PANASONIC LUMIX S1 BODY ONLY

Another full-frame mirrorless camera has entered the market. Panasonic first revealed the S1 and S1R back in September but now we have the full specifications and pricing.

Panasonic have adapted the body of the S1 to be in line with the other mirrorless cameras on the market today. It is slightly larger than the Sony A7 series and weighs in at just over 1kg. The larger size means better battery, memory storage and cooling though, which we go over later. Along with this, the S1 has a very solid and professional feeling construction.

New L-Mount Lenses:

The S1 is Panasonic’s first camera which supports their hotly anticipated L-Mount. This mount is a collaboration with Leica, Sigma and Panasonic. Currently only Leica have glass that supports this mount but Panasonic have released three new lenses:

• LUMIX S PRO 50mm F1.4
• LUMIX S PRO 70-200mm F4
• LUMIX S 24-105mm F4 MACRO

A nice feature with these lenses is the newly designed focus ring. The ring can be moved to release the focus scale for manual focus mode and then moved back to hide it for autofocus mode. You can also set the fly-by-wire focus behavior in camera. You can set the focus dependent on rotary speed in Nonlinear mode, constant focus change in Linear mode or you can set the rotation angle yourself from 270 degrees to 360.

The 70-200 and 24-105 both supports OIS. This coupled with the IBIS compensate up to 6 EV. This is great news and from what we’ve seen, the shots look nice and smooth. Obviously, a stabilised gimble will always be the best option but for in-build capabilities, this is a nice feature. As for more lenses, Panasonic claims that there will be at least 10 L-Mount lenses by the end of 2020.

The rest of the ports are pretty standard. A USB type C port for data and power, mic in, headphone out and remote port.

For those of you who like to customise your buttons on your cameras, you will be very happy. The S1 allows to you re-bind your buttons giving you completely freedom to shoot how you want to.

In term of media options, the S1 gives you two options: a standard SD and also a XQD. In my opinion, more options are always better, so being able to record write speeds of up to 400MB/s with the XQD internally is a big plus in my book.

As for battery performance, Panasonic have released a new battery the “DMW-BLJ31” with 3,050 mAh. A step up from the original BMW-BL19E (1,860 mAh). But Panasonic have another trick up their sleeve when it comes to battery performance…

We have all found ourselves with mirrorless cameras putting in a dummy battery connected to a power bank to get some more juice! The S1 features a hole in the battery door that you can move aside to thread your cable from the dummy battery. No longer will you have to risk snapping off the battery door or breaking a cable with a dummy battery. This is just one of the examples of a little feature that makes the S1 a joy.

The S1 and S1R are Panasonic’s first step into the word of mirrorless and they come with a wealth of impressive features. These cameras are definitely worth considering if you’re after a relatively small frame with some great video functionalities. The firmware update in the future will be key to the success of this camera, but right now it is still an extremely capable camera and has a lot of potential.

If you would like to hear more about the S1 then please call and talk to one of our sales staff: 0208 941 1199