Capturing nature with the Panasonic S5II and Firmware V3
After just upgrading to the Panasonic S5II, I decided to go and take some nature shots at Rye Harbour. I camped up the night before in my VW camper as I wanted to be there for sunrise at 5am. The alternative was getting up at 3.30am and driving for an hour.
There has recently been a new firmware update to the S5II, version 3.0, which adds animal eye detect to the already very good phase detect autofocus system.
After having a look on YouTube, I noticed that there weren’t actually that many people using the S5II for nature. I did come across one video where a reviewer was complaining that it didn’t work well for birds in flight. Anyhow, a quick read of the comments and I found a recommendation to turn on the setting “quick autofocus” within the settings menu. I applied this before I started and the camera worked great!
Below is a YouTube video with some bird footage and photography along with a snail eating a leaf! :)
I’ve also attached a few stills.
The lens that I used was the L-mount Sigma 150-600mm DG DN. It’s so sharp! If you like the video, please don’t forget to subscribe!
Oh, the 6.5 stop image stabilisation on this camera is amazing!
Some stills below. Only a slight S curve applied and the shadows opened up a small amount in Adobe Lightroom.
