What are your feelings about Panasonic S1R II being in the S5 body design?

[MrSMW]

Mid season update…

Well it’s more towards the end of the season actually with my 4th to last job happening this weekend…

Never did swap one of the S1Rii’s for an S1ii in the end and had a rearrangement instead which has proved to be nigh on perfect for my needs.

My pair of S1Rii’s I put back into workhorse hybrid unit roles and that is where they excel with superb photo & video results matched with primes or zooms. Not quite Sony levels of AF, but otherwise I cannot find fault with them other than perhaps battery life could be a little better, but they are hardly trash in this regard and battery swaps every now and again are hardly a big deal.

I have a battery grip arriving for one of them to try with a new lens, the Sigma 28-105 f2.8. I’m not 100% sure whether I will use this lens next year on one of these bodies or on the S5ii replacing the 70-200 f4 which is broken (dropped it and knocked out the OIS so it doesn’t work in any capacity anymore and need something longer than the 28-70 it’s currently stuck with).

Otherwise it’s:

S5ii for longer static stuff. It just works and does not have hissy fit meltdowns when it gets a bit hot and as we have had multiple heatwaves this Summer…

S9 for shorter static stuff that requires a quicker set up. Capable of some pretty long takes as long as it’s not too hot. It did  about 30 minutes though on sticks in direct sunlight, 35 Celcius the other day so hats off to it.

Unlike the L10 that had a meltdown after less than 10 minutes…but is proving to be great as a dedicated gimbal camera and outside of work, is a great EDC/travel camera.

So 4 jobs left this year with 4 slightly different set ups coming, but feel this set up is now very mature.

I still look at some of the Sony lenses with envy, but I can’t see any system change at this time being anything but a sideways move, ie, maybe gain in one area but would lose in another and as above, this set up just works for my needs so anything I do now is more tweaking for the sake of tweaking than any actual need.