Panasonic Lumix S1R II Review

The S1R II is the camera that makes Panasonic's L mount look like a serious professional system rather than a video specialist's side door. Resolution drops slightly from the original S1R and buys a great deal in return: forty frames a second on the electronic shutter, a body two hundred grams lighter, and a video specification nothing at the money touches, with 8K recording, open gate capture of the whole sensor for anyone cutting a vertical and a wide edit from one take, and internal raw.

Stabilization is the best in its class, and the tonal handling is Panasonic at its most restrained, which is a compliment. Autofocus is the part still catching up. The phase detection system is a vast improvement on the contrast based arrangement that held the brand back for years, but in flat light it hesitates where Canon and Sony do not, and switching subject modes still means a trip into the menus rather than a single automatic setting. Raw compression options are missing, which is odd in a camera this new. None of that stops it being the best value hybrid at this resolution, and reviewers said so.