j_one

And final decision made…
The S1H is staying and the S5IIX going back without breaking the seals of the packaging never mind the box.
I went into this weekends 3 day shoot edging towards the 3 identical camera body approach, which I would prefer in principle, plus smaller, lighter, faster, newer has certain benefits, but…
The S1H is just too good a stills camera. Yes, stills.
It’s meant to be ‘The Video One’ but actually excels as a stills camera for shooting people and events because it’s that little bit less critically sharp than the others without The OLPF.
And then there is build, the ergos, the feel of the thing to use and the shutter sound is just sublime.
The S5ii by comparison feels and sounds tinny. 
So decision made. I can’t sell or not use the best camera I have ever used. At least not until a genuine replacement comes along. When or if that happens, but otherwise the S1H is being reconfigured in my line up as principal stills with occasional video and the S5ii’s becoming more video specific and less stills.
Same kit, just re-jiggled about a bit!
I think the gimbal is going though. Just not getting any real use out of it and the S5ii is pretty good in that department for my limited needs.

So after what can only be described as a Devon Loch moment (ask your Dad) in the absolutely nailed on not going to change my mind purchase of a Nikon Z8, I now find myself joining you as a fellow Panasonic S5ii owner.
I had been struggling with the sunk cost fallacy aspect of buying the Z8 as a way of stopping my collection of pro Nikon glass collecting dust in the Peli cases but eventually bit the bullet and accepted reality.
The Z8 would indeed have given them an extended life but I’m not going to be hauling big f2.8 teles and zooms around with me any more so would you have eventually have to have caved and built up a Z mount collection to go with it.
Financially, that would be out of the question anyway and I couldn’t ignore the value proposition of the S5ii route.
So, after a bit of judicious choice of a combination of used and new offers and bundles, I’ve managed to acquire all of the following for roughly the same price as the Z8 and one of its Cf cards.
Panasonic S5ii
Panasonic 20-60mm f3.5-5.6
Panasonic 35mm f1.8
Panasonic 50mm f1.8
Panasonic 85mm f1.8
Sigma MC-21 EF-L adapter
Sigma 16-28mm f2.8
Sigma EVF for my Fp
As I have other L mount cameras (Leica SL and Sigma Fp) this collection will benefit all of them.
As I say, the value of getting not just a camera but three fast-ish primes, a very interesting kit zoom, a fast ultra wide zoom, the EF adapter and the long awaited completing part of my Fp puzzle couldn’t be ignored.
And all of them are light and compact compared to what I would’ve been rocking on the Z8.
Essentially, I went in for what I thought at my age might be a forever camera and walked out with my forever lens mount instead.
First impressions are that I don’t know enough about it yet to have any. It’s not to say I haven’t used it but it’s on all default settings, I haven’t really read the manual and I’m here on holiday so I haven’t/won’t put in the work to have a better  feel for it.
I’ll also defer judgement until after the imminent firmware update.
On a surface level, I’ve found the IBIS to be fairly impressive but the AF, whilst a huge leap forward over other L mount cameras that I’ve got, can be a bit of a mixed bag in lower light, particularly the face detect.
Again, I’ve got everything on default so I’m sure it can be tuned to be better.
What I will say as well is that the Sigma 16-28mm f2.8 is worth a look for anyone contemplating it.
 

Things used to be a lot more conventional. Films tended to carry the look of the film stock they were shot on. Nowadays it is easy to go crazy with exposure as you have a 100% accurate monitor to reference. On top of that everything is digitally color graded to the point where it can be hard to tell what camera they were shot on. Though I can still often tell as the sensor/color of the camera often seems to shine through the manipulation. That isn't always the case of course.

But regardless it's all just personal preference. Take Roger Deakins for instance. He prefers to do everything in camera, where as others will do a large amount in post.

But in terms of the Alexa having a clean image I agree to some extent. At least compared to film it is cleaner, higher dynamic range(maybe), and probably sharper. That is just taking into consideration the Alexa Classic sensor. These are all conclusions Deakins had after shooting with the Classic on his first digital film "In Time". His word isn't God but he certainly had his fair share of experience shooting 35mm film content. I have never shot on 35mm film only for photography.

That is a 12 year old camera, now we have higher resolutions from ARRI, 3.2k, 4.5k, or 6k rather than 2.8k, RAW recording, even higher dynamic range.

But what I will say is at base iso of 800 the Alexa Classic isn't particularly clean. I tend to shoot 200-400 when I want really clean footage. That said it has a nice clean texture, meaning the noise is pretty consistent, lacking in color noise unless you really under expose badly. I rate the Alexa at 1600 iso, which again isn't clean but it's pleasant. That gives you 7 stops of highlight latitude but not much in underexposure. Most other cameras fair worse.

Deakins commented on cameras looking too digital. He doesn't care much for emulating film but did admit the Alexa has a natural texture and if that were to go away you might be left with something too clinical and lifeless. I guess the Alexa 35 has in camera textures which I guess solves that issue.

Deakins was one of the first to embrace digital and pretty much immediately conclude that it is superior to film, at least for him. I still look at 35mm film as the golden standard. I was brought up on it and there is something magical about it for me. In someways I was brought up on Alexa ALEV3 as well. Most of my favorite modern films were shot with that sensor tech.

There are some cinematographers noticing that the Alexa 35 Alev4 sensor/pipeline feels more digital. The motion rendering, the color science. ARRI has always been known for giving true to life looking colors with nice skintones. But compared to the newer sensor the starting point on the ALEV3 cameras does have a look to it. I assume it is similar to what Blackmagic did between the older and newer cameras like you mentioned. Going from a kodak 2383 to a standard rec709 look.

I suppose the option to actually shoot on film for people like me will always be there, assuming the budget allows. I've heard some very experienced cinematographers comment on how they can't seem to get the same look from digital as they do film. That may be them showing their age. Tools like Dehancer have made it a lot easier to emulate that look. I will admit I have seen a few videos that were incredibly well done in terms of film emulation. Although I would say they are the minority. I just prefer to get it in camera especially considering I am often not involved in post. Again that is just me and I am in the minority.


 

NOT = Neither Nikon nor Sony
I made the decision to go with the S5ii for very dull and practical reasons that I’ll elaborate on in a new thread.
 

Am afraid the standard Zoom F2 is useless for using with TC, you need the Zoom F2-BT version. (plus the TCS Ultrasync Blue, and 2x TCS USO for each Blackmagic Pocket 6K. Oh, and TCS Ltd has been bought out by Atomos now)
If you haven't yet got the Zooms, I'd recommend you get instead the Tentacle Track E instead, it is a better/easier setup. 
If you can wait, you might want to get the Deity PR-2 pocket recorder instead.
https://deitymic.com/products/pr-2/ 
https://www.newsshooter.com/2023/04/18/deity-releases-the-pr-2-pocket-recorder-with-32-bit-float/ 
https://www.gothamsound.com/product/pr-2-pocket-recorder 

Right, some of the "criticisms" could be labeled as nitpicking, sensor-sh*tting or genuine concerns depending on your use case for the camera (and the expectations you would have from a $2k mirrorless unit). Me personally, I really wasn't expecting the first attempt at PDAF to be this great and am happy to wait on the updates or new iterations of the tech.

However issues with banding, channel clipping, chroma noise pattern and green noise signal, picture profile NR and smoothing etc are worthy of mention on the sole basis of them being a step back from previous models. These are new issues that weren't there before, much like S1H ghosting.

But regardless, I'm enjoying the S5ii for everything it CAN do and have been working around the processing quirks, there's no other swiss army knife camera like it. It's pulling its weight with strobe photography. Videos grade wonderfully with VLOG in good light. I have some great LUTs to burn in looks, very handy for turnaround. The boot time is kinda annoying, though.
Perhaps I'm most curious about how the S5IIx prores (and even HDMI raw image) will look in comparison to the current image in the S5ii with the available codecs. There's some noticeable differences in the processing of the prores image of the GH6 vs h.265 and I suspect the same will be true here!

I'm going to keep practicing for a better workflow in the grade. It most likely is going to be a matter of tinkering with RAW profiles or even creating/loading up some custom luts that get me the commercial ready "pop" I'm used to in the curves of other mentioned camera profiles. I'm seeing more magenta in skintones, (and even more green in shadows than original S5) but as @MrSMW and @hyalinejim stated, these are fixes I can get the hang of over time.

As I said before I'm honestly happy as is; I bought this video first in mind. Not expecting magic, but besides my old LX100 I never took the time to learn how their RAW files work because I only used their cameras for video. S5ii is the first Lumix camera I'm determined to use as a true hybrid in the field, I'm optimistic!

(Watch, two weeks from now I'll come back raving about Panny color)

I'm not attached to the S5ii just yet. I view it as a proof of concept of what Panny has in store for the other models' refresh. I needed a mirrorless that can do all the things my Ursa can't: PDAF for gimbal and long focal length interview shots, stills for occasional studio shoots, smaller form factor when situation calls for it etc. IBIS is a plus but not a big factor.

I'm mostly a happy camper because the camera is stellar. The trouble for me is that while I love V-log for video, I'm just not married to Panny's color for stills in comparison to Canikon, shoot me. Perhaps I need more practice? S5ii stills are alright I guess. But having owned 5D3, 5D4, D810 and coming to Panny I do miss those colors, and the S1R samples I've seen haven't won me over either. I almost went the R6ii route, but I favor V-log DR over Clog3.

I'm wondering if its wise to just split these needs into two bodies vs fight to find the right hybrid body under $3k. One high MP DSLR used, one S1H (or future S2H with PDAF?) and adapt the lenses to it..

Or submit to Canon with an R7/R5/R5C and call it a day.

I don't like overthinking this stuff. I claim the purchase to be a good business decision, so I shouldn't let my subjective feels about the stills make me ungrateful for what is a really great camera right? There's always going to be compromises.

Ever since the D750 I've had hopes that Nikon would pull through with a banger of a release in video specs. I think the Z9 RAW indicates they're going in the right direction, but I just haven't seen enough use or support online to draw a proper conclusion. When NRAW was released I was super hyped; maybe it's just my eyes or bias but I did "perceive" what looked like richer tonality in the few sources of footage online. That kind of color depth from 5D magic lantern, Sigma FP, or Redcode etc. I'd like to find some files of well-lit scenes and push in Resolve.

So I'm looking forward to hearing what both the rumored Z8 and S1Hii releases bring. I'd trade up from my s5ii to either of them for ultimate high-res hybrids with PDAF and color I favor, and just adapt EF glass. I just can't bring myself to settle on the R5C man.

Are you talking about the default Adobe Color profile in Camera RAW / Lightroom?
If so, then I think all new cameras suffer from a slightly desaturated palette.
If you use a ColorChecker to create a custom profile for the S5ii you should get results that are a lot closer to the Adobe profile for 5D3.
If you're comparing Canon's own profiles (Standard, Neutral etc) versus Panasonic's - or Adobe's reverse engineered ones - then, yes, they are a lot nicer I think.

Yeah I am happier shooting Canon, Fuji or Nikon for stills. Why bother using a system you don't like unless its absolutely necessary to do so.

I think two bodies isn't a terrible idea if you can use EF lenses on the pana body with no problem. To me for stills an EOS R would do just fine. Even a Canon DSLR, 5D or 6d, have a great look out of camera, though they are lacking in lowlight against the newer options.

I'm not attached to the S5ii just yet. I view it as a proof of concept of what Panny has in store for the other models' refresh. I needed a mirrorless that can do all the things my Ursa can't: PDAF for gimbal and long focal length interview shots, stills for occasional studio shoots, smaller form factor when situation calls for it etc. IBIS is a plus but not a big factor.

I'm mostly a happy camper because the camera is stellar. The trouble for me is that while I love V-log for video, I'm just not married to Panny's color for stills in comparison to Canikon, shoot me. Perhaps I need more practice? S5ii stills are alright I guess. But having owned 5D3, 5D4, D810 and coming to Panny I do miss those colors, and the S1R samples I've seen haven't won me over either. I almost went the R6ii route, but I favor V-log DR over Clog3.

I'm wondering if its wise to just split these needs into two bodies vs fight to find the right hybrid body under $3k. One high MP DSLR used, one S1H (or future S2H with PDAF?) and adapt the lenses to it..

Or submit to Canon with an R7/R5/R5C and call it a day.

I don't like overthinking this stuff. I claim the purchase to be a good business decision, so I shouldn't let my subjective feels about the stills make me ungrateful for what is a really great camera right? There's always going to be compromises.

Yes, that as well.
As I was packing up my S1R’s yesterday, I had the new S1H sitting bare body next to an S1R and it’s no contest body-wise.
The S1H just feels better in the hand, has a better LCD, button positioning including on/off which is perfect on the S1H and just wrong on the S1R and then that top LCD just finishes it off.
Some people class the S1, S1R and S1H as basically the same camera but with the S1R just having more megapixels and the S1H being the video-orientated one but I think the S1H just sits in a class above the R and the vanilla S1.
I just think it’s one of those cameras that after the initial hype has died down, is actually a far stronger contender than most other stuff out there.
I have watched over the last 4 years quite a few hop on the S1H only to drift away to either Sony or more recently the S5ii and now pretty much all those ‘Content Creators’ have moved on. 
But the S1H did not stop being great. In fact, at under 2k, it became even more fabulous.
S1H fan boy? Yup, 100%. The S5, S5ii and S1R have all been or are just tools for my needs and I don’t feel any connection with them. The S1H though… 🥰

S1H, S5 and S5ii and although I have limited experience shooting log (been mainly shooting profiles to date), I was determined to switch properly to using it this year and tried various conversion LUTs including Panasonic’s own, but found the Gamut one best.
 
 

Yeah, I understand that it sounds ridiculous to say $3000 when we had an Alexa and lighting equipment borrowed. But it's always going to be a big part of the low budget producing to secure the gear for a low cost. 
 
We rented the lenses but the rest of the camera package we could borrow specifically because we planned the shoot in June when 90 percent of the film market in Sweden is on vacation. 
 
It's all part of the producer's job to get as much as possible with as little money as possible.
 
Additionally I'm certain we could get almost the same result with a pocket cinema camera and cheap lights. There is so much more to filmmaking than just camera and lighting gear. 

I bought the NX1 twice over and enjoyed each experience immensely. It was an amazing hybrid, a true hybrid, that quietly but strongly set the standard for what a hybrid body can be. I'm still amazed by how well stills and video from it hold up today, that sensor was special not even counting ergonomics. Both stills and video had a special "3D 'pop'" rendering to it, hard to describe.
But let's not pretend that the video limitations haven't been surpassed by recent releases. Even in Gamma DR, the dynamic range was limited and color just couldn't hold up in any bit of post stretch. Strange pink skintones and milky blacks when you push the limits even with the bitrate hack installed. A shame considering the sensor readout was compared to RED imaging.
I think it's still a great contender for a SOOC apsc hybrid that takes amazing stills, but nothing more when you consider the xh2(s) models have a more malleable file in post, in prores, with better PDAF+eye autofocus..

I would highly recommend the Leftfield system by Bright Tangerine.
All the benefits of the Arri dovetail while also being just as quick to engage and disengage as the VCT system. With Leftfield, there is no sliding the camera on to the dovetail. You just place it where you want it and lock the lever but then you have full front to back sliding capabilities for adjustment. 
 
 
 

Any affordable 100mm bowl tripod with a smooth head would be a good tripod to start out with for your URSA Mini.
And that's exactly why you should use a VCT-14 and not arri dovetails. You won't have the time / budget / manpower. 
I started with dovetails years and years ago, for my F3. Later on switched to VCT-14, so much better!

Hi all,
I want to come back on the topic of ISO behavior of the fp. Have tested the camera further over the last weeks and found something interesting.
Think I understand now how the camera works in detail. 
Between ISO 100 and 800 the camera is working in CINE EI mode, with a native ISO 500 following the same rating logic as they have rated ISO 3200 (about 5.42 stops above and 7.04 stops below 18% grey). That means the clipping point is as well the same. Do not understand why they have chosen to declare ISO 100 as the 1st native ISO for video mode. Rather untypical for a cine camera.
When checking the false colors on the Ninja V in native (V-Log) you can see the clipping point jump up and down accordingly while selecting the ISO values mentioned above. 
That means your native selections for ISO should be 500 and 3200 if you do not want to use Cine EI. Nothing else. Just imageing the camera has to be loaded with film stock. You can choose a lower or higher sensitivity. Than compensate too much light with a ND filter, to little by letting in more light. 
ISO values 1000 to 2500 are achieved with analogue gain and will sacrifice image quality. Same applies for all values as from ISO 6400 and above. 
However if you want to use the benefits of Cine EI you can use this knowledge to your advantage as well.
Lower the preview ISO below 1st base ISO 500 you will get more dynamic range shifted to shadows, shift it upwards to ISO 800 you will receive more highlight details (good for rolloff on a bright day). With the 2nd base ISO 3200 you have the option to get some more highlight headroom (to be precise 2/3 of a stop) if you go up to ISO 5000.
Have attached the chart provided by Sigma for visual reference. 
That mixture of using a CINE EI and (analogue gain) ISO is rather special. Some cameras give you the option to use either or, but no camera I know is doing the same as the fp.
Hope this will proof to be a value for some of you to squeeze the best quality out of the fp. 🙂 

I am waiting on Adorama's brand CLAR to put something out in the 1000w range. I have found their lights to be excellent in durability and light quality wise. 

Here is a short demonstration of the Cr channels: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1veiqGodXKxerdNF_ksqLlAnFWbGQUtEe/view?usp=sharing
8bit is rubbish, never ever use it. 10bit is somewhat better than on the X-T3/4, but the chroma smoothing is still there, ProRes doesn't seem to help either. Interestingly the X-H2s seems to have more smoothing than the X-H2.
As much as I love Fuji for stills, I think I'll stick to other brands for video as I'm very sensitive for this kind of stuff, but for 99.9% of Fuji video shooters this is still a non-issue I guess.

Suggest that you go through the previous pages of this thread. Usually the complains in regards to DR latitude and highlight rolloff are coming from people who are not understanding how this camera works. Especially the part about ISO 100-800 being same base ISO but with different digital gain levels, thus showing different previews while monitoring and highlight rolloff handling.

This camera is tricky and needs a lot studying, but once you figured out it is capable of producing top notch quality images. Meanwhile there is even a way (via Atomos Ninja V) to have a predictable workflow based on V-log and appropriate LUTs.
To give you some examples about the ISO handling and rolloff.
ISO 100 recorded and left untouched (put through ARRI Rec709 LUT workflow as mentioned earlier in this thread) = bad highlight rolloff
 
ISO 100 pushed to 800 (3 stops to restore shadows as per Sigma guidance), now there is plenty of DR and a nice highlight rolloff

ISO 800 recorded and left untouched in post despite the LUT, for me the best of both worlds and matches what I saw in reality pretty closely

There is also an extensive white paper from Sigma stating exactly what ISO to use and when. 
 
Can only recommend to invest the time to learn the gear inside out. (and that applies most likely every other cinema camera out there as well)

If you're a DP/Camera op bringing in enough monthly to more than justify the cost of a modern high-end production camera then cool. But it seems the general consensus is that the diminishing returns of camera bodies has most smaller production companies and freelancers own their lower-value base kit (your Komodos, R5c, lumix cams, sony alpha cams etc) and rent the higher end models of the same system for the demanding projects that warrant them.
I invested in Topaz too, and am a believer in the concept of older cameras being good enough. But, how often are you going to add AI upscaling as a viable process to your workflow/pipeline? It helps in a pinch when you want your C-cam Blackmagic Micro to match your big boy units for a couple shots, but upscaling doesn't sound fun to do all the time. Unless you are only upresing the final render, it doesn't sound efficient adding possible hours of overnight upscaling your clips in your home render farm.

If you're a DP/Camera op bringing in enough monthly to more than justify the cost of a modern high-end production camera then cool. But it seems the general consensus is that the diminishing returns of camera bodies has most smaller production companies and freelancers own their lower-value base kit (your Komodos, R5c, lumix cams, sony alpha cams etc) and rent the higher end models of the same system for the demanding projects that warrant them.
I invested in Topaz too, and am a believer in the concept of older cameras being good enough. But, how often are you going to add AI upscaling as a viable process to your workflow/pipeline? It helps in a pinch when you want your C-cam Blackmagic Micro to match your big boy units for a couple shots, but upscaling doesn't sound fun to do all the time. Unless you are only upresing the final render, it doesn't sound efficient adding possible hours of overnight upscaling your clips in your home render farm.

I watched this some time ago and unfortunately can't find my notes (I did it blind and made notes before I got the answers).  I've done a number of these tests before and normally they compare a number of cameras at a similar quality level and of a similar vintage, and in those cases I rank things mostly in order of ascending price!  This test was different though and tended to correlate with the cost of the camera but also how good the codec was, with the low bit-rate bit-depth codecs not looking as good.
This is great advice but no-one wants to hear it.
We've gone through three phases that I can see:
At first non-Hollywood wanted higher resolution and higher quality digital because digital was inferior to film.  During this phase Hollywood just shot film. Then Hollywood went to high quality 2K (Alexa etc) and the consumer market was justifiably dissatisfied with their low quality 4K cameras with poor codecs and colour science.  The manufacturers were pushing higher resolution to try and sell more TVs and the consumer market bought into the hype, demanding more low-quality pixels rather than understanding that they needed better pixels rather than more of them. Unfortunately, Hollywood has now succumbed to this resolution hype as well (largely kick-started by RED and Netflix purely for business purposes with nothing to do with image quality itself). Normally I'd say "to each their own", but unfortunately it means that those that want to buy a new camera have to pay for all the BS resolution that the gullible market has demanded.  
To get a great looking 2K timeline you have to either:
Use a low-resolution high-quality camera from 2010-2015 with their support issues, crap battery life, poor pre-amps, and lack of modern features Use a modern high-resolution high-quality camera to record ridiculous file sizes like 4K uncompressed RAW, 8K uncompressed RAW and then put those on a 2K timeline, costing you a heap in storage and computation Use a modern high-resolution high-quality camera to send ridiculous resolution images to an external recorder that downsamples to something sensible and then uses a high-quality codec (like 2K compressed RAW, 2K Prores 4444, or maybe ~2.5K Prores) The missing combination here is for the camera to downsample in-camera and to write a high-quality but sensible-resolution file onto the card, but this option is very rare You can post about image quality until you're blue in the face, but people either can't (or don't want to) see past the marketing BS from TV companies that tells them that they need to quadruple the resolution of their camera every 5 years, even though it has almost zero effect on image quality.