New from Panasonic!

By Aston Moss LPSNZ

I feel the Lumix S5II is the best hybrid camera Panasonic has ever made. You can record at 4k resolution in any mode including 10bit 422 with no time limit and no overheating, thanks to the new active cooling system that cleverly hides inside the “pentaprism” area. If you want to record at 6k, Panasonic doesn’t say it won’t overheat but I managed to record almost three hours of 6k 10-bit video without any sign of overheating on a 26-degree day.

While the previous Panasonic cameras had a bit of bad “rep” for their slow autofocus system, the S5II has a brand new hybrid phase detection autofocus system, and the continuous video autofocus performance is now on par with the best cameras I’ve tested.

I was really surprised by the camera’s new Active I.S. Inbody image stabilisation system. The video footage looks a lot more stable than any other full-frame camera I’ve tested when I did my side-by-side test with 50 mm lens.

With its new autofocus system and active I.S., the S5II is easily the best video camera if you need to shoot some handheld “run and gun” style videos, for example during a wedding reception when you need to move around quickly.

There are a bunch of visual assist tools available like waveform, vectorscope, zebra, like most other Lumix mirrorless cameras, and that really helps me to ensure my exposure and colours are good.

If I need to work with a videography team which uses a different system, I can use the Real Time LUT feature to do a colour conversion so the video footage from the S5II can match the colours from another brand. That would make editing much easier when you try to mix the video from multiple cameras. Usually, cameras from different brands will produce different colours.

If I need to shoot both photos and videos at the same wedding, I don’t need to carry a separate camera for each anymore, because the S5II is also a very good video camera.

Q: You’ve already done a number of reviews of the LUMIX S5II on your YouTube channel. What did you most enjoy about your time shooting with this camera?

A: For one of my videos I spent a day by myself in Tokyo, doing street photography with the Lumix S5II. I gave myself a little challenge. I only shot with the 20-60mm kit lens and shot all the photos in JPG format, using the real-time LUT feature and in 65:24 “X-Pan” style wide format. I then shared the photos from that day on my YouTube channel.. All the photos I shared were JPGs, straight out of camera with absoutely no editing. I didn’t even allow myself to adjust the horizon or do any cropping at all.

Trying to get everything as good as possible in street photography is not the easiest thing but it was such a fantastic and really enjoyable experience. I was really happy shooting street photography with the Lumix S5II and with the photos I took. I think the JPGs rendered by the S5II using the real time LUT feature look amazing, but it’s not just me that thinks this way a lot of my viewers tell me the same. If you are interested to have a look at my photos, you can find the video on my YouTube channel.

Q: Richard, alongside your work as a wedding photographer, you shoot other genres including landscape, street, and events. How does the functionality in these new cameras apply to these different genres, and are there any particular features that differentiate these cameras from some of the others on the market?

A: For street photography and event photography, the real-time LUT feature is fantastic as it allows you to have some very beautiful photos that are already colour-graded straight out of the camera. While Lumix S5II’s 24MP resolution is enough for most types of photography, when I shoot landscapes I do want to have more resolution. Luckily, the S5II has a high-resolution mode in which the camera can generate 96MP photos from a quick multishot exposure. The 96MP contains a lot more detail than the normal 24MP photo; it also has less noise and removes pretty much any aliasing artefact as well.

But the best thing about S5II’s high-resolution mode is that, not only can you have both the RAW and JPG output, the high-resolution photo is generated in-camera automatically and immediately after you take the photo. After you click the shutter button, you just need to wait a few seconds and the high-resolution file will be created and written to the memory card. You can immediately review the high-resolution photo and check that the result is exactly what you expected. If something’s not quite right, you can make some adjustments and retake the photo. This is just so much quicker and more reliable than other cameras that require the photographer to copy the photos to a computer first and then use special software to generate the high-resolution photo.

Taking photos with the new LUMIX S5II … is a really enjoyable experience. Great ergonomics and easy-to-use user interface have always been strong Panasonic features. But now, with the brand new autofocus system, when I pair the Lumix S5II with some of Lumix’s excellent S series f/1.8 prime lenses, I have a full-frame camera setup that won’t break my back or arm when I have to do a 12 hours plus wedding. It also won’t break my bank, as Lumix cameras and lenses are all very well priced and offer great value for money