A near-perfect creator’s camera if money is no object

After a six-year wait, Panasonic’s S1 II is lastly right here and there is a lot to unpack. As you’d anticipate from this firm, it’s creator-centric with as much as 5.8K ProRes RAW inner video recording. On the similar time, it’s Panasonic’s quickest full-frame picture digicam ever with 70 fps burst speeds and diminished rolling shutter distortion because of the brand new partially stacked 24-megapixel sensor. And with an AI-powered hybrid part detect system, autofocus is now not a weak level because it was with the unique S1.

There’s one situation although, and a stunning one for Panasonic: the value. The $3,200 S1 II is just like Nikon’s Z6 III, proper all the way down to the partially stacked sensor and inner RAW video. Nevertheless, the latter is a few $700 cheaper and may typically be discovered on sale for even much less. Since Panasonic typically undercuts rivals, that places the S1 II within the uncommon place of being overpriced subsequent to the competitors. After testing it for the final month, I’ve discovered that whether or not it is value it relies on your priorities.

Dealing with and design

The S1 II shares its glorious physique design with the higher-resolution S1R II and the cheaper, non-stacked S1 IIe. It’s significantly lighter than the unique S1 at 1.76 kilos and far smaller as effectively, each of which make it much less burdensome. It’s additionally straightforward to carry because of the massive ridged grip. Nevertheless, it’s extra angular and has a more durable rubber pores and skin than Canon’s rival EOS R6 II, so it’s not fairly as snug over lengthy capturing classes.

The superb management structure makes the S1 II a breeze to make use of. It has all of the buttons and dials you want they usually’re effectively situated — notably the joystick and management dials. There’s a devoted swap for images, video and gradual and fast (S&Q) modes, and every has separate changes so that you received’t combine them up. It additionally has a devoted autofocus swap, two video document buttons (high and entrance), 10 different programmable buttons and a tally gentle.

I hardly ever wanted to seek for settings because of the logical color-coded tabs and easy-to-use fast menu, each accessible by contact or the joystick. Panasonic additionally made it easy to program buttons, dials and the short menu to your private preferences and it lets you save them to a reminiscence card as a backup.

The S1 II’s digital viewfinder is vibrant and sharp, matching the Z6 III with a decision of 5.76 million dots and 0.78x magnification. The rear show not solely swivels out but in addition tilts up and down for overhead or hip-level pictures. As compared, Nikon’s Z6 III display doesn’t tilt, so it’s not as versatile.

As with the S1R II, battery life isn’t a powerful level right here, with solely 360 photographs on a cost or 320 when utilizing the EVF. To be truthful, that matches the Z6 III precisely (and Panasonic’s non-stacked S1 II is just barely higher at 380 photographs), however Canon’s cheaper R6 II has greater than twice the battery life at 760 photographs.

In an effort to seize RAW video, the S1 II has a CFexpress Kind B card slot together with a slower SDXC UHS-II slot. Just like the S5 IIx and GH7 (and several other Fujifilm fashions), it additionally helps high-bandwidth RAW video seize to an SSD by way of the USB-C port.

The S1 II comes with a full-sized HDMI port that helps Blackmagic and ProRes RAW seize. You additionally get mic and headphone ports, and you may seize 32-bit float audio by way of the non-compulsory XLR2 accent to cut back the potential for clipping. Lastly, the S1 II has a carbon fiber curtain that comes down to guard the sensor like current Canon and Sony fashions.

Efficiency

The S1 II can fireplace bursts at a pedestrian 10 fps in mechanical shutter mode, however helps an excellent 70 RAW photos per second with the digital shutter. And when you’re nervous about skewed photos, don’t fret. Distortion is minimal in digital mode because of the partially-stacked sensor that has a speedy readout pace of round 12 milliseconds. That’s quick sufficient for sports activities or wildlife pictures, except the topic strikes very quickly.

Pre-burst seize, which begins once you half-press the shutter, can also be accessible on the highest speeds. That permits you to save as much as 1.5 seconds of images you may need in any other case missed when you totally press the shutter button. The buffer is a bit small, although, so you possibly can solely seize about three seconds (220 photographs) on the 70 fps pace.

The hybrid phase-detect autofocus is one of the best of any Panasonic digicam I’ve examined thus far. Nevertheless, it’s not but as much as Sony and Canon’s requirements for pace and accuracy, and falls a bit wanting Nikon’s Z6 III. Should you’re capturing a fast-moving topic on the most burst price of 70 fps, you may even see quite a lot of out-of-focus images.

The S1 II helps a number of AI modes — together with animals, birds and automobiles — on high of human eye-tracking modes. I had combined success with these because the digicam had hassle locking onto the eyes of some birds and marine mammals I shot on the Vancouver Aquarium. Nevertheless, it was higher with extra typical animal topics like canine, cats, horses and geese. Panasonic additionally launched an AF mode known as City Sports activities that improves monitoring for breakdancing, skateboarding and parkour. I examined that mode with some skate boarders on the highest burst settings and noticed a excessive share (90-plus) of in-focus photographs.

One space the place Panasonic tops its rivals is stabilization. That’s been boosted to eight stops (barely wanting the R6 II’s eight and a half stops), which allowed me to shoot at shutter speeds all the way down to a half second and nonetheless get sharp photographs. And as I’ll clarify shortly, the S1 II is peerless in terms of video stabilization.

Picture high quality

I’ve been impressed with Panasonic’s colour science of late, discovering that it matches Nikon in delivering among the most color-accurate photos of any system. By comparability, Canon’s photos skew hotter, and I really feel that Sony fashions just like the A7 IV lack some accuracy, notably with blue-green colours.

The S1 II delivers pleasing JPEGs with a pleasant steadiness between sharpness and noise discount, although the latter can get overly aggressive at excessive ISO ranges. RAW photos supply loads of element in gentle and darkish areas of the picture, letting you tweak and proper to a tremendous diploma. Remember the fact that utilizing the digital shutter in burst modes reduces RAW bit depth from 14 to 12.

The draw back of any stacked sensor is further noise, and the S1 II isn’t any exception. That is most obvious at greater ISO ranges the place the digicam displays a bit extra grain than Panasonic’s S5, which has the identical decision however isn’t stacked. That mentioned, the S1 II has about the identical low-light prowess because the Z6 III and beats most totally stacked cameras.