Upgrade from Fuji S5?

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wills5

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Hi all, looking to get some advice on cameras. I have a Fuji S5 Pro which I absolutely love but it's getting a bit long in the tooth. The colours are just incredible, along with the dynamic range. Skin tones are perfect straight out of the camera.

However, it is slow, not very sharp, and the inbuilt LCD is a bit of joke. The high ISO performance is also pretty poor compared to modern cameras.

Is there anything out there worth upgrading to? I have been looking at the D600, which looks to solve all of the above shortcomings, but I'm sure the colours will be disappointing compared to the S5. I've had Nikons before which I liked but the colours were nowhere near on the Fuji's level. I upgraded from a D90 and never looked back. I've also used D300s, D5200 and a load of older ones (D70 etc).

Then there's the XT-1 which looks interesting. It would mean changing lenses etc but I would be willing to go through with that if I knew the colours would be on par with an S5. However I have heard a few people online saying it's not quite as good in that aspect as the S5.

Bottom line - it would be really nice to upgrade to a more modern camera; however I don't want to upgrade unless I can find something with the same/very nearly equal colour performance. Is there anything out there? If not I'll just run this S5 into the ground! Or possibly get something newer as a 2nd camera?
 
Haha yes it is! Just wish they made an S6...

It does mean I'll have to save for longer but I think it may be the only solution here. Anyone moved from S5 to anything else and been happy?
 
wills5 said:
Hi all, looking to get some advice on cameras. I have a Fuji S5 Pro which I absolutely love but it's getting a bit long in the tooth. The colours are just incredible, along with the dynamic range. Skin tones are perfect straight out of the camera.

However, it is slow, not very sharp, and the inbuilt LCD is a bit of joke. The high ISO performance is also pretty poor compared to modern cameras.

Is there anything out there worth upgrading to? I have been looking at the D600, which looks to solve all of the above shortcomings, but I'm sure the colours will be disappointing compared to the S5. I've had Nikons before which I liked but the colours were nowhere near on the Fuji's level. I upgraded from a D90 and never looked back. I've also used D300s, D5200 and a load of older ones (D70 etc).

Then there's the XT-1 which looks interesting. It would mean changing lenses etc but I would be willing to go through with that if I knew the colours would be on par with an S5. However I have heard a few people online saying it's not quite as good in that aspect as the S5.

Bottom line - it would be really nice to upgrade to a more modern camera; however I don't want to upgrade unless I can find something with the same/very nearly equal colour performance. Is there anything out there? If not I'll just run this S5 into the ground! Or possibly get something newer as a 2nd camera?
Click to expand...

As a current XT1 user and past S3 and 2xS5 user, I can honestly say the S5 is better than the XT1 for colour, and the S3 a little bit better again for skin tones. The XT1 has a rather plasticky rendering in Velvia mode compared to the punchy but natural look of the S5s F2 (or was F1 velvia, I can't remember!) However the weight and space saved by the XT1 more than makes up for it.

I really wish they'd made a full frame version of the Super CCD SR sensor, that would have been awesome and worth the weight!

As a bit of a wildcard, have you considered a D300? It's not the same colour, but it is very nice and quite unlike the rest of the Nikon line.
 
wills5 said:
Haha yes it is! Just wish they made an S6...

It does mean I'll have to save for longer but I think it may be the only solution here. Anyone moved from S5 to anything else and been happy?
Click to expand...

A D800.
 
Alan Clogwyn said:
As a current XT1 user and past S3 and 2xS5 user, I can honestly say the S5 is better than the XT1 for colour, and the S3 a little bit better again for skin tones. The XT1 has a rather plasticky rendering in Velvia mode compared to the punchy but natural look of the S5s F2 (or was F1 velvia, I can't remember!) However the weight and space saved by the XT1 more than makes up for it.

I really wish they'd made a full frame version of the Super CCD SR sensor, that would have been awesome and worth the weight!

As a bit of a wildcard, have you considered a D300? It's not the same colour, but it is very nice and quite unlike the rest of the Nikon line.
Click to expand...

Ah, that's what I was worried about. To be honest I don't really use the film simulation modes on the S5, I love shooting Velvia film but I don't like the Velvia mode on the S5 (I find it crushes the blacks too much). Haven't played around with the other modes enough to pass judgement, I've always assumed they were a bit of a gimmick but might give them a go at some point!

Interesting that you suggested the D300, I had one shortly (and a D90 for much longer which has the same sensor). The colours were my least favourite bit funnily enough! Don't think I ever preferred the colours over other Nikons, I'm guessing you did though? Anything in particular?
 
Laudrup said:
A D800.
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Ah OK, good to hear. Do you find the colours satisfactory coming from a Fuji?

To be honest the D800 is of out of my budget for now but I'm hoping the D600 would give similar image quality, do you know anything about the differences between the two?
 
TBH I used to believe all this colour stuff. I've had Fuji's before and the colour of the JPEGS were fab but the RAWs were just the same as those from my Nikons. The quality of FF files when editing is astonishing. Any Nikon FF will knock you socks off.
 
Well I agree on the JPGs, straight out of the camera they are pretty amazing from the Fuji whereas you'd usually need to fiddle around with RAWs on Nikons to get anything similar. That alone saves a huge amount of time. Providing I've got the exposure right, I barely ever need to actually go into the RAWs on the Fuji.

I would however say that even comparing the RAWs the Fujis still have a decent advantage colour wise and also in the dynamic range. The exposure latitude on the S5 RAWs are ridiculous, which is extremely useful recovering under/overexposed shots! Not sure how the current Nikons are but the ones I've tried previously weren't even close in this regard.
 
minnnt said:
Actual lols. Maybe you should look into the dynamic range and shadow recovery of the D610/D750 then... ;)
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And maybe you should try shooting 5 stops over at max iso on your nikon and try rescuing it in post, bet you can't (you can with an S5) :p

I had my A7R straight after the S5. If it had more dynamic range I couldn't find it, and it certainly couldn't cope with highlights or gradations anywhere near as well. Far sharper and more detailed of course, even for the same given lenses.

wills5 said:
Ah, that's what I was worried about. To be honest I don't really use the film simulation modes on the S5, I love shooting Velvia film but I don't like the Velvia mode on the S5 (I find it crushes the blacks too much). Haven't played around with the other modes enough to pass judgement, I've always assumed they were a bit of a gimmick but might give them a go at some point!

Interesting that you suggested the D300, I had one shortly (and a D90 for much longer which has the same sensor). The colours were my least favourite bit funnily enough! Don't think I ever preferred the colours over other Nikons, I'm guessing you did though? Anything in particular?
Click to expand...

Mine was stuck in F1C permanently but I always used the raws to get max DR. Made a few Lightroom presets to try and get the same colour from Raw, nearly got it but not quite. From what I've seen the D300 has a much more earth toney palette than the rest, which I've always found to go for a very cool looking image with quite un natural blues. These blues have been inherited by the XT1 sadly so there's a lot of similarity to Nikons from it. Skin tones are still better mind. The Xt1 velvia simulation does the same with the shadows and also clips a little of the highlights. (so does the S5, a lot actually).

I look at it as Canon have a strong Red and purple emphasis, Nikon have a very strong blue bias, Fuji are very strong in the green through to orange department, Sony has a staggeringly strong emphasis on the bit between yellow and green which all green and yellow shades get rendered, as well as random purples. Blues just blew straight out. Just my observations of course not remotely scientific.
 
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