Lumix S5 still a good full Frame camera in 2024

Quite exactly 2 years ago, I reported here about the change to the full-frame of the Lumix S5. Today, the question arises whether the Lumix S5 should still be considered today.

Introduction

At that time, the Lumix S5 was also quite attractively priced full-frame camera, which has a lot of features to offer both in the video and photo sector. However, the Lumix S MK II and the MK IIx have been available for a long time now, but they have a lot of additional features to offer, especially in the video sector.

At the moment, the Lumix S5 is available as a housing for less than €1,000, and the question arises, is this camera still enough in 2024 or maybe you make a mistake to enter full format at this price.

I recorded a little video on this:

The settings menu

Since the first Lumix camera, back then the G6, I found the operating menus to be intuitive. And that has not changed with the Lumix G9 or with the Lumix S5, although these cameras offer considerably more setting options.

You can configure functions that you often need on your own menu and almost every button on the camera can be reconfigured (to a limit). This allows the camera to be very strongly adapted to your own needs.

The lenses

I started with the switch at the time with the kit lens 20-60mm and the 70-300mm/4.-5.6 as well as the 50mm/1.8 Here more lenses have gradually been added, including the Sigma 105mm/2.8 macro lens and the Sigma 150-600mm/4.5-6.3 which is really very good.

The lenses are really good and also not exaggerated in terms of price.

The photo area

In the field of photography, not so much has happened with the two successors, we are still talking about 24 MPix sensor with a good dynamic range with 6,000×4,000 pixels when photographing in 3:2 format. The AF in the photo area is very good, I’ve never missed anything here. The AF can recognize people and/or animals and can be moved quite flexibly over the image field with the joystick, which by the way not all cameras offer. This also works quite well while you have the camera in your eye.

The camera can record intervals, automatically record bracketing recordings in terms of both focus and exposure and also offers a HiREs mode with which 96 MPix recordings can be generated.

If you are new to join, the kit lens with 20-60mm focal length is also a quite interesting area and the lens is also really good, although it is only the kit lens.

The video area

The camera also has a lot to offer in the video area. So the camera can internally 4K up to max. 60 frames/sec and in the Full HD range, she can also slow motion. And in contrast to the Lumix G9, the VLOG extension for 4.2.0 10-bit is already built-in.

In contrast to the S5 MK IIx, it cannot do all-intra recording and does not control ProRes. However, the quality of the video clips is excellent and I think that you will only see a difference to the AllIntra clip in a few cases.

And if you want to do more with the video, the camera allows the output of ProRes RAW or Blackmagic RAW with a corresponding recorder monitor and then in 5.9 K. This requires the monitor, which is also not exactly cheap, but it already significantly increases the possibilities of this camera.

Conclusion

o answer the initial question, the Lumix S5 is still a very good camera in 2024, and beginners don’t do anything wrong if they want to get into a full-frame system at a reasonable price. The Lunmix S5 II(x) offers more possibilities, especially in the video sector, but it also costs twice as much as the Lumix S5.

ciao tuxoche