A camera that I’ve used pretty much weekly since its release is the LUMIX S5 II. It’s genuinely been one of the absolute best hybrid cameras that you can get for the money. And over time, it has become one of my favorites too. Arguably, I’d say that it’s a brand new camera after all the updates that it’s recieved. But the recent ones have had me scratching my head. So I updated our review, which you can read the full text of at this link. But if you just want to see the updated text, check it out below.
Ease of Use Update August 2025
Panasonic LUMIX has continued to give firmware updates to the S5 II; though it also seems to be nearly at the end of the product life cycle with the S1 II E offering nearly everything that this camera does with extras. But the latest firmware updates are odd.
According to the latest information, the latest firmware does the following:
- Enhanced the security of products.
- Improved operational stability.
These sound odd, so I reached out to Panasonic for commentary. One of our reps, whom I’ve known for years, sent a kind of cryptic response. “The security updates are designed to benefit the end user,” they say. “They are not specifically disclosed and cannot be tested.”
Answers like this send me down conspiracy theories and constantly bring up questions in my mind that are always there. What sort of security issues did these cameras have?
Admittedly, my S5 II is mostly used as a high end fancy webcam for Google Meet and Microsoft Teams calls. Combined with the film luts that I’ve loaded onto it, it looks great. But I also really can’t deny how beautiful of an image making device it still is capable of being.
Ponder away with me on this: Apple and Google have built obsolescence into their phones for years. But I’ve also often thought the same thing for cameras. My Canon EOS R still works quite well, but the shutter dial on the front sometimes is oddly sticky. The Sony cameras I own die the fastest — and it’s one of the reasons why I haven’t bought another one in years. The camera that has lasted me the longest is by far the Leica SL2s. I also have a few Olympus cameras laying around that work very well every time I power them up.
There’s nothing from the performance of the LUMIX S5 II that makes me think that this is just a way to program obsolescence into the camera. But how can you tell me that the camera has security issues and that the operational stability was a problem? I’ve used this camera pretty religiously a few times a week since it came in for review. And it has never had a problem of any sort. As a dedicated webcam, it still doesn’t have any issues either.
I’ve used this camera for many paid gigs, and my only complaint is that it starts to drain the battery really quickly after a while. Otherwise, I’ve never had an issue with it at all.
I really do hope that planned obsolescence isn’t a thing being put into these cameras. At a certain point, I’d just stop trusting firmware updates.