Following the announcement of Lumix S1 and S1R full-frame mirrorless cameras last year, Panasonic spilled the details of the two products. To begin with, Panasonic is releasing 3 lenses:
50mm f/1.4 S Pro for $2,299 – promised to deliver the highest-quality optical performance of the bunch and is best in sharpness, bokeh, contrast, etc.
24-105mm f/4 Macro for $1,299 – the kit lens that will be offered with both S1 and S1R. This lens boasts the unique ability to take macro shots just under a foot away without toggle a focus switch!
The close of 2019 shall have Panasonic releasing 3 additional lenses, with customers being able to choose from Leica and Sigma to choose from. Although Panasonic’s own lenses don’t have the Leica branding anymore, the S Pro lenses bear a certification by Leica as a validation of their quality.
Zeroing in on the specifications of the cameras, both are heavy, weighing 2.25 pounds with a battery and XQD card inside (or 2.24 if you’re using SD), and have a gorgeous 5.76 million-dot OLED electronic viewfinder that can be maneuvered between 60fps and 120fps refresh rate. The news S cameras have been scanned thoroughly, from finer detailing like the material used on the grip to button placement and customizability to major ones like upgradation of the back joystick to support 8-way presses with a status LCD at the top that Panasonic has implanted over from the G9.
Furthermore, the rear buttons are illuminated, and there are not 1 but 2 card storage slots (a UHS-II SD slot and an XQD slot), which is quite impressive. The lock function has been enhanced, too, with a switch on the top left on the back, allowing the user to effortlessly and speedily lock the d-pad, joystick, etc., without any corresponding change in settings while handing over the camera to someone else for use.
The Panasonic Lumix S1R is a through and through photographers’ grab, what with landscapes, street photography, and other such genres of photography where details make the photograph work. The high-end S series boasts of an ISO range of 100 to 25,600, and its high-resolution mode is good enough to clinch a huge 187MP RAW file which amounts to a jaw-dropping resolution of 16,736 x 11,168 pixels.
Coming to the technical specificities, Panasonic achieves its striking hi-res mode by shifting the 8 eight times by ½ a pixel to create a 4x resolution increase. For video, the Panasonic Lumix S1R can record up to 4K at 60p, but it captures that video at a cropped version, using pixel binning to ease the stress on the processor from all those pixels.
For the videographers, Panasonic Lumix S1 is what you’re looking for! S1 offers a 4K resolution of video recordings with full-sensor readout, no cropping, and no recording time limit for 4K at 30 or 24p. Moreover, native ISO runs from 100 to 51,200, and the S1’s high-res mode is suitable for 96MP shots. So it seems the S1 model is a lucrative buy for the video-buffs out there. However, Panasonic plans to charge extra for some of the S1’s most powerful video capabilities, so it might get pocket-heavy eventually.
As per plan, the S1 model will support 4:2:2 10-bit 4K/30p internal recording and 4:2:2 10-bit 4K/60p external and a V-Log much later than the launch date, wherein the users will have to pay an additional fee on top of the camera’s initial cost in order to avail them.
For the similarities between the two, here’s a brief skim through some points:
- The S1 and S1R cameras can identify human bodies and animals for subject tracking; equipped with
- the AI-assisted autofocus system, one also focuses on human eyes, but not those of your pets.
- Burst: 6FPS in continuous autofocus, 9FPS in single-focus
- 3.2-inch tilting touchscreen (2.1 million dots)
- Shutter rated for 400K actuations
- USB-C 3.1 Gen 1 PD (can plug into external PD battery pack while shooting)
In the recent past, the GH5, G9, and GH5s high-end Mirrorless cameras that Panasonic has released since 2017 have already hit the bull’s eye as professionals. The camera is up for grabs here at the large discount rates.
High-level amateurs across the world have lapped up the models due to the excellent quality of their pictures with the technology to capture the myriad hues of life in all its vitality. And Panasonic owes all of this to the world’s-first*6 support for 4K 60p/50p video recording, and the world’s fastest autofocus*7 function through the company’s proprietary DFD technology.
Up ahead in the future, Panasonic will pedal up its hold on the professional market by offering the full-frame LUMIX S series and the greater reach of its support system, as well as by continuing to support the Lumix G Micro Four Thirds System. The showdown at Photokina 2018*8 will showcase the products being developed in this release to the world at large, and all we can do is wait with bated breaths!
