Canon R6 II VS Panasonic Lumix S5 II Camera Comparison – Which Is Better?

(If you want to watch the video go here!)

Hi, this is Jay P. Morgan. I’ve got Anaya here with me. We’re going to take a look at the R6 II. And we’re going to compare that with the S5 II from Panasonic. Canon vs Panasonic.

Some new things here on the R6 II, 1. We’ve got a new sensor, we’ve got a higher 24 megapixels and autofocus. Let’s see how the autofocus compares. Let’s see how the sensor, color and the sensor images look. Let’s just get started and see what these two cameras look like. So let’s get to it.

First off, they’re both full frame sensors, 24 megapixel full frame sensors. So they’re on equal playing ground. But price wise, they’re very different. The S5 II is $500 less than the R6 II, major advantage there. But now let’s go over to the computer and take a look at the image test because that for me is really the most important test. Let’s see what the images look like that come off from these two different sensors. Over to the computer we go.

So here’s our first image. It’s the Canon at f/1.8 and the Panasonic at f/1.8. The Panasonic color is just so beautiful. It’s not overdone. The skin tones look wonderful. I feel like the greens are more green, they’re almost a little too green in some ways on the Panasonic. I feel like the color of our Canon looks really good in the orange colors. I feel like it’s a little bit orangish, yellowish in the greens in the background. If you look at the Spyder Checkr Photo, you can see the color rendition becomes very clear. The colors just look very clean with the Panasonic. They look so close. I mean this is when I say clean. These two are so close to each other. You could definitely correct that Canon to get it in the right world.

When we go to f/2.8 and we look at focus and sharpness on these sensors. I mean, look at the sharpness in the eye of these two. They are just sharp. In some ways, I think maybe the detail is a little sharper on the Canon. They both look really sharp at f/2.8. It just gives you a beautiful sharp image. So there is a little bit blue of in the shadows on the Panasonic. We had that when we tested the camera on its own. There’s not a lot of shadow in this image to be able to show that, but you do see a little bit of blueness in the shadows. Alright, two great images, two sharp images, especially at f/2.8. Absolutely love, just love the color. Both these cameras have beautiful color. But I think the Panasonic edges it out just a little bit. So there’s a look at the picture quality tests.

Now let’s look at several items on these cameras that I think are very much the same. Weight wise, you’ve got the Panasonic at 1.45 pounds. You’ve got the Canon at 1.3 pounds. So similar, lightweight and easy to carry. I think they’re in the same category when it comes to weight.

Memory card slots, you’ve got two SD card slots. I would love to see some kind of CFexpress on these cameras. But they chose to go with two SD card slots. Pretty much the same.

When it gets to a monitor, we have a monitor that is very similar. The S5 II edges out the R6 II just slightly, it has a three inch LCD 1,840,000 dot monitor. Whereas the R6 II has a 1,620,000 dot monitor. So the S5 II does edge out the R6 II just slightly there.

When it comes to that articulating screen on the back, they have very similar screens. It’s easy to get my finger underneath it and to pop it out on both of them. It articulates to a point and then you have to articulate it back. It doesn’t go 360. Both of them are the same. It hits that same point. And you can flip it back in. So they both have the same touchscreen LCD monitor on the back.

So the EVFs in both these cameras are so similar. There’s the numbers. They’re almost exactly the same. But I think the most important thing is, now we move on to autofocus. Let’s look at the autofocus. The autofocus points in the S5 II are 779. I mean there used to be a day when we had 8 or 16 autofocus points in a Canon especially. But now the Canon has got 1053 points of autofocus. So let’s go out and test those autofocus points. Let’s see how they’re working. Let’s see if these two cameras work as well. Let’s see which one wins when it comes to autofocus. Let’s take a look at that autofocus test.

So I’m looking at the autofocus test here and we just had the same test we always do. We have them walk straight towards the camera. I just see how that camera tracks. Looks great in the beginning. In the middle here, it starts to have a couple that are a little soft. I mean, just we’re not talking super, super tack sharp. They’re just kind of softish. And then it’s very sharp at the very end. So on the Panasonic I had it set on human detect. And human detect has a hierarchy. It looks first for an eye, if it has an eye it will focus on it. Can’t find an eye, it will find the head. And then it will find the body. And so it has that hierarchy as focus goes.

Now let’s take a look here at the Canon. The Canon is on eye detect. I could see the box the whole time as she was walking towards me. Very clear as she was coming. It looks really good. I mean it looks sharp and right on. But I lose a couple in here, just a little bit. Just a little bit in that transition as she starts to get a little closer. I feel like, for the most part, most of these are sharp. I lose two or three again. I think these two cameras are in this situation are reacting very similar to one another. So can I declare a winner? I don’t think so. I think they’re acting very, very similar. Actually, I think this Canon is actually better than some of the ones I’ve used in the past. I think the autofocus looks much better. I think it’s more right on. I think there’s been some improvement there. And I think it’s working really well. So when it comes to autofocus, even though the R6 II has new autofocus, I think the Panasonic was right in there. They are so close, I couldn’t call it. I’m going to call it a tie.

When it comes to frame rates on these two cameras, this is really interesting to me. We have seen a certain kind of ceiling on frame rates. But these two cameras have both broken that ceiling. It’s interesting because the Panasonic it does, which is really fascinating, and it does nine frames a second in mechanical. But it does 30 frames a second in electronic. 30 frames a second is exactly what the a1 does, which is a $6,000 camera. 30 frames a second, it’s like, shouldn’t it be a clear winner? Right? But the R6 II does 40 frames a second in electronic shutter and 12 frames a second in mechanical. That’s unheard of. If the a1, which is a $6000 plus dollar camera only does 30, these two cameras match or beat that. But the R6 II today definitely beats out the Panasonic when it comes to frames per second.

Both of these cameras have focus bracketing and a lot of people misunderstand focus bracketing. I mean, it is used, absolutely used so you can get everything in an image in focus. So if you’re close to say a cactus, and you’re seeing the mountains in the background or you’re close to a car and you want to see the entire street and you want to keep everything in focus, you can focus bracket.Which means the camera takes images in increments until you get all those images are focused from front to back. And then you go into Photoshop and you compose them. That’s been the, really the process. But on the R6 II, now the Canon it has the ability to composite those in the camera.

Now the one thing that S5 II has that the Canon does not is it has in camera pixel shift. You can get a 96 megapixel image off from the Panasonic which you can’t do from the R6 II.

Let’s jump over to the computer and take a look at the autofocus video test. Just want to see how these two cameras function and as far as autofocus in video mode, so let’s take a look at that. Then we’re going to talk about aspects for video. Look at the autofocus in video mode. They are really responding the same. I’m seeing her come up, I maybe lose her a little bit, but they both stay right on her face. I’m having a hard time seeing a difference. Look at the video. See if you can see a difference in them. But it seems like we stay right on her face. Even when she turns around and walks away it stays on the back of her head. She turns around and comes towards us. It just stays with her. Both of these cameras stay right with her as she comes towards the camera and back. I think the autofocus in video mode is working really well on both these cameras. It’s a tie for me.

Let’s talk about the video capabilities of these two cameras. Just in a nutshell the R6 Mark II has a complete uncropped 4k. It’s from 24 to 60 fps frames. It oversampled off from 6k. So you’re getting great frame rates from 24 to 60 fps with no crop. Whereas the Panasonic, you’re getting great frame rates 24/30 fps. But when you go to 60 fps you get a crop. So you get a crop. You can go down to 1080 p 2k on these cameras. You can get up to 180 frames or 130 frames, can’t remember what it was. But you can get decent 120 fps on each of these. So I think the Canon edges out the Panasonic just barely when it comes to internal frame rates.

So they both have unlimited record time. I haven’t had any problems with overheating with either of them. But I don’t say, I can’t say I’ve used them enough to really know exactly that that’s a problem. I know that the Panasonic comes with a vent that allows air to flow and it has a small fan that’s going to allow airflow in the camera and it’s going to go forever. It’s not going to overheat. The Canon doesn’t have that and so whether it’s going to overheat or not remains to be seen. I have not heard anything that says it has. We haven’t tested it yet.

So they both have great logs to be able to use. You don’t have to pay money for those. They come with the cameras. So they both have log.

When it comes to external recording on the Panasonic you get a 12 bit via the HDMI. It’s a 6k 24 and 30 fps. But on the Canon you get raw via that HDMI cable. That’s going to be 6k up to 60 frames a second. So it gives you great video out with that HDMI cable. But when you compare these two cameras, the R6 II definitely wins on external recording.

So the one area where the R6 II definitely does not win is in the micro HDMI output. It’s got a small little micro HDMI. Whereas the Panasonic has a full HDMI output, much better.

So the Panasonic does have something that the Canon doesn’t and that is a, what’s called a Real Time Lut. I wasn’t sure about this at first, but it’s proved to be very useful for us. And that is that you can shoot in Log. So you have that great log, but then you put a lut on. It can be a Rec 709, it could be something that you create, and that lut is baked in to the log. But it helps you with workflow purposes. You have that great look, get that great dynamic range. You put a lut on it, and that’s baked into your footage. So if you’re doing things that are like really involved, you’re going to do a day seminar, or you’re going to do something you got to edit quick with and want to get a great look and get it out fast that really works well. The Canon doesn’t have something like that. That’s a new thing from Panasonic. So that Real Time Lut is really very interesting.

So now let’s take a look at image stabilization on these two cameras. They both have IBIS. Let’s just see how it looks compared to one another. Let’s take a look at it. Over to the computer we go. So I built a little rig so I could do the image stabilization and have the two cameras on the same two hand rig. When I put these two cameras together, you just get a beautiful fluid kind of look from that Panasonic. The Panasonic is just kind of floating along the Canon is doing a great job. But occasionally it’s giving a little bit of a jerk to the side, just a tiny bit. I may have seen one of those on the Panasonic but it just seems like the Canon is just popping over to the side just a little bit. Watch that video there, you can see that. I think the Panasonic is definitely smoother, a little nicer look. I’m not very smooth. I’m like, I’m lumbering along there. You can see my steps pretty good. But I think that that Panasonic is pretty smooth. The Canon looks fairly smooth, but is jumping just a little bit and has a little bit of jitter to it. So there’s the image stabilization test. It’s pretty hard to beat Panasonic when it comes to that kind of in camera image stabilization. There’s a little bit of jerkiness in the Canon but they were very close.

But now let’s move on. Let’s take a look at ISO. Let’s take a look at that ISO test. Back to the computer we go. As I look at these I start at 400 ISO. Things look very clean. Clean in the background. We go to 800 ISO. With the Canon I start to see, boy I really do, I start to see more digital noise in that canon in that 800 ISO than I would expect to see. When I go to 1600 ISO I see it right on the transition in that lighter color area there. Wow there’s a lot of digital noise on that R6 II. The Panasonic S5 II is not looking near as busy. If we go up here to 3200 ISO noise just continues to build. I’m almost at a point at 3200 ISO where it’s unusable on the Canon. But in the Panasonic it’s still looking very good. I’m not seeing color starting to create any kind of aberrations yet. I think it’s just looking very clean. But if we go to 6400 ISO I can see it visually without having to blow it up. At 6400 ISO Her face is becoming, wow! It’s just crazy busy at 6400 ISO. The Panasonic is looking so much better. Now even higher to 25,600 ISO. Man, it’s just like it’s a stipple drawing. I’m seeing it now, really seeing it in the Panasonic. I’m seeing color shift in a kind of an ugly way. In the shadows I see kind of color starting to build in the shadows, an abrupt kind of transition from the shadow to the highlights. I’m seeing a better transition in the Canon than I am in the Panasonic at this point. The Panasonic color just kind of fell off a cliff here at 25,600. When we hit 51,200 we’re seeing a ton of color artifacts all through the Panasonic. I mean it is through her skin. It’s in the background. It looks terrible. We’re getting, even though it’s not great color and it’s really grainy on the Canon, at least the transitions are better. We’re not seeing as many artifacts, color artifacts and things. That color is held together much nicer. So when we go on up to the very last one which is 102,400, we just have Canon on that and it’s really unusable all the way around. So there you go. Not an unsimilar kind of experience I had when we compared the Panasonic to the Sony A7 IV. It’s just the Panasonic has a really beautiful kind of low light look and holds that low light and higher ISOs. Okay, there’s the ISO test. Panasonic definitely edged out the Canon when it came to ISO in my mind. Can you recover those images and make them all beautiful? Absolutely. There’s so many great software’s out there that can reduce noise and make them look wonderful. But when it comes to that sensor, I think the Panasonic sensor is much cleaner. It’s a very clean sensor and looking really good.

So let’s just talk about the ergonomics as we wrap this up. I am very, I have used Canon my entire life since they started digital cameras. So I am used to the form factor. I’m used to the grip. I’m used to the hand. I find that the Panasonic is a little smaller. I don’t have as comfortable a place for my little finger on the Panasonic. Whereas on the Canon it’s a little deeper and it just makes a little easier for me to get my hand and my finger on it.

In saying that though, I love the button setup on the Panasonic. I love the fact that we have the three buttons across the front of white balance, ISO or exposure compensation. I think that works extremely well and it just works for me.

It does not have, as the Canon does, it does not have an individual kind of collar or knob to be able to change from video to stills. The Canon has that, what used to be the power on the Canon left side on the R6, the first R6. Now with the R6 II, that’s the switch from stills to video. So you can have all of your settings for stills. You can have all your settings for video. And switching that back and forth allows you to jump back and forth from video to stills really quickly and that’s extremely useful.

What you can do on the Panasonic is you can go into the menus and you can separate those two. So on the dial, when you go to the video mode on the dial, it will take you to whatever settings you are setting up as you set up the video mode. So it allows you to do the same thing. But it’s just done on that top dial.

I am missing, on the back of this thing, so much, that D-Tab on the bottom on the Canon. I just, we’ve got it on the Panasonic. I am loving that. Doing so much with that. I just can’t, it drives me crazy on the Canon that they don’t have that. And I find myself trying to move the little button on the top. I don’t like it near as well as having that D-Tab on the bottom.

The one thing that Canon has done to kind of catch up here is to give us a hot shoe that allows us to use sound devices. And it has electronics that run through it to allow you to do sound devices and things. The sound on this camera (Panasonic), the sound interface on this camera is really good. So if I had to say sound wise, which one of these cameras wins? Boy, when it comes to it, the Panasonic is a much stronger camera when it comes to sound. I would say sound, Panasonic.

Who would use these cameras? This is getting confusing to me. Because you’ve got such fast frames per second. I start to perceive these as sports or birds or animal cameras. You’ve got such great video specs. I think they’re great video cameras. I just, it’s really a crossover camera that is starting to push the limits. I think the people that would use these are going to be wedding shooters. They’ll be great for wedding shooters both for video and for stills. I think these cameras really come in at a point where financially you can get started in a very professional high end camera that you can make money with and use forever. I mean 24 megapixels is not huge, but it gives you plenty. It’s going to make you great prints. It’s going to be a camera that you can definitely use professionally without any problem whatsoever. Panasonic has struggled a little bit with autofocus in the past, but now with phase detect, I feel like they’ve caught back up. I think the Canon is a great step forward in their autofocus and in this new sensor, it is a beautiful image. I do think the Panasonic image is beautiful though. I kind of lean towards that Panasonic image. There are the two cameras. Take a look at them. Leave some comments below. You keep those cameras rollin’ and keep on clickin’!