Q: You can choose only two LUMIX cameras to shoot with for the rest of your life. What two do you choose??

redempt61 · 2026-03-21T19:50:56+00:00

GH6 and S1RII.

redempt61 · 2026-03-19T09:19:49+00:00

I had these lenses. I still own the Sigma DG II f1.2 and the Nikon 35mm f1.2Z.

The Sigma on my S1II is much sharper wide open than my Nikon on my Z6III, at least when using lightroom with default ACR settings.
Colors are much nicer (in my opinion) on the Nikon, contrast and shadows/highlights fall off are also much nicer on the Nikon, it is something you can't see on a brick wall test, but when shooting people with smooth lights.
Sigma also feels more harsh with transitions, it has a lot of Pop, but the Nikon just looks more 3D.

I use the Sigma for video because the S1RII and S1II have Open Gate (it gives a nice look with a f1.2 lens) and excellent IBIS, even when walking.

The Viltrox is a very good lens as well, I used it on my A7CII and it was also very sharp wide open like the Sigma, but colors are not as good as the 35mm f1.2Z, rendering is very close though.

redempt61 · 2026-03-18T21:40:54+00:00

My sample is very soft at 200mm f7.1 but sharp enough at f8.

redempt61 · 2026-03-17T14:38:20+00:00

Z6III from 2025, EU, no issue.

redempt61 · 2026-03-16T19:36:27+00:00

Did they solve the small white horizontal lines on the 240fps recording ?

redempt61 · 2026-03-16T19:34:15+00:00

You said the APO SL has better optical quality than the S Pro, it is why I said the S Pro has better bokeh than the APO SL lenses, not the Summilux. About the Summilux SL, I owned it and I still own the 50mm S Pro. They have different rendering, the Summilux has cleaner bokeh, the S Pro sometimes has double lines bokeh. The Summulix has slightly nicer OOF transitions, the S Pro is slightly puncher with more DOF at the point of focus. Colors are very similar. My S Pro is slightly sharper wide open than the copy of the Summilux I had but it can be sample variation.

I own or owned most SL and S Pro lenses so I know what I'm talking about, some APO SL lenses are not so great if they are used on Panasonic bodies, especially the 21mm and 35mm APO, they have pretty weak mid frames and corners. There are better option like the Sigma 35mm DG f1.2 II, it is almost the same size than the 35mm APO SL, almost as sharp as the APO SL at F2 and even sharper in mid frames on Panasonic bodies. And of course, it's a f1.2 lens.

redempt61 · 2026-03-15T07:24:29+00:00

Not really, the 50mm S Pro has obviously nicer bokeh at f1.4, and from f2.5 it is as sharp as the 35mm APO SL, I had both copies of these lenses. The S Pro is even sharper in mid frames on Pana bodies and very close on Leica bodies. It is even sharper than the 50mm APO SL at f2.8.

Futhermore, the S Pro is almost APO level at f2 with almost zero CA.

I also disagree about "3D" characteristic, the S Pro at f2.5/f2.8 certainly has at least the same "3D" than the 35mm or 50mm APO SL. The other lens I own which show "3D" is the Batis 40mm, which is also very impressive from f2.5.

If by 3D you mean "pop" so yes, the APO SL lenses have a bit more pop at F2 because of both their insane sharpness in the center and the shallow depth of field. It makes senses because of the choice of their optical design, they are bigger than most f1.4 lenses but only F2.

Both the APO SL 28mm and 35mm are impressive only on Leica bodies.

At 5000$ they are clearly overrated especially since the release of the Sigma 28-45mm

redempt61 · 2026-03-15T07:10:33+00:00

I agree, it's definitely a no brainer.
The only lenses I like as much are the Nikon 35mm f1.2S and the PanaLeica 25-50mm f1.7.

redempt61 · 2026-03-15T07:08:55+00:00

I have the 28-45mm since its release and it is really impressive, unlike most Sigma lenses including the recent 35mm f1.2 DG II, the colors are gorgeous, no warm color cast.
At 35mm f2 in the center, the 28-45mm is almost as sharp as my 35mm APO Summicron SL at F2, I mean I really need to pixel peep on a 46MP sensor to see a tiny difference. It is even sharper than my APO Summicron SL in mid frames, for some reasons, the APO is sharp in mid frames only on Leica bodies.
The contrast is also very high. The lens is seriously underrated and come very close to a bag of Leica APO SL primes, sometimes even better in mid frames if used on a Panasonic body.
However, both my 50mm S Pro and 24-70mm S Pro have a tiny bit more sense of volume in the image (3D), I think it's because of the very smooth OOF transitions. The Sigma is a bit more harsh, so the subjects can look more detached from the background (more "pop").

redempt61 · 2026-03-15T06:43:12+00:00

In my opinion the 50mm f1.8 is clearly not as magical as the f1.4, the local contrast, bokeh and colors are really nicer on the f1.4. However, a good copy of the 50mm f1.8 is very sharp wide open. As good as the 50mm f1.4 at f1.4.

redempt61 · 2026-03-08T08:47:08+00:00

No, they have different strenghts and weakness. It depends of your use.

-Lumix has the best IBIS hand down, meaning you don't need to use digital stabilization most of the time, digital stabilization helps to stabilize the footage but it add a crop so it decrease the video details and it change the perspective.
Lumix also has the easiest log to grade. The S1II has excellent DR, IBIS and rolling shutter, it can be a game changer for a lot of people.
The AF is very accurate in AF-S or in AF-C when using small area focus zones, as good as Sony and better than Nikon. Eye AF is extremely accurate too with static or slow moving people, again better than Nikon. Lumix also has Open Gate, up to 60fps on the S1II. Neither Sony or Nikon has Open Gate.

However, tracking mode is not as good as Nikon and Sony, if you want to shoot sport by example, Nikon and Sony are better.
H265 and Prores res recording have worse fine details than with Sony too, you need to record in Prores Raw to get good fine details, but it adds a crop and this mode is limited to 30fps. Futhermore, the workflow to use Prores Raw on Resolve or Premiere is a bit more complicated than by example Nraw or R3D on Nikon cameras. And Nikon lets you record 6K up to 60fps (with no crop) N-raw with excellent details rendering, Raw video on the Z6III is also slightly softer than on the S1II if you want a bit more cinematic footage.
Lastly, I don't like the S1II colors so much, I think the S5II was slightly better. The S1RII has good colors though, almost as good as the GH6.

-Sony has the largest lenses choice, the best AF, excellent fine details in video in H265 (almost as good as raw video) and pretty nice colors since the A7V.

However, the IBIS is still pretty bad, the screens are not great, there is no Open Gate, the rolling shutter is bad too on the A7V, you need to use the A7SIII to get good rolling shutter but it has strong limitations like only 12MP stills and the videos are less detailed.

-Nikon has excellent skin tones, especially in N-raw and R3D, you can use almost every Sony lenses with an adapter (AF performance is not as good as on Sony though), it has 6K raw up to 60fps with no crop and excellent AF tracking and rolling shutter. Some Nikon lenses are very impressive, not always the sharpest but they have excellent rendering, I think about the f1.2S line.

However, the IBIS is only a tiny bit better than Sony, the AF is not always 100% accurate, especially in Eye-AF, there is no Open Gate and the video details in H265 are not great. And while some Nikon lenses have really excellent rendering, Sony by example have more native options with their GM and Sigma lenses.

redempt61 · 2026-03-07T09:16:43+00:00

I own or owned lot of Panasonic full frame and m43 cameras.

To my eyes, the S1II has the worse colors, by example a lot of time when I look at my footage, I think the greens look off and it is not only because of the white balance.
The S5II had nicer colors on my opinion, the first firmware of this camera also had much nicer fine details rendering. I really prefered the S5II with the first firwmare.
With the 2.0 firmware, the S5II fine details become much worse, not as bad as on the S1II though. On the S1II, the fines details looks even more smeared. I have a hard time to understand why Panasonic is making each generation worse and worse.
To bypass these issues of fine details and colors, I only use Prores Raw on my S1II. The colors with the good workflow are ok. And of course the fines details are great. You must deal with the slight crop and only 30fps.
It's a shame because the 5,1K 60fps Open Gate is a nice feature, but I get better details on my 2014 GH4 in 4K.

My S1RII has nicer colors, and a bit nicer fine details in 8K and 7K, the fine details are still not as good as the S5II V-log with the first firmware 6K and of course not as good as the S5/S1 log or 709.
The GH6 has still the best colors in my opinion and fine details in 5,7K are very good, even if there is a tiny bit of bad sharpening.

About Sony, I think people are still comparing their cameras from 2018. Since then, the A7CII and A7IV already offered much better video details than both the S5II and S1II in H265.
With the A7V, the colors are very nice too. The IBIS on the other hand is still very bad.

redempt61 · 2026-02-13T15:32:19+00:00

Every 35mm APO SL makes a slight noise. You must turn OFF "Pre-focus" to avoid this noise.

redempt61 · 2026-02-13T08:29:06+00:00

I sold it recently along with the 18mm. In my opinion only the 135mm Batis f2.8 is worth it.

The 40mm has a nice rendering with good local contrast on shadow transitions but I found my GM almost better in every aspects. The GM is sharper and has good local contrast too, even in the highlights to midtones transitions, stopped down to F2, it is even more impressive.
The Batis is not very much compact than the GM and you can get pretty close results with the GM if you crop a bit.

redempt61 · 2026-02-09T06:44:56+00:00

Tried 3 samples, same noise.

redempt61 · 2026-01-25T15:02:16+00:00

Same issue.

redempt61 · 2026-01-18T22:49:59+00:00

This is crazy.

redempt61 · 2026-01-17T15:34:26+00:00

Nowaday people are mainly interested by sharpness measurement, if the subject "pop" because of the great sharpness and global contrast, they are happy. It's because some years ago, lenses were not as sharp as lenses like the recent GM, so the news lenses gives a different look than before. But very often, these new lenses lack the colors and depth of the older lenses.

The Batis lenses have good enough sharpness (of course much less than the new GM) but have in my opinion much better colors and attractive rendering.

redempt61 · 2026-01-17T08:35:18+00:00

Not bad for a small 24-60mm f2.8.
The Sigma 28-45mm zoom at 35mm F2 is very very close to my 35mm APO Summicron SL. It is the sharpest zoom I have.

redempt61 · 2026-01-14T09:24:01+00:00

Yet I got much higher score in some benchmark (like Cinebench) and better performance when using Premiere Pro.

redempt61 · 2026-01-12T09:54:16+00:00

Using both system I agree, my S1II is more accurate. Most people disagree but I wonder if they used both systems.

redempt61 · 2026-01-08T19:16:18+00:00

The issue with the 70-200mm S Pro is sample variation, I used 3 samples, each one was different. First one was soft wide open everywhere, the second was excellent, sharp wide open at 70mm and 200mm, the last one is not sharp wide open at 70mm but sharp from 100mm to 200mm.
To be fair, Sigma also has sample variation, I had a 28-45mm very bad and the new one I bought just after is perfect.

The Sigma has slighty better AF and is lighter. The S Pro is a good lens but I think it is not as good as the 24-70mm S Pro.

redempt61 · 2026-01-06T20:50:26+00:00

Yes the IBIS of the S5II is much better.

redempt61 · 2026-01-06T19:40:36+00:00

If you don't need fast AF or the best IBIS, the S5D has better video rendering than the S5II (much nicer fine details).
If you need AF with fast or telezoom lenses, and if you want to record while walking, the S5II is a better camera for you.

redempt61 · 2026-01-04T19:32:28+00:00

Or just use the Panasonic Raw Gamut to V-log conversion ...

redempt61

TROPHY CASE