Review Ěś Panasonic Lumix S5 by Paul Whitham LPSNZ
PANASONIC HAVE A long history of producing great cameras in the Micro 4/3 (M4/3) range but it was not until February 2019 that they entered the full frame market with the S1 and S1R. In September 2020 they announced a new addition to the range, the S5, which many commentors refer to as their entry level full mirrorless camera. Through the support of Andrew Reid at Panasonic New Zealand I was loaned a S5, along with a 20-50mm f3.5-5.6 lens (sold as the kit lens). I was fortunate enough to have the camera for nearly a month, providing time to use it in a number of situations, as well as giving me time to become familiar with the various settings that I could tweak (of which there are many). This review is about how the camera performed in real life situations, and I am not going to go too much into the technical details or pixel peeping as there are several reviews about that online already. If you want to see some from a New Zealand perspective, check out Auckland photographer Richard Wong’s YouTube channel at https://www. youtube.com/c/PhotoByRichard/videos. The table below shows how the S5 fits in with the other Panasonic full frame mirrorless cameras in terms of megapixels, frames per second and price. Panasonic cameras have long been used in video work and so they have developed models specifically for that market, as well as ones primarily aimed at stills photographers. Model S5 S1 S1R S1H 64
MP 24.3 24 47 24
Primary market Stills/Video Stills/Video Stills Video
FPS 7 6-9 6-9 9
The S1 falls into their category of hybrid camera, meaning that it shoots stills and video equally well but does not favour one over the other. As we are primarily still photographers, I did not go into the video capabilities of the camera.
First impressions I first picked up a Panasonic Lumix S1 at the Hutt 2019 convention and was shocked at the size of it. It was no smaller than a SLR, which went against the notion that mirrorless cameras were smaller. With the S5 we are back to more of a size that you would associate with mirrorless. In fact, it is nearly the same size as my G9 which has a M4/3 sensor. Before giving me the camera, Andrew Reid from Panasonic told me that it would feel very similar to my G9, and that was certainly the case. It would be a very easy transition for anyone moving up from M4/3. The menu system is extensive, but it is not that difficult to work your way around. The body contained a number of programmable buttons and there was a screen that showed easily what each one was set up to do. The buttons are set up in such a way that holding them down for a couple of seconds opens up the section of the menu where the functions are set. Unlike the other full frame versions and the G9 there is no display panel on the top of the camera. Personally, I like having this feature but after using the camera for a while I did not really notice its absence. Price (body only)* $3,498 $3,840 $4,785 $6,690
* All prices obtained from PhotoWarehouse website on 1 November 2020
