Beritar

For those who want to see the difference in image quality between the S5 and S5II (and the smoothing) : Cine-V2, ISO 800 V-Log is the only profile without this smoothing on skin.

I just saw there is NO smoothing in C4K ! The picture looks exactly the same than the S5 and S1. However 4K and 5,9/6K are impacted, and sadly V-log as well. You can see how some textures look in 4K, look at the green grid : There is a big difference about details rendering between 4K and C4K, 4K sometimes looks like upscaled 1080P with some textures like skin. I hope panasonic will fix this in a firmware update soon.

Like the GH6, the S5II uses a sort of digital aliasing/moiré filter to helps with repetitive lines. I use Panasonic cameras since the GH4 and there is something I really disliked about image quality on their new cameras since the GH6 and now I know what is it. This + the increased noise reduction on the standard profiles make the pictures sometimes weird/plastic, especially on skin. Fortunately, this digital moiré filter is a bit weakier in V-log but still there. To compensate the softening made by this digital filter, Panasonic has added more sharpening compare to the S5 especially with standard profiles, and (according to what I see on facebook) even in V-log when both camera have the sharpness set to 0. But the end result is not really good, the image looks sometimes weird mostly when there is motion or on the skin because it smooths some textures (like skin pores) and sharpen other ones (like eyelashes), so there is less details (despite higher in camera sharpening) than on the S5 and S1.

It is the 20-60mm kit lens.

I hope you will find this test useful :

I use both cameras and I'm not sure the S5ii IBIS is better. I need to make a side by side test with multiple lenses.

Good to know but I tried a lot of LUTs at ISO 320 and each time the noise was higher on the S5II compared to the standard/Natural/Cine-V profiles. For exemple, the S1 has a lovely picture in 6K with the standard profiles, noise free at low ISO, the S5II is noise free too in 6K but it uses the new details processing. Do you have some LUTs I could try ?

This is Standard profile, but Natural and Cine-D have the same new details processing. Some users suggest you can use a real time LUT with V-log to sort this out but this is not exactly the same because V-log can't be used below ISO 320. The good news is 8 bits V-log is not impacted. I really hope Panasonic will add an option to get ride of this new details processing.

The new "Active" IS is the name of the new stabilization. This has nothing to do with E-Stabilization which add a crop. Some "Pro" youtubers have mixed up with "Active Stabilization" from Sony (which is basicaly the same than E-Stabilization). From my test and compared to the S1, the new Active IS is great, you can walk with lenses between 20/85mm with almost no "jump" or wobbles (you must walk very slowly with a 85mm though). The IBIS boost fonction is improved as well, I tried with a 50mm and 85mm lens in 6K mode, even when cropping 1:1, the footage is super stable. Oh and the AF is great with Panasonic S lenses ! This is the first Panasonic camera with AF in my opinion. However there is a downgrade on the standard profiles about image quality, faces looks mushy like on Fuji or Samsung NX, even Sony looks better. Too much temporal noise/color reduction. V-LOG (8 bits/10 bits) is not impacted.

To have used the S1, S5 and the S5II, the S1 and S5 produce a nicer image quality than the S5II with every other profiles than V-LOG, too much details processing on the S5II.

V-LOG is unaffected. However the smoothing is there even with H265 4:2:2 with every other profiles, exactly like on the GH6. By the way,this is not a news about the GH6.

Superior about sharpness maybe but not about rendering and colors. I prefer my 50mm S Pro over the 50mm GM (I sold the latter last month). The 24-70mm S Pro has great rendering too and I don't think the 24-70mm GM II is as good except for sharpness but I only used the first 24-70mm GM so I'm not sure. I still have the 35mm and 135mm GM though, microcontrast is outstanding on the 35mm GM for an AF lens.

I almost did the same thing ! But I sent back the R5 and kept all my L mount lenses. The S1 (and S5) is great , yes the AF is very bad but IBIS and image quality are very good. I still have my GH6 but I'm very tempted to sell it before it loses it's value, I agree the it is somewhat overpriced and beside of very nice colours I don't like the image quality so much for some reasons. But it's the only Panasonic camera with 4K 120fps, is it why I maybe not ready to part with it. I never had the R6 or the R6II but for me the R5 had the advantages of 4K 60 and 120fps without crop compared to the S5II. The R6II has no crop in 4K 60fps but I still prefer what I've seen of the S5 II, even if the R5 and R6 were at the same price. The S5 II could be my favorite camera since my NX1. But if Panasonic adds 4K60/120fps for the S1II, it will be my perfect camera.

I agree with him, that doesn't seem realistic to see the S1H II this year (or maybe a S1H II with just the upgraded AF).

Even the A1 can't do 4K 120fps without crop. I think the S1II will only have 4K60fps Full Frame, maybe the S1HII but the price will be very high.

Yes but I've also seen some videos where the new Panny AF is even better than the A7IV, so we must wait and see.

Just better rolling shutter and 4K60fps Full Frame (I don't think we will see 120fps with a 20MP+ sensor). I was not so impressed by Gyro stabilization on the A7SIII, the new Panny stabilization looks way better, no need to use very high shutter speed, no crop, no post processing, no resolution lost.

I use both L mount and FE mount and for me Panasonic is ahead for image, colors, IBIS, ergonomic. Only the AF is (was) better on Sony. Now the AF is more or less on part, only my wife will use Sony (we will only keep the A7III, along with some GM lenses). I still have my GH6 for 4K 120fps but I'm not a fan of this camera so I hope Panny will give us at least 4K 60fps FF for the new S1. Oh and the 24-70mm S Pro is big and heavy, but this lens is magic, never seen such local contrast on a 24-70mm.

Yes, PDAF, improved colors and rolling shutter are what I want. I'm not in love with the GH6, but the rolling shutter and colors (IMO) are better than on my S1.

Yes you're right, DR Boost is ON in photo mode but not always, it is ON from ISO 800 (the same as video mode with other profiles than Vlog), this is why DPreview and Photonstophotos show a better dynamic range from ISO 800. I agree about dynamic range, 10 stops is ok. What bother me is the noise reduction, I prefer to get 10 stops with details than 12 stops with less details in shadows. I don't know why Panasonic don't let us the choice to use zero sharpening and noise reduction on the GH6, I know you can in RAW but this is not internal.

This is not my video, but I had every GH cameras, the S1 and S5 and some Sony cameras (including the A7SIII, the champion of mushy details at very high ISO), so I can see when temporal noise reduction is used (and its intensity). I don't use V-log in low light a lot so I was very surprised to see so much noise reduction in profile like Natural and Cine-V with the lowest NR value (-5), these profiles was good at keeping details below ISO 800 without so much noise before. But on the GH6 although it looks very clean compared to the GH5 and G9, the details are not there anymore. There is a bit less noise reduction in V-log, but still too much. CineD stated that the dynamic range of V-log in the GH6 H265 was so good because of the noise reduction : "But looking at the noise floor in the waveform plot it seems that it also has a lot more noise processing going on internally which cannot be turned “OFF”." They also said the Prores HQ was better at keeping the "raw" sensor image, so I swapped my CFexpress from my S1 to put in my GH6 and indeed there is less noise reduction but the files are huge and you can't use them right of the bat without processing them in your video editor. From what I've seen only the Raw external Prores is noise processing free. You can see the difference at 13m45s : Do you use H265, Prores HQ or raw ? Because this is not my experience at all about the chroma details with the H265 codec, my S1 keeps a lot more details than my GH6 in low light. The Prores HQ is better and retains more details but certainly not more than the S1 or the S5. Look at the guy's hairs at 0m38s (V-log profile was used), there is far less noise processing on the GH5 and S5, the GH5 has too much noise but also less noise reduction : The GH6 is doing a very good job at preserving details but we can clearly see a lot of noise reduction are used, it look like oil painting (though I can't see how a 25MP M43 sensor could do better without using a lot of noise reduction). The raw photo dynamic range is a better indicator of the performance of the sensor than the video and the GH6 is not stellar. We often see a difference in noise between photo and video because noise and dynamic range are measured differently in video and photo, for photos it's static, and for video it's dynamic and can be hidden by in camera noise processing. There is no way the GH6 could achieve such noise performance without using heavy noise reduction (It was the same thing with the a7SIII which had 15 stops of DR in video DR and only 13 stops in photos). The DR boost is an expetion because its combining a high and low gain and we can't get this result in photo, however it comes with some restrictions. I think for most people the noise reduction is not much a problem, especially if they don't crop or if they use V-log Prores HQ but the difference is very apparent in H265 and even more with other profiles. I much prefer to keep details (and sometimes removing noise in post) than deal with a very clean picture with mushy degraded details. The A7SIII uses the same trick and people seem to love it so I can understand why Panasonic is doing the same with their new 3D digital noise reduction. ISO noise grain is slowly being replaced with a sort of oil painting image with much less details. And there is no way to turn this 3D noise processing off. The first camera I had with this problem was the NX1 in 2014, I still own this camera but I never used it in low light. I really like the GH6 for the improved colors and the slowmotion in daylight, but that's it. The GH4 and the GH5 were more impressive in their time in my opinion. My dream camera would be the S5 with the A74's AF and 4K 120fps.

Maybe on the S1H, but not on the S5 and S1. The 4K of the GH6 is very clean compared to the GH5 but it uses more noise reduction, I compared with the GH5 and G9, and while the GH6 looks better with far less noise, there is less details. You can see the difference in this video : The 5,7K is really good though, there is better details and less noise reduction, too bad for the small crop, and the IBIS is bit weaker than on 4K.

The noise reduction in 4K is not an issue if you don't zoom in your video, but I usually do this ... Sony also uses a lot of noise reduction even in the A7SIII. The GH6 is doing a nice job at reducing noise while keeping some details but there is no way to really remove the noise reduction if you don't shoot RAW. However, the 5,7k is great, there is less noise reduction and the image is very nice, but I was surprised that nobody said there is a very slight crop in this mode.

I'm not sure about zero sharpening but I have the GH5, GH6 and S1, the GH6 is less "sharp" than the GH5 in 4K. There is far less artificial sharpening, even when I set the sharpness of the GH6 at +5, the GH5 at 0 is still sharper. However the Open Gate 5K of the GH5 is still beautiful, there is almost zero sharpening and noise reduction, the image is very "organic". The issue I have with the GH6 is the new noise reduction algorithm (called 3D), it makes the low light really cleaner than GH5 but it also smear details in some areas of the image in low light even at ISO 200 (a bit like the Samsung NX1 but much less aggressive), even with the NR set at -5. I think there is no miracle, we speak about a M43 25MP sensor so some concessions must be made, but I was very surprised to see the GH5 retaining better details (the trade off is the noise). The 5,7K is a different beast, it uses more sharpening and a bit less noise reduction (the footage is sharper than the 5,9K and 6K of the S1), however there is a little crop in this mode and nobody speaks about it. For me the big advantages of the GH6 are the new color science, the 4K 120fps and the very good stabilization making (almost) possible handheld walking video.

I still use my NX1 with the 16-50mm S and 45mm f/1.8, the colors and character of the 45mm f/1.8 ... Oh my god.