Every once in a while reality comes back around to bite you on the butt and remind you that you ain't so smart after all. I bought a camera about six years ago that worked very well for me. It was after my initial foray into the new Panasonic mirrorless full frame system. I'd been using three big S1 variants; the original S1, the S1R (higher resolution) and the S1H (video leaning) and had a nice selection of Panasonic's best, full frame lenses. The only thing I didn't have was a smaller, lighter camera; the kind one likes to drag around everywhere.
When we worked commercially with film cameras the first choice at that time was a Hasseblad body its matching lenses. Big, heavy workhorse cameras, for sure. But when we headed out to shoot for fun, in the streets, in new cities, we generally had a Leica rangefinder camera or a Contax G2, or one of the small Contax SLRs, like an Aria or an S2 over one shoulder.
When I worked for three weeks in St. Petersburg, Russia back in 1995, in the dead of a particularly cold winter I arrived with three Hasseblads, including an SWC/M, a bunch of big, heavy Hasselblad lenses, a case full of tungsten lights, stands and modifiers, lots of cable and one hell of a heavy tripod. All needed for the long days we spent photographing at the Catherine Palace and the Alexander Palace in Pushkin.
But in the evenings, and during the rare days off, the last system I wanted to carry as I explored the streets and shops, and hotels, was a big, heavy, very obvious medium format camera and lens. And while 12 exposures was part of the routine for the workdays it was hardly what a "street" photographer wants to deal with in a strange new place, with temperatures well below zero.
My camera of choice for casual, personal work on that trip was a Contax S2 which was a fully manual, mechanical camera. It paired nicely with a Zeiss 50mm lens and I kept both a 25mm and 85mm in a coat pocket. Both came in handy when photographing the Kirov Ballet from the Czar's box seat at the Mariensky Theater. But the 50mm was my "go-to" lens for day-to-day "city browsing."
Hopping ahead about 20+ years and I was looking for a small, light but powerful camera along the same lines as the S2. I found it in the Panasonic S5. I bought it when I realized that it was half the weight of one of the S1 cameras and much smaller to boot. But, amazingly, its sensor actually outperformed the sensor in the bulkier S1. It was one of the first cameras to use a 24 megapixel BSI sensor and the first Panasonic camera to earn a 94 score on DXO Mark. It also features high color depth of 25.1 bits and a measured dynamic range of 14.5. Sure, Panasonic cut some corners compared to the bigger S1 cameras: no Compact ExpressCF card slot, a much lower res EVF and a new, smaller battery. But the image quality was actually quite superior to the original 24 megapixel S1. And wow! The lower weight and smaller size were just what I wanted for a walk around camera.
Until I did a search for the S5 in my Adobe Lightroom catalog of a half million or so images I never realized just how much use I got out of that one S5 over the last six years. Entire events in multiple locations, tons of portraits, and recently as a "scanning" camera for my digitization of medium format, black and white negatives.
I used the S5 in conjunction with LED lighting for portraits because the high ISO was superior to my other cameras. It's on par with the performance of the Sigma fp and, as regards ISO performance, superior to any of the Leicas I bought until the SL2-S which also has a 24 megapixel BSI sensor.
Through thick and thin I've kept the S5 because in my mind it's fully depreciated, financially, but fully and currently competent when it comes to image quality. And it works well with every single Leica lens and third party lens I throw at it. It's the ultimate back-up to a much more expensive system.
When I took the S5 off the copy stand and appraised it yesterday I came away smiling. It's still a wonderful tool and still seems to hold a large portion of its initial value on the used market. I topped up the five batteries I have for the camera and set it to shoot in one of the filter black and white modes. It's called, "Dynamic Monochrome" and the setting results remind me of the contrasty images we used to make with Tri-X film and #3 contrast Ilfobrom paper.
Paired with the Panasonic 50mm f1.8 S lens the whole package can be acquired used for around $1K. Maybe a bit less if you are willing to look around for a while. A far cry from the Leica Q3-43 I thought I might want....
It's fun to reacquire a taste for a camera you already own. One that fits almost seamlessly into an existing system of other branded cameras. But there it is.
The one regret I have about the buying and selling I've done while owning the S5 is selling the 24-105mm f4.0 Panasonic S lens. In retrospect it was near perfect. It was relatively lightweight but its optical performance was/is spectacular. It cost me about $1,000 at the time of purchase. I abandoned it to buy the Leica 24-90mm f2.8-4 lens. The Leica lens is the better optical performer ---- but only by a small measure. And it's currently about $6,000 brand new.
If I could go back in time I'd convince my younger self to keep my money in my pocket and wring the best performance I could out of the Panasonic 24-105. It would have resulted in the same quality of images, less stress on the shoulder and an additional $5,000 to invest. But knowledge comes from hard experience and it then become a "chicken and egg" thing. Ah well. I can always buy another 24-105 if I want to badly enough, but for now I'm getting a lot of enjoyment out of the cheap, plastic 50mm. It's actually great! And being made "not totally of metal" makes it a lot lighter to carry around. Stop it down to f4 and you'll never see the difference between it and one of my 50mm APO lenses. Just not there.
Abandoning the Panasonic system was probably not the smartest move on my part. I like the Leica cameras and have a blast using them but....would I be happy shooting the current Panasonic crop of S1-II and S5 variants and lenses? You bet. Funny how that works.
I got sidetracked by video. Now I'm back on track. Upcoming road trip. Starts Wednesday. Details upcoming.
Cool and sunny in Austin. Time for swim practice.
