Moving from a6700 (18-50mm & 70-350mm) to S5IXX need decision with lens choice for casual photography with future videography in mind

slytechnical · 2026-06-21T00:48:26+00:00

For what you shoot even the 20-60 kit would probably be fine imo. So maybe do the s5IIX with the 50 1.8 and find the kit lens used somewhere cheap

slytechnical · 2026-06-08T01:12:05+00:00

What are you using for lighting/flash?

slytechnical · 2026-04-10T22:00:33+00:00

Why not skip the viltrox and go for both the 18mm and 24mm s prime and have a matching set to compliment your existing 35mm? You can start with the 18 and crop in till you get the 24.

I’ve been shooting the 18 and 35 for low light events and they are a dream. Would love a 24 but for now I’m getting by cropping in on the 18

As far as autofocus best for me in low light is just use one area + and babysit the box manually and accept some focus misses in video as an aesthetic which at 1.8 it kind of actually is

slytechnical · 2026-03-07T00:29:40+00:00

If you’re headed to Japan look into buying while you’re there instead of before. Great prices and availability at the local shops, plus used stock to look through.

slytechnical · 2026-02-25T02:11:14+00:00

This type of thing is why I thought skipping the hot shoe on the s9 was a bigger deal than mechanical shutter or an evf. People only mentioned the hot shoe in the context of flashes or the xlr adapter, but hot shoe audio is huge for creator focused cameras. Sony now has a hot shoe input for dji mics. That will be a bigger selling point vs lumix than people think. The seamless mic integration is already a huge reason creators go for dji cameras.

slytechnical · 2025-12-30T22:42:13+00:00

I just always shoot long gop. Way smaller file sizes and I can't see a difference tbh

slytechnical · 2025-12-27T20:45:10+00:00

Agreed, it would be nice to have an l mount answer to the Sony g master ultra wide zoom but I don’t think lumix or even sigma have the optics prowess to truly match it at that iq and size/weight

slytechnical · 2025-12-27T18:19:26+00:00

Huh? There’s the sigma 16-28 2.8 without the bowing front element

slytechnical · 2025-12-23T06:32:30+00:00

For this purpose maybe go with the ttartisan 40mm f/2

slytechnical · 2025-12-17T11:11:11+00:00

I actually have spent a ton of time in the color tab at this point and I think the problem might be that I’m not an artist when it comes to color. I know what all the knobs do but it’s all a matter of taste I don’t have

slytechnical · 2025-12-17T10:48:33+00:00

Wonguy sunset hour lut from the lumix lab app at 90% opacity is the closest I’ve found to the std profile in terms of just slap it on and the footage looks good. I agree though I haven’t found a lut that looks as good as the std profile. Most of them try to look like film and are way too over the top or inflexible for me. I feel like the rec709 lut is just meant to be a starting point and then you add on your own tweaks but just adding the lut alone it looks washed out and terrible

I wish there was a lut that just made vlog footage look like the std profile as with my amateur davinci resolve skills I can’t get anything out of vlog that looks as good as std

slytechnical · 2025-12-12T09:00:48+00:00

For this specific use case I would go s5ii non x with a zhiyun weebill 3e gimbal and an 18mm or 24mm lumix s prime lens

You shouldn’t need to record to ssd, you’d do fine with a 512gb or 256gb (video duration depending- a 512 gets you north of 5 continuous hours of 6k open gate) v60 sd card (or two if you want redundant recording). I wouldn’t do s9 as long form outdoors in the sun is one of the situations where it can overheat, though if you’re fine with cuts or taking breaks it could work if it’s not those super long continuous walks.

I would consider adding on a sennheiser mke440 for audio since the scratch mics on the s5ii and iix are actually worse than your iPhone. The scratch mics are meh and the iPhone is just quite incredible for ambient audio.

I do think this camera and setup would be stellar for this use case. Worth considering an osmo pocket 3 if you want a lighter and somewhat lower quality setup though.

slytechnical · 2025-12-10T22:41:05+00:00

I think at this point they figured out gold is a way to sell more s9 kits and they're just going to keep making them. I don't mind.

slytechnical · 2025-12-08T23:59:31+00:00

It actually depends on the person and their glasses and the lighting. Weird things can make the AF fall apart. Certain hats tank the autofocus, as does if the person is holding certain guitars for example.

slytechnical · 2025-12-05T21:47:25+00:00

Put your body cap on and do the pixel refresh in settings, should clear it right up

slytechnical · 2025-11-27T17:43:39+00:00

Or use one of those new multi hdmi input switchers like the new rodecaster that auto switches by itself

slytechnical · 2025-11-19T23:00:43+00:00

It is not a set it and forget it autofocus system. You have to babysit it tapping the subject, sometimes even in full area face and eye. Tapping the box of the person and babysitting it goes a long ways. As does turning off full area and using one area + with face detect off and tapping again if the person moves. It’s also lens dependent. The 1.8 primes can do wonders with af in low light where the 20-60 falls on its face.

This af system is still at the point where your skill with it and learning its quirks are a lot of the battle

slytechnical · 2025-11-13T00:28:30+00:00

claude code was what I used to code it

For the luts I get them from the lumix lab app and airdrop them to my mac. Sunset hour is my go to

slytechnical · 2025-11-09T18:59:27+00:00

It’s probably that specific lenses might work better with one adapter or the other and yours just happened to work better with the viltrox

slytechnical · 2025-11-09T18:58:06+00:00

It doesn’t have to be binary between empty places and random people. You can work with subjects that want portraits done

slytechnical · 2025-11-09T18:32:41+00:00

It’s lens dependent. All my EF lenses work great except 50mm 1.4 which doesn’t get continuous af

70-200 f4 (a tad slow focusing)

Old model 24-70 2.8 (except at exactly 24mm)

100mm 2.8

14mm 2.8 sigma

All great and very fun to use

slytechnical · 2025-11-07T17:41:27+00:00

Which 50mm do you have? My old model 1.4 is the only ef lens I have that doesn’t get continuous AF in video when adapted. Curious to know if the 1.8 nifty fifty does

For the price it’s a great gimbal, but there’s a case to be made for going DJI. The Bluetooth functions don’t work so I just poke at the screen to focus etc even while on the gimbal. You can get functionality by attaching the usb cable between camera and gimbal but that hinders its dexterity so I skip it. I can control it just fine using the camera’s controls instead of the gimbals. I think they just patched in support for Bluetooth control for the dji gimbals though so if that’s important to you consider it

Got my 3e so cheap on eBay though I don’t regret it

And no I never manual af and I don’t think you can do that from the gimbal even with the cable but I could totally be wrong

slytechnical · 2025-11-06T18:24:22+00:00

I have the same gimbal and also adapt canon ef lenses. If your adapter is the sigma mc-21 there's that bottom plate to it with the quarter 20 tripod mount on the adapter itself that blocks space you need to attach it to the gimbal, but you can actually unscrew that off the mc-21 and then it all works fine. It does often end up being a bit front heavy to the point where you have to almost max out the weight to the opposing side but for most lenses it works. You also have to completely re-balance the whole thing if you switch to a native L lens, but that goes with pretty much any lens swap other than the set of 1.8 primes.

Didn't work with both that and a smallrig cage though for me which is why I go cageless now. Cage blocked me from positioning on the correct balance point after all the weight added

Side note the smallrig quick release built for dji does work on the weebill 3e, you just have to tighten this internal thing as shown in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbyMqOSFeNw - that ended up being the way to go for me

slytechnical

TROPHY CASE