The S5 arrived this morning and I spent a couple of hours setting it up and playing with it, a couple of hours that I really can't afford right now. But here we are.
Build and design:
Compared with the G9, which has been my primary m43 camera for about a year: the grip is not quite as full and chunky, which would have been welcome on the S5, given that a full frame camera is going to use heavier lenses. The G9 sits really well in the hand, and the S5 is decent but not superlative like the G9.
The menu system is even bigger than the G9. What the heck. Most of it is familiar to me, but there are pages that I've either never seen before like V-log and monitoring LUT settings, and some features have changed places in the menu system, making them a bit tricky to find.
Almost every button on this camera can be customized to something else. No joke. Even the mode control wheel on the back of the camera can be turned into a four button custom function set. It's almost ridiculous how many setting this puts at your direct control.
The shutter sound is louder than the G9 but has a more satisfying 'scrunch'. I like it a lot, it sounds like the shutter in the Ricoh GXR M mount module. Feels like home!
Lenses:
The 20-60mm kit lens is really light! It's been a long time since I've held a lens that feels so light and almost hollow. But the zoom range is practical and versatile, and the high ISO performance of the S5 ought to make up for the 3.5-5.6 aperture range.
I have two adapters at the moment with more on the way. The Urth x Gobe Minolta to L mount adapter is well made and solid, but it lacks a really positive click when attaching it to the camera. When I first tried it, the camera screen remained black and a message said that the lens was not properly seated. A twist of the inserted adapter made the screen come on, and it asked me what focal length I wanted to use. Thank goodness!
Focusing with the EVF and LCD is quite easy, and it's much easier to grab focus on things outside of the centre using focus peaking, unlike a rangefinder camera which must focus in the centre. Years of using a rangefinder have given me a very fast focus-recompose reflex action, but I assume that I'll be able to develop even faster EVF focusing skills.
The Minolta PG Rokkor 50mm f1.4 and MD W Rokkor 35mm f2.8 are awesome on this camera. The subtle details, even at f1.4, are evident at full resolution.
I have the Sigma MC21 Canon EF to L mount adapter, and here are my findings so far:
- Canon 70-200mm f4 IS L - focuses accurately but fairly slowly, with a back and forth hunting action.
- Canon 35mm f1.4 L - This focuses pretty fast and with less hunting than the longer lens, and I feel this will be a reliably albeit fairly slow combination.
- Sigma 24-105mm f4 - This focuses slowly with hunting, but is accurate.
- Sigma 18-35mm f1.8 - I think this adapter is on the original firmware, because this lens is AWFUL on the S5. Autofocus is a total crapshoot with a majority % miss rate. The lens racks back and forth and refuses to get into focus, even on what looks like a contrasty area. This is mildly annoying, as I was planning to use this as the primary video lens. But never mind, I will update the adapter and camera firmware and we shall see how that goes.
- Voigtlander Ultron 40mm f2 SL EF mount - this is a real pleasure to use. The pancake design makes this very compact on the S5's body, even with the adapter, and feels great on the camera. Focusing is quick and easy, and the MC21 recognizes the focal length and applies IBIS automatically.
Image quality and exposure:
Exposure is a bit weird. I feel like it prioritizes highlights, and ends up underexposing by almost a stop. This is easily corrected in post, or by dialing up exposure compensation. The images look dark on the screen and EVF, and that's how they turn out.
The amount of detail that can be recovered from the shadows and blacks is ridiculous. An image that is almost black can be pushed several stops with virtually no noise penalty. Speaking of noise: one thing that bugs me about m43 cameras is this very fine black granularity when the images are pushed. The S5 has NONE of this fine granularity, unless very underexposed, shot at ISO 4000 and up, and pushed at least 2.5 stops in post. And then it cleans up perfectly with some NR in Lightroom.
Detail and sharpness is superb, thanks to 24mp and no AA filter.
The Minolta 50mm is still sharp wide open, as long as you nail focus. It's not bitingly sharp like a modern lens, but has low contrast and very soft bokeh. I'm so pleased with how this is turning out so far.
The Minolta MD W 35/2.8 is nice and crisp at f2.8, which is what I was hoping for. It's going to be a great general purpose walkaround lens.
Future plans:
Future plans include building my Minolta collection, using my Pentax M lenses, and perhaps getting into Contax lenses like the 28mm f2.8, 50mm f1.4 and 85mm f2.8 or f1.4. I've got a Leica M adapter on the way, so I'll be able to test all my M lenses and figure this out for myself, rather than scour the internet for other people's tests. I deeply enjoy using manual focus lenses, so I might even get into Leica R lenses, which I regret not buying about ten years ago when prices were still fairly low.
I am going to see if I can recreate the look of the Leica M9 with this camera. If this works, I'm going to be very, very happy. When the M mount adapter comes, I'll be able to do direct A B comparisons between the S5 and M9 with the same glass, and build Lightroom presets to get the S5 as close to the M9 as possible.
I'll also look at processing the Minolta lens images to look like film images I took years ago, which will offer a fun alternative look.
No images to show yet, I'm still processing them and figuring out how these files respond in Lightroom. Will post images when I can!
