A few preliminary tests

 While assembling a bare-bones S5 team, I did a few indoor tests to check on adapted lens image quality and ImgStab usefulness. I shot a calendar and some labeled jars. First shots with the Minolta 100-200 were sharp and contrast was great, and the Rikenon 70-150 had a few blurs before I became more serious about posture and technique. At that point images were quite similar to the 100-200 for color and clarity. 

Today I shot a spider-web under construction on our porch. The 20-60mm can reach 0.4x closeup images, but I stayed further back to keep the spider from worrying. Those came out nicely too, and had much more light to work with. 

I went to town at midday and tried out the fall colors at our city-central lake. It's too early for pervasive fall color but it's getting underway! I've set the S5 on 4:3 so the 21.5Mpx images were framed best around 35mm. I shot at both extremes to get a feel for the lens' great range; it's really impressive to get the lake and the entirety of the coloring tree just to its left! In landscape mode!! 

As to the camera? It feels like my old K5 reborn as a mirrorless, which is very comfortable. The heft and grip, and the upper left playback button, feel familiar. Exposure and color are about what I recall from my Pentax era. When I finally try some video, I'm sure to notice I am not in Pentax-land any more!

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The following day I wandered about with the Pentax DA40 xs attached. It was fun -- but I did shoot two black images, both times just after powering up the camera. I'll need to watch for more of those! I already deleted them, so I can't check the EXIF to see whether any particular parameter was out of whack.. oops.

kit adjustments

After an evening of failed connections between my GX7 and its Lumix phone app, I tried the Lumix Sync app. The S5 uses that, but the GX7 cannot; only the G9 and G100 can manage that since it accesses bluetooth to facilitate connection.  That sucks!

So once again I shall let the GX7 depart, and likely find a g100. Much as I've enjoyed that camera over the years, the few frustrations aren't worth the bonus hassles.

With the G100 I lose about fifty shots per charge* from the GX7, the tilt screen and inbuilt IStab :^(  - but I do gain a few things:

• the new and improved 20Mpx sensor
• 4k imaging /video features
• a higher-resolution viewfinder
• in-body charging via USB, and 
• my spare battery will still work!

Wish it came in silver though!

* probably better battery life with rear screen than with hi-res evf..

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Almost simultaneously, I found a deal on a curiously rare lens. Sigma made thousands of 70-300mm Apo zoom lenses over the decades, but finding a red-ring DG Apo in their own SA mount was tough! This Apo lens will not be a featherweight by any means (550g plus adapter weight), but it should do the job for now. Oh yes, I found a discounted MC-21 SA->L adapter also. Wow, over 200 grams?! 😕

Inevitably someone will introduce a small and light 50-200ish L-mount lens. I've no evidence for this, but it's a rather big lineup gap that some company will fill and make easy money. Every company made 70-210s and 80-200s in the film days (even more than 70-300s!) though the formulae  need to be tweaked to work with mirrorless cams' reduced lens-to-sensor distances.

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Another update. A lightly fogged Sigma DG Macro 28-300/4-6.3 was available for cheap, so I shall give it a try. It won't compare with the Lumix-S model - but using it as a 28-200 proxy will lead to less issues and better light gathering. It is also an SA-mount lens. The choice is between a sub-$100 superzoom or none at all, as I cannot afford the Lumix-S any time soon.. so something may beat nothing, but if not I'm out very little!

S: starting fresh

The S5 has joined me here on the hill-top. One thing was clear from the start: the S1 would be too large for me to enjoy. That was a concern as several S1/1r features that appeal to me did not appear on the S5. To save 300g and extra bulk, I'm satisfied that the right-size camera for me is here. It's definitely larger than the a7r2, more a Pentax K5 in bulk. That was an excellent camera so that's a compliment.

The camera is mostly ready to shoot. I reset time zone and date (finally remembered to do it in that order!), connected cards and 20-60 lens and made a few quick setting adjustments that I've done for years (something between standard and vivid saturation, lower contrast, minimal NR). I added two clicks on the shutter in a dim room to check things out.

Let the S Era begin!

water year wrap-up

 And so much for water year 2024!

The year ended right at 56 inches of precipitation - within two inches of our 30-year average. No massively above-normal months, and July and August were typically dry. It was a damp year compared to 2023 which was our driest year at this location (43.3"). One of our dampest days was on June 2nd; we had higher totals once or twice but that was from rain after snowfall has piled atop the gage from the day before. 

Temperatures were not hugely out of alignment, and August in particular was not a hot month. We managed some 90° days in July but not a single one in August! We had a few periods of decently gusty winds but thankfully a quiet year for smoke; what we had remained high overhead. The 'chance of thunderstorms' for our location was a year-long bust; I can't recall more than one thunder-clap the entire year, while others sat underneath several exciting events.

This past week I saw how desiccated Mt. Hood has become in late summer. My views were not through clearest skies, but I spent most of my life looking at that mountain in all seasons - and the glaciers have definitely become less visible. The Reid glacier faces Portland directly, and I recall hiking above Ramona Falls to high meadows directly in front of the headwall; it would be troubling to be that close and see the retreat from my 1980 photos.

As to 2025.. the El Niño pattern has fallen into the zone of indifference between it and La Niña. That's often the wetter and more volatile signal around here. Time will reveal how the patterns play out.

kit

Looking ahead not back

early Oct 2024

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L-mount takeover!

The new Lumix team of S5 + 20-60mm will arrive Sep 30. For now the remaining focal range will be covered by Pentax adaptations (below) and the very small Minolta 100-200/4.5, which has no equal in the L mount system at the moment.

μ43 - the GX7 is up for sale but still here, with the 14-140mm, ZD70-300mm and both native (10-50mm) and Pentax primes. Still looking for my smc-m 85/2 though; that darn lens is too small!!

Pentax: 28+40+50+70+85+135 primes, 70-150 and 80-200 zooms. These can be used straight up or with a Pixco 0.71x speed-booster!

That's all folks! The other gear has moved on.

a shock to the kit|iverse!

I could not afford anything in the L-mount when the S5 came out, having barely scraped up funds for an α7r². That was the best sensor I could afford, and despite the expensive E lenses I felt I could manage it with a few adapted lenses to plug any gaps.

I liked the Lumix S concept at first sight, but the S1/1r was not simply a brick - more like two bricks glued together compared to other mirrorless offerings. 

The S5 made some compromises, added a swivel screen to torment me, and showed me photos that left me amazed. Dual-gain ISO is amazing! Also, the S5 sensor (dxo) rating was a near match ..and won out in dynamic range by a nose. Better yet, it was no longer the new kid: the S5² was out with winning specs that put more S5 bodies in the used bins.

The Lumix S 20-60mm was introduced with the S5 - and I was impressed. It was the first 'normal zoom' to start at 20mm, and it sacrificed f/2.8 for smaller size and lower price. For future backpacking, a zoom beyond the old Pentax 24-50 at both ends, with wx protection and capable of decent closeups, sounds really nice!

I began reading old S5 reviews, most of which compare it to the newer, better featured S5² - and I found several points that were left unsaid about the original yet spoke to me nevertheless:

• The S5 can shoot 96Mpx super images.. but reviewers consistently skip mentioning the 48Mpx option, which I'm more likely to try. 
• The S5² can shoot 3:2 video, something I've been seeking for almost 10 years - but 4k and 6k Photo modes use the same process to do their work. It's not a Video Mode in the original but similar results can be managed 
• The original S5 sucks at video autofocus in continuous-AF mide .. which I hardly ever use. I prefer touch-AF refocus in video.
• The S5 viewfinder was noted as 'dated tech' and down-rated, but I knew that fewer evf pixels = better battery life! The s5² fixed many of the S5 'issues' and gets ~50 fewer shots per charge.

And then I counted the S5 features that Sony did not know in the Jurassic age of the α7r², like 

• 4:3 and 1:1 image ratios (like Pentax)! 
• Both 4k and 6k video>still captures! 
• A touchscreen! 
• Half again as much battery life!
•  USB3 charging! 
• It comes in red!! - oops no, that's the S9. 
• Less resolution to fill your hard drives, but with hi-res modes for times when that sounds like "fun".

So I explored the internet for a bit. Some S5 deals were visible but not quite at α7r² prices. However I found that if I dumped all my α gear I could get an S5 + the 20-60 with a few $$ to spare! In case it took a while to afford an L-mount telezoom, I kept my Minolta 100-200/4.5, ordered adapters for Minolta and Pentax, and I was set.

  On October 1st, the S5 era begins! 

Double victory!!

I finally sat down and performed two camera surgeries - and both turned out very well! A few hours of delicate work has paid off. 

First up was the Pentax K-s2. I bought this a few years back for a great price, only to find it had the dreaded Pentax mid-level body solenoid problem. For several years they put out great cameras that began failing after a few years, sooner if the camera went unused for a month or two. They put out a new body by then, but in a few years the same happened. It turned out their source for aperture-actuating solenoids, causing the camera to determine an exposure but then shooting with the lens fully closed, leading to extremely dark and diffraction-softened images. 

This problem damaged the reputation of every midrange body from K-30 to early K-70s, including the K-59 and two k-s2 models. The K-5/3/1 models did not have the problem. One could work around the issue with older lenses in Manual mode, but it wasn't ideal 

The answer has been to either scout for original cameras to steal the earlier sensor or now using the Kf solenoid. I bought the elder solenoid and .. dithered.  Maybe three years passed before I finally did the work today.

Two hours later, all my lenses are back in play. Hooray! 

I'm very grateful to those at Pentaxforums who went before me and documented the procedure for all the affected cameras, including the K-s2.

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After dinner I decided to fix the GX7, an old Lumix favorite with a bad rear control dial. That's also rather common, and the surgery is documented on several websites. This went a bit faster (no soldering needed) and thankfully it's problem is solved too! That rear dial serves many purposes, and now it controls exposure, clicks for exposure compensation and zooms in playback mode!

Now to decide between the GX7 and EM1, two very good old μ43 bodies that fit me well. The K-s2 probably won't dethrone either of them or the Sony a7r² ..but I'll keep using it a while to ensure its full recovery before deciding its fate.