Panasonic has been a pioneer in the photography industry for years, but there’s a major trend that the Japanese giant hadn’t adopted even though of its competitors have been hyping it for quite some time. And that’s full-frame mirrorless cameras. Well, Panasonic sure has taken its time but finally, that day is here where the company has launched its first-ever full-frame mirrorless cameras – Lumix S1 and Lumix S1R in India.
Lumix S1: Design and Build
From the moment you pick up the Lumix S1, you’ll see that its design is boxier than the curvaceous build of the Lumix GH5 we’ve been using. You also realize that the camera’s build is pretty sturdy and beefy since it’s made from magnesium alloy to give you an all-around weather protection – dust and water resistance. I prefer the boxier build but the weight of the camera body alone amounts to around 1 kilogram and it only gets bulkier when you attach the lens.
My favorite thing about the build of the Lumix S1 will, however, have to be the massive hand grip that gives you enough support to use the S1 comfortably. You can easily hold onto the camera with a single hand, without the fear of it slipping out from your hand. I spent a ton of time with it and was faced with on hiccups.
There are two screens that come baked into the Lumix S1. There’s a primary 3.2-inch touchscreen panel with a dual-hinge titling design (triaxial tilt) and a secondary status LCD screen on the top to display the aperture, ISO, and other inf. The latter will come in quite handy when you can’t reach the touchscreen but want to keep an eye on the major values.
Panasonic is well-known for offering a plethora of ports and connectivity options in their cameras and the Lumix S1 is no different. Starting off with card support, well, the S1 is giving you access to dual SD card slots. You can either use the usual SD card or a much faster XQD card to cater to professional photographer and cinematographers.
As for the slots, they’re all concentrated on one side of the body. These include a mic-in port, 3.5mm headphone jack, USB Type-C, and full-size HDMI port. You’ll also get Wi-Fi 802.11 a/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.2, and more in tow on the Lumix S1.
Coming to the optics, this is the most exciting part of this camera. Panasonic has finally embraced the full-frame trend and the Lumix S1 has a 24.2MP full-frame CMOS sensor, coupled with a 5-axis in-body image stabilization system (5.5-stops, which jumps to 6 stops with a lens) to capture some amazing photos and stable hand-held videos.
Before we dive in, I’m not going to lie. I’m not the most knowledgeable person when it comes to camera equipment, so I recruited Sharun from our video team to help me out with clicking pictures and feedback on the same.
Note: We’ve resized the photo samples attached above for faster loading on the website, however, you can check out the full-resolution samples via this Google Drive link.
In the samples captured in daylight (attached above), the pictures surely have a ton of detail, good color reproduction and a high dynamic range that’s quite impressive. Check out the details in this photo of a fly that Sharun had clicked. You can easily see its wings, eyes, and the tiniest of specs of dust around it, especially if you zoom in. Even all night time samples are equally good, to say the least, with zero focus issues and details preserved even for moving objects.
The Lumix S1 is pretty great in the video department as well. Check out the video sample captured at 4K 60fps with 8-bit 4:2:0 detail we’ve included in our hands-on video below.
Panasonic has stuck with the contrast detect auto-focus system as opposed to the phase detect auto-focus system that’s popular among competitors and we have mixed feelings about it – coming from the GH5. Sharun tells me that PDAF is faster and more accurate, offering a better hit rate as compared to CDAF. However, the CDAF onboard is surely not bad, focusing speeds looked good, and it only seems to have improved on the Lumix S1 in our brief usage.
Overall, Panasonic’s first attempt at full-frame cameras appears to be quite positive in my brief time spent with the Lumix S1. The camera handles everything quite well, but issues with the focus system and video recording have me torn, but I believe one would get to understand the same better in the long run.
