L-MOUNT Forum

Register a free account now!

If you are registered, you get access to the members only section, can participate in the buy & sell second hand forum and last but not least you can reserve your preferred username before someone else takes it.

Test/ First Impression Lumix S5II First Impressions, from a long time S5 user

Lsake

Active Member
Due to winter cash back and trade in deals I was able to upgrade to the S5II at almost no cost. I managed to get out with it on Saturday afternoon and can confirm the new auto focus system is noticeably better in AFC burst modes. The original S5 was always pretty reliable in AFS but sequences shot in AFC could sometimes miss. I took about 600 images and had very few miss focused shots, almost all the discarded images were due to them not being the best composition, or motion blur, or the subject escaping me, or just something other than missed focus. I was using the sigma 100-400 DG DN shooting deer and birds in quite bad English winter lighting conditions.

Looking at the images the ISO performance seems similar to the S5, which is to say very good, although there might be some noise reduction being applied to RAW files at higher ISOs. The colours are very similar to the original and dynamic range seems on par.

one thing I did notice was that the new AF did not play well when I put the sigma 2x teleconverter on the 100-400mm. It began hunting, but in fairness the 2x converter meant using an aperture of f14 as the sun was disappearing behind the hills. I wasn’t even going to try the teleconverter due to the light being bad but spotted a little egret on the river as I was leaving.

one thing I made use of, and was quite impressed with, was the 30fps electronic shutter burst mode. With a buffer of 200 RAW images the shutter can be held down for quite a long time even at 30fps. For very small fast moving birds this mode is genuinely useful, I got a few images that the slower mechanical burst probably wouldn’t have picked up. Additionally, despite the S5II manual stating burst shooting can reduce colour depth to 12 bit, all the EXIF data seems to indicate the 30fps electronic bursts are still 14 bit.

below are some of the images from the afternoon:

Fallow Deer by Peter North, on Flickr

Little Egret by Peter North, on Flickr

Robin by Peter North, on Flickr

53402858792_b7f8ab467a_o.jpg
  • Panasonic - DC-S5M2
  • 100-400mm F5-6.3 DG DN OS | Contemporary 020
  • 383.0 mm
  • ƒ/8
  • 1/320 sec
  • Pattern
  • Manual exposure
  • 1.3
  • ISO 1000
Long Tailed Tit by Peter North, on Flickr

53403786736_3a0ed6b40d_o.jpg
  • Panasonic - DC-S5M2
  • 100-400mm F5-6.3 DG DN OS | Contemporary 020
  • 383.0 mm
  • ƒ/8
  • 1/320 sec
  • Pattern
  • Manual exposure
  • 1.3
  • ISO 500
Long Tailed Tit by Peter North, on Flickr

53404108994_5357889421_o.jpg
  • Panasonic - DC-S5M2
  • 100-400mm F5-6.3 DG DN OS | Contemporary 020
  • 383.0 mm
  • ƒ/8
  • 1/320 sec
  • Pattern
  • Manual exposure
  • 1.3
  • ISO 1250
Goldcrest by Peter North, on Flickr

Charlecote Park by Peter North, on Flickr
 
Great shots, Peter! The S5M2 is a good upgrade and I am sure you will enjoy using it.
 
Nice! I didn't know there were cash back programs like that outside of mpb and such. If they ever make an s5r with PDAF maybe I'll trade in the s5ii someday.
 
Great shots, Peter! The S5M2 is a good upgrade and I am sure you will enjoy using it.
My main worry was being a first generation PDAF camera, there would be artefacts introduced into the images. So far I have not spotted anything so they appear to have done a good job interpolating the AF points.
 
Nice! I didn't know there were cash back programs like that outside of mpb and such. If they ever make an s5r with PDAF maybe I'll trade in the s5ii someday.
Panasonic were offering fairly generous winter cash back through Wex. I’ve been holding off on upgrading all year because I was also waiting to see if a higher end model would materialise. On the very last day of the deal there were still no sign that such a camera would arrive soon so I went for it.
 
Lovely shots Peter. Charlecote is one of my favourite hunting grounds too! Do you live near?
 
Lovely shots Peter. Charlecote is one of my favourite hunting grounds too! Do you live near?
About 30 minutes away, and as a national trust member I get free entry so it’s always high on the list when I get a free afternoon. It’s usually between there and Brandon Marsh, although the marsh is much more of a bird watcher type location… reed beds, wetlands, hides etc.
 
Back
Top