hyalinejim

Latest update of Camera RAW and Lightroom adds support for S5II RAW photos 🙂

Latest update of Camera RAW and Lightroom adds support for S5II RAW photos 🙂

Maybe I'm blind but I've now looked at all three of these videos on my monitor (as opposed to on my phone) streaming at 4k resolution and pausing the video on relevant frames. I'm sure there is a difference but I don't see anything that I would object to in the S5II shots. If anything the moire control seems to be working because I saw some in the standard profile S5 shot that wasn't in the comparison shot for the S5II!

Maybe I'm blind but I've now looked at all three of these videos on my monitor (as opposed to on my phone) streaming at 4k resolution and pausing the video on relevant frames. I'm sure there is a difference but I don't see anything that I would object to in the S5II shots. If anything the moire control seems to be working because I saw some in the standard profile S5 shot that wasn't in the comparison shot for the S5II!

Maybe I'm blind but I've now looked at all three of these videos on my monitor (as opposed to on my phone) streaming at 4k resolution and pausing the video on relevant frames. I'm sure there is a difference but I don't see anything that I would object to in the S5II shots. If anything the moire control seems to be working because I saw some in the standard profile S5 shot that wasn't in the comparison shot for the S5II!

You can fudge an ACES-like workflow in Premiere using LUTs from LutCalc or Resolve:
I do this on every project to fix exposure and WB. It's a bit cumbersome but it works! In my example, one LUT transforms log to ACES. Then you can use Brightness and Contrast effect in a linear fashion, and Fast Color Corrector for global WB. Then a second LUT back to V-Log (but you could go to Rec709 or V709 or whatever from here). 
And if FCPX can load multiple LUTs then you could do the same there. If you have a nice look LUT for your log footage, then brightness, contrast and WB are really all that are needed to grade, I've found. Which makes things incredibly quick.

Ok have been using and testing the S5ii for a few weeks now as a replacement for Canon R6 and am overall very happy with it. Will be selling the R6.
I did consider getting the R6ii but it was nearly £800 more expensive than the S5ii and still had some of the issues I had with the R6 - namely micro HDMI, no external monitor when using the touchscreen, and still the relatively poor DR of Canon mirrorless 
The new R8 also came into the picture but no IBIS and poor battery life meant it wouldn't work for me.
I looked at used R5's too but was put off by the 30 minute record limit, micro HDMI, lingering doubts about it still overheating and relatively poor DR with higher price tag and added expense of new cf express cards.
Back to the S5ii and I've really enjoyed using it. Where I feel it is better than the R6 is...
IBIS - this is big for me and didnt realise just how much better it is than on the R6. Has really helped speed up the filming process grabbing handheld shots I wouldn't have the confidence to do with the Canon.
DR, again quite a big difference, image feels fuller and cleaner than R6
Full size HDMI - again for me a biggie. I tried using a micro HDMI clamp on Fuji Xt3 and it still broke. I detest micro HDMI and has no place on a camera that claims to take video seriously. 
External monitor works whilst still having access to a fully functioning touchscreen of the camera. You can also put luts on the monitor image. All very nice for my ageing eyes 
Audio - this is the first mirrorless camera where I feel comfortable recording sound internally on important stuff. The 96khz 24 bit with line level and decent preamps I think make all the difference. I use Sound Devices mix pre-d for XLR on the base of the camera. I know Panasonic and Sony and now Canon using Tascam have an xlr audio adaptor you can attach to the hotshoe but that seems a crazy place to hang xlr cables to me and looks like an accident waiting to happen. Am very happy not using external audio and syncing up.
AF for video - using the Sigma adaptor my EF lenses work on the S5ii just as well as they do on the R6. This has been a bit of a surprise I thought the R6 would still be better for AF but for my uses I think they are about the same. The S5ii sticks to its subject just as well. For stills I haven't really tested too much - for sports or wildlife fast moving stuff I presume the R6 maybe better but that's not what I photograph. Am still waiting for Capture one to be able to use RAW on the S5ii but have been very happy with the jpegs so far. Am aware the R6ii has improved feature with subject only that maybe better now for video AF
Lenses - I got the 20-60mm and 50mm 1.8 with the S5ii at a good price. They are both great lenses for video - well built, silent and fast AF and come with good quality lens hoods. Drives me mad that with Canon you have to buy an L lens to get a hood. The 20-60mm is surprisingly good, 20mm is a great bonus when traditionally these zooms start at 24mm. The zoom ring is quite firm but solid and won't extend under gravity like my 24-105mm L lens is prone to do. I love the 50mm it has a nice big dampened focus ring and is a good size and weight on the S5ii, feels nicely balanced. Am using it way more than I ever did the little plastic 50mm stm lens I have for the R6 which was slow with AF and cheap feeling focus ring. I think these silent focusing Panasonic lenses are better for video than most of the noisy Canon lenses i have.
Crop mode in apsc the S5ii is sharper and cleaner than the R6, handy for extra reach 
Colour - I really like working with vlog in Resolve and feel it is more malleable than the Canon R6's clog3 which has less DR to play with and has some strange cut off going on in the shadows.
One thing I will miss about the R6 is the Meike vari nd filter adapter I used which was great when using EF lenses and better and much cheaper thsn the Canon version. I hear that Meike are making one for the Panasonic so will be keen to get that so long as it works as well as the Sigma adaptor does.
R6 has 4k 50p full frame but I don't use it so no big deal for me - obviously for some it is important 
Anyway that's all I can think of for now, hope someone finds it useful
 

I haven't shot RAW since switching from the 5D3 ML to GH5 in 2017. For me, 10bit log is enough. And with an ACES workflow it's easy to make RAW-like linear corrections to exposure and white balance, which was a big attraction of RAW to me.
Yes, there's probably more textural detail in the RAW files. But keeping file sizes down means a lot, especially at higher resolutions.

I haven't shot RAW since switching from the 5D3 ML to GH5 in 2017. For me, 10bit log is enough. And with an ACES workflow it's easy to make RAW-like linear corrections to exposure and white balance, which was a big attraction of RAW to me.
Yes, there's probably more textural detail in the RAW files. But keeping file sizes down means a lot, especially at higher resolutions.

Now the prompt is ridiculous: "Explain dynamic range to a 4-year-old, adding in facts about American History."
 
Hi kids! Do you know what a camera is? It's a tool that helps us take pictures and capture memories. But have you heard of "dynamic range"? Well, let me tell you all about it while we learn about American history!
Back in the days of the American Civil War, photographers had a hard time taking clear pictures because the cameras of that time couldn't capture all the details in the bright sunlight and dark shadows. But, over time, cameras got better and better, and dynamic range became a big part of that.
Dynamic range is the amount of light that a camera can capture. Just like how the American colonists fought for their independence and the right to control their own lives, a camera with a high dynamic range can capture both the bright parts and the dark parts of a scene, so it has control over all the details in the picture.
Think of it like the American Dream - the bigger the opportunity, the more you can achieve. Similarly, a camera with a high dynamic range can fit in more light and capture more details in a picture, just like how Americans have the opportunity to chase their dreams and achieve their goals.
So the next time you take a picture, remember the spirit of American history and look for a camera with a high dynamic range, so you can capture all the details and make your own memories, just like our forefathers did!

I could never dumb myself down to an Rp style body again, especially not for $1700 when stuff like X-H2 or S5 II exists.
The ergonomics are like a compact camera from 20 years ago.
The devil is in the detail when it comes to what they have taken out. Like aperture priority mode in video mode and stuff like that.
Look at how much Panasonic are packing into the S5 II by comparison.
Would much rather fish for a lightly used "as-new" S5 II on eBay for same price as a new R8!

As I was watching the S5II reviews I realised that people are taking the same V-Log files and ending up with very different colour results. I guess there are four main approaches - use the colour in the file untouched, use Panny's LUT, use Resolve's Rec709 conversion, or use a third party LUT. This post compares the accuracy of each and discusses the trade-offs that might be made. This applies to the GH6 and any other Panasonic cameras that share a similar color palette.
I'll be using extracted colour patches from a colour target. This is how the chart looks in reality:

Below, I match the gamma of a GH6 V-Log shot of this chart and then look at the results. Open in paired tabs on a monitor and flick back and forth to compare.
 
1. Don't transform the colour, just add contrast:

You can see here by comparing with the original that overall saturation is way down, cyan magenta and yellow are too bright, reds are too orange, greens are too yellow and blues are too bright. Skintones are too green. I guess some people grade like this. However the colours are still in V-gamut and ideally should be transformed to Rec709. Even when I manually colour grade in Resolve so that some patches are accurate, then others are still totally off. Not recommended.
 
2. Use Panasonic's VLog to V709 LUT

This official LUT comes with a half-assed curve as part of it. But you can separate the components using LutCalc and just get a LUT that is the colour transform only. The colour LUT must come first, before the curve, or things will go wonky.
Cyans are too bright, magentas too pale, yellows too dark and orangey, reds a smidgen too bright and orangey, greens too pale and light, and blues are absolutely far too light and cyan. Skintones are slightly too pink.
Despite these colour inaccuracies this is actually a good colour transform in the sense that as far as I have looked I have never spotted any colour weirdness in the image like banding or colour clipping. It's a slightly muted look though, and not good for landscapes - foliage, sea and sky will suffer a washed out fate here.
 
3. Use Resolve's Color Space Transform to convert to Rec709 colour

Note that Panasonic's official LUT is available in Resolve under the LUT menu. However, you will get different colour results using the Color Space Transform effect to convert V-gamut to Rec709. I was a little bit excited when I saw these results at first. It looked off-hand to be a bit better than Panny's conversion, especially in terms of the lightness of the blues. However closer inspection reveals that although cyans are just about right, magentas are too bright and saturated, yellows too orange, reds too bright and saturated, greens are close but deep blues are oversaturated.
This colour conversion differs from the Panny insofar as it has to be applied after the curve conversion, not before. When you do this I noticed some weird colour artifacts in footage I'd shot at an aquarium. So yes, the blues are more accurate but the inaccurate Panny conversion gave an image with integrity whereas blues began to clip and go weird (even with saturation mapping).
Overall, this gives more accurate and I think nicer colour than Panny. However, if I was a wedding or nightclub shooter I'd be wary of colour artifacting in strong coloured lighting scenarios.
 
4. Third party LUT

I was interested to see if I could make a colour accurate LUT for the GH6. I gave it a go and you can check out the LUT here. The LUT must go after the contrast curve, not before!
Yes, it's very accurate compared to the other approaches. When contrast is relatively moderate and the range of colours is not so saturated it looks a bit similar to the Resolve transform. However, there is much better hue accuracy and saturation control in all tonal areas, which you really notice if you crank up the contrast or have very saturated. However, I did still notice some of that colour weirdness in the aquarium shots. So it looks like Panasonic know what they're doing in terms of sacrificing colour accuracy to preserve image integrity. And I guess if total colour accuracy is what you're after you need to shoot RAW!
Finally, here's a comparison on a real world image:
Vgamut

 
Panasonic Vgamut to V709

 
Resolve Vgamut to Rec709 (skintones are nice but note the oversaturated reds on the skirt)

 
Custom LUT

@Django and anyone else who's interested I've uploaded a bunch of very short clips here at different resolutions and crop factors to check out:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/13zSYccjrhj1WXKDNMFioxTAoQbZyuP80?usp=share_link

Try using LutCalc to make a V-Log to V709 (or whatever curve you fancy) and add -2 stops exposure 

Well, still didn't get around it, sorry. Gruesome, I know.:) Actually the artefact as a fact itself is pretty gruesome. When it appears it's ugly, relevant and hard to believe. The craziest artefactg has been for the c300 mkii in 2k 444, where in one frame the head of a person completely disappeared. Any way will send you the GH5 sample these days. @hyalinejim cheers:)

Try using LutCalc to make a V-Log to V709 (or whatever curve you fancy) and add -2 stops exposure 

Ha ha! Looking forward to some gruesomeness!

The OP of that post claims V-Log and HLG are unaffected. Also, her tests of the normal profiles were in 8 bit, AFAIK.

The OP of that post claims V-Log and HLG are unaffected. Also, her tests of the normal profiles were in 8 bit, AFAIK.

I can't say that I have noticed a problem with artificially smoothed skin textures in V-Log but I haven't looked very closely so that's not say that it's not there. Deezid often has good insights into detail, noise reduction and sharpening. @deezid there's a link to footage on the previous page if you're interested in taking a look.
If this phenomenon is confined to the normal profiles then that's fine with me as I never use them.
BTW, another issue doing the rounds on FB groups is that in HD 50/60 full frame there is no PDAF, only contrast based. Crop HD is fine, as are normal frame rates in HD. Just something to be aware of.

I can't say that I have noticed a problem with artificially smoothed skin textures in V-Log but I haven't looked very closely so that's not say that it's not there. Deezid often has good insights into detail, noise reduction and sharpening. @deezid there's a link to footage on the previous page if you're interested in taking a look.
If this phenomenon is confined to the normal profiles then that's fine with me as I never use them.
BTW, another issue doing the rounds on FB groups is that in HD 50/60 full frame there is no PDAF, only contrast based. Crop HD is fine, as are normal frame rates in HD. Just something to be aware of.

Ok received the S5ii with 20-60mm and 50mm lens kit this morning, charged the battery had a very quick play and then took it with me on a shoot this afternoon - nothing too taxing or crazy, just filming speakers at a conference and took some photos in between.   
Was able to use it instead of the Canon R6 until it ran out of battery (only had the one, lasted about as long as R6 battery does - couple of hours in 4k). Here are my thoughts so far...
Some real positives over the R6 for this type of work -
No 30 minute limit (one of the talks was 40 minutes) so was nice to capture it all
Able to use my 7" monitor whilst having full access to the cameras touchscreen - this was lovely and so much more relaxing for my ageing eyes. Great to be able to put lut on monitor and also use full HDMI - even without a cage felt more reassuring than horrible micro
No overheating whatsoever in 4k 10 bit 422 for 2 hours - priceless for peace of mind. Once the battery ran out had to use the R6 and overheating warning came on in the last hour so changed recording down to HD for the last speaker
Comparing to the R6 they are very similar in size and weight - S5ii feels very solid, R6  a bit plasticy in comparison although slightly nicer grip in the hand (was marginal though and maybe dependent on hand size).  S5ii AF with the 20-60mm and 50mm 1.8 seemed to stick well once it locked onto a face. Nothing very taxing but did a good job I think - will need to check through all the footage but am pretty confident it worked as well as the R6 under these conditions
Audio - used Sound Devices mix pre-d at line level 96khz 24 bit into the S5ii - seems to capture a clean sound, need to do some testing but think it is a step up from the R6 
The 20-60mm lens is probably the best kit lenses I've used - well made, nicely dampened focus ring and zoom. Love that it's 20mm on the wide as opposed to standard 24mm, don't think I'll need any wider. Bit short on the long end but used it in apsc mode - quality seems a little sharper than the r6's crop mode but am only eyeballing off the screen
The 50mm 1.8 is really nice, completely silent AF, nice size and lovely feel to the large focus ring, also quite pleasing bokeh from first impression, felt like a quality lens - obviously in a different price bracket to the Canon 50mm STM lens but yes a lot nicer to use 
That's all for now, feel like it could be a good purchase though of course early days so time will tell, used vlog and am just trying some luts in Resolve now - looks pretty good for conference type lighting

Just an observation after limited testing, but it seems to me that when using EF lenses (and maybe others?) when there are multiple people in frame and human detect AF is on then the camera often randomly shifts between people, which is very annoying.
However, if I turn off AF detect settings completely and switch to AF tracking mode then I can just tap on one person and it's very good at holding that person until I tap elsewhere.
 

The same thing happens with Sony and canon autofocus.  You have to adjust, tap or go manually.  Plan accordingly when doing events, wedding’s, etc.. There are times you should use it and times you shouldn’t, it’s just a tool like anything else.

Just an observation after limited testing, but it seems to me that when using EF lenses (and maybe others?) when there are multiple people in frame and human detect AF is on then the camera often randomly shifts between people, which is very annoying.
However, if I turn off AF detect settings completely and switch to AF tracking mode then I can just tap on one person and it's very good at holding that person until I tap elsewhere.