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What a mess. And the Z6 III has been out for about a year already. A dollar short and a day late. The marketing agency working for Panasonic in the UK by the way, emailed me the wrong prices. Indeed, they emailed EVERYONE completely the wrong prices. I had to let them know, and then got a correction a few hours later.

So then which of the 5 of the 24 megapixel bodies are you guys going to choose... The S1 II, S1 IIe, S5X, S5 II or S9? The price of the S1 II is $600 more than the nearest competitors from Canon and Nikon, which is just absolutely deranged. May as well get the S1R II instead? And the S1 IIe cannibalises both the S5X and S5 II, which may as well now be dead. It's one of the worst examples of product planning I've ever witnessed in the camera industry.

Some other bits gleaned from watching a few reviews: 4kp120 is at 1.17x crop, not full sensor width (from the Petapixel review) Autofocus is... still not quite Canon/Sony level (from the Media Division review) Dynamic range, especially with DRO on, looks very nice (from the MD review)

It actually looks almost perfect for me (being a Lumix user). I think I'll stick with my 2 S5iis until the S1ii is on offer next year. Then I'll probably sell a S5ii and the Sigma 28-70 and get a S1ii and 24-60 combo.

Part of the problem is that the difference in prices is enough that the impatient might just decide to ditch their Lumix gear and buy Nikon. "You can have the same sensor, but with worse RS and a little more DR, and btw, it costs almost 2x as much" is not the selling point that one might think.

As expected Lumix S1 II uses the same sensor as Nikon Z6 III. Panasonic apparently managed to improve on Nikon Z6 III Achilles heel - 1 stop of lower dynamic range in ISOs under 800. Lumix S1 II has DR above 12 stops at the expense of slightly slower rolling shutter. That's a good decision and achievement. We can always go to APS-C mode and have really fast 6ms rolling shutter. Price in Europe is 3500 Euro as rumors suggested. I think this is a good strategy from Panasonic. Sell to the more impatient at higher price, then as time passes prices will go down. Nikon Z6 III started at more than 2600 Euro, now can be purchased brand new for 2000 Euro. Lumix S1 II is a true hybrid but more on the video side.

There's no chance I'll get one, but I don't think the S1II is that bad. Price is too high, but as I said a few pages ago, tariff disruptions drive all prices up. I'm curious whether the S1IIE uses the sensor from the S1 or from the S1II. It's quite a bit cheaper. Newsshooter says "partially stacked" for the S1IIE, and it has 4k120, so I wonder if it's got the faster readout of the S1II. If so, that's a decent discount for losing 5.1k60, raw, and DR boost, non of which I really care about, while (maybe?) keeping the features I like: faster readout, full size HDMI, 32 bit XLR adapter, and non-jangly neck trap loops.

From Canada they called a true masterpiece 😉

dpreview's 'review in progress' is up - https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonic-lumix-dc-s1ii-review

No OLPF, tons of moiré and slower readout than the much cheaper Z6iii (with excellent n-raw). Thanks but no thanks.

Out of interest, here is a "6x the price, 6x better?" comparison of the two lenses. I have the cheaper one and it is indeed a great little lens.

Well based on what we have seen or is imminent, it certainly looks that way, because the S1R was one of their 'pro' cameras and that has now been downgraded to what we might call 'prosumer' as in pro features in a more consumer body. Any 'S2H' would need to follow suit or stand alone as a solo flagship as the S1Rii is not going to be replaced for years and years. If ever, depending on the survival of the company. My gut instinct is it's the end of the line. Literally. If these new releases and existing stuff are good enough for your/our needs, then great, but I don't think there is anything more exciting coming in the future. It would need a radical change in; management, strategy, marketing and budget and I just don't see that happening. S9 and S5ii have been and probably will remain 'peak Lumix' for me and as I have stated many times, work very well for me and my needs, but will I still be with anything L Mount in 2026? More than likely not.

Er no, I'm very much talking about the relatively inexpensive 18-105 f4 - worked on the zoom rocker on both my FS7 and FX30. Excellent little lens for the price.

At this point, with 6 FF cameras with overlapping features, I don't see how an S1HII could come out. It seems to me that Panasonic's R&D has reached a dead end.

$3500 is a lot to ask for this camera. I really don't see a ton of reasons to go with it over the S5ii/X. I don't think it's a bad release, but that's not a very competitive price point. Still, I'd like to hear from folks who've used it once it hits real users hands.

Hopefully because price is key (although I'm not sure if they raised the price in the EU etc as well). If we are talking 300€ cheaper than the original quotes, so 2500€ and 3200€, then it becomes quite interesting.

Price will be probably lower. This $3500 is likely post-crazy-tariffs calculation and they would revise that, given the newly released tariff numbers.

And not a single Word on an OLPF in the white papers. Probably saving that for the S1Hii coming in a decade.

That in itself is already another notch in the belt of marketing failure. The anticipation should be buzzing not moaning. It’s called hype and it’s up to a company and their marketing department to create that. Some would argue that in this day and age, it’s influencers that create hype and to an extent that is true, but my point is, as a company, you need to get them onboard from the start and the start is A. creating a genuinely great product and then B. getting that info out there. Panasonic Lumix don’t seem to be very good at playing that game and it’s almost as if they are not even aware that the game even exists. You add in the pricing and it suggests that whoever determines these things, lives in a bubble that is not quite reality. However, if I understand the spec sheet leak, the headline is 6k 60p Open Gate? That would/will indeed be something. Not ‘something enough’ to make me buy the thing at by the sounds of it, €4000, but at least something. For €4k I’d want an FX3 style body and the next gen S1H with all of the previous build quality and like @Andrew Reid suggests, the top LCD screen just because it is cool as fuck. The business/financial decision for me is purely: A. Is it more suited for my needs than my principal run & gun unit, my S9? God no, not even close. I would prefer to have full frame 6k 60p open gate over the 30p I currently have, but the compromises I’d need to make would be overwhelming detrimental. B. For my other needs, a pair of static’s, does the new camera have any merit over a pair of new or used S5ii’s? Again, nope. Is it therefore a failure as a new release camera? Time will tell, but for me personally it is at least a missed opportunity.

That's quite a mess of resolutions! Edit: found How can I tell which ones are uncropped, meaning which of these can I still trust what's written on the lens?

https://m.weibo.cn/status/5165620169805297#&gid=1&pid=1

To be clear, the specs of the camera, as understood from leaks, are fine. They're not bad and they're not doom and gloom. They're just... not great and they're mostly not too exciting. Put the spec sheet for this camera against the spec sheets for most other cameras in the same price range and reactions will generally range from "Oh, OK" to "Well, that's alright." That's the real problem. There's nothing in that spec sheet that makes people want to sell their Sony to move to Panasonic. There's nothing in that spec sheet that makes people want to sell their Canon and jump to Panasonic. There's nothing... etc Nikon ... etc.

No, he's talking about the 18-110mm F4 Power Zoom which is a very expensive item. Much more so than the "normal" F4 zoom of similar focal length. About 5x more expensive.

That's a US$3,500 lens on top of a camera that requires a bunch of add-ons to use properly. So even if it's an older model that's a US$4,500 expenditure at the very least. That's way way over my budget.