Whether you’re shooting video, stills, or some combination, there’s a camera that offers incredible levels of excellence in both, and at a price point that’s hard to ignore. Watch it get put through its paces in a 4-week trip to South America, and see how it stacks up against the competition.
The demand for cameras that can satisfy the exacting needs of hybrid shooters has never been higher. Videographers, photographers, and content creators of all stripes routinely work with a blend of still and moving images. The ability to create all of these media types using a single device offers incredible convenience, as well as potentially significant savings in time, money, and effort. Just think about the overhead of going on a trip like the one shown in this video, and having to cart along separate cameras for video and still photography, along with all of their separate sets of batteries, lenses, accessories etc.
One of the issues commonly encountered by hybrid shooters is that plenty of cameras do a bit of both, but are typically much better at one than the other. For example, when using an excellent still photography camera that also shoots video, it can often feel like the video features were something of an afterthought for the manufacturer.
However, this problem seems to be increasingly receding in the rearview mirror as the technology improves and becomes more cost effective. More and more manufacturers are starting to produce cameras that can absolutely hold their own in both video and still photography. The Panasonic Lumix S5IIX is a prime example of this.
In the video presented here, filmmaker Matthias Dangl takes his Lumix S5IIX on a 4-week trip to South America to put it through its paces and to see how it stacks up against the competition - specifically another popular hybrid shooter camera, the Sony a7S III. This video definitely focuses more on the videography aspects of the S5IIX than its use as a still camera, but I can personally vouch for its abilities in still photography, having used one myself. There are some great clips in the video that showcase just what the S5IIX is capable of, and the results are truly impressive. In the course of his discussion, Matthias covers several of the features that will be at the top of the list of must-haves for videographers, including autofocus, stabilization, and color management.
I would also add that this video came out before the major firmware upgrade that Panasonic recently released, which featured significant enhancements to features like autofocus and image stabilization. Based upon the glowing reviews that these upgrades have received from the Lumix community, it seems likely that Matthias would have found even more to like in the performance of the S5IIX on his trip to South America, had these new firmware upgrades already been available at that time.
The Lumix are the true underdog in the FF camera "wars".
They clearly do not excel at specialist things like BIF or fast sports, but for general photography and videography it is difficult to argue against their value.
Still they do not sell much because they arrived a bit too late when many have chosen their FF platform already.
But for new arrivals to photography/video who want FF... easily the best choice in the 2k segment.
And we can see by the price point, everything comes at a cost.
Four paragraphs in: finally names the camera.
"Content creator"? What is that? Is that a social media hack who needs to get their ratings up for sponsors, redirects and top level searches? Social media offers very little reward for quality. "Content" is king. Quality is not. Pros serving serious paying customers, expect a lot more than wannabe "content creators".