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.

[ArashM]

9 hours ago, MrSMW said:

 

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.

 

curious, on the S1Rii are you shooting anything in 50/60p or all 24/25P

My S1Rii's overheat in 60P!

Looking forward to your thoughts on the 28-105/2.8, oddly I keep trying to decide between it and the 24-45/1.8

[MrSMW]

7 hours ago, ArashM said:

curious, on the S1Rii are you shooting anything in 50/60p or all 24/25P

50p on the S1Rii’s, S9 and L10 but don’t really do much slow mo these days.

I shoot 25p on the S5ii as what I shoot with that I would never need to slow down.

Supposedly better AF shooting 50p over 25p but not sure if it makes much difference?

I suspect I will prefer the 28-105 more for stills than video and my favourite video lens is the 17-40mm f1.8 APSC crop lens.

25-60mm FF equivalent with a DOF wide open more line f2.7 but retaining the light gathering capability of the f1.8 it is, pretty compact and non-extending zoom.

I did like the 28-45 f1.8 full frame lens but a bit of a limited range, especially for it’s size and weight and so replaced it with that 17-40 which I MUCH prefer, but you have to be happy to shoot cropped/S35…which I am and on the S1Rii allows you to shoot 4.7k 50p in a 4:3 ratio crop, so even ‘better’ than open gate.

I would flip back to the full-frame 28-45 f1.8 and use it as an indoor/low-light lens, but ONLY if Sigma bring out a longer focal range sibling such as a 45-90mm f1.8 with internal non-extending zoom…but no signs of that so I’ll stick with what I have.

One of my 4 set ups I am playing with is next weekend, S1Rii plus battery grip plus 28-105 dedicated purely to stills and the other S1Rii with the 17-40 which with e stab switched on gives a focal range equivalent to 36-84mm which is a preferred outdoor range for me.

It’s the set up I am most interested in along with my twin S1Rii plus any choice of 4 primes including; 18/35/50/85.

The former is bigger and heavier, but offers a bit more range at any time with the stills and the latter is pretty compact and low weight…and just works so the 28-105 will probably end up on my S5ii, but we’ll see…

[ArashM]

Thank you for this, I'm also wondering why they haven't released a lens to complement the 28-45, it would just make sense!

[MrSMW]

2 hours ago, ArashM said:

Thank you for this, I'm also wondering why they haven't released a lens to complement the 28-45, it would just make sense!

They cannot have NOT looked at it as the older 18-35 had a 50-100 sibling, but maybe it’s a case of the longer lens didn’t sell well or they think it’s covered somehow with the 28-105 and Samyang’s 35-150?

Or it’s on the pipeline…

Up until just a few weeks ago, the pairing of their 28-45 1.8 and an ‘imagined’ 45-90 f1.8, was end game for me, but since I went back to the pairing of 2 primes, mostly the 35 & 85 f1.8’s, I’m moving more towards the opinion that I already have my ‘end game’ set up because I ask myself, what would I really gain with a chunky twin zoom set up over what I have now?

A bit of range; 28-45 vs 35 and 50-100 vs 85 and yes, that would be welcome, but do I really want that weight & bulk?

Probably not.

I’m still interested, but I think it would only be on the basis of instead of working primarily with 2x hybrid units, going back to having 1x stills dedicated and 1x video dedicated, in which case the use of zooms would be a necessity or I really would lack any kind of range.

On a single body, the 28-45 would be perfect for indoor and low-light work and something like a 45-90, perfect for outdoor. I’m talking stills or video because that pairing would work dedicated to either on a single body paired with my second S1Rii paired with either the 17-40 dedicated to video or the 28-105 dedicated to stills.

We’ll see. Consistency is a massive factor and on my journey of shooting gigs solo hybrid with equal parity between stills and video, I haven’t had much stability until this year, the first I have had the same system from start to finish.

OK a couple of necessary workarounds as in mid season, I broke my S9 and had to use the L10 in it’s place and juggle a few other bits of kit around and then broke my 70-200, plus playing with the set up within the set up, but consistency of familiarity with the overall tool set.

Ideally, I don’t want to be doing any fiddling in 2027 and run a full season with the exact set up I start it with.

If Sigma pop out something akin to this 45-90 f1.8 with internal non-extending zoom over the Winter or Spring, then that game is almost certainly on.

If they don’t, I think it will be the primes locked in for the season and the 28-105 f2.8 goes into the static role which is really what I intended for, replacing the slower, unnecessarily long (and broken) 70-200 f4.