ita149

Does your last 28-200mm is sharp wide open at 200mm or a bit soft ? It doesn't bother me so much because my sample is pretty good at 200mm f8 (at least for a small zoom lens like this).

Only Lexar cards, those approved by Panasonic.

The 28-200mm is a good lens. I tried two samples, both performed the same. Acceptably sharp wide open between 28mm and 40mm. A bit soft wide open between 50mm and 150mm and very soft wide open at 200mm. But increasing the aperture just by one stop make the lens much sharper and the lens is very good at 200mm f8. It's a very good compromis because when you look at by example the 12-60mm PL I also own, the 28-200mm is a 14-100 f2-f3.5 equivalent in M43. Even when stopped down to be as sharp at a good copy of the 12-60mm PL, the 28-200mm can do the equivalent of 14mm F2, 25mm f2.8, 50mm f3.5 and 100mm f4 while being sharp. You loose the 24mm wide angle but I think it's a good trade for most use. My only issue with this lens is it makes sometimes a short but loud motor noise and vibration (about 2s) when using it in video with the S1 and S5. No issue with the S5II, S1II and S1RII. If you like lenses with high contrast and good color rendering, the 28-45mm is really excellent. Mine is very sharp at 28mm and extremely sharp at 35mm and 45mm even wide open. The focal range can feel somewhat limited but there is no better 28mm on L mount except the overpriced 28mm APO Summicron. The 70-200mm S Pro f4 looks good to pair with the 28-200mm indeed, I have the 70-200mm S Pro f2.8 and while it's a sharp lens with pretty good rendering, the size is an issue, at least for me. Yes and I think you will appreciate the S1RII. Like I don't record a lot of fast motion, I begin to think I could sell my S1II as the S1RII is easier for me to work, I can get good detail rendering from the H265 8K files whereas I need to shoot almost exclusively in Prores Raw on the S1II because I don't like the weird detail processing on the H265 or Prores files out of this camera.

It depends if you are doing a lot of run and gun, can't live without Open Gate (because I think this feature is not just usefull but also give a real full frame look to the image) and appreciate some tricks like DR BOOST (at the cost of high rolling shutter). If yes, the S1II and even the S1RII are really a good choice, even if you like photography and if you can afford the Leica APO Summicron SL and the 24-70mm/50mm S Pro. If you don't have the need for the best IBIS or don't need to record while walking, Nikon is maybe a better alternative. AF is generally better even if the S1II is really not bad and more accurate than the S5II and S1RII. If you shoot wildlife, Nikon is also a much better choice, especially with the Z8, because Nikon has more tele lenses , better RS, unlimited burst and no blackout. The S1 and S1RII, while they have very fast burst (70fps for the S1II), you can only shoot for about 2 seconds, which is ridiculous. The Nikon S f1.2 lenses are excellent, they are more affordable, faster and have deeper bokeh than the APO SL. However they are heavier, bigger, and maybe less suited for video. If you are on Windows and use Resolve, Nikon with N-raw is much easier to edit than Prores Raw, both the S1II and S1RII only have Prores Raw. N-Raw is supported by Resolve and you have the lenses corrections backed in the files, you can even choose to record N-Raw directly in 709. Prores Raw is supported by Premiere Pro but there is no WB/ISO option. You also have the option to record 6K60fps (Z6III) or 8K60fps (Z8), on the S1II you only have a slightly cropped 6k30fps, it's worse on the S1RII because of the big crop. Outisde of Raw I think I also prefer the output of the H265 codecs compared to Lumix, Nikon is sharper but retains more fine details. So to resume : -IBIS is much better on Lumix. -DR is slightly better on Lumix (with DR BOOST or DRE ON). -Lumix has more nice features than Nikon (Open Gate, Real Time Lut etc). -Color is subjective but I really like the output of the S1RII. -AF is slighter better with Nikon even if the S1II is now closer than ever. -Video quality (fine details) is slightly better on Nikon (in RAW they are the same but N-Raw allows 60fps raw no crop). -For wildlife, Nikon is better, but keep in mind the Z8 is heavier than both the S1II and S1RII. -Nikon has more great lenses, Leica ones are as good but much more expensive. For me, as I like to do a lot of run and gun, Lumix is still the better choice for video but I need more editing time to get what I want because of Prores Raw. For stills, I don't shoot a lot of wildlife but I really like the Nikon S 1.2 lenses rendering. Leica lenses are also stellar, but you trade fast aperture and bokeh for more POP and significantly less weight. I think the S1RII is maybe the better choice if you don't need to shot fast scenes because the 8K H265 quality is pretty good, the IBIS is excellent, the AF is enough for most things and you can record Open Gate. The S1II can be the best choice if you need low rolling shutter and want the best detail rendering (Prores Raw) IBIS and DR. Like the S1RII you have Open Gate, but the big issue for me is the detail rendering with non raw video. The Open Gate 7,2K and especially 8K just looks much better on the S1RII. The Z8 is probably the best choice for stills in most cases, especially for wildlife. The video is outstanding too. But the camera is not lightweight, the IBIS is also much worse. The Z6III is a very good compromise, not as big as the Z8, 6K60fps is more than enough because the detail rendering is great. Maybe there is some bad shadows noise at some ISO but I think the issue is overrated since the last firmware update, like the DR slightly worse below ISO 800 compared to the Z8, it's really hard to notice a difference. But it's maybe because I don't shoot at very high ISO. For now, I decided to keep only the S1RII,S1II and Z6III. I will wait only a few months, if the next Nikon Z (with RED) has better IBIS, the choice will be obvious for me. But if Panasonic releases some new S Pro lenses very soon, it will be much harder to choose which system to keep.

I have the S1RII and the S1II. I also still have the old S1 and S5. The S1II is the same than the S5II about video details, even if some youtubers said the details rendering has improved, it's not true at all. Same bad rendering as the S5II. I understand some people are not bothered or can't see the difference and it's nothing wrong about that, but the difference is clear by example if you zoom inside your videos on people faces. Like the S5II, there is a sort of rough detail sharpening and in the same time a lack of very fine details. As always V-log looks better than the 709 profiles but it's still not great in my opinion. The S1RII also has the same detail rendering and I was very disappointed by the 6,4K Open Gate, it was not better than the 6K of the S5II, maybe even worse, like if this mode used a tiny bit of binning like the 5,9K 16:9. The new 7,2K is ok and looks better than the 6,4K. The 8,1K Open Gate is even better but limited to 24fps. Even if the video engine is the same between the S1II, S5II and S1RII, the later has much more resolution in 8K, hence the fine details looks finer even with the bad processing. it's only when the footage is a bit underexposed or overexposed that the S1 6K looks better. I read somewhere something interesting about Real Time Lut, using a burned in lut with a good amount of contrast helps to recover fine details. When recording V-log without Real Time Lut and grading in post, some fine details can't be recovered. I can confirm it's true. So using Real Time Lut V-log on the S1RII in 8,1K Open Gate is the best for details rendering. I'm glad Panasonic has fixed the colored pixels issue in Prores Raw on the S1RII and now the footage looks great, same details rendering than on the S1 or S5. But it's really crazy we must use Prores Raw to get the same good details rendering than on the S1 or S5 H264/265. And the crop is a shame, 1,45x ! When cameras like the Z8 or Z6III offer 6K or 8K 60fps raw video without crop ... About the S1II, Prores Raw only has a minimal crop (about 1,05/1,1x I think) and it was the main reason I bought this camera. Like on the S1RII, Prores Raw is excellent and like it has much less crop, fine details looks even sharper (in a good way). Finally we have a Panasonic camera with not only excellent IBIS but also excellent detail rendering and good AF without using external recorder (even if Prores raw is a pain for the workflow). The only issue I found is the 240fps 1080p mode, it is clearly not finalised because some horizontal lines appear randomly. I also found the photo raw files of the S1II and S1RII to be slightly less contrasty than the S5 and S1, they have less that punchy looks and I still prefer the rendering of the S5 and S1 with my best lenses like the 50mm S or 24-70mm Pro. it can be because of ACR but the JPEGs out of the cameras also looks slightly less contrasty than on the S5 and S1. Other than that, IBIS is stellar but sometimes more digital than on the G9II or GH7, color science is good but not as good as the GH6 to my eyes. The S1II also has better AF than the S1RII and I can feel the difference. Compared to Nikon, Lumix has several advantages like the IBIS and Open Gate. L-mount also has great "practical" lenses but I think they lack really great lenses with very nice rendering and more pancakes. After using most of the L-mount lenses, only a few looks really fantastic, like the 50mm S Pro (if it has not the coating issue), 24-70mm S Pro, 28-45mm Sigma and the APO Summicron SL. While absolutely great, the APO SL are really too much expensive for most people and it will be hard to attract a lot of people in the system, it is why Lumix try to attract people with smaller lenses and never released again new S Pro lenses since 2019/2020. Nikon has better AF most of the time but also more great lenses. The 50mm f1.8 is much better than the Lumix, the Nikon 35mm/50mm/85mm f1.2 and 135mm f1.8 are some of the best lenses you can buy. You can also adapt Sony FE lenses and there are more interesting "cheap" lenses available from third party manufacturers like Viltrox (mainly the 35mm f1.2 and 135mm f1.8).

Yes I'm sure as I've owned most Panasonic cameras and I still have the GH5. It has Open Gate 60fps but not a the full sensor resolution, more like 4K than 5,1K. Yes it's downsampled but it is still Open Gate without crop. I think the S1II uses more or less the same processing with its 5K Open Gate. Whatever, I don't like the image processing of the S5II, S1RII and now S1II. So even my old GH5 looks better to me in Open Gate. I'm very close to fully switch to both Nikon and Sony. Even the recent Sony cameras have better detail rendering for video in my opinion.

Yes, the 2017 GH5 also has 60fps open gate, with even better detail rendering than the S1II at low ISO.

NX1 and GH6. They are full of compromises like the GH6 having unusable AFC below 48fps or the NX1 having even more smoothed out details in low light than the S5II but I'm still surprised how much I often prefer the footage I get from them at low ISO over my expensive Sony FE and Lumix S cameras.

It looks pretty good because unfortunately CineD has not tested the 5,8K raw downsampled to 4K yet, I wonder if there is a possibility of backed-in NR inside of the Prores Raw files.

I don't know about the S1II, but owning the S1RII, the mushy fine details and chroma NR are still there. Only the sharpening has been decreased a bit when using the 709 profiles. Prores Raw is better and has nicer fine details, almost as good as on the S1 and S5 H264/H265, but it's not a replacement for me as it is cropped (on the S1RII), the files are huge, there is no lens correction (as opposed to N-raw) and there are sometimes some black/colored pixels I can see when cropping inside the footage. This is something the Panasonic ambassadors will never speak about. About dynamic range I really wonder if there is a real difference between the S1II (without DR Boost) and the Z6III, because Gerald Undone only tested the DR of the Z6III raw video but not the S1II (he only tested Prores HQ and not Prores Raw). It seems nobody want to test the internal raw video mode on the S1II, I understand Prores Raw is not supported by Resolve, but still ... It could be a good indicator of the real performance of both cameras as there is almost always backed in NR without raw.

I was a long time Panasonic user who have bought most of their high end cameras and lenses, but not anymore. I had some issues with their full frame lenses developing white dots inside the internal elements, including a 2500$ 50mm S Pro lens. This is something well documented everywhere from Facebook groups to Dpreview forums with many users having the same issue on the same lenses. All what they was able to tell me is it was probably mold, implicitly saying it was caused by my fault because of bad storage or use. Of course this is my fault, I have used a lot (really a lot) of lenses from Canon, Sony, Sigma, Tamron, Samsung, Olympus etc, I always stocked them in dry place and never used them in the rain. I just never seen anything like this. I have even seen this issue out of the box on a new Lumix S 35mm f1.8 lens, someone on Dpreview also had its Lumix S 35mm lens exchanged because of the same issue, he should have returned the lens immediatly for a refund like I did. But yes it's probably my fault to have bought too much of their craps. It's also probably a coincidence if only their Lumix S lenses are affected ... The only similar case I've seen was from a 50mm Sony FE Zeiss Planar which had a recall by Sony. And like on the Panasonic S lenses, it didn't looked like mold or fungus at all, just bad internal elements degrading over time and affecting contrast. I don't particularly like Sony either but at least they were more honest. I have zero confidence in buying their products again.

I bought the S1RII for 3250€, I think it's a good price for this camera, not sure I would have bought it at 3600€. By the way, I spoke with someone who said he was able to remove most of the noise reduction inside of the V-log footage of the S1RII, if it's true the camera will be much more interesting. The A7RV is a great camera for still, but for video I would prefer to use Panasonic, just for IBIS and Open Gate. Yes both the 28-45mm and 45-90mm would make a killer combo. And why not the rumored 200mm f1.8 to get the perfect trio ...

Got my S1RII and like I thought, I'm a bit disappointed. Stills are great with very good resolution, the Dpreview studio test is odd because the camera is very sharp even when using not so sharp lenses like the 28-200mm. But there are better cameras for photography, AF implementation is weird, AF-S is only DFD and the buffer is a joke when shooting high fps pictures. Video quality is the same than S5II, a bit less sharpening but still the same video engine, it still looks worse than the old gen, the resolution just feels not as good, no matter the mode or resolution used the image doesn't look really sharp in a good way, lines are not straight, some details are missing like if a filter or blur in some part of the image was added. The image looks like there is a slight oil painting touch softening the image at the core. Like on the S5II the rec 709 profiles are worse than V-log. So it is a bit ironic from Lumix to say "discover unseen details" for their S1RII tagline. Because of this the moire is not too much prononced. Some will like this tradeoff. I tested Prores Raw 6K Pixel to Pixel and the image is much better, the weird processing is gone. But I can't get the image right when using Premiere Pro, colors are off, I don't think Prores Raw is really fully supported by Premiere. The crop and the data size also makes this mode hard to use and it is not supported at all by Resolve. Using the Canon R5 or Z6III for raw is much easier as the files are better supported and there is no crop. The rolling shutter is just bad when using the DR boost, I didn't think I could see it but I can see jello even with relatively slow movements. In addition 24fps is the max fps we can use with DR boost and Open Gate. I can't select 30fps, maybe a bug. I think the best modes are 6k or 4k 60fps, there is only a slight crop, worse DR because no DR boost and the image quality becomes even slighltly worse but there is not a big difference with the 30fps and the rolling shutter is better. I quickly tested the 4k 120fps and as if it isn't enough that the 4k30fps was not great, the 120fps is even worse : blurry, bad details, just unusable. When selecting Pixel to Pixel, the quality is better but again these crop make these Pixel to Pixel modes hard to use and feel like we are using a S35 camera. Stabilization is the best in the market and for me it's the main reason I still use Panasonic (with Open Gate too). But the S5II is as good ... The S1RII feels like it was created for people taking mostly photography of still subjects. And for this the camera is good, not the best DR performance but nice colors and impressive 177MP handheld mode (the image makes a very long time to create though, much longer than on the S5II). For video it comes with marketing bait as 8k and 4k 120fps. The 8k like every other modes except raw is too much processed, it has high rolling shutter when the DR boost is enabled and the 4k120fps is not good at all. Yes we can do a lot of things with this camera but with big penalties most of the time. The added Prores Raw is questionable too, the files are not supported in Resolve and the crop is really disappointing. The fact remains, however, than the S1RII is the only affordable high resolution camera with acceptable autofocus for L mount. However, I don't see anything which could attract new users to Lumix or L mount, the S5II is a much better value for Youtube and other social media creators. And the A7RIV is much cheaper and has better AF for stills. 3600€ is a lot of money but I would have happily spend a bit more to get better video engine, better rolling shutter and 8k raw. As things stand at the moment with the current firmware, I think the right price should be more about 3200€. About the reviews available online like the one from Northrup, I think the best is to always wait for some Chinese or Korean reviews, they provides much more informations and are much more unbiased than any Northrup or Undone reviews. Here is an exemple of a good and accurate review :

Even High-Res mode looks weird : https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/image-comparison/fullscreen?attr18=daylight&attr13_0=panasonic_dcs1r&attr13_1=panasonic_dcs1rii&attr13_2=panasonic_dcs5&attr13_3=panasonic_dcs1&attr15_0=raw&attr15_1=jpeg&attr15_2=raw&attr15_3=raw&attr16_0=100&attr16_1=80&attr16_2=100&attr16_3=100&attr126_0=2&attr126_1=2&attr126_2=2&attr126_3=2&normalization=full&widget=1&x=0.3414324606472479&y=0.0861985472154965

3600€ with average DR for a non stacked sensor, cropped Prores-raw and 2s only H-Speed burst, it's disappointing to say the least. Mine has been shipped today and yet I have not pre-ordered the camera in the first days. I hope at least the video engine has improved since the S5II.