Anyone using one of these and if so what have you found to be an excellent portrait lens for this camera. Also the settings I have read that shooting in raw even at 6mp with this camera is the only way to go. Any thoughts out there?

my experience was the opposite. Jpegs were superior to my raw processing ability. jpegs are interpolated in camera to 12mp while raws come out 6mp. its unGodly slow both in fps and processing files. The menu system is tied for its weakest point, burying imortant functions deep within submenu's.

having said all that, the auto WB is pretty awesome. Its not accurate but does have a wonderfully pleasing tone, particularly skin tones.

I sold mine after using it for one wedding. I wanted to keep it, but shooting it along side D700 just didnt work out for me. It does make amazing jpegs out of camera, so if you have the time and patience its an awesome image maker.

whose RAW processor were you using? ACR and Lightroom both generate 12MP RAW files.

Herb...

Justin Huffman wrote:
my experience was the opposite. Jpegs were superior to my raw processing ability. jpegs are interpolated in camera to 12mp while raws come out 6mp. its unGodly slow both in fps and processing files. The menu system is tied for its weakest point, burying imortant functions deep within submenu's.

I now have the D700, but I do miss my S5. I really love the fuji portrait colors. I shot raw with it and found the best converter was capture one, however, I could get close with LightRoom. Depending on what type of portrait I was shooting, I'd use the 24-70 or even my 50mm.
Bill

Use it if you're using dual S5's....if you mix it in with other Nikon bodies, you'll be dissappointed. It is sloooooow. Save yourself the frustration. Files are nice though. Great portrait camera.

Herb, my point was that the camera writes a 12 mp jpeg file out of camera, I dont think there is way to turn off the interpolation in camera.... however you can open a raw file from any camera and make it as big or small as you wish. Open a S5 file in ACR and in its native format it opens at 2036x304X a 6.2 meg file. try it.

Justin, a 6mpx file was possible in jpeg form OOC. Thats how I used it most of the time.

ok, thanks Zachs, i guuess I didnt read the menu's deep enough.

I believe HY can open 12MP from RAW, but the user interface is a bit... clunky?

Thanks for the imput regarding the files. I shoot Canon in all other formats so not as familiar with the lens that are super sharp with the S5. I did buy a 50mm 1.8 to try out and that has been pretty sharp. It definately is not as fast as my Canon lineup, but no issue there since I expected it and not really comparing to Nikon perforamnce in processing and fps.
So any more thoughts on lens choices??

try to explain 24MB RAW files from the camera then. that is 12MP compressed RAW. its native format is 12MP in two 6MP images. i have an IS-Pro which a S5 Pro with a different filter over the sensor and manufacturer support for IR/UV shooting. Lightroom's 1:1 converted IS-Pro files are 12MP.

Herb...

Justin Huffman wrote:
Herb, my point was that the camera writes a 12 mp jpeg file out of camera, I dont think there is way to turn off the interpolation in camera.... however you can open a raw file from any camera and make it as big or small as you wish. Open a S5 file in ACR and in its native format it opens at 2036x304X a 6.2 meg file. try it.

Herb I cannot tell if your trying to share your knowledge and help the OP or stomp your feet. In any case you must be right.

You need a lens that is "sharp" as the S5 has a pretty heavy AA filter. There are lots of discussions on that topic though.

For primes I use a Nikon 85mm f1.8 and a Sigma 28mm f1.8 with pretty good results. The 85 is better, but a little long for indoor use on the crop body for me. Having accurate focus is important of course. A lens around 55-60mm would probably be about right, be it a zoom or prime.

For walk around, I also have a cheapo Nikon 18-105 VR that actually does pretty well if you understand its limits and don't try to shoot in really low light with it, the VR works really well though. I would think most any of the more higher end zooms would do fine too.

Edit to add--I only shoot JPEG as I tried to do RAW conversion with lightroom and could not get the same or any better results with lots of time, so I just do minor tweeks on the JPEGS, they are rather forgiving really.

I donno about other people's S5, but mine produces 6 megapixel raw images. Sure they take up massive space on memory cards (~24 megabytes) but the images are still roughly 3,000 x 2,000 pixels.

Herb is right. Its two sets of 6mpx files. One from the larger photosites, the other from the smaller.

Too bad Fuji marketed this 12mp misinformation. How many threads are spent unwinding it? When Fuji first came out with this sensor, I had to press the sales rep to state the file size "was closer to 6.9 mp."

Zachs, look at this screen shot. The NATIVE format of a fuji raw file is 6.2 megapixels. I see the little asterisk is an interpolated file from fuji and the + signs are the interpolated file size from ACR. Please help me understand.

Here is a D700 file which I think we all can agree is a 12 Megapixel file.

open a S5 Pro RAW file in Lightroom and you only get a 12MP file. you do not get options for any other image conversion sizes.

Herb...

Justin Huffman wrote:
Herb I cannot tell if your trying to share your knowledge and help the OP or stomp your feet. In any case you must be right.

HerbChong wrote:
open a S5 Pro RAW file in Lightroom and you only get a 12MP file. you do not get options for any other image conversion sizes.

Herb...




Whoa, I just tried this and you're right. I never realized this. I usually do my Fuji conversions on Photoshop and leave it on 6mpix.