I received the Nisi PL-L adapter yesterday, much, much quicker than I was expecting, days rather than weeks, so my blessed run with the impulse buy has turned out well.
The adapter fits well, slightly loose on the S5II, but most lenses are, snug on the S5 and the Pl mount locks tight as designed.
It is an odd looking combo, but probably no weirder than the metallic grey/green meets black/orange of a dedicated Athena lens.
The S5 in B-RAW is 5.9k so biiig files even at 8:1, 19GB eaten up in a couple of minutes of test footage, but wow, I could shoot this for stills.
A nice still drawn from some footage.
Really stands up to it.
Bokeh is pleasant enough, ignorable really.
It allows the sharpness to pop.
Foreground Bokeh is also a creative tool.
This file showed some mild moire around Lucy's whiskers, nothing terrible, but there.
This was an interesting mistake. I was thinking about V-Log, and accidentally applied my Log powergrade base to this B-Raw file and did not realise until later. Colour looked good, it graded well and I even played with the colour a little.
Before I get too carried away, this has also come at a time when I have adopted 4-6k B-Raw as my baseline (which might be reviewed), so I am responding to better processes overall, but regardless, it is a good combination by any standards.
This file exhibited consistent veiling flare across the frame, consistent enough that curves could effectively remove it. In the Hope comparison I did, the Hope resisted flare better, but the flare it did show was tough to remove, being more aggressive and localised.
My gut tells me that the Spectrum 50 on the S5II (both in Log) would be a good match, better than the 35, so my B-cam could be tighter or if matched with the GH5s, the Hope 25 or 50 would work.
I am not seeing noticeably better performance from the S5 and Vespid over the GH5s and the same lens, which is reassuring and handy. Might still get a PL-MFT adapter, but then I might get another lens and on it goes!
If I were to get another, the Vespid 25 appeals, but so does getting a 24mm in the Mk2 range (for a 24/35, 45/50 combo), just for the other way of doing things, but leaning more into the MFT kit (where the extra speed would be more practical).
This would give me, between the two lenses over multiple formats, a wide establishing lens (24), several semi-wide standards (36/40/43/48), and some short portrait lengths (60/72/80) with speed where I would use it (MFT/wide).