I have a little (very little) time to look at the S5.
First up, I shot jpeg’s which was my bad, but did the job. This was immediately apparent when I went to process them with the Exposure slider dulling down the files. I have found in C1 the Brightness slider is way better for jpegs.
The jpegs processed well enough, handling some highlight and shadow recovery, which may be better than my M43 jpegs, but not the RAW’s.
It is not as nice in the hand as the G9 or even the EM1’s. It is smaller feeling than the G9, especially in the grip and the bulky kit zoom feels oversized on it. The cage coming (Smallrig) will address this and as a video camera, body only handling is irrelevant.
The general handling is different, mostly fine, just different. Some button changes, a few new and the odd missing button, dial or lever. As a video camera, I find it more than workable, even preferable, but we will see.
The lens looks good, although without checking RAW files It is hard to tell. I am not using it for stills, but if I do, the 20-60 is fine for most tasks and a fast prime or two will fill in the gaps.
Full frame depth of field os a bitch! Oh boy do I miss M43 DOF and how quickly did I forget my first 30 odd years of full frame shooting? Focussing on a flower head I often missed the fly I was aiming at, at f8! Everything seemed as sure footed as M43, but apparently no.
Close focus is interesting. The 60mm end of the lens is pretty ordinary. The 20mm end on the other hand is similar to the Leica 9mm allowing for macro-landscapes.
High ISO performance is predictably next level.
ISO 6400 was very quickly employed lacking a fast bit of glass.
The lens has some distortion and is not super sharp on the edges, wide open at the wide end (nor razor sharp even stopped down), but for video, which will be its sole use, it will be fine.
Basically equal to ISO 400 in M43.
I am satisfied the lens is well enough centred, but may keep looking while my 14 day return option is open.
Overall I am happy that the kit does exactly what I wanted, a dedicated pro-grade hybrid video cam, made to purpose, pnly surplus in the area I have coverred well now.
My initial thoughts are that, and this is not just a m43 fan boy talking, there is a lot less difference than most would expect, except in the two known areas, of very high ISO and video.
The files are very clean throughout the range and the cameras video pedigree is obvious. The thinking is very different to the G9. A dedicated video button, more video features and a bias towards video terminology.