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Has the S5 Reached the End of The Line?

Greytop said:
I've just been looking at some exposure brackets taken in a burst from my S5 MkII with RawDigger and they are still 14bit files.
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Thanks.

I searched and found an old DPR thread about the G95 which records 12-bit raws but drops to 10-bit in both burst and bracket modes. The person who was looking at the raws reported that they appear to be 12-bit files but the values written in the lower two bits were filled with "11", so the file was effectively 10-bit.

I think this is what @PJD found with the burst files from the S5II, i.e. they appear to be 14-bit files but only 12-bits of information is recorded in them. Hopefully what you've seen means that this doesn't apply to raws from bracketing?
 
Pete_W said:
Thanks.

I searched and found an old DPR thread about the G95 which records 12-bit raws but drops to 10-bit in both burst and bracket modes. The person who was looking at the raws reported that they appear to be 12-bit files but the values written in the lower two bits were filled with "11", so the file was effectively 10-bit.

I think this is what @PJD found with the burst files from the S5II, i.e. they appear to be 14-bit files but only 12-bits of information is recorded in them. Hopefully what you've seen means that this doesn't apply to raws from bracketing?
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Could be, I'm only reporting what RawDigger tells me :)
 
Pete_W said:
With regards to burst shooting, it is declared in the S5II manual:

View attachment 6812

It is not mentioned for bracketing but I have seen claims that the same applies from those who have looked at the RW2 files with rawdigger. I guess at least with bracket shots if you are stacking them in post you'd be unlikely to notice a problem.
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Perhaps not for exposure bracketing, but for focus bracketing, or possibly aperture bracketing, it could be problematic. In general, however, I find it very odd that when you do bracketing - which pretty much always is done with the intent of maximizing IQ - you end up with 12-bit raws. Hopefully that is not true.
 
GeorgeHudetz said:
Perhaps not for exposure bracketing, but for focus bracketing, or possibly aperture bracketing, it could be problematic. In general, however, I find it very odd that when you do bracketing - which pretty much always is done with the intent of maximizing IQ - you end up with 12-bit raws. Hopefully that is not true.
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Yes, I hope so.

Regarding the drop in bit depth for burst, I'd rather have 14-bit and slower frame rates!
 
Pete_W said:
Yes, I hope so.

Regarding the drop in bit depth for burst, I'd rather have 14-bit and slower frame rates!
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In an imperfect-but-perfect world they would let you choose. I.e., below a certain frame rate, you know you get 14 bit files. But you know there is a faster frame rate available, which could be useful when the action is fast and the light is good enough that you don't need those last two bits. Or perhaps you have a F4 or F2.8 telephoto. Oh wait this is L-mount...
 
GeorgeHudetz said:
In an imperfect-but-perfect world they would let you choose. I.e., below a certain frame rate, you know you get 14 bit files. But you know there is a faster frame rate available, which could be useful when the action is fast and the light is good enough that you don't need those last two bits.
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I agree this could be a good approach, to know when the S5II changes from 14 bits to 12 bits at higher frame rates.

There is also a question of what those two bits do. We kind of assume when a camera uses 14 bits instead of 12 bits it means it digs deeper into the shadows by 2 bits. This would mean we could use the extra 2 bits of dynamic range to show more shadow detail.

But my feeling with the S9, a 12 bit camera, is that some of the lower dynamic range from that camera comes off the top. Basically the ability to recover highlights does not seem quite as capable as with the S5II. And I'm a little more prone to overexposing highlights with the S9 than with the S5II. I have NOT yet figured out how to do calibrated testing to demonstrate this difference; but qualitatively it seems like it has one bit off of the top (if true the other bit would come off the bottom).

Of course this is easily corrected by dropping the exposure just a little. But it makes me think a little about how Panasonic might change from 14 bits to 12 bits with the S5II at higher frame rates. So to add to your wish, it would be good to know at what frame rate the S5II changes from 14 bits to 12 bits, but also are those 2 bits coming off the high end or the low end, or some of both?
 
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