GEAR
PANASONIC LUMIX S5 II
COUPLE OF CARDS The camera now uses a pair of UHS-II SD cards
where the S5 only had one slot of that speed. But best of all is that the video resolution has been upped from 4K to 6K open gate, which makes it ideal for shooting anamorphic. Drop to 17:9 for a more conventional widescreen view and you can shoot in 5.9K up to 30p. However, all these full-frame codecs max out at 4:2:0 10-bit Long GOP in 200Mbps, rather than the more detailed 4:2:2 10-bit All-Intra, a bit of a shame for those who just love to pore over specs. In the real world, there is not a huge amount of difference, especially for general use and in footage that is exposed well. If you must have 4:2:2 10-bit All-Intra in up to 800Mbps – and even ProRes codecs internally – the more expensive S5 II X camera will be what you need. We detail that in our Agenda pages this issue, as it’s not available for us to test yet. In fact, the S5 II does offer C4K/60p in 4:2:2 10-bit, but this has an APS-C crop. There’s C4K and 4K in 25p 4:2:2 10-bit internal with no crop though. And this also offers HLG settings if you want them. Go to 4K/25p in 4:2:0 10-bit and you can access high frame rate settings up to 60p with no crop, but there’s no audio recorded. Any normal 4K frame rates have an APS-C crop when going to any slow motion settings. So you have to be really careful with the settings you choose – this certainly isn’t an ‘any codec at any frame rate in full-frame’ scenario at all. If you want to go faster, then switch to HD where there is 120fps that includes AF and audio, 150fps
“The video resolution has been upped from 4K to 6K open gate, ideal for shooting anamorphic”
with manual focus only and 180fps where the image is cropped. With many of the latest cameras offering full-frame 4:2:2 10-bit All-Intra, with 4K/120p and HD up to 240fps, the S5 II can look a little limited at the extremes. You need to ask yourself how often you absolutely need those settings. With a body-only price of £1999/$1999 for a full-frame camera, there are always going to be compromises somewhere against pricier rivals. That’s not to say the S5 II is lacking as a camera primarily aimed at filmmaking, because it’s packed with fantastic features that make shooting video much easier. Like the S5, it has full V-Log colour gamma, full LUT support and anamorphic capture with in-camera de-squeeze – not to mention HLG colour for easy HDR recording. There’s waveform and vectorscope monitoring, and the main dial button retains a dedicated
S&Q mode to quickly set fast and slow frame rates. The dial button is not lockable, sadly. There’s also four-channel audio recording if you use the XLR adapter, and shutter speed can be set to shutter angle – which is always a nice feature. There’s peaking, and the 2200mAh battery can be charged in use with the USB-C port. Or plug it into a USB-C power lead and it takes around four hours to fully charge from flat. The camera doesn’t come with a dedicated battery charger, so you’ll probably want to buy one – as well as some spare batteries in case of all-day shooting. For stills, the electronic shutter will rattle through frames at 30fps, or 7fps with the mechanical version. And a high-resolution mode can combine four shots to produce a 96-megapixel still. The stills produced are excellent quality, with extremely natural colours and loads of detail.
SLIMLINE TONIC The body has not got fatter despite having a cooling fan to stop any overheating issues
GAMMA COMPARISON (Left to right) Standard colours; V-Log applied; corrected with a LUT
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PRO MOVIEMAKER
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