up using a gimbal or tripod at all everything was handheld and it all turned out this did not work out for me when I was doing it on my Canon R5 on the recent trip to Thailand I complained about it during that video that I came back and so many shots were extremely wobbly and nauseating and I had to stabilize it in post or just not use the clip that has not been an issue at all with the S5 too and before I sum everything up a few more complaints there is no tally light on this video so you can't see from the front when you're recording based on all the other features included in here it seems like it should be there it does not seem like an expensive Hardware feature to add so I'm at least hoping that's in the new S1 H2 or whatever comes out after this similar to all those 2500 cameras I mentioned before when you are shooting in slow motion it crops in which drives me crazy I really don't like that it's actually the reason that I would like to replace this with its bigger brother when it's available because as I'm switching back and forth I don't want my focal length to change it's not that I mind shooting in super 35 it's just that if I'm already in full frame and that's what my composition is I don't want that to change when I go to slow motion so that's really kind of held me back also slow motion autofocus doesn't seem to work as well I'm not totally clear on what it's doing differently but I have troubles with it when I'm sending HDMI out and shooting in open gate 6K the focus does not work correctly anymore the human tracking is not able to be engaged so for shots like this these Talking Heads I want to shoot them in 6K open gate so that I could crop vertically and then use that for short form content and part of what I want there is more Headroom but I can't monitor myself usually I have a big screen over here so I can see what I'm doing and record in that 6K so that is a problem and also my sensor is constantly dirty this is also a problem with Sony cameras and because I shoot Canon so much I think I just got used to not having to worry about my sensor cleaning and I posted about this on Twitter I got very mixed responses am I the only one that notices so there is a sensor cleaning feature where you can vibrate it to try to shake off the dust but on the Lumix it doesn't seem to work like I look at the dust I see it I vibrate the sensor and then the dust is still there it doesn't seem to do anything at all so I need to be constantly in there with the blower Lumix needs to improve that sensor vibration have it happen every time I turn off the camera similar to Canon does and also have an option so that every time I take off the lens the shutter is closed so that dust doesn't get on the sensor and some people try to tell me that the dust is going to cause problems to the shutter okay well I can replace a shutter more easily than a sensor so let me make a decision which one I'm putting at risk here I do not want dust on my sensor thank you very much overall I've been extremely impressed with the S5 too and it's made me not want to use my Canon R5 for video at all like I dislike it now compared to the Lumix I think Sony has a bit of an edge in terms of absolute technical quality Fuji has those beautiful colors that come right out of camera but Lumix is a great balance where the usability is better than Sony the image quality is right about on par with everyone else it's just so easy to work with I can't wait to see the next thing they release in the lineup and hopefully this video was helpful to you guys let me know and if you want to know more about my thoughts on this camera I've done a few podcasts about it so head over to my second Channel subscribe there and I'll see you guys in the next video [Music] [Music] thank you

Channel: Tyler Stalman

Views: 71,145

Keywords: Tyler Stalman

Id: L833ZhUtiBw

Length: 16min 28sec (988 seconds)

Published: Tue May 16 2023