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As the saying goes it's same as a Leica SL2 inside, so $800 is a real bargain. The S1 / S1R ergonomics are alright, bit too heavy and big. I prefer Sony 4th gen (a7 IV onwards) in that respect, but the S1R really did feel and look like a high-end camera when it came out unlike the new stuff.

Liked the results mine produced on the stills side and the 5k was special. The only thing that annoyed me really was the different ergos to the S1H, especially the position of the on/off switch, but a great bit of kit and exceptional value used as is the S1H!

Made a lowball offer on ebay and scored the “Vintage Lumix” S1R kit for $800 US this week. I have a book project and need to photograph a lot of oversized art in high megapixel raw so i couldn’t pass it up for the money. Been wanting to try out the 5k mode for a while now and have a whole list of vintage lenses to adapt. As much as I wanted the SL2 or the GFX 100s the prices haven’t come down as much as the Lumix stuff and I can always revisit those later. For now the Original S5 with Ninja V for prores raw and the S1R for high res stills and 5k Super 35 Anamorphic. A little S9 for $800 is next and that will round out my 3 camera budget system for under $2,300, Not bad…

$800 is a steal for that powerhouse. Enjoy

Enjoy, I really liked my time with my S1R (and onto the S1R2 now)

Anyone watching this cringe fest World Cup draw would swap in a heartbeat.

Best footage I ever shot in my life was on a XH-A1. It was the situation and lighting, not the camera. Could it have been better with a new 4K-whatever-camera? Sure! But only marginally so.

It once was that the pros had 16mm an 35mm film and the "amateurs" had Super 8 and videotape. Now that's all changed. Yesterday I was capturing some old videotapes from a friend's project that we did in 2011 on a Canon HV20. It looked amazing. I was expecting it to look worse than cameras of today but it doesn't. Just shows that even a camera from then, with a CMOS chip from that era, MPEG 2 encoding, 4:2:0 chroma subsampling, 1440 x 1080 frame size recorded of the wide screen image, and 8 bit colour, it still can look amazing. It just shows that cameras have been very good for a long time now. The differences are mostly ergonomics and physical size. When deciding on a camera, you have to consider what you want to spend months living with.

I'd argue it is the MOST important because without the camera, you don't have a picture. It is the small differences between the latest sensors and codecs that's the unimportant thing. In cinematography, our job isn't to worry about the costumes or set pieces, that's the job of someone else. So lighting and camera are the most important for a DP. What has happened is the gap between the top-end i.e. ARRI and the cheap stuff has closed up. This has been going on ever since the start of the DSLR revolution so it's not a new thing but there's never been a smaller gap that exists now, for example between something like the Alexa 35 and a $1000 used Panasonic S1H. By the way although Magellan has beautiful content and really nice camera-work, the sharpness of it and the deep DOF isn't everybody's cup of tea. It does look a bit too soap opera in parts of that trailer, I think. It looks very different to an IMAX shot film. So there's big differences between formats and lenses still... The same cinema focal length for example on 16mm has always looked vastly different to same on IMAX or large format. Also there are big differences in grading style, camera movement style, and so on. I think most relevant for us is that you don't need to make a massive rig any more to get good results. It's horrible having the weight as a one-man DP. Probably why they used such a small camera on this.

I really do think the camera is the least important aspect these days though. Lighting, set pieces, costumes, locations, etc. are so much more important. Magellan could have been shot on pretty much any camera from the last 10 years and looked just as good, because everything else about it looks good and it's clearly made with skill and talent. 28 Years Later was a huge disappointment for me as a film (28 Days Later is one of my favorite films of all time) but it's still a gorgeous looking film that was shot on iPhones. If it was shot on a ARRI Alexa 35 it wouldn't have changed what I disliked about the film. And watching it, I didn't think to myself "jeez, this would've looked so much better if they'd film it on a better camera." A LOT of gear went into making it look as good as it does, but the camera itself was pretty low on the list, I think.

I think we learned long ago that the "camera" was one of the least important parts of telling a story. You can take an iPhone and create beautiful art if what you're filming is compelling, you are skilled enough, and the story you're telling is good. Frankly I'm surprised that we haven't seen more folks using mirrorless cameras, because if anything, they are overkill for a lot of films being shot today, especially ones that will never be seen on the big screen. My buddy made me re-watch Terrifier 3 since he just got into the series. It was filmed on an ARRI Alexa 35 using Panavision anamorphic lenses, but honestly, you never would've been able to tell if they'd shot it on a S1/H, S5/S5II, GH6/7, A7Siii, R5C, etc. and using any of the budget anamorphic lenses that have been released for these cameras. It's great to have an ARRI Alexa 35 and Panavision lenses, I can't really fault any low budget director using them if they have the opportunity to, but it didn't make the film any better and, no offense to the director and editor, but he wasn't skilled enough to get anything more out of using that camera and lenses than if he'd just used any mirrorless camera released in the last 5 years.