2025 camera rankings new vs used

[FHDcrew]

36 minutes ago, MrSMW said:

I have my S1RII’s set up with:

[4.7K] 4736x3552 (4:3)

50.00p, 300Mbps (4:2:0 10-bit LongGOP) (H.265/HEVC, LPCM)

Why APSC when it’s a full-frame camera?

INTERNAL zoom Sigma 17-40mm f1.8 which with the crop factor for APSC and for standard EIS, makes it a 28-66mm FF equivalent lens and all factors considered, this body with this lens, is a sweet spot for me; cost, size, weight, ergos, file sizes, quality, workflow/bake in my LUT, 1:2.4 pano crop for my films and 9:16 for my socials…

The image out of the S1RII is superior to that of my S9 side by side when I shot them 6k. Every frame on a timeline, I can see which is which immediately.

For me it’s camera of the year, no question.

Yep. Modern Panasonic full frame bodies make amazing super35 cams. I’d be interested in re-trying the S9 with the Sigma 18-35; found an EF lens adapter that does NOT force APSC mode….which means you can use e-stabilization high as a super 35 crop and get steady cam caliber stabilization while retaining the full Super35mm FOV…when I had the S9 I used a Viltrox adapter that forced the APSC crop with the sigma 18-35…so to use it on top of the e-stabilization high made the crop almost 2x MFT level…what’s crazy is the image was still very clean and detailed and lowlight was still good; noise was very organic and pleasing at high ISO even when cropped in so far. I only really disliked the build quality. That darn rear dial felt so flimsy. And hearing that they failed all the time…no thanks. 
 

I’ve pretty much settled at giving the Olympus EM1X a shot though; I believe the Metabones 0.71x does work with PDAF in video. I’ll be trying that first.  EM1X + Sigma 18-35.  If I hate it, maybe will get an S9 again. I’ll make a new thread with my thoughts when I get the camera. Gonna extensively test the 8 bit OMLOG400 as well as ProRes RAW to my Atomos Ninja v.  So stoked to try this camera. Might be perfect for my needs. And seems build quality is apparently legendary top-tier on the EM1X. 
 

But yes, my Nikon Z6 OG as well as all of my F mount lenses and FTZ adapter were boxed and shipped to MPB the other day. Onto EM1X land. 

[BTM_Pix]

10 hours ago, Andrew - EOSHD said:

What is the video like on it by the way, does it have any?

It has video.

If you thought people got into a hate frenzy about the stills side, that’s mild compared to the video side.

[newfoundmass]

4 hours ago, MrSMW said:

Indeed.

Attention spans get ever shorter and if you don’t play the game, you are not in the game.

Whether you like playing said game is irrelevant, - just a necessary evil.

Being able to make 2 forms of content relatively easily from one source is the quickest (and cheapest) way to achieving this and why Lumix cameras especially excel, - multiple frame markers.

I have mine set up for 1:2.4 + 9:16 with a 75% blackout and it’s 👍👍

Yeah, I hate having to do it but if you don't you're screwed. I really, really, hate it.

[fuzzynormal]

1 hour ago, newfoundmass said:

you don’t play the game, you are not in the game.

What game, tho'?

[newfoundmass]

33 minutes ago, fuzzynormal said:

What game, tho'?

I think @MrSMWmeans the social media game.

You can post all the content you want, but if you're not posting content in the way people want to view it (vertical) then you might as well not post it at all. The difference in viewership is massive, whether it's the algorithm simply not serving up non-vertical content or people just swipe away from it.

If I can film something that can both be used for long form traditional content AND social media vertical content, then I definitely will prioritize cameras that allow me to do that. Open gate is very advantageous feature for those of us who have to create content for both.

[kye]

10 hours ago, FHDcrew said:

So valid haha…and I remember 8 years ago not very many people even cared about the 5k open gate on the gh5. Now a camera is “so useless” if it doesn’t have what the gh5 has had for YEARS…the marketing agencies (oops I mean YouTubers) deem it necessary for clicks. 

Don't forget that there is a silent army of people who are making work for clients.

I am in a number of private groups with professionals (shooting corporate, advertising/PR, etc) and things like open gate are absolutely critical for those amongst them doing commercial work.  I thought that Cams video on open gate was actually really good and explained it well.

Basically every camera argument is people saying "I definitely need the things I use, and no-one needs the things I don't use".

[FHDcrew]

2 hours ago, kye said:

Don't forget that there is a silent army of people who are making work for clients.

I am in a number of private groups with professionals (shooting corporate, advertising/PR, etc) and things like open gate are absolutely critical for those amongst them doing commercial work.  I thought that Cams video on open gate was actually really good and explained it well.

Basically every camera argument is people saying "I definitely need the things I use, and no-one needs the things I don't use".

Fair point. 

[Andrew - EOSHD]

10 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

It has video.

If you thought people got into a hate frenzy about the stills side, that’s mild compared to the video side.

I'm actually surprised there's not a camera with a vertical sensor yet, for portrait video seeing as it's basically the dominant social media format.

No square sensor either.

And if Open Gate didn't pretend to be for anamorphic shooters, it'd be 1:1 not 4:3!

[Thpriest]

Open gate for professional work is a real time saver. I had to film a series of interviews with football players for a bank here in Spain with was released in vertical and horizontal formats. 6K open gate gives so much flexibility.

I vote for my Lumix S1ii as new camera of the year, for me at least.

I think the Lumix S5 and S5ii are incredible bargains on the secondhand market.

[Dustin]

A timely piece as I’m looking to upgrade from my Fuji x-s20 in terms of bigger body, and I need better IBIS. Love the image but again hate the form factor and IBIS. Also have a 2019 6-core intel MBP so don’t need huge files or raw at the moment.

Would the OG S5 offer me better ibis than my current kit? The thought of trying a GH5 is tempting as well as I would then probably have 500 I could spend on a couple nice primes, maybe more vintage glass.

[Thpriest]

I think Lumix IBIS is the best, along with the original Olympus cameras. It depends on what you use it for but for me it has been the biggest change in how I use a camera over the last 10 years.

[fuzzynormal]

20 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

those of us who have to create content for both.

Then I'd also like to ask, what exactly is the "have to" part of it.  Like, y'all can't get paid and/or make a living without vertical videos?  I'm not trying to be obtuse in my responses.  I don't do things for social media because I really don't want to.  Dabbled for a month back during the pandemic and just decided, "Nah, not for me."  My career is winding down so I'm not chasing that shit.  So ... I legit don't know what's going on for a "have to" to be part of the career calculus.

[newfoundmass]

34 minutes ago, fuzzynormal said:

Then I'd also like to ask, what exactly is the "have to" part of it.  Like, y'all can't get paid and/or make a living without vertical videos?  I'm not trying to be obtuse in my responses.  I don't do things for social media because I really don't want to.  Dabbled for a month back during the pandemic and just decided, "Nah, not for me."  My career is winding down so I'm not chasing that shit.  So ... I legit don't know what's going on for a "have to" to be part of the career calculus.

If you're trying to market yourself in 2026 and beyond you need to create content for social media otherwise you're nowhere near maximizing your potential, both in promoting yourself AND generating revenue. 

Here's an example that's very specific to me: I run a professional wrestling company. We release video of full matches and generate revenue from that. Individual matches can range anywhere from 5 minutes to over 30. These videos might get a couple thousand views in the first two weeks and generate $2-5 in revenue. However, in those same two weeks, we can release a 15 second vertical clip from the same match and get 50,000-200,000 views and generate $20-100 dollars for that short/reel. So we're generating substantially more from those shorts than we are for the full matches. 

Aside from the direct monetary benefits, every clip we post promotes the company and our upcoming events, which also drives ticket sales. It has also gotten the attention of local sponsors who help pay our expenses in running events and event planners and organizers who hire us to run events at breweries, festivals, fairs, and other community events. We were hired by almost a dozen people this year to run matches at events, generating tens of thousands in revenue for us. Social media and vertical video made that possible. We're a pretty hot local brand because of it. 

It's a totally different game when you leverage social media. Vertical video, and having a camera that can film in a way that allows you to re-frame your footage for whatever destination you're creating content for, is a huge deal and a game changer. If you're producing long form content and shorts/reels and aren't using a camera with open gate, you're making your life harder than it needs to be AND putting out content that is visually less pleasing for the people watching it vertically.

[MrSMW]

An increasing trend in marketing today, is not necessarily being the best or the most reliable or the most anything except being the most popular.

The cult of ‘vote for me’ is taking over.

The ‘game’ is knowing that but whether any of us choose to play, is up to us, but without question, we are missing out on a share of the pie if we don’t make an attempt to at least sit at the table.

This more a situation for the small to medium sized business. Larger corps operate under different rules and for the private individual, it is irrelevant if you use social media or not.

Social Media, visually anyway, is vertical.

Personally, I despise social media whether it be Facebook or Twitter or TikTok or Whatever, but if as a small business operator, I actively chose to not participate, it would be completely fair for anyone to point their finger at me and state, “your business skills are lacking”.

Current status = working on it.

Can we get back to talking about cameras again now?

 

[John Matthews]

I'm a little surprised that the S5 or S5D didn't make a mention. Pick it up for about 550 euros new and get one of those nice Konica lenses- you're ready to go for under 600. Get BlackMagic recorder and you'll even get B-RAW.

[Ninpo33]

13 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

It's a totally different game when you leverage social media. Vertical video, and having a camera that can film in a way that allows you to re-frame your footage for whatever destination you're creating content for, is a huge deal and a game changer. If you're producing long form content and shorts/reels and aren't using a camera with open gate, you're making your life harder than it needs to be AND putting out content that is visually less pleasing for the people watching it vertically.

Honest question, Do you really think people would notice if you center cropped your 4k or higher 16x9 videos to vertical for social media? Like the loss of resolution is that bad when viewed on instagram or facebook after compression? It can help a bit for framing in my experience but it feels like companies are marketing the social media angle as an easy feature that’s already built in and people are drinking the kool aid. 

My argument for open gate is really the benefits for anamorphic shooting. Cropping for instagram from a 4k 16x9 file has always been fine for me. 

[kye]

49 minutes ago, Ninpo33 said:

Honest question, Do you really think people would notice if you center cropped your 4k or higher 16x9 videos to vertical for social media? Like the loss of resolution is that bad when viewed on instagram or facebook after compression? It can help a bit for framing in my experience but it feels like companies are marketing the social media angle as an easy feature that’s already built in and people are drinking the kool aid. 

My argument for open gate is really the benefits for anamorphic shooting. Cropping for instagram from a 4k 16x9 file has always been fine for me. 

I referenced a video previously from Cam Mackey, which explains it (with real examples and a bit of drama too of course).

Based on the video and also from some chats I've had with a friend who runs his own studio specialising in commercial work, the main points are:

• If you're shooting on location for a brand, there are often lots of things in the background you want to blur out (other brand logos, construction, etc) and backing up or going to a wider lens means the background comes more into focus, which means you need a wider or faster lens to get the same background defocus, potentially meaning you have to sacrifice optical quality (which commercial clients don't like), hire/buy expensive lenses, and potentially have to deal with much heavier setups (bad if you're using them on a gimbal/rails/etc)
   
• Vertical deliverables will often need extra vertical space for logos and text to be added, so for commercial clients you need to deliver more height than you normally would include for horizontal video so the images aren't used in the same way
   
• In physical shops, you'll often see TVs mounted vertically showing ads, and you can walk right up to them, so if you're cropping into a 16:9 and then that client is viewing the end result on a vertically mounted 4K TV that is almost as tall as an adult, you want your images to have as much resolution / sharpness as you can get because the last thing you want is your client saying "why are our ads all fuzzy compared to our competitors? how much did we spend on this campaign?"
   
• You often don't have space to back up, especially considering that lots of corporate and brand content will be shot on location, and corporate especially is often shot in tiny conference rooms etc where you want as much space as possible to pull the subject away from the background for some separation (blur) and also to make lighting easier so there's less spill on the background
   
• 90% of clients are expecting both horizontal and vertical deliverables.  The divide in this debate is between people shooting for themselves who don't deliver vertically, and people shooting for brands who have to.  It's easy to think the only people shooting vertically are influencers but for professionals it's the brands driving the demand (or really it's the people sitting on the train holding their phones vertically and scrolling).
   
• If you do back up, your horizontal FOV is now going to include more at the very left/right edges of frame, so either you have to crop the landscape deliverables or you need to make sure the extra FOV is visually suitable for including in the frame.
   

 

[kye]

On 12/25/2025 at 3:51 PM, Andrew - EOSHD said:

I'm actually surprised there's not a camera with a vertical sensor yet, for portrait video seeing as it's basically the dominant social media format.

No square sensor either.

And if Open Gate didn't pretend to be for anamorphic shooters, it'd be 1:1 not 4:3!

The iPhone 17 Pro selfie camera has a square sensor, and when using the default camera app there's a button that swaps between it recording a 9:16 video and a 16:9 video.

I don't know if you'd rate it as a "real" camera or not though!

[Andrew - EOSHD]

3 hours ago, Ninpo33 said:

Honest question, Do you really think people would notice if you center cropped your 4k or higher 16x9 videos to vertical for social media?

You can crop whatever but it's much more difficult to shoot & frame vertical video 16:9 than in open gate.

And nobody seems to want to turn the camera 90 degrees

[Andrew - EOSHD]

3 hours ago, John Matthews said:

I'm a little surprised that the S5 or S5D didn't make a mention. Pick it up for about 550 euros new and get one of those nice Konica lenses- you're ready to go for under 600. Get BlackMagic recorder and you'll even get B-RAW.

It's a bit of a vanilla option when you can get a used S1 for same price which is same spec but a much more premium body, or pay a bit more and get an S9 with PDAF