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Engadget
26-06-2025
- Engadget
Panasonic S1 II review: A near-perfect creator's camera if money is no object
After a six-year wait, Panasonic's S1 II is finally here and there's a lot to unpack. As you'd expect from this company, it's creator-centric with up to 5.8K ProRes RAW internal video recording. At the same time, it's Panasonic's fastest full-frame photo camera ever with 70 fps burst speeds and reduced rolling shutter distortion thanks to the new partially stacked 24-megapixel sensor. And with an AI-powered hybrid phase detect system, autofocus is no longer a weak point as it was with the original S1. There is one issue though, and a surprising one for Panasonic: the price. The $3,200 S1 II is similar to Nikon's Z6 III, right down to the partially stacked sensor and internal RAW video. However, the latter is some $700 cheaper and can often be found on sale for even less. Since Panasonic often undercuts rivals, that puts the S1 II in the unusual position of being overpriced next to the competition. After testing it for the last month, I've found that whether it's worth it depends on your priorities. The S1 II is Panasonic's best creator camera thanks to features like 6K RAW video and outstanding stabilization, but it's expensive compared to the competition. $3,200 at Amazon The S1 II shares its excellent body design with the higher-resolution S1R II and the cheaper, non-stacked S1 IIe. It's considerably lighter than the original S1 at 1.76 pounds and much smaller as well, both of which make it less burdensome. It's also easy to hold thanks to the big ridged grip. However, it's more angular and has a harder rubber skin than Canon's rival EOS R6 II, so it's not quite as comfortable over long shooting sessions. The excellent control layout makes the S1 II a breeze to use. It has all the buttons and dials you need and they're well located — particularly the joystick and control dials. There's a dedicated switch for photos, video and slow and quick (S&Q) modes, and each has separate adjustments so you won't mix them up. It also has a dedicated autofocus switch, two video record buttons (top and front), 10 other programmable buttons and a tally light. I rarely needed to search for settings thanks to the logical color-coded tabs and easy-to-use quick menu, both accessible by touch or the joystick. Panasonic also made it simple to program buttons, dials and the quick menu to your personal preferences and it allows you to save them to a memory card as a backup. The S1 II's electronic viewfinder is bright and sharp, matching the Z6 III with a resolution of 5.76 million dots and 0.78x magnification. The rear display not only swivels out but also tilts up and down for overhead or hip-level photography. In comparison, Nikon's Z6 III screen doesn't tilt, so it's not as versatile. As with the S1R II, battery life isn't a strong point here, with only 360 shots on a charge or 320 when using the EVF. To be fair, that matches the Z6 III exactly (and Panasonic's non-stacked S1 II is only slightly better at 380 shots), but Canon's cheaper R6 II has more than twice the battery life at 760 shots. In order to capture RAW video, the S1 II has a CFexpress Type B card slot along with a slower SDXC UHS-II slot. Like the S5 IIx and GH7 (and several Fujifilm models), it also supports high-bandwidth RAW video capture to an SSD via the USB-C port. The S1 II comes with a full-sized HDMI port that supports Blackmagic and ProRes RAW capture. You also get mic and headphone ports, and you can capture 32-bit float audio via the optional XLR2 accessory to reduce the possibility of clipping. Finally, the S1 II has a carbon fiber curtain that comes down to protect the sensor like recent Canon and Sony models. The S1 II can fire bursts at a pedestrian 10 fps in mechanical shutter mode, but supports a superb 70 RAW images per second with the electronic shutter. And if you're worried about skewed images, don't fret. Distortion is minimal in electronic mode thanks to the partially-stacked sensor that has a rapid readout speed of around 12 milliseconds. That's fast enough for sports or wildlife photography, unless the subject moves very rapidly. Pre-burst capture, which starts when you half-press the shutter, is also available at the highest speeds. That lets you save up to 1.5 seconds of photos you might have otherwise missed once you fully press the shutter button. The buffer is a bit small, though, so you can only capture about three seconds (220 shots) at the 70 fps speed. The hybrid phase-detect autofocus is the best of any Panasonic camera I've tested to date. However, it's not yet up to Sony and Canon's standards for speed and accuracy, and falls a bit short of Nikon's Z6 III. If you're shooting a fast-moving subject at the maximum burst rate of 70 fps, you may see more than a few out-of-focus photos. The S1 II supports multiple AI modes — including animals, birds and vehicles — on top of human eye-tracking modes. I had mixed success with those as the camera had trouble locking onto the eyes of some birds and marine mammals I shot at the Vancouver Aquarium. However, it was better with more typical animal subjects like dogs, cats, horses and geese. Panasonic also introduced an AF mode called Urban Sports that improves tracking for breakdancing, skateboarding and parkour. I tested that mode with some skateboarders at the highest burst settings and saw a high percentage (90-plus) of in-focus shots. One area where Panasonic tops its rivals is stabilization. That's been boosted to eight stops (slightly short of the R6 II's eight and a half stops), which allowed me to shoot at shutter speeds down to a half second and still get sharp shots. And as I'll explain shortly, the S1 II is peerless when it comes to video stabilization. I've been impressed with Panasonic's color science of late, finding that it matches Nikon in delivering some of the most color-accurate images of any system. By comparison, Canon's images skew warmer, and I feel that Sony models like the A7 IV lack some accuracy, particularly with blue-green colors. The S1 II delivers pleasing JPEGs with a nice balance between sharpness and noise reduction, though the latter can get overly aggressive at high ISO levels. RAW images offer plenty of detail in light and dark areas of the image, letting you tweak and correct to a fine degree. Keep in mind that using the electronic shutter in burst modes reduces RAW bit depth from 14 to 12. The downside of any stacked sensor is additional noise, and the S1 II is no exception. This is most apparent at higher ISO levels where the camera exhibits a bit more grain than Panasonic's S5, which has the same resolution but isn't stacked. That said, the S1 II has about the same low-light prowess as the Z6 III and beats most fully stacked cameras. The S1 II is Panasonic's best creator camera thanks to features like 6K RAW video and outstanding stabilization, but it's expensive compared to the competition. If the native 24MP resolution isn't enough, the S1 II offers a high-resolution mode that captures eight images with a slightly offset sensor position and composes them into a single 96-megapixel file (either RAW or JPEG). I was able to take sharp images in that mode without the use of a tripod thanks to the S1 II's excellent in-body stabilization system. The S1 II doesn't shoot 8K RAW like the 44MP S1R II due to its lower resolution. However, it does support 5.8K 30 fps ProRes RAW, open gate full sensor video and super slow-mo (4K 120p) — all with far less rolling shutter distortion. Because of that, I think this is a better camera overall for creators. Of course, the S1 II offers 10-bit video in both MP4 and Quicktime formats on top of RAW. Panasonic's V-Log is also on tap to boost dynamic range, and thanks to a recent firmware update, you can pay $200 to get ARRI LogC3 to match that company's pro digital cinema cameras. With that same firmware update, the S1 II now supports 17 frame aspect ratios (up from 10), and enables simultaneous display of up to three frames at once (unlike the LogC3 update, these are free). That will let you shoot open gate, for instance, while seeing how the image will look in both vertical and horizontal aspect ratios. Overall, video quality is outstanding with sharp oversampling, excellent color accuracy and decent dynamic range. The latter can be increased using Panasonic's dynamic range boost option, although that effectively doubles rolling shutter distortion. Without the setting enabled, skew from rolling shutter is only an issue with whip pans or very fast-moving subjects. Video AF is solid, keeping subjects in focus as long as they don't move too quickly. Face, eye, animal, urban sports and vehicle detection work well, though you'll see a bit more accuracy and speed on Canon and Sony's latest models. The S1 II offers better video stabilization than its rivals, though. Optical stabilization provides good results for handheld video, while electronic stabilization (EIS) provides gimbal-like smoothness at the cost of a significant crop. As with other recent Panasonic models, the S1 II also offers 'cropless' EIS that corrects corner distortion when using wide lenses, while also reducing rolling shutter. Thanks to a built-in fan, overheating is rarely an issue with the S1 II. The only time I ever saw a problem was with 5.8K at 60 fps and 5.1K open gate recording, when the camera shut down after 50 minutes and 40 minutes respectively. That's still excellent for a small mirrorless camera. Those limits are eliminated, by the way, if you record to an SSD via the USB-C port. Creators may wonder how the S1 II compares to Nikon's Z6 III. The latter offers more RAW options, with the choice of 5.8K Nikon RAW (N-RAW) at up to 60 fps rather than just 30 fps. Both offer similar video quality as they use the same sensor. The Z6 III has slightly better autofocus, but the S5 II has superior stabilization and handling. Finally, the S1 II has some nice pro features like timecode, waveform monitoring and pro audio. I'd say the S1 II is slightly better for video shooters, but the Z6 III is significantly cheaper. Panasonic's S1 II is a powerful hybrid camera, and if it wasn't so expensive, it would be a no-brainer for creators. However, Nikon's Z6 III has nearly the same video capabilities, is a better camera for photography and costs at least $600 less, so I'm inclined to recommend that model for most users. Another option at a lower price is Panasonic's new $2,500 S1 IIe, which was announced at the same time as the S1 II. It has the same body and mostly the same feature set, but uses the non-stacked sensor from the S5 II, so rolling shutter is more of an issue. If you favor photography, the higher-resolution S1R II is a better option and costs just $100 more. However, if you're a video pro who needs features like time code, ARRI LogC3 and advanced monitoring or audio features, the S1 II is a solid choice. Those folks might want to wait for a sale though.
Engadget
13-05-2025
- Engadget
Panasonic's S1 II is its most powerful creator camera yet
After dropping a rare photography-oriented camera recently with the S1R II, Panasonic is going back to its creator roots. The company just unveiled the S1 II, a 24-megapixel full-frame mirrorless camera with a partially-stacked sensor (like the Nikon Z6 III) that can capture 6K ProRes RAW video internally with minimal rolling shutter wobble. At the same time, Panasonic is pitching it as a relative value next to full stacked sensor cameras. With the same body as the S1R II, the S1 II is considerably smaller and lighter than the original S1 while still offering a large grip and full complement of manual controls. It also comes with a display that both tilts and flips out, a high-resolution 5.76 million-dot electronic viewfinder, CFexpress Type B and SD UHS-II card slots and optional support for Panasonic's 32-bit float audio. Photographers get up to 70 fps burst shooting speeds in electronic shutter mode and 10 fps with the mechanical shutter (along with 1.5s pre-burst capture). They can also take 96MP high resolution shots (with no tripod needed), along with live view composites, multiple exposures and timelapse animations. Autofocus is via Panasonic's latest AI Phase Hybrid AF with Eye/Face AF, AF tracking and detection of animals, vehicles and a new category, "urban sports" (ie breakdancing). On paper, though, this is more of a video-oriented camera camera. You can shoot ProRes and ProRes RAW video at up to 5.8K and 3:2 "open-gate" video at 5,952 x 3,968 resolution, along with 4K at 120 fps. It supports V-Log / V-Gamut capture with dual native ISO at 640/5000 and up to 15 stops of dynamic range. In addition, you get anamorphic video modes plus external RAW HDMI recording in either ProRes or Blackmagic formats. Panasonic boosted in-body stabilization to 8.0 stops via it's Dual I.S.2 system, while also offering the cropless IBS mode introduced on the S1R II. Optical smoothing can can be enhanced with electronic stabilization when more aggressive smoothing is required for walking or quick camera movements. Other key features include video monitoring tools like false color and exposure review, live streaming, wired webcam supports via USB-UVC/UAC (a first for Panasonic) and support for the Lumix Flow app that lets you do things like creator storyboards and shot lists for quicker editing. And as with other recent models, the S1 II supports real time LUTs and the Lumix Lab app, letting you download creator designed film looks that can be baked in to your video or added later in post. Panasonic will also introduce ARRI LogC3 so that the S1 II, S1R II and S1 IIE can be used in conjunction with ARRI digital cinema cameras. The Panasonic S1 II is now available for pre-order at $3,199 (body only) with shipping set to start on June 16th. That price is high next to its main competition, the Nikon Z6 III, which retails for $2,497 and is often on sale. Panasonic does have an answer to that: the $2,499 S1 IIE that has the body and features of the S1 II but lacks the stacked sensor and high-speed photo bursts. Panasonic also introduced an interesting lens, the Lumix S 24-60mm f/2.8. It offers the features and most of the range of its $2,000 Lumix S 24-70mm f/2.8 lens but in a smaller and lighter size and at a lower $1,200 price tag. I've had the S1 II for a short time now and have been impressed so far with its speed and capabilities, so stay tuned for a full review with final firmware.
WIRED
08-05-2025
- Automotive
- WIRED
Panasonic's S1R II Is a Capable, Affordable, Mirrorless Hybrid Camera
The S1RII features Panasonic's latest phase-detection autofocus, which has much better subject recognition and tracking algorithms. The S1RII can recognize people, animals (dog, cat, bird), cars, motorcycle and bikes, trains, and airplanes. In my testing, Panasonic's subject tracking system is very nearly as good as what you'll find in Nikon, Canon, Sony, and Fujifilm. It wasn't necessarily the best for everything—for example, Nikon stands out as better at tracking birds—but it's an all-around solid autofocus system that doesn't miss much. Photograph: Scott Gilbertson What I did not like is not what it does, but what it can't do—namely, stop tracking a subject when in subject-tracking mode. For example, if I am tracking my dog playing on the beach in the early morning and want to stop for a second and shoot the sunrise, on my Sony and Fujifilm I can tap the screens and switch the focus to the horizon, compose, shoot, and return to tracking the dog. To do that with the S1RII I had to first toggle off the subject tracking. It isn't a huge hassle, nor is it a deal breaker, but it is a little head-scratching. The rest of the time, I found that the S1RII did a good job of tracking everything I asked it to. Oddly though, it has the hardest time with humans. Sometimes in a crowd of people, it would lose the subject, something that doesn't usually happen in my testing of Nikon, Canon, and Sony cameras. While Panasonic's autofocus system is definitely faster and more accurate than previous versions, it's not flawless. I don't find this a deal breaker at all (I still shoot many manual focus lenses), but it might be worth testing with a rental if you shoot a lot of sports or wildlife. Image Quality I've always liked Panasonic's color rendition for its neutrality. It's not warm, it's not cool, it's just about perfectly in the middle. The only place I saw this vary a bit with the S1RII is in skin tones on my kids, who looked a little pinkish in some lighting conditions, but otherwise I did not find any color rendering oddities. Dynamic range is very good. I was able to lift shadows in RAW files 2-3 stops without really even needing to deal with noise. Photograph: Scott Gilbertson Panasonic-SR1II-Sample-Imag_Street-Art_Photo
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Yahoo
Panasonic takes on Canon with the full-frame, 45-megapixel S1R II mirrorless camera
Panasonic's mirrorless cameras are best known for their video powers, but with its latest model, the company is finally getting serious about photography as well. The $3,300 full-frame Lumix S1R II is not only the company's first camera capable of 8K video but can fire off 40 fps bursts of high-resolution (45 megapixel) RAW photos. It also offers a more advanced autofocus system, putting it squarely into the conversation with Sony, Canon and Nikon. I've had a pre-production unit for several days now and so far, I'm impressed. The original S1R was a chunky 2.24 pound monster, but the S1R II is much lighter at 1.75 pounds and considerably smaller in size. That makes it less burdensome than before — though still a bit bigger than the Nikon Z8 and Canon R5 II. It also has one of the fattest grips I've ever seen that gave me a firm, secure hold on the camera. Panasonic made other substantial changes to the body, removing the top display and shifting the mode dial from top left to top right. In the latter's place a dedicated burst mode dial and photo/video/S&Q switch was introduced, while a new autofocus dial was placed at the back. Handling is now near the top among high-end full-frame cameras in my book, matching or even beating my favorite, the Sony A1 II. The rear 1.8-million-dot display was also overhauled and not only flips out for content creators but also tilts up and down for photographers — putting it on par with the excellent screen on Sony's A1 II. The electronic viewfinder has the same 5.76-million-dot resolution and 120Hz refresh rate as before, but now offers a more natural 100 percent magnification. The S1R II supports both SD UHS II and fast CFexpress Type B cards (rather than XQD as before) with a slot for each, while also allowing SSD recording via the USB-C port like the S5 IIX and GH7. Other inputs include mic, headphone and a full-size HDMI slot, along with a 10Gbps USB-C port. The battery is the same as the one on the GH7 and G9 III but delivers just 350 shots max on a charge, unless you buy the optional DMW-BLK22 battery grip. The S1R II will also offer full-float 32-bit audio recording, but only with the optional DMW-XLR2 audio accessory. Shooting performance is dramatically better with up to 40 fps (RAW 12-bit) burst speeds with continuous autofocus enabled, compared to a rather pitiful 6 fps on the previous model. It can also hit 10 fps speeds in mechanical mode or 9 fps with 14-bit RAW output. That matches the lower-resolution Canon R1 (though that model does it in 14-bit RAW mode) and is only below Sony's A9 III that can hit a mind-boggling 120 fps burst speeds in RAW mode. Panasonic also overhauled the phase-detect autofocus system to add more speed and AI smarts. It can now lock onto a subject's face and eyes quicker and follow their movements more smoothly, but also detect and automatically switch between humans, animals, cars, motorcycles, bikes, trains and airplanes. From my observations so far, it's not quite up to the speed and fluidity of Sony and Canon's latest models, but Panasonic is nearly there. When it comes to image quality, JPEG photos look natural with realistic colors, though I wasn't able to open RAW files on this pre-production camera. One big improvement is at high ISOs in low light thanks to the dual ISO sensor that keeps noise under control all the way up to about ISO 12800. On the video side, the S1R II now supports internal ProRes RAW and 8K video capture, but not both at the same time. ProRes RAW captured to CFexpress or USB-C is limited to 5.8K but uses the full width of the sensor, so it's a good solution for 4K productions. 8K, meanwhile, can only be captured in 4:2:0 LongGOP MP4 formats at 30 fps (4K tops out at 120 fps in Slow & Quick mode). That compares to 60 fps max on the Canon EOS R5 II and Nikon Z8, and both of those cameras can do that format in RAW. Sony's A1 II, by contrast, can also do 8K 30 fps video but doesn't support RAW recording at all. And of course, the S1R II supports V-Log recording and promises up to 14 stops of dynamic range, slightly less than the S1R. It'll also allow for external ProRes RAW recording at up to 8K to Atomos recorders via a firmware update coming after the initial launch. Panasonic's updated stabilization system promises up to 8 stops of shake reduction, but there are a few significant updates. It reduces edge distortion for video without cropping, though there's a small amount of vignetting if you do that. As before, it supports e-stabilization at regular and high strengths, and now offers the high-strength mode for anamorphic lenses. That raises the issue of rolling shutter, since the S1R II doesn't use a stacked sensor like its main competitors, the Nikon Z8 and Canon R5 II. Distortion is definitely more prominent than on those models, but readout speeds are relatively quick so it's not offensive except when doing whip pans or filming very fast moving subjects. At $3,300, the S1R II is priced well below the $4,300 Canon R5 II but nearly on par with the Nikon Z8, which can currently be found at $3,400. It's set to start shipping at the end of March 2025.
