Panasonic S5 II (What does Panasonic have up their sleeve?)

[MrSMW]

Actually, what am I blathering about?!

The only time I need the EIS is for tracking the couple, outdoors, once, maybe twice.

Doh. Absolute none issue. I'll simply put it on a function button!

I'd normally be tracking at '42mm' and it will be '58mm'. I'll just increase the distance between myself and the subject by a couple of feet et voila.

Move on, nothing to see here 🤪

[ac6000cw]

3 hours ago, John Matthews said:

You can tell a difference if you pixel-peep to 200-600% and A/B the images. I've also noticed a slight color shift too. There are also a few artefacts, but it's still 5.9k downsampled to 1080p 10 bit- not bad. If you slap on a touch of sharpening, no normal view could tell the difference and you have something that would be 5% the size of a 6k image.

I did a similar 1080p to 4k comparison with 10-bit 50p HEVC files from my OM-1 very recently (as a check after I'd updated the FW to the latest 1.6 version). 1080p is nominally 40Mbps and 4k is 150Mbps.

With the 1080p upscaled to 4k (using the FFMPEG zscale 'spline36' filter), at normal viewing distance on a 55" native 4k OLED TV I could tell them apart (as I know what to look for) but it's not easy. A normal viewer wouldn't notice. I've done the same comparisons in the past with files from my G9 with the same result.

As a consequence of this, most often I record in 1080p 10-bit and save 75% of the storage space, unless there is a reason to want maximum resolution/quality e.g. it's an 'unrepeatable' major trip or event, to allow for re-framing or extraction of 4k stills. For the last one (which is handy for wildlife), I often record at 4k 24/25/30p 10-bit as that is sharper on the OM-1 than 4k 50/60p, but use 1/100 shutter speed to reduce motion blur while being reasonably usable as video footage as well.

[John Matthews]

1 hour ago, ac6000cw said:

I did a similar 1080p to 4k comparison with 10-bit 50p HEVC files from my OM-1 very recently (as a check after I'd updated the FW to the latest 1.6 version). 1080p is nominally 40Mbps and 4k is 150Mbps.

With the 1080p upscaled to 4k (using the FFMPEG zscale 'spline36' filter), at normal viewing distance on a 55" native 4k OLED TV I could tell them apart (as I know what to look for) but it's not easy. A normal viewer wouldn't notice. I've done the same comparisons in the past with files from my G9 with the same result.

As a consequence of this, most often I record in 1080p 10-bit and save 75% of the storage space, unless there is a reason to want maximum resolution/quality e.g. it's an 'unrepeatable' major trip or event, to allow for re-framing or extraction of 4k stills. For the last one (which is handy for wildlife), I often record at 4k 24/25/30p 10-bit as that is sharper on the OM-1 than 4k 50/60p, but use 1/100 shutter speed to reduce motion blur while being reasonably usable as video footage as well.

That's solid advice. I know that @kye has been recording at 4k 100mbps 8bit and that's basically the same as 1080p 10bit, but with a little more detail, which makes a ton of sense. I would also like to put the 1080p 12mbps 10bit Proxy on the S5ii up against my 4k 100mbps 8bit on my GX800. I'm not so sure the 4k would come out 10x ahead, especially since I can barely tell the difference at normal distances with 6k (and don't get me wrong, the 6k looks amazing at 100%). Of course, nothing is "for free", but 1080p HEVC gives a little bit of that impression sometimes.

[kye]

21 hours ago, John Matthews said:

It's only "Standard" with a 1.09 crop or "High" with a 1.43 crop. There's no adjustment for the behavior, thank god. There are already so many things to adjust on this camera that trying to figure out the perfect stabilization to use on a given shot would be like trying to figure out which picture profile setting on a Sony camera works best- paralysis by analysis. I'm trying to simplify these days as it shouldn't be that hard... I might even go back to iMovie, seriously!

I think that if you can possibly manage it, it's best to provide the simplification yourself rather than through external means.   This gives you flexibility in the odd example you need it, and doesn't lock you in over time.

The basic principle I recommend is to separate R&D activities from production.  Specifically, would recommend doing a test on the various ways you can do something, or tackle some problem, and the options for your workflow, evaluate the experience and results, then pick one and then treat it like that's your limitation.

I'm about to do one of those cycles again, where I've had a bunch of new information and now need to consolidate it into a workflow that I can just use and get on with it.

Similarly, I also recommend doing that with the shooting modes, as has happened here:

9 hours ago, ac6000cw said:

I did a similar 1080p to 4k comparison with 10-bit 50p HEVC files from my OM-1 very recently (as a check after I'd updated the FW to the latest 1.6 version). 1080p is nominally 40Mbps and 4k is 150Mbps.

With the 1080p upscaled to 4k (using the FFMPEG zscale 'spline36' filter), at normal viewing distance on a 55" native 4k OLED TV I could tell them apart (as I know what to look for) but it's not easy. A normal viewer wouldn't notice. I've done the same comparisons in the past with files from my G9 with the same result.

As a consequence of this, most often I record in 1080p 10-bit and save 75% of the storage space, unless there is a reason to want maximum resolution/quality e.g. it's an 'unrepeatable' major trip or event, to allow for re-framing or extraction of 4k stills. For the last one (which is handy for wildlife), I often record at 4k 24/25/30p 10-bit as that is sharper on the OM-1 than 4k 50/60p, but use 1/100 shutter speed to reduce motion blur while being reasonably usable as video footage as well.

I find that simple answers come when you understand a topic fully.  If your answers to simple questions aren't simple answers then you don't understand things well enough.  I call it "the simplicity on the other side of complexity" because you have to work through the complexity to get to the simplicity.

In terms of my shooting modes I shoot 8-bit 4K IPB 709 because that's the best mode the GX85 has, and camera size is more important to me than the codec or colour space.  If I could choose any mode I wanted I'd be shooting 10-bit (or 12-bit!) 3K ALL-I HLG 200Mbps h264, this is because:

• 10-bit or 12-bit gives lots of room in post for stretching things around etc and it just "feels nice"
• 3K because I only edit on a 1080p timeline but having 3K would downscale some of the compression artefacts in post rather than have all the downscaling happening in-camera (and if I zoom in post it gives a bit more extension - mind you you can zoom to about 150% invisibly if you add appropriate levels of sharpening)
• ALL-I because I want the editing experience to be like butter
• HLG because I want a LOG profile that is (mostly) supported be colour management so I can easily change exposure and WB in post photometrically without strange tints appearing, and not just a straight LOG profile because I want the shadows and saturation to be stronger in the SOOC files so there is a stronger signal to compression noise ratio
• 200Mbps h264 because ALL-I files need about double the bitrate compared to IPB, and also I'd prefer h264 because it's easier on the hardware at the moment but h265 would be fine too (remembering that 3K has about half the total pixels at 4K)

The philosophy here is basically that capturing the best content comes first, and the best editing experience comes next, then followed by the easiest colour grading experience, then the best image quality after that.  This is because the quality of the final edit is impacted by these factors in that order of importance.

[ac6000cw]

3 hours ago, kye said:

I find that simple answers come when you understand a topic fully.  If your answers to simple questions aren't simple answers then you don't understand things well enough.

I very much agree with that - the opposite of someone filling an answer with the latest buzzwords, fashion statements and acronyms to gloss over the fact that they don't really understand the subject.

I've been interested in science and engineering from quite young (the first book I ever bought was about electricity and magnetism). Favourite subject at secondary school was physics, helped a lot by an enthusiastic teacher who really understood the subject and could explain the fundamentals behind it very well. When I went on to study physics and electronics at university, in marked contrast some of the lecturers were terrible at explaining things in a simple fashion.

One lecturer in particular kept pushing his own textbook, which was just as impenetrable as his lectures, so some of us students just gave up and found a book that explained the basics of the subject much better, just to get us through the exam at the end of the year... (and it was a subject that in my subsequent electronic design engineering career I've become much more familiar with - so now I know it's mostly much less complicated than it seemed at the time).

"Simplicity is the essence of good design" I've found to be very true. If things start getting too complicated and messy in a project, it's usually a sign that I didn't set off in the right direction at the 'blank sheet of paper' stage.

[kye]

16 hours ago, ac6000cw said:

I very much agree with that - the opposite of someone filling an answer with the latest buzzwords, fashion statements and acronyms to gloss over the fact that they don't really understand the subject.

I've been interested in science and engineering from quite young (the first book I ever bought was about electricity and magnetism). Favourite subject at secondary school was physics, helped a lot by an enthusiastic teacher who really understood the subject and could explain the fundamentals behind it very well. When I went on to study physics and electronics at university, in marked contrast some of the lecturers were terrible at explaining things in a simple fashion.

One lecturer in particular kept pushing his own textbook, which was just as impenetrable as his lectures, so some of us students just gave up and found a book that explained the basics of the subject much better, just to get us through the exam at the end of the year... (and it was a subject that in my subsequent electronic design engineering career I've become much more familiar with - so now I know it's mostly much less complicated than it seemed at the time).

"Simplicity is the essence of good design" I've found to be very true. If things start getting too complicated and messy in a project, it's usually a sign that I didn't set off in the right direction at the 'blank sheet of paper' stage.

Absolutely.

It works even for people who are genuine as well.

If someone is learning the subject then they'll be gradually exploring all the many aspects of it, but it's only once they've explored many / most of these things that they'll be starting to connect things together and getting clear on how they all relate to each other and how they all relate to the desired outcomes etc.  

It requires that the person go through all the detail in order to integrate it into a single summary that can be explained to the average grandmother.  You can skip various bits of the picture, but the outcome of that is that your understanding will potentially be skewed in a certain way towards or away from a more balanced understanding.

I've personally found that film-making is a very complex topic because it involves the full gamut of topics... light, optics, sound, analog and digital electronics, digital signal processing, the human visual system, psychoacoustics, editing which involves spatial and temporal dimensions, colour theory and emotional response to visual stimulus, sound design and mixing and mastering and emotional response to auditory stimulus, storytelling, logistics and planning, and depending on how you do it, it might include business and marketing and accounting etc, or recruiting and managing a multi-disciplinary team to perform a complex one-off project, etc.

It's no wonder that it takes people a good while to muddle through it and that at any given time the vast majority are in the middle somewhere and that many get lost and never make it back out into the daylight again.  Add into that the fragility of the ego, vested interests, social media dopamine addiction, cultural differences, limited empathy and sympathy, etc and it's a big old mess 🙂 

[kye]

Lok just posted a video talking about the S5ii and talks about the new e-stabilisation feature, and it looks like it has completely eliminated the IBIS wobble on wide lenses?

He includes examples with him walking with a wide lens, so it looks like a legit test:

 

[ac6000cw]

A 'walking about in a forest' comparison from Robert May of the S5iix stabilisation modes at 14mm (very wide angle) using the 14-28mm f4-5.6 lens(which doesn't have OIS):

Pretty impressive stabilisation performance with minimal warping artefacts.

[Parker]

I used the new high e-stab on my s5iix on a shoot last week to test it out, pretty dang smooth! Although the crop is quite significant, I was running around getting very gimbal-like footage on the venerable sigma 18-35, but at 18mm, plus the crop in 60p, still quite tight, so I may use this more with the Sigma 14-24. Great new tool in the toolbox of this already amazing camera though. 

[John Matthews]

3 hours ago, Parker said:

I used the new high e-stab on my s5iix on a shoot last week to test it out, pretty dang smooth! Although the crop is quite significant, I was running around getting very gimbal-like footage on the venerable sigma 18-35, but at 18mm, plus the crop in 60p, still quite tight, so I may use this more with the Sigma 14-24. Great new tool in the toolbox of this already amazing camera though. 

The news on the street is that you cannot use the Sigma 10-18 APS-C lens in EOIS in High, which sucks. However, I'd like to know if you slightly remove it from the electrical contacts and put it back, what will it do? There's got to be a way to do it. I know that if you use a contact-less, full manual lens, it works just fine- it's the lens information that screws things up.

[Parker]

@John Matthews While I'm sure you could just put a bit of gaff tape over the contacts and manually program in the focal length you want for IBIS have the camera treat it like a manual lens and get the high stabilization mode, it probably wouldn't be ideal because then you'd also lose aperture control, AF, and most likely the ability to even focus, as I'm assuming it's an electronic/focus-by-wire lens and would need the contacts active to be able to function.