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(partial transcript — complete one is coming!)

(cold open)

          If you're on twitter and Instagram
          then back in early December you
          probably noticed that a bunch of
          YouTubers and journalists from all
          around the world were in Tokyo at
          the same time. It was fun to see
          the speculation fly, and some even
          figured out that it was for
          Panasonic. I think I flew under the
          radar because I posted photos and
          video while there that lead into
          two other videos I shot while I was
          in Japan; the GH6 Open Gate
          Anamorphic video, and the LAOWA 6mm
          lens video  – which of course if
          you haven't seen, I'll link to down
          below – but the primary purpose of
          that trip was in fact for the LUMIX
          S5 Mark II reveal. There was an
          official event where the camera was
          announced to a bunch of us, and we
          were all handed an S5 Mark II and a
          literal PILE of lenses to use for
          our reviews. And I say review but
          of course for me it's a little bit
          different. Again I'm a LUMIX
          Ambassador, so don't expect a hard
          hitting review from this video.
          What I'll do here is highlight my
          favorite features, because there's
          more than just phase autofocus to
          get excited about, and I'll go
          through a spec sheet comparison.
          But anyway, we all were handed the
          gear, and Panasonic organized a
          tour bus to show us some highlights
          of the city, and we had a full day
          and a couple of nights to just
          wander and shoot and explore and
          test out the cameras. Admittedly we
          had a lot of fun, and I have to
          say, one thing I learned is that
          drinking whiskey with Josh Yeo is
          basically an olympic sport.
          Real quick – I almost never ask
          you to subscribe in my videos, and
          my wife always tells me I need to
          do that. I feel like it doesn't
          make a difference; you all know
          that you can sub if you want to,
          but she insists that it really
          helps. So – if you're not
          subscribed already, please do, so I
          can show my wife the metrics and
          prove her – um, right. Because she
          probably is right. Thanks.
          Alright let's get into the weeds.
          I'm going to put up a full
          comparison grid, going feature by
          feature comparing the LUMIX S5 to
          the LUMIX S5 Mark II and … and!
          … the LUMIX S5 Mark II X. Because
          yes, there are TWO models coming
          out. While the S5 Mark II _is_
          packed with video features, a few
          of the higher end video features
          are reserved for the S5 Mark II X.
          If you want to follow along on
          another screen, I've published this
          entire chart on my website
          PhotoJoseph.com/S5II
          
          <PRICING> Launch price for the S5
          Mark II will be the same as the S5
          was at launch; nineteen ninety nine
          U.S. Dollars, and the S5 Mark II X
          will be just two hundred dollars
          more, at twenty-one ninety-nine.
          
          <IMAGE SENSOR> The image sensor is
          the same size, at 24.2 megapixels
          without a low pass filter, and
          still features the 96 megapixel
          high resolution mode, both in JPEG
          and RAW.
          
          <ISO> The S5 Mark II features dual
          native ISO just as its predecessor,
          but now, as on higher end LUMIX
          cameras, you can leave it in auto
          or manually choose the LOW or HIGH
          ISO circuit. By the way, base, or
          native, ISOs for V-Log are 640 for
          LOW and 4000 for HIGH.
          
          <OIS> Stabilization, already some
          of the best around, has gotten an
          improvement. On the chart it shows
          it's still 5-axis and 5-stops, but
          it adds “Active I.S.”. So what does
          that mean? Well, Active I.S is the
          name of the full system, which
          includes Dual I.S. 2, the latest
          image stabilization using both body
          and lens stabilization
          concurrently, EIS or Electronic
          Image Stabilization, which is
          cropping into the sensor for
          additional wiggle room – only if
          you want it – and Boost I.S., the
          other optional mode where if you're
          holding still, the system locks the
          image to mimic the camera being on
          a tripod. So now, new algorithms
          and new hardware simply mean better
          stabilization.
          
          <AUTO FOCUS> Auto Focus. Arguably
          the most important new feature on
          these cameras, is, of course, Phase
          Hybrid auto focus. And compared to
          the S5 with 225 area autofocus –
          that's how many regions the scene
          is broken into looking for what to
          focus on – the S5 Mark II features
          779 point auto focus, which covers
          the entire sensor.  We'll have a
          closer, real-world look at auto
          focus later on.
          
          <SHUTTER ANGLE> Shutter angle is
          there for video shooters, but now
          Syncro Scan support has been added,
          which allows you to adjust shutter
          angle by 1 degree increments. This
          honestly is one of the most
          important features to me in any
          camera I use to make youtube
          videos, because adjusting shutter
          angle means you can bring the
          shutter in sync with any flickering
          LED screen or buttons in tech
          products, to eliminate the flicker
          on screen. If you don't know what
          shutter angle is, I have a whole
          video on that which I'll link to
          above and below.
          
          <BURST> Burst photo shooting has a
          massive upgrade, from a max of 7
          fps in autofocus SINGLE to 30
          frames per second in auto focus
          continuous. In RAW. That's a lot!
          
          <EVF> The electronic viewfinder has
          a nice upgrade to a higher
          resolution and slightly more
          magnification.
          
          <FILE FORMAT> The S5 Mark II X will
          include internal ProRes recording.
          The LUMIX GH6 was the first to get
          this, and honestly it's almost all
          I shoot internally on that camera.
          If I'm shooting to an external
          recorder in the field, that's
          usually for RAW. And the S5 does
          that, too – but we'll come to
          that.
          
          <AUDIO> For audio, another feature
          first introduced in the GH6 is four
          channel audio recording, when
          adding the XLR1, Panasonic's hot-
          shoe mounted XLR interface. You can
          use two XLR mics plus the 3.5mm mic
          input for a total of four audio
          channels. So with a simple 3.5mm
          stereo to mono splitter, you could
          mic up four people for a four
          person interview, giving each mic
          its own audio channel. Nice. You
          also get an upgrade to 96 Kilohertz
          audio when using an external mic.
          
          <TEMP> As always with the higher
          end LUMIX cameras there's no
          recording limits. Now this isn't
          new but it's being called out here
          explicitly; “no time limitation in
          a zero to 40 degree Celsius
          environment”, which is really just
          to highlight how broad of a range
          these cameras fully operate in.
          Between freezing and 104 degrees
          Fahrenheit, and you're good to go.
          Beyond that you might have some
          recording limitations. But the
          camera will perform.
          
          <SYSTEM FREQUENCY> The LUMIX S5
          Mark II also gains true 24p in a
          Cinema mode. That's 24.00 frames
          per second, in additional to
          23.976.
          
          <REZ & BIT RATES> This next section
          has a ton of numbers, and I'm not
          going to read them all, but here's
          the highlights. The S5 Mark II and
          S5 Mark II X can both shoot full
          frame 6K in a 3:2 or 17 by 9 ratio,
          and full frame 5.9K in 16 by 9, at
          4:2:0 10-bit up to 30p. It'll do
          Cinema 4K and Ultra HD at full
          4:2:2 10-bit up to 60p with an APS-
          C crop, or 30p full frame. There's
          also a variety of HFR frame rates,
          including 120p full frame in full
          HD. 4:2:2 10-bit S&Q modes are
          reserved for the S5 Mark II X, as
          are the All Intra modes, up to 800
          megabit over USB, or 600 megabit
          internal. So yes, recording to SSD
          over USB will also be supported in
          the S5 Mark II X.
          
          <PRORES + USB> Again internal
          ProRes is included in the S5 Mark
          II X – but remember you can always
          capture to ProRes with an external
          ATOMOS or Blackmagic recorder as
          well.
          
          <LUT> The new REAL TIME LUT feature
          is really cool, and I'll show this
          in detail later in the video, but
          not only can you load any LUT into
          the camera for preview while
          shooting in V-Log, but now you can
          burn that look into the video or
          JPEG photos. And when I get there,
          I'll talk about why this is so
          interesting.
          
          <RAW VIDEO> RAW Video Output to a
          Ninja V+ will be supported in the
          S5 Mark II X, and as an optional
          paid upgrade to the S5 Mark II.
          Other external RAW outputs are
          being worked on.
          
          <WIRELESS> WiFi and Bluetooth
          support is all there of course, and
          Bluetooth has been upgraded to
          version 5, which is more power
          efficient. Wired and wireless live
          streaming will be available in the
          S5 Mark II X, which makes it a
          pretty great single camera live
          streaming solution, whether you
          want to use it to go live yourself,
          or offer it as a simple add-on
          service for event shooting. No
          fancy switching; just a simple
          single camera live stream for
          events like weddings.
          
          <IN+OUT> The HDMI port is now full
          size – YES! – and USB has been
          upgraded to 10 gigabit. On the S5
          Mark II X, the USB port also
          supports USB Host, which is what
          allows it to write to a USB-C
          drive. Both models can be
          controlled through the LUMIX Tether
          app over USB. That busy USB port
          also supports USB-PD, for “power
          delivery” which means you can power
          the camera with a battery pack. And
          finally, the dual UHS card slots
          are now _both_ UHS-II.
          
          And again this whole chart is on my
          website, at PhotoJoseph.com/S5II
          I figure what you're all most
          interested in are the autofocus
          tests. So, let's get into it.
          One of the big new features for
          still photographers is 30 frames
          per second RAW photos in continuous
          auto focus. So I thought I'd put
          that to the test for you to see.
          Here's a few sequences shot in
          30fps RAW!
          This is a little feature that I
          really like. You know how if you're
          shooting Log, you can preview the
          footage with a Rec709 look on it,
          so you're not having to look at the
          flat image while shooting? You
          might also know that you can load
          your own custom LUT – one you buy,
          or one you make – into the camera
          as well. That way if you've already
          designed the look for a production,
          you can preview that look while
          shooting, but still get the Log
          file for final grading. Well now,
          you can choose to burn that look
          into the footage, instead of
          getting Log from the camera. And at
          first this might seem crazy –
          like, why would you do that? Why
          would you limit your options in
          post. Well I can think of at least
          three great use cases for this.
          First: Lots of folks don't want to
          deal with shooting in Log and
          adding a custom look in post, but
          they might want a more custom look
          than they can get straight from the
          camera. This method allows you to
          get essentially ANY look you want,
          straight from camera, with no
          grading required. So your custom,
          unique look – like a lifted
          blacks, punchy reds, desaturated
          blues, and overall warm cast – can
          now come straight off the camera.
          This also means that you can apply
          a custom look to a live stream
          whether you're using the S5 Mark II
          X and its built-in live streaming
          ability, or just connecting your S5
          to an ATEM. So, this feature lets
          you build a totally custom look for
          a live show. But what I'm
          personally excited about for this
          is actually for still photography.
          This look can be baked into your
          JPEGs, too. So you can have a
          custom photo look straight out of
          camera, which means your JPEGs are
          ready to share, but if you shoot
          RAW + JPEG, then you still have the
          RAW file to fall back on. If this
          still photo workflow is something
          you're interested in learning more
          about, let me know in the comments
          and maybe I'll do a dedicated video
          on this. Now that's three uses, but
          there's potentially one more really
          advanced use that's specifically
          for those adding a LUMIX S5 Mark II
          to a collection of Canon or Sony or
          some other cameras. But I'll save
          for the very end of this video.
          I've been shooting LUMIX a long
          time now; about a decade. Before
          that I shot Canon, and fortunately
          I held on to most of my Canon
          glass. Back when the LUMIX S
          Series, full frame cameras were
          first released, there of course
          weren't that many L-Mount lenses
          available, and I even did a video
          on how to adapt just about anything
          to L-Mount, from PL mount cine
          lenses to medium format Mamiya
          lenses to old mechanical NIKON
          lenses, and even including modern
          Canon autofocus lenses. One thing
          that you lost though was autofocus.
          Well not technically LOST; AF did
          work but it was almost unusably
          slow through the adapted lenses,
          and only worked in AF-S, or single
          — never in continuous. I was
          curious to see if there were any
          improvements to the autofocus
          performance of adapted Canon
          lenses, using the Sigma MC-21 EF to
          L Mount adapter, since I already
          own it, and… um… wow. In fact, this
          entire talking head segment, which
          you undoubtedly noticed was in auto
          focus, was shot on the Canon 50mm
          f/1.2, wide open, and with a
          ProMist filter, as well! The camera
          is in Full Area auto focus with
          Face and Eye detection enabled. I
          found in my tests that this worked
          best with this lens. Here's a few
          field tests, with a variety of
          Canon lenses. Not all lenses
          perform equally well, but of course
          that was the case with these lenses
          on Canon cameras, too.
          Regular viewers here will have
          noticed that I've been rigging up
          my cameras in cages a lot more
          lately. Kondor Blue has in fact
          already designed a cage for the
          LUMIX S5 Mark II, and it's a
          beauty. Here I've got it rigged up
          with the Laowa Nanomorph lenses I
          shot a bunch with while in Japan,
          which work both with micro four
          thirds as well as L-Mount in APS-C
          crop, and the follow focus system
          from Accsoon – links to both of
          those videos down below – and I've
          added the SSD sled, even though
          this isn't the S5 Mark II X, so
          this setup can't actually write to
          SSD, but it's cool to see what it
          would look like. And check out this
          neat little detail. All the cables
          are being managed by these new
          Kondor Blue MondoTies, a
          collaboration project with fellow
          creator Armando from the MondoBytes
          channel. These little guys are
          awesome, and I'll link to Armando's
          launch video on those below, along
          with links to all the products you
          see here.
          OK, bonus time! You've made it
          through this whole video, you've
          subscribed – <wink> – and you've
          even considered signing up as a
          channel member, to gain access to
          my private Discord, where we
          regularly geek about about stuff
          like, well, this camera. Look for
          the JOIN button down below. ANYWAY,
          I said there was another potential
          use for the burned in LUT. In
          DaVinci Resolve, you can use
          something called a Color Space
          Transform, or C.S.T., to move from
          one color space to another. You can
          use this to move from Log to
          Rec709, to move SDR into HDR, or
          even to move from one Log profile
          into another. So the idea is that
          you could build a C.S.T. node in
          Resolve that goes from Panasonic V-
          Log to another Log profile, like
          Canon's or Sony's or ARRI's, then
          export a custom LUT, bring that
          into your S5 Mark II, and burn it
          into your Log footage, effectively
          turning your V-Log into S-Log or C-
          Log or ARRI Log , or whatever,
          making it easy to add the S5 Mark
          II into a production full of other
          cameras. Now this is somewhat
          theoretical; I've built some test
          LUTs and I know this works, but I
          haven't been able to compare the
          LUMIX generated C-Log to a Canon C-
          Log file, or ARRI Log to an ARRI
          file, etcetera. I don't have those
          cameras, but maybe you do. If this
          works, then, you know, let us know.
          It's a theory! But, I think it'll
          work.
          Next up, catch the other S5 Mark II
          launch videos from all my YouTuber
          friends that were in Tokyo with me,
          or dive into Open Gate – which
          also applies to this S5 Mark II –
          right here.