Beritar

16 hours ago, j_one said:

I think this is the biggest thing that has started to have me considering returning the camera while I still have a week left to do so. Also, all the exterior footage I've shot and seen online looks leaning towards a magenta/brown tint too much. The latitude and banding issues in the S5 facebook group seems to fall on deaf ears when called out.

I actually thought V-log colors were better on skin and clothes in the studio scene in that video, but the green shadows are really not great when compared to original S5.

Yes I can really see a difference with my S5 since the first day I bouth the S5II. And the other profiles are even worse. I use a lot Natural and Cine-V in low light, there are just too much details filtering on the S5II with these profiles, it looks very similar to Sony (even worse than Sony at very low ISO) :
 

11 hours ago, deezid said:

Chroma and luma detail (in V-Log) look pretty much the same than on my S1H if not even better.
V-Log is the only profile with the banding problem though, even HLG is clean in shadows.

Can't say anything about the sRGB profiles since I would never use them.

Yes the issue is with the standard profiles, the difference is obvious :
 

However in V-Log they look very similar when sharpness and NR are set at 0 :
 

11 hours ago, deezid said:

To each their own. 
To me the heavy chroma filtering when shooting internally is an absolute no go. Skin looks lifeless and so does any kind any kind of foliage. That's only one problem next to the insane amount of oversharpening the cameras forces on your footage. 

The image lacks tonality and color separation and looks thin as nothing I've ever seen before, something that cannot be fixed in post. Fuji also really needs to work on their AF and IBIS.

The S5II on the other hand has no issues with that but has banding in shadows which hopefully can be fixed via a firmware update.

Btw. external ProRes on the S5II looks identical in every single way to the internal H265/H264 codecs, there's not a single difference in IQ even when pushing color a to the extremes.

The S5II also uses more sharpening and details smoothing than before (S5 and S1), less in V-Log and HLG but still noticeable when pixel peeping.
I "pixel peep" a lot because I use 6K to pan or zoom in post and with most profiles the 6K of the S1 really looks like a burst of raw photos and the S5II looks more like a burst of JPEGs with in camera sharpening and NR bumped up. And at this point even my old A7III (while noisier) keeps better details than my S5II in 4K.

On 3/13/2023 at 1:51 AM, Al Dolega said:

I think we may be getting to the point where the number of things the market is expecting/hoping to be fixed soon via firmware may be outstripping how many things I reasonably expect can be addressed in a single firmware (or several firmwares in a short timeframe).

I would love for the banding, oversharpening, smoothing, AF performance, and maybe even rolling shutter to be addressed/improved by the time my preorderd S5IIX comes in in 2-2.5 months, but I am losing faith in that happening.

AF on my S1 has actually been behaving itself recently so maybe I'll tell myself to wait until the S2 or S2H is announced.

Seriously I miss the S1 (but not its AF). In fact I almost don't use my S5II because I don't like it for low light even at low ISO. The rendering on faces is just bad because of over shaprening and (especially) smoothed out details. 
V-log is better but still not as good as before and not recommended for the cleanest footage, using underexposed LUTs to get ride of noise just doesn't work well because Dynamic range take a hit and above all you loose too much light doing this.

If you don't crop a lot in your videos, I think you will like the S5II though, but in my case if Panasonic doesn't adress the image quality with the standard profiles and really want to target smartphone users, I don't think I will use their camera anymore. I was tempted to buy an S1 again but the AF is really not good with low contrast scenes or when using Sigma lenses, it even struggles sometimes in good light with Panasonic S lenses ... 

I also use the Sony A7IV (and III) and it has better image quality in low light, there are some noise reduction at high ISO but there is absolutely no smoothing like on the S5II at low ISO. 
So Sony has great AF and image quality in most scenarios but it lacks good IBIS with >20mm lenses and it has no Open Gate mode.

It was really too much for Panasonic to make a S1 with the AF of the S5II ? 
I still hope.

8 hours ago, Sharathc47 said:

sean at Lumix live acknowledged the issue and said that it is because of Phase detect pixels. it's not solvable by just a firmware.  They are hoping to improve with next versions of cameras.

They use too much noise reduction like sony, it's in every S series camera. Otherwise a dynamic range of 12.3 with a 12bit adc is quite difficult. Wish they would use stacked 14bit adc sensors upto 60fps instead of nikon z9 sensor in future products.

I don't think the issue is Phase Detect because V-Log on the S5II (while sharper than before) has not the insane sharpening and chroma noise reduction that the standard profiles have.
Moreover, nor my A7III and IV smooth details like this at low ISO and yet they use Phase detect.
There are just bad processing going on internaly on the standard profiles with the S5II.

9 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

What about Vlog for the S5 II and GH6? @deezid cheers

About the GH6, I've not used it a lot but even with HLG and V-Log (H265) and I feel the details rendering is slightly different compared to the GH5, maybe because of some details filtering ("Intelligent detail filtering" from Panasonic) but there is a difference, like if the GH6 smooths and sharpens some details in the same time, a bit like with the S5II standard profiles but far less pronounced.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55RygnQqAbU

I think Deezid used the GH6 a lot more than me thought and said Prores has less noise reduction so maybe the details rendering is better than with H265. 

These days, many brands use a lot sharpening and different type of noise reduction, sadly most of the time there is no way to disable them.
It is true that there is no chance your clients could spot the loss of details, but I use Panasonic cameras since a very long time and I loved the way I could crop or extract picture from my videos while retaining a lot of details, like a true Jpeg picture without too much noise processing or digital sharpening. We can't do this anymore with the S5II standard profiles because there are too much processing going on internally, exactly like on smartphones.

5 minutes ago, PannySVHS said:

Hi, didn't you state, that VLog for the S5 does not show this noise reduction and processing? @Beritar cheers

V-Log on the S5II is way less impacted, it looks "almost" similar to my S5. It has slightly more sharpening (maybe more spatial or temporal NR from what I've seen in the CineD test), and tint is more green than the S5.
The real issue is with the standard profiles for the S5II.

9 hours ago, deezid said:

That's what's also called the smartphone processing approach, apply tons of spatial and temporal filtering and another layer of heavy sharpening to compensate.

This is my thought exactly , Panasonic must want to target smartphone users, It's the only explanation and it's a very bad new.
But some people can't see the difference or sometimes prefer the over sharpening and mushy details of the S5II, so I am not surprised.

Another test between the S5II and the S5, this time with the Natural Profile (640 ISO) :

I'm not a fan of extreme sharpening but it's not really an issue if it can be dialed down enough, the important thing is to keep details.
The S5II uses a lot of sharpening at -5 but it also uses a lot of details filtering (look at the orange background) ,and of course adding sharpness in post can't help to recover details.
I think I never seen an imaqe quality so bad from a Panasonic camera of this price (V-Log has less issues but this is not the always the best profile for some situations).

22 hours ago, deezid said:

The color rendering, especially skin tones has been improved quite a bit in V-Log between the old S Series and S5II.
Much warmer skin tones.

However, the banding in near black areas (very similar to OLEDs after a bad Calman calibration) and also the heavy sharpening (similar to GH6) are quite concerning.

Do you know if the GH5II also has the heavy sharpening from the GH6 ? My GH6 and my S5II are very similar about sharpness, rough sharpening even at -5 with the standard profiles but also less fine details than S1/S5 and G9 because of the new "intelligent details" processing in the GH6.
I really hoped Panasonic didn't put these processing on the S5II but it looks even worse.

13 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

I don't care about lab tests at all, I care about real world performance. The noise reduction is a much bigger issue than any lab test. Hopefully Panasonic fixes that in a firmware update, because I should be able to control the level of NR that's going on.

If you shoot V-log there is almost zero noise reduction on the S5II, however I still prefer the V-log image coming from the S5/S1.
But yes Panasonic really need to fix the image quality with the standard profiles.

5 hours ago, FHDcrew said:

Maybe the ever so slightly decreased latitude is that quality decrease Panasonic kept saying when they tried to defend doing with Dirt-From-Defocus AF 😂 

From my experience (I have the camera since a month), the latitude is not the only downgrade, detail rendering (less in V-Log) and motion quality are also worse than the S1 and S5. But a lot of people will not see the difference, especially those who shoot in a very well controled environnement and those for whom 1080P is enough quality.

14 hours ago, Sharathc47 said:

Please extend clips to 30 seconds atleast

Another scene and "subject"  :

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.

5 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

Guess I would rather keep my S1 instead of selling it for a S5II. Looking forward to see more videos on that. Thanks for pointing out! @Beritar

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.

1 hour ago, newfoundmass said:

Thank you! Quick question/comment though: I've never had a problem with the S5 being so jittery on the y-axis like it is in your clips. I've used the kit lens, which doesn't have OIS, and the 24-105mm, which does, for the last year. What lens did you use? 

It is the 20-60mm kit lens.

On 2/3/2023 at 12:55 PM, PannySVHS said:

I liked all the outdoor shots from the GH6 better:) More sublte tones, skin without the pinkness of the S5. Good test, thank you for posting. ISO640 is not even Dual Gain, right? Still GH6 is performing lovely. But GH6 should have had PDAF and the quality of S5 IBIS! Well..

I hope you will find this test useful : 
 

6 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

I liked all the outdoor shots from the GH6 better:) More sublte tones, skin without the pinkness of the S5. Good test, thank you for posting. ISO640 is not even Dual Gain, right? Still GH6 is performing lovely. But GH6 should have had PDAF and the quality of S5 IBIS! Well..

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.

1 hour ago, hyalinejim said:

For those who want to do this you could create a real time LUT that pushes the signal down by 2 stops or whatever and shoot at 640. V-Log has 6ish stops in the highlights versus the standard profiles which probably have around 4 maximum. That's how log profiles work: for example let's say the base ISO is normally 100 and the log profile is 800. Well, the log profile is basically shooting at 100 to give 3 extra stops in the highlights and the signal is then raised so the exposure is correct.

So for people who want the normal profiles for cleaner low light by using lower ISO, you should theoretically be able to get the same result by "overexposing" the same scene at a higher VLog ISO and pushing the image down a few stops with a real time LUT.

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 ?

4 minutes ago, Thpriest said:

Anyone got any examples comparing the S5 and S5ii in Natural, CineD etc to see the difference? The S1 and S5 have a great image even in lowlight. I’d hope the S5ii was the same.

I don’t want to use Vlog all the time.

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.

3 hours ago, XNYC said:

Many are impressed with the new active I.S. video stabilization.  Is this "new" IBIS activated in the Normal stabilization mode or does E. Stabilization have to also be ON? 

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.

9 hours ago, TomTheDP said:

The S1H lost that aggressive NR in later firmware, the GH5 had similar issue at first. The S1 never had the aggressive NR though, probably one of the better cameras in terms of an organic NR free image, it was rated at 12.2 stops. The C70 in RAW is 12.3 stops, which is very close to what the S1 is doing.

 Of course the S1 may have less dynamic range in RAW due to the likely less processing going on. But from using both cameras on projects the S1 seems to hold highlights better while the while the C70 is better in shadows. But I know people have noticed the C70 in 10 bit is doing a lot of processing, which is why I assume the dynamic range in RAW is less. 

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.

1 hour ago, hyalinejim said:

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

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.

On 1/10/2023 at 11:37 PM, Trek of Joy said:

Panasonic - like Nikon with the 1.8 S lenses, are doing great things with the few lenses its released. The faster lenses are stupid huge and not doing them any favors at all. But Sony also has the 50GM, which is vastly superior to pretty much any L-mount lens in every way. Panasonic should be dissecting every recent GM lens and try to top them, the size of many L-mount bodies and lenses are a detractor for many. The 50 1.4z is still great and can be found used for crazy cheap prices compared to its performance. Sony's latest GM mk2 zooms make the gargantuan L-mount 2.8 zooms look silly in comparison - they're better optically, better AF with the linear motors and are much, much smaller. Sony also has the recent 24/35/135 GM's that are class leading, and cheaper alternatives in many cases like the 20/35/80 1.8's. And then there are the vast 3rd party options including everything Sigma has in the L-mount.

Everyone has a long way to catch Sony on the lens side - the only thing anyone outside of Canon can hope for is to try and stack the spec sheet enough to keep people from choosing Sony or Canon. But as we've seen over the last few years, Sony is the only one gaining market share at the expense of everyone else. Lenses are a major factor in their rise. 

Chris

 

 

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.