Lumix S1R II video and stills photography beast -part I –
At the end of September, various camera retailers ran a promotion to celebrate Panasonic’s 24th anniversary, and the Lumix S1R II was among the items offered.
Introduction
The Lumix S1R II had long been a dream of mine, and I was actually planning to wait for Black Friday to see if a better price would be available. Then this anniversary offer came along, and I couldn’t resist, especially since the price was really good and, combined with a Lumix 24-105mm f/4.0 lens, simply unbeatable.
Of course, that’s a lot of money, and the immediate question is whether you get a lot of camera for that price. I’ll answer that upfront and say yes, even though there are a few things to criticize.
The Technical Specifications
The decisive factors in my desire to own it were, of course, the 44 megapixels for photography and the option to record up to 8.1K video. But it was also the upgrade from the Lumix S5 IIx that appealed to me, and the fact that they’d packed even more features into a body of almost the same size.
And of course, the difference in size and weight between the two cameras is quite noticeable, especially with the 20-60mm f/3.5-5.6 and the 24-10mm f/4.0 lenses.
I’ve always enjoyed shooting photos and videos with the 20-60mm because I don’t need a fast aperture, so I don’t require a standard zoom with an f/2.8 aperture. But sometimes I needed a bit more reach, and that’s where the 105mm comes in handy.
In addition, the 24-105mm has a very good minimum focusing distance, allowing for an almost 1:2 magnification ratio, which is quite respectable for a zoom lens.
Details of the changes compared to the S5 series
First, there’s the fully rotatable screen. If you’ve only ever used the standard swivel displays, you don’t know what you’re missing.
Even more important for operation aren’t the lockable buttons on the top, but the button on the left side, which switches between photo, video, and S&Q modes, is something I’ve really come to appreciate in this short time.
This allows for very quick switching between modes, and the settings remain separate in the custom C1-C5 mode, which lets you save seven basic settings separately for video and photo. This can even be expanded to ten sets.
And this adaptability is certainly one of the strengths of Lumix cameras in general.
Power-hungry and new cage
On my first walk of about three hours with the Lumix S1R II, I was lucky I had three batteries with me. Even though two of the batteries were from third-party manufacturers, the original Lumix battery also ran out quite quickly, certainly faster than, for example, in the Lumix S5 IIx. Nevertheless, it should be noted positively that Lumix doesn’t release a new battery model with every new camera model.
Then I thought I could use the Lumix S5 IIx battery cage, but unfortunately, it made it a few millimeters too wide to open the battery compartment, and the modified memory card slot cover was completely inaccessible.
More experiences will follow in part 2.
ciaot tuxoche
