Lumix S1 II, The World’s Best Hybrid Video Camera With 1 Major Flaw

Today, Panasonic introduced the brand new Lumix S1 II mirrorless digital camera. I’m satisfied this will be the very best hybrid video digital camera available on the market if it did not have one main flaw. 

I was an enormous Panasonic fan. I purchased 5 GH5 cameras, and we shot each Fstopper’s video with them for years. But Panasonic fell at the back of. Although they all the time had the most productive video options, the GH5’s small sensor struggled in low gentle, did not simply produce shallow intensity of box, and not were given crucial function of all of them, dependable steady autofocus. 

Today Panasonic introduced the Lumix S1 II. It’s Panasonic’s latest mirrorless digital camera with a 24mp sensor, geared extra towards video shooters, and it has fastened each factor I had with my previous GH5s. It’s the whole thing I need in a hybrid digital camera, however can I like to recommend this digital camera? More importantly, can I like to recommend their ecosystem? 

Why Ecosystem Matters

For the final 5 years, anytime any individual requested me to suggest a digital camera, I’ve given the similar resolution: “You cannot pass improper purchasing any fashionable digital camera from Sony, Nikon, or Canon.” It’s now not that different manufacturers do not make nice cameras; it simply comes right down to marketplace proportion.

When you purchase a digital camera, you might be caught in that ecosystem, doubtlessly for the remainder of your existence. You wish to purchase a emblem that has a big person base. You need a variety of lenses. You need third-party equipment to if truth be told paintings along with your digital camera.  And when it is time to promote your tools, you need to understand there will probably be a purchaser. 

If you made a decision to shop for into Pentax years in the past, I ensure you might be regretting that call nowadays. 

What About Lenses

In 2019 Panasonic introduced the S1, their first full-frame digital camera, with an absolutely new mount. I be mindful listening to about this digital camera and considering, who would purchase into a brand spanking new eco-system when there are such a lot of nice cameras with established manufacturers? Panasonic knew this may be an uphill fight, and so they created the L-Mount Alliance with each Leica and Sigma. This intended that 3 main digital camera manufacturers had been combining forces to create a bigger ecosystem. 

Today, there are if truth be told extra L-Mount lenses to shop for than Canon RF lenses. You can get extremely reasonable third occasion L mount lenses, access stage and professional stage lenses made by way of Panasonic or Sigma, and outrageously priced lenses by way of Leica. 

And if sports activities or flora and fauna is vital to you, Sigma simply introduced their new 300-600mm f/4 lens, which many of us are calling the most productive ultra-telephoto lens ever made. 

What Flashes Work With Panasonic Cameras?

Ok, the lenses exist, however what concerning the sizzling shoe? This digital camera does have its personal proprietary sizzling shoe. All usual triggers will paintings in this digital camera, but when you need automated TTL metering, you are going to desire a cause designed for Panasonic. 

I latterly did a large comparability evaluation of all the main speedlights and so far as I will inform, simplest such a manufacturers makes flashes and triggers for Panasonic. Luckily it is Godox, who made my favourite flash and cause. 

So the Panasonic ecosystem is far higher than I believed, however they’re nonetheless at a large drawback, because of marketplace proportion. Sony and Canon are on most sensible, and the S1 II is both going to must be so much inexpensive than the contest, or a much better digital camera, and spoiler alert, at $3200, this factor is not reasonable. 

First Impressions

The S1 II feels nice. The button structure feels a lot more intuitive than my Sony cameras. The display at the again flips in each course, even forwards, but in addition tilts up and down in position which makes it even higher than my Sony displays. The digital viewfinder is implausible, 2d simplest to the EVF at the Sony a9III. Sony’s EVF is so just right I disregard it is not an optical viewfinder. But after I evaluate the S1 II to the Sony cameras I if truth be told personal (a7S II and A7IV) the S1II is an enormous step ahead. 

The Most Customizable, And The Most Confusing

The S1II is essentially the most feature-rich digital camera I’ve ever used. This digital camera has such a lot of taking pictures resolutions, side ratios, and body charges that they needed to design a filtering method so to if truth be told to find what you might be searching for. 

It’s additionally essentially the most customizable digital camera I’ve ever used. If you prefer the best way some other digital camera works, or the site of sure serve as buttons, you’ve got whole regulate over each side of this digital camera. The drawback to all of those options and choices is this digital camera would require days or even weeks to totally arrange. Gear heads will adore it, however even I, as any individual who shot Panasonic for years, nonetheless really feel misplaced within the menu. 

My Favorite Features

I may write a ebook record all the options of this digital camera, however listed here are a couple of of my favorites. 

High Resolution Mode

If you take footage of a fairly nonetheless topic, you’ll be able to activate prime answer mode, and it’s going to take more than one footage and mix them to create a far upper answer shot. This works very best on a tripod however they even have a hand-held mode that still works nice. 

Pre-Capture

This digital camera has pre-burst taking pictures that silently captures footage within the background, and when you make a decision to take an image, it’s going to save photographs captured as much as 1.5 seconds up to now. 

Automatic Timelapse Creation

Panasonic has the most productive timelapse purposes I’ve ever noticed. You can both file a video with a shutter pace as little as 1/2 a 2d, and it’s going to create a easy timelapse in digital camera, or if you need an extended shutter pace, you’ll be able to shoot photographs and after you might be executed, the digital camera will flip all the photographs right into a timelapse video robotically. We used this option completely once we filmed loads of timelapses for our Photographing the World images educational sequence. 

The Most Filming Options

The S1 II can shoot video in 16×9 6k the usage of the entire width of the sensor, or you’ll be able to shoot ungated, permitting you to shoot in a 3×2 side ratio to take complete benefit of all of the sensor. This makes enhancing vertical movies from horizontal photos more straightforward, and it means that you can shoot with anamorphic lenses, and the digital camera has desqueezing playback in order that you do not want an extra observe. 

Hybrid Zoom

If you shoot in 4k, you’ll be able to activate Hybrid Zoom, which can use all of the width of the sensor if you end up zoomed out, and it’s going to digitally crop in as you manually zoom the lens. When you succeed in the top of your bodily zoom, the digital camera will probably be filming in APS-C, supplying you with an additional 1.5X zoom with none lack of answer. 

The Best IBIS

The S1 II has the most productive stabilization I’ve ever used. The easiest stage of stabilization is known as spice up IS, and it’s in particular made to make hand-held photos glance find it irresistible used to be shot on a tripod it is surprising how smartly this works. If you’re a run-and-gunner who likes the usage of minimum tools, the stabilization this digital camera has is also your favourite function of all. 

V-log Assist and Internal LUTs

The S1 II has a ton of colour profiles, however you’ll be able to get the most productive high quality taking pictures in V-Log. You can activate V-log View Assist to make the photos glance standard at the digital camera to make exposing the shot more straightforward. If you need to take issues additional, you’ll be able to add LUTs into the digital camera and mix and mix LUTs in digital camera to peer graded photos are living, as you movie. 

Better ISO Performance

In phrases of low gentle efficiency, the S1 II turns out to have round one forestall higher ISO efficiency over my A7S III, however the Sony does have 3 further stops of ISO efficiency if you wish to have to peer in the dead of night. 

Autofocus, The Fatal Flaw

Yes, face come across steady autofocus after all works, and it is dependable sufficient to depart on always. Sadly, the opposite AF function I exploit each day (spot monitoring or contact to trace AF) does now not. 

One of my favourite sides of on my Sony cameras is the simplicity in their autofocus method. I go away my autofocus zone in “wide,” which makes use of all of the sensor, and I go away human face detection on always. If I ever wish to focal point on anything else rather than an individual, I simply contact the again of the display it’s going to monitor no matter object I click on on. 

The S1 II isn’t that straightforward. You can both come across a subject matter, or it’s a must to flip topic detection off and transfer over to the “tracking mode” if you wish to contact to trace one thing. This itself is a large inconvenience, however I don’t believe you will have to fear about it as a result of this mode is totally unusable. The monitoring is not correct in any respect and it’s going to soar across the body or flip itself off once the topic or digital camera starts to transport. 

What’s so ordinary is that Panasonic solved the laborious phase. Automatically detecting and monitoring a human eye anyplace in all of the body turns out far more tricky than monitoring a small contrasty spot I click on on. It turns out like this might be simply fastened with a firmware replace, and Panasonic is understood to repeatedly reinforce the instrument in their cameras, however I would not grasp your breath. 

Final Thoughts

To persuade new shooters to make a choice Panasonic over the a lot more widespread pageant, they had to create a digital camera that used to be objectively higher than what’s recently available on the market, and that is the reason what they did. In nearly each class, the S1 II is the present king of hybrid video cameras. It has higher ergonomics, higher {hardware}, higher answer, higher stabilization, higher ISO efficiency, extra options, and extra customization than the contest. The L mount ecosystem and lens variety are way more powerful than I noticed. Face come across autofocus if truth be told works now… however the different main function I exploit, spot monitoring, at this level does now not paintings. Depending on the way you shoot, you would possibly not even care about this option, however I exploit it always, and it could be very tricky for me to offer it up. 

Even nonetheless, the record of benefits this digital camera has over the contest is enormous and any person searching for a hybrid video digital camera must a minimum of believe the Lumix S1 II.