Feb 01, 2019 The Panasonic Lumix DC-S1 and S1R are the company's mid and high-end full frame mirrorless cameras: both of which are built around the L-mount developed by Leica and now supported by Sigma and Panasonic. Aside from resolution and video features, the two cameras are very similar to one another.
Introduction
The Panasonic S1 is a new full-frame mirrorless camera that features a 24.2 megapixel sensor, an expanded ISO range of 80-204,800, the latest Venus image processing engine, and a 5.76-million-dot OLED electronic viewfinder with magnification that can be adjusted from 0.78x to 0.74x or 0.7x.
The Lumix S1 offers 4K video recording at up to 60/50p in 4:2:0 8-bit quality directly to SD- or XQD-card or 4:2:2 8-bit through HDMI for up to 30 minutes, while 4K/30p and Full HD can be recorded without a time limit. A future firmware update will unlock the option to record 4K 60/50p 4:2:2 10-bit via HDMI-output and 30p/25p/24p in 4:2:2and add V Log.
A standout feature is the High Resolution mode, which allows the Panasonic S1 to capture 96-megapixel equivalent photos by rapidly taking 8 separate images and combining them into one. Other key features include a 6-stop Dual Image Stabilizer (when used with compatible lenses), 6fps continuous shooting with full-time auto-focusing (9fps without), auto-focusing speed of 0.08 sec down to -6EV low-light, and Eye AF mode and animal recognition driven by Artificial Intelligence Technology.
The weatherproof Panasonic S1 has a large status LCD on top of the camera for quickly checking the camera's key settings, a thumb-controlled AF joystick on the rear, a triaxial tilt 3.2-inch touchscreen LCD with 2.1-million-dot resolution, dual SD/XQD memory card slots, Bluetooth and wi-fi connectivity, and USB charging.
The Panasonic S1 is priced at £2,199.99 / $2,499.99 body only, or £2,999.99 / $3,399.99 with the Lumix S 24-105mm MACRO F4 O.I.S. kit lens.
Ease of Use
Key Specifications
- 24.2 megapixels, no low pass filter
- 96 megapixel high resolution mode
- 5-axis 5.5-stop in-body image stabilisation
- 6-stop Dual Image Stabilisation system
- 5.76-million-dot OLED electronic viewfinder
- 3.2-inch touchscreen LCD with 2.1-million-dot resolution
- ISO 51200
- 0.08 sec autofocusing down to -6EV
- Eye AF and animal recognition
- 6fps burst shooting with continuous AF/AE
- 4K 60/50p 4:2:0 in 8 Bit internally, 4:2:2 externally
(4K 60/50p 4:2:2 10 Bit via HDMI-output and 30p/25p/24p in 4:2:2 will be available later in 2019, along with V Log) - Full pixel readout at 30p
- Variety of gamma curves, including Cinelike D/V, Like709 and Hybrid Log Gamma
- 65:24 Film Panorama and 2:1 wide panoramic aspect ratios
- 6K photo mode at 30fps and 4K photo mode at 60fps
- 400,000 frames shutter life
- Bluetooth and wi-fi connectivity
- 1/320th second flash sync speed
- Dual SD/XQD memory card slots
- Weatherproof body
- Size: 148.9 x 110.0 x 96.7 mm
- Weight: 899g
Front of the Panasonic S1 |
Comprehensively featured and of tank-like build quality – including weather proof exterior - the mirrorless Panasonic S1 will be the answer to a lot of photographers’ prayers, who either take their hobby or their living seriously.
But at the same time it has its work cut out in making an impact on the increasing crowded full frame compact system camera market. Especially now that Canon and Nikon have, respectively and slightly late in the day, got serious with their EOS R and ‘Z’ series of similarly specified and targeted full frame mirrorless models.
Until relatively recently, ‘mirrorless’ was shorthand for small, compact and lightweight interchangeable lens cameras. And of course, since 2009 Panasonic has largely pioneered that perception and intent.
Increasingly though, the latest generation are anything but diminutive (partly because of their adoption of full frame sensors, of course), which may win over some converts from DSLR looking for an image capture device that handles in a similar fashion, but is just slightly smaller. Several of us long term observers of the mirrorless market, will, however, be scratching our heads somewhat about where all this is going. Is increasingly bigger always increasingly better?
Front of the Panasonic S1 |
And so Panasonic enters the current full frame war with not one but two new mirrorless models, lest its foray into full frame – up until now it has been Four Thirds format chips all the way – should seem like an afterthought, or bandwagon jumping.
The S1 we’re looking at here is outwardly identical to its S1R sibling in terms of design, layout and dimensions, the difference being that the S1 offers 24.2 effective megapixels from its 25.28MP full frame sensor, and is aimed at next generation photo and video creators, says its manufacturer.
The S1R meanwhile, as hinted at by its suffix, ups the resolution to a whopping 47 megapixels, intending to win over photographers looking for the ultimate in picture quality and subject definition. Arguably, that sort of resolution is only ever needed by the commercial photographer, making the more affordable 24MP S1 the option most worth considering by all the rest of us.
Sensors and resolution apart, the other main talking point here is the Panasonic ‘S’ series’ adoption of Leica’s L lens mount – something that saw it enter a collaborative partnership, known as the ‘L-Mount Alliance’, with both Leica and Sigma at German trade show Photokina last year.
Rear of the Panasonic S1 |
When it comes to more tried and tested features, the Panasonic S1 is no slouch either. These include a new Venus Engine processor, 4K video at up to an impressive 60P to keep the more serious videographers happy, double card slot for both SD and XQD media to be able to cope with the demand for somewhere to store all that data, plus three axis tilting LCD – also useful as an aid to shooting video as well as more unusual compositions when you can always get an eye flush to the viewfinder.
Speaking of which, ranged directly above the LCD with a large, prominent and comfortable eye piece is a high 5.76 million dot resolution EVF, offering a quality claimed as very close to human vision. In short, it’s easy to forget we’re not actually using an optical viewfinder.
Added to this is the belt and braces of a dual image stabilisation system (in-body IS and lens IS) when shooting handled and in lower lighting conditions, plus dust and splash-proof body, with all seams tightly sealed against moisture ingress. Phew!
While the above specification indicates something approaching a professional tool, we only have to grip the Panasonic S1 in our palm to be further further reassured. It helps too to justify the price – around £3,000 in the UK when bundled with the 24-105mm standard zoom lens we were supplied with - that this is a veritable doorstop of a camera, whilst not being so prohibitively heavy with the lens affixed that we ended up with back or shoulder ache.
Top of the Panasonic S1 |
That said, if you’re out shooting with the S1 and zoom over the course of, say, a day, you’ll certainly feel its combined presence afterwards nonetheless. Showing its mettle, Panasonic has previously promised that a total of 10 new lenses will be available for its S system by the close of 2020, alongside whatever Leica and Sigma offer up.
Examining the camera in more detail, front-on the S1 (and its S1R doppelganger) looks quite angular and brutalist in its design, festooned with the buttons and dials you’d expect to find at this price point and for this intended skill set.
Not surprisingly, that wide L lens mount dominates proceedings at the front of the camera, along with a hand grip that, while narrower than that typically found on a semi pro DSLR, nevertheless feels just right for the S1’s own shape and build, enabling the camera to be operated with just one hand, even if additionally curling the fingers of your left hand around the lens barrel feels much more comfortable and natural. This is quite a weighty and bulky camera with lens attached after all.
With the lower three fingers of your right hand curled around the S1’s grip, your forefinger is free to alternate between rotating the control dial that sits slightly proud of the grip at its topper-most edge, and the slightly raised and angled shutter release button just atop it, which is responsively spring-y.
Sitting just behind these controls are three small raised buttons. From left to right, these are for manually adjusting white balance, light sensitivity and exposure settings. They sit in front of a top plate LCD window on which photographers can view their alteration of such settings in real time. The Panasonic S1's layout feels ergonomic and its operation – particularly of such key and regularly used features – well thought through.
The Panasonic S1 In-hand |
Indeed, with the Panasonic S1 you quickly find yourself making adjustments on the fly, with barely the need to pause and consider what you’re doing. It’s intuitive, in other words. The LCD also, usefully, has a very small so easily overlooked illumination button next to it, for when you’re trying to adjust key settings in the dim, as we were when attempting to capture the Northern Lights recently against almost a pitch-black night.
It’s easy to overlook this setting not just because of size, but because the much more important on/of switch – here more of an actual lever, sits next to it. This is quite stiff in operation – you almost have to force it – which, to give it a positive spin, means this is a camera that is almost impossible to accidentally activate or deactivate. Flick this lever to on and the camera is ready to take the first shot just as quickly as your finger can move from it to the shutter release button just in front. There’s no waiting around with the S1 – it’s ready when you are.
The control dial at the front of the handgrip is, incidentally, mirrored by one the size of a five pence piece that sits recessed into the top plate at the back. Here it readily (and again, ergonomically) falls under the thumb of the right hand; thereby continuing to give the impression that the layout has been well thought through, making the Panasonic S1 quickly feel familiar in a new pair of hands.
While holding down, say, the likes of the ISO button, you can once again use this alternative dial to scroll through settings that alter in real time on the LCD window in front of you. You’re not left grappling around trying to find a way to adjust the essentials – the methods to do so are, literally, at your fingertips.
With a chunky, roughly ridged and raised shooting mode dial over at the left hand edge of the camera, stereo microphones and a vacant hotshoe for accessory flash slotted in between – there’s no built-in pop up flash on the Panasonic S1 – via said dial it’s also easy to adjust settings from intelligent Auto focus to program, shutter priority, aperture priority or manual pretty quickly.
Dual Memory Card Slots |
A dial-unlocking button needs to be depressed in tandem with a turn of said dial to be able to arrive at your preferred setting. On the same dial we also get a manual video mode setting and no fewer than three custom modes. Sitting just beneath we get a second dial, for selecting drive modes, which is also where you’ll find the interval shooting and self timer options.
With lugs for attaching the shoulder strap provided out of the box to be found left and right of the camera, one flank provides a port protected by a sliding switch that allows for the insertion of SD and XQD card – or both – while the other provides a means of connecting a cable release, accessory microphone and headphones, plus the inevitable full-sized USB and HDMI leads. The rubberized flaps protecting these feel a little flimsier than the rest of the camera, and time will tell whether these become worn and stop adhering so flush-ly over time.
Moving to the back of the Panasonic S1, again this is button festooned without being over-bearing-ly so. The camera’s LCD screen is also a touch screen, meaning that you can, if wished, drag the focus area around the screen with your finger or thumb. Alternatively, if you prefer physical controls, you can use the small thumb-operated joystick to the right of the LCD to do the same. Again… it’s just so intuitive. The back of the camera is also, as expected, where we find the playback button for reviewing stills and video, as well as switching auto focus settings from single to continuous to manual focus.
This being a Panasonic camera, as on its compacts we’re provided with the very useful Quick menu short cut button – located via the button marked with an enigmatic ‘Q’ situated top right of the LCD. Menu / set, delete, display and ‘back’ buttons are also to be found at the rear of the S1, along with a familiar multi-directional control pad, encircled by a scroll wheel for maximum fluidity of operation.
Menu screens are, as expected, comprehensively featured but pleasingly legible and intuitively navigated. That said it was also nice to have the Quick menu feature in order to circumnavigate them when we knew what we wanted and wanted to get to the relevant setting swiftly.
Tilting LCD Screen |
Operationally, while for most part our use of the Panasonic S1 was plain sailing, there were a few niggles, including that chunkiness of build and attendant heft, for us an occasional irritant was the AF, at least in single shot mode, hunting around in busier scenes and lower lighting conditions, leading us to switch to manual focusing in order for us to achieve the accuracy of focus we wanted.
At the base of the camera we find a single screw thread, located directly in line with the central point of the lens mount, for attaching the S1 to a tripod. Also found here, nestled within the base of the S1’s handgrip is the rechargeable DMW-BLJ31 lithium ion battery provided. A ‘proper’ charger with its own mains plug is also provided out of the box – or at least was with our fully working review sample.
Battery life is good for at least a claimed 380 to 400 shots, depending on whether you’re mainly using the EVF or the rear monitor, which should last you a day’s sightseeing at least (and did us), as long as you're not ‘machine gunning’ every subject.
So, while the Panasonic S1 seems a competent camera in most respects, are the pictures that it produces also worthy of respect? Read on to find out...
The Lumix S1 is not the camera I thought Panasonic would build. It is bigger, heavier, and more expensive than I expected. But it is also bolder, taking risks and trying new things other companies shy away from. Panasonic has written a new recipe for a mirrorless camera, one that leaves no ingredients on the shelf.
But if Panasonic is an underdog, it certainly isn’t acting like one. It slapped a $2,500 price tag on the S1 — $500 more than the Sony A7 III and Nikon Z 6, which are built around similar sensors. It knows it has something special here and has faith that it will be successful.
That faith is well placed. The S1 is one of the most versatile and capable cameras ever made, mirrorless or not, and it’s more impressive for being a first-generation product. It shows what’s possible when a camera is built without the usual constraints put on size and weight, and while that may limit the breadth of its appeal, it’s dominant for the right customer. Backed by the strength of two other companies, Sigma and Leica, in the heroic-sounding L-Mount Alliance, Panasonic also has a competitive edge not usually afforded to new camera systems, as more native lenses will be available for the S1 in its first year than Nikon’s and Canon’s new mirrorless systems.
Design and handling
It isn’t just image quality or performance that separates a professional camera from a consumer model. Control and durability are equally important. Panasonic knows this, and the S1 is built like a tank. At 2.25 pounds, it has half a pound on the Sony A7 III and Nikon Z 6 — in fact, it’s even heavier than even the Nikon D850 DSLR. Panasonic is embracing the fact that a mirrorless camera has much more to offer than weight savings when it comes to replacing your DSLR.
Fortunately, the S1 puts that weight to good use. It is professionally weather-sealed so it can withstand rain, snow, and dust. It has a large, comfortable grip that feels secure in your hand. It offers dual memory card slots, one SD and one XQD (which will also be compatible with CFExpress cards in the near future). There’s a full-size HDMI port, a USB-C port that can power and charge the camera, and both headphone and microphone jacks.
The body is absolutely covered in buttons, dials, and switches providing more direct access control than any other mirrorless camera. The button layout is very similar, although not identical, to that of the Lumix G9, one of the best Micro Four Thirds cameras we’ve ever tested. It is also the same as the S1R — you don’t sacrifice any usability by opting for the S1, despite it being $1,200 cheaper.
I love how easy it is to customize the controls to your liking. Simply hold a button down until the custom settings menu appears on the screen, then select the desired function for it. There’s no more digging through the menu trying to figure out which icon corresponds to which button (although, Panasonic has redesigned the menus, and that particular task is clear now).
The body is covered in buttons, dials, and switches providing more direct control than any other mirrorless camera.
The interface offers other improvements. If you want to quickly cycle through autofocus modes, ISO settings, or white balance presets, simply tap the corresponding button. You can press the button and then use one of the command dials to adjust the setting, as usual, but I was surprised by how natural it felt to tap ISO three times to raise it by a stop, rather than having to manipulate two different controls.
On the front of the camera you’ll find a two-position switch that can be set to toggle different settings. The choices are many, but I programmed it to swap between standard single-point autofocus and face/eye-detection. This let me change focus modes on the fly to fit the situation without even taking my eye from the viewfinder.
On top of the camera is an LCD information display that’s the biggest of any mirrorless camera. Turn on the backlight, and it glows a warm amber color — several of the buttons on the back of the camera also light up, although we wish all of them did.
It’s this attention to detail that makes the S1 a great camera. Even the shutter button has been angled slightly to the right to better fit your index finger. The only nagging point is the power switch, which is placed in an awkward position just behind the shutter release, but at least it’s on the right side of the camera.
User experience
Raise the S1 to your eye and the first thing you notice is how beautiful the view is through the expansive electronic viewfinder. Colors are rich, you can see detail in the highlights and shadows. It’s so sharp, you can’t make out individual pixels anywhere.
Take a picture, and the next thing you notice is how whisper-quiet the shutter is. Such a soft noise coming from such a hefty camera is confusing at first; looking at the S1, you expect the fwap-clang! of a DSLR, and instead you get something more like the muffled click of a point-and-shoot. In fact, it’s so quiet that the first time I shot the S1, I wrongly assumed it was set to electronic shutter mode, and the sound I was hearing was just a simulated noise playing through the camera’s speaker. I double-checked the settings to make sure the mechanical shutter was on; it was.
Love it or hate it, there is no getting around how much the S1 weighs. This is a heavy camera, and the trio of Lumix L-mount lenses currently available are no lightweights, either. The two zooms, a 24-105mm f/4 and 70-200mm f/4, are both well-made and feel good in the hand, but even with their relatively slow f/4 apertures, they are still quite big. The S Pro 50mm f/1.4 — which is a stunning lens — weighs over 2 pounds on its own. (It also costs $2,300 — yikes.)
If you’re looking for a lightweight system, look elsewhere. In fact, look away from full frame entirely. Panasonic will happily sell you a Micro Four Thirds camera, after all.
But despite the weight, or perhaps because of it, the S1 provides a satisfying shooting experience. It feels purposeful, determined. It’s a pickup truck; it exists to do a job. You don’t buy it to take on vacation. You invest in it to do work.
Features and specifications
If the professional control layout doesn’t sell you on the S1, the electronic viewfinder just might. We’ve seen great EVFs before, but none quite like this. The OLED panel packs in some 5.7 million pixels, 2 million more than the already excellent EVFs of the Nikon Z 6, Fujifilm X-T3, and Canon EOS R — and over 3 million more than the Sony A7 III. It can also refresh at either 60 or 120 frames per second.
Pushing that many pixels that quickly spells disaster for the battery, however. Even with a large capacity of 3050mAh, battery life is rated for just 380 shots per charge. In my experience, I made some 250 exposures before the indicator dropped to about 50 percent. It’s not a scientific measurement, and battery life varies greatly depending on use, but I would expect to get around 500 shots per charge. (A power saving mode extends this to over 1,000, according to Panasonic, but I did not test this.)
You’ll love the beautiful view through the expansive electronic viewfinder.
At any rate, it’s a small price to pay for the best EVF on the market. It’s virtually impossible to detect individual pixels, even when looking at the fine text in the exposure meter, for example. It’s a beautiful piece of engineering and should ease any lingering concerns that a diehard DSLR user may have about giving up their optical viewfinder.
Feeding that EVF is a 24-megapixel sensor with no anti-aliasing filter, providing sharper details at the potential cost of moiré. That’s a little more than half the resolution of the Lumix S1R’s 47MP, but it’s more than enough for most photographic tasks.
It also helps for continuous shooting. Both cameras can churn out 9 frames per second (6 with continuous autofocus), but the S1 can maintain that for much longer. In our testing, we captured 75 images at 9 fps before the buffer filled up, compared to just 32 for the S1R, when using the XQD card.
And if 24 megapixels aren’t enough for you, place the camera on a tripod and turn on High Resolution Mode to create a 96MP image. The S1 is basically two cameras in one, giving you lower resolution when you need speed, and ultra-high resolution when you need detail for landscapes or still life subjects. (If you really need to maximize detail, the high resolution mode on the S1R outputs a staggering 187MP.)
High resolution mode works by taking eight images and combining them into one, but it shifts the sensor by microscopic amounts between each. Not only does this capture additional spatial resolution, but it also cancels out the effect of the Bayer filter by recording full RGB color data at every pixel location. Also, it dramatically reduces the chance of moiré.
It’s made possible thanks to the 5-axis sensor-shift stabilization system in the S1. Beyond high resolution mode, this offers up to 6 stops of shake reduction when paired with an optically stabilized lens. That’s 1 to 1.5 stops less than what you get in the Olympus OM-D E-M1X, but it still makes a huge difference in real-world conditions, for both stills and video.
Autofocus
The one controversial line the S1’s spec sheet is contrast-detection autofocus. Panasonic opted against the faster phase-detection autofocus in favor of its own Depth from Defocus (DFD) technology, which is basically hyper-advanced contrast detection. Phase-detection is the gold standard of autofocus, as it not only knows when an image is in or out of focus, but also whether an out-of-focus image is front- or back-focused. That means it knows which direction to turn the lens to achieve focus, speeding the process up and generally removing the focus “hunting” that occurs in contrast-detection systems.
DFD closes the gap between contrast and phase detection by continuously comparing two images at slightly different focus positions, then analyzing the change in blur between the two to determine which direction, and by how far, to move the focus. This runs at a blazing 480 frames per second on the S1, good for a claimed focusing speed of 0.08 seconds — within striking distance of the best phase-detection systems.
It works well about 90 percent of the time. Comparing it side-by-side with a Canon EOS RP (which uses phase-detection), I couldn’t tell a difference in speed at all, even when quickly focusing back and forth between near and distant subjects. In this scenario, it was flawless.
However, in other situations the autofocus would sometimes hunt before locking in, causing a significant delay before I could snap the picture. It felt almost random. Autofocus would work for a while, and then suddenly start hunting for no apparent reason. This could be a problem if your photography demands a fast reaction time.
The S1 also gets advanced subtract tracking thanks to deep learning. It can recognize people, either full bodies or just the faces and eyes, and some animals. This feature works even at long distances. As you can see in the video at the top of the page, which was shot on the S1, it also works in continuous mode. Even without a 180-degree flip screen, I could trust the camera was keeping me in focus. However, you can notice some “breathing” in the background highlights — that’s the DFD system slightly adjusting focus to create those comparison images it needs.
Image quality
While S series customers likely skew toward professional and will shoot in RAW, it’s worth noting the S1 produces some of the best out-of-camera JPEGs I’ve ever seen. Panasonic’s color science is really dialed in here. Skin tones look fantastic, with perfect color and tonality that softens shadows on your subject without removing too much contrast. It’s a look that is difficult to copy when working with the RAW file. (All RAW images were converted to Adobe DNGs, as third-party RAW support for the S1 wasn’t available at the time of this review. Image quality may change slightly when the files are officially supported.)
Of course, the JPEGs won’t hold up to manipulation in postproduction. That is where the RAW files come in, and the S1’s are every bit as malleable as those from Sony and Nikon, and perhaps even more so. This is where the camera benefits from its DFD autofocus system. By not layering phase-detect pixels over the sensor, you can push exposures much further without running into banding.
High ISO performance is also solid, with good noise levels through ISO 25,600. The top ISO of 51,200 is usable at reduced image sizes, but does show a significant jump in noise in dark areas. This is where the S1 has an edge over the S1R, which tops out at ISO 25,600 and exhibits slightly more noise throughout the ISO range. You can boost the S1’s ISO even higher, to 204,800, but expect heavy noise at that setting.
The one thing to watch out for with the S1 is moiré. Without an anti-aliasing filter, certain fine patterns — like the threads in clothing — can create interference with the pixels, leading to a rainbow-like effect (this is demonstrated in the video at the top of the page). I only noticed this once throughout my review, but if photograph a lot of portraits, particularly fashion where clothing itself is the subject, this could cause a problem.
To be fair, this is no different than other cameras of similar resolution that lack anti-aliasing filters — like the Nikon Z 6 — but it is one reason why some photographers should opt for higher-resolution models. With nearly twice the pixels, the 47MP S1R will be much less prone to moiré. Again, for nonmoving subjects, high resolution mode offers another solution.
Video quality
The S1 may not be the GH5 of the full-frame world, but it packs a punch when it comes to video. It can shoot 4K at 24 and 30 frames per second from the full width of the sensor, or at 60 frames per second from a cropped region of the sensor. It can also produce in-camera slow motion using a high framerate mode. It doesn’t have the 400-megabit-per-second codec of the GH5, but it can still output a clean signal over HDMI (which uses a full-size Type A connector). In the future, a paid firmware update will unlock V-log and 4:2:2 10-bit recording.
Video quality in 4K at 24 fps is quite good. There’s plenty of detail and color, and it’s certainly enough for the still photographer who needs to shoot video on the side. High framerate mode does reduce quality, and is much more susceptible to moiré, as you can see in the sample video. That isn’t great, but it’s also not uncommon — most cameras drop quality significantly in high framerate mode.
For now, the S1 is a capable video camera that finds itself among the best of its peers in the full-frame world, even if it doesn’t quite match the smaller-format GH5. It will also get better in the near future, at least for customers who don’t mind shelling out an as-yet-unstated price for the V-Log update. But with Nikon soon offering RAW video output on the Z series, Panasonic may need to work harder to win over hybrid still/video shooters. Given the S1’s high starting price, good enough isn’t good enough.
Our TakePanasonic is taking a big risk with the Lumix S series. Not only is it stepping into full-frame territory for the first time, it’s doing so with a camera that throws out conventional wisdom about what a mirrorless camera should be. It’s big, it’s heavy, and it’s magnificent. Whether Panasonic can win working professionals away from the more established brands of Nikon, Canon, and Sony remains to be seen, but the S1 is certainly up for the challenge.
The S1 isn’t perfect, however. Autofocus errors, as intermittent as they are, are a cause for concern. Softness and moiré in slow-motion video could make the feature unusable. On a $2,000 camera body, these would be somewhat forgivable; on a $2,500 body, customers are going to be more critical.
That said, from the perspective of both image quality and features, the S1 remains the most impressive mirrorless camera I have used to date, and it’s only going to get better. Sigma recently announced it would bring 11 of its high-end Art lenses to the L-mount, and of course Leica already makes several (not that most people could afford them). This will accelerate the maturation of the S series at a pace Canon and Nikon simply can’t match.
How long will it last?
The S1 is sturdy and professionally weather sealed. It should hold up to the demands of working photographers for years. This is a new system, so we don’t yet know what Panasonic’s upgrade schedule will be, but it will likely be 2 to 3 years before a replacement camera hits the market.
Is there a better alternative?
There isn’t any one camera that’s definitively better than the S1, but several have specific features that might matter to you. If you want a smaller camera without giving up the full-frame sensor, the Sony A7 III is a good choice — it’s also cheaper and uses phase-detection autofocus.
No other camera can match the S1’s combination of features, image quality, durability, and control layout. It also has the best EVF in the business.
Should you buy it?
Yes. For those who want the best at any cost, the Lumix S1 makes a strong case for your money.