Review on 📷 Panasonic LUMIX S5: Powerful 4K 60P Video Recording Mirrorless Camera with Flip Screen & WiFi - LUMIX S 20-60mm Lens, L-Mount, 5-Axis Dual IS, DC-S5KK (Black) by Wayne Ohlrogge

This camera is great considering the price and the features it offers. If you are a pro or semi-pro and focus manually most of the time, up to 2k will make your dream come true. It's got all the bells and whistles a pro shooter needs: 4k 10bit 4:2:2, 5.9k external recording, Vlog, CineD, every penny of customization options, a beautiful fully articulating screen, pretty much everything its big brother S1H Has. IBIS is ok (not as good as S1H) and you have an integrated vlog. BUT, BUT, BUT, contrast-based defocus calculations for autofocus are pretty bad. If you rely heavily on auto focus and buy this camera for video recording, going in and out, Selfie style videos and you will have different themes in your videos, DO NOT BUY THIS CAMERA. This will disappoint you. I would rather use an iPhone for this than this camera. It's a close idea for me, but as I wanted something that could be used for video recording I'm disappointed. I'll bring that back and look at the Sony A7C for that purpose. UPDATE: 02/25/2021: I tested the S5 in a studio setup with keylight, fill light and RGB backlight. Forget all other autofocus modes, this camera still manages to lose focus even when set to face tracking or Area+ tracking with person detection. However, it improves somewhat at 60 fps at 4k. However, this is limited to APS-C mode. I do not know, Panasonic can fix this autofocus with a software update. They completely redesigned the contrast-based AF for the S5 and updated the S1 series with this new AF system. Panasonic, if you're listening, can you tell your customers when these autofocus nightmares will be over? Panasonic if this can be fixed with a firmware update do so as you will lose a lot of customers in this camera segment as this segment relies heavily on AUTOFOCUS. Update: 03/01/2021: I received a Sony A7C for testing. it is against. I have to say that if you can live with the Panasonic S5 autofocus system or the manual focus system, Panasonic beats all Sony cameras including the high-end A7SIII. I found that the Sony A7C, This is actually the highly acclaimed Sony A7III in a compact body, which has some pretty serious streaking issues due to the Electronic First Curtain Shutter (EFCS) mechanism (it doesn't have fully mechanical shutters, so you can't disable that option). ). Especially when shooting under LED lighting conditions with a shutter speed increase > 1/60. In short, the Panasonic S5 is almost perfect and even better than all Sony cameras up to the A7SIII if you can live without perfect autofocus. Autofocus in Pan's cameras, I'll be returning this camera. I can live with that if I'm confident about the future or if the price goes down so I can invest in a good manual focus assist setup and gear. has some pretty serious streaking issues due to the Electronic First Curtain Shutter Mechanism (EFCS) (it doesn't have fully mechanical shutters and so you can't disable that option). ). Especially when shooting under LED lighting conditions with a shutter speed increase > 1/60. In short, the Panasonic S5 is almost perfect and even better than all Sony cameras up to the A7SIII if you can live without perfect autofocus. Autofocus in Pan's cameras, I'll be returning this camera. I can live with that if I'm confident about the future or if the price goes down so I can invest in good manual focus assist and gear. has some pretty serious streaking issues due to the Electronic First Curtain Shutter Mechanism (EFCS) (it doesn't have fully mechanical shutters and so you can't disable that option). ). Especially when shooting under LED lighting conditions with a shutter speed increase > 1/60. In short, the Panasonic S5 is almost perfect and even better than all Sony cameras up to the A7SIII if you can live without perfect autofocus. Autofocus in Pan's cameras, I'll be returning this camera. I can live with that if I'm confident about the future or if the price goes down so I can invest in good manual focus assist and gear. when shooting under LED lighting conditions with a shutter speed increase > 1/60. In a nutshell, the Panasonic S5 is almost perfect and even better than all Sony cameras up to the A7SIII if you can live without perfect autofocus. Autofocus in Pan's cameras, I'll be returning this camera. I can live with that if I'm confident about the future or if the price goes down so I can invest in good manual focus assist and gear. when shooting under LED lighting conditions with a shutter speed increase > 1/60. In short, the Panasonic S5 is almost perfect and even better than all Sony cameras up to the A7SIII if you can live without perfect autofocus. Autofocus in Pan's cameras, I'll be returning this camera. I can live with that if I'm confident about the future or if the price goes down