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!

--------------------------------------------------------------------

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..

S5S5S5S5S5S5S5S5S5S5S5S5S5S5S5S5S5S5S5S5S5S5S5S5S5S5S5S5

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.