John Matthews

Agreed. I have a hard time thinking that in the modes of the S5ii, somehow we're getting systematic overheating on the S1rii. Granted the processor and sensor are different, but Lumix, who is known for testing their cameras well, would have not released it had the thermals been off the wall.

Nope. Approx 20 days of shooting with temps up to mid 30 Celsius and cameras get warm, especially in direct sunlight as all black bodied cameras do, but not a single overheating warning, never mind a shut down.
No lock ups either. Well might have been one now I think about it but had more than that on my A7RV I had prior and a none issue.
Most of the overheating talk is from; folks unfamiliar with the camera in the first place + use age of non-recommended cards + incorrect heat management settings + tests deliberately designed to cook the thing and so combined, well yes, you probably will make it have a meltdown but real world shooting with proper cards and set up? Err no.
Actually, 99% of the overheating talk is people talking about overheating who do not have and have never had or used the cameras and are in reality expelling more hot air than the cameras do!

For me the future of LUMIX lies in; A. will we see an S1Hii and B. if so, what will it be?
If there is one in the pipeline and it’s a banger, it won’t ‘save’ the brand anymore than it would for any other manufacturer as it’s a much bigger picture than that, but as a (pro) consumer of this brand, it will at least have demonstrated their short term commitment.
Also we have to remember that the sky was falling in on Nikon just a few short years ago and they were utterly doomed…and at the end of 2025, they are the industry darling.
Financially how any of them and doing and what their short, medium and long term goals and outlook is, probably even they don’t really know and Panny are probably on the shakiest ground of all, but had a fairly big surge, at least amongst the community bros this year so…
Being totally honest, clean sheet tomorrow morning, I’d pick Nikon without hesitation, for my needs, but I think LUMIX/L Mount would still be in second place and really loving my S1RII’s which are arguably the best tools for my specific hybrid needs available today.
ZR vs S1RII for stills? Zero contest, easy LUMIX win.
For hybrid? LUMIX wins again.
Run & gun video? Could make a case either way but unless shooting R2D2-3CPO raw, I think LUMIX has more advantages.
As an outright cine camera, maybe the Nikon.
As a brand for the short & medium term, probably Nikon is the safer bet, but depending on how invested you already are.
Will this pro services thing have any bearing?
Well as a pro with Panny for nearly 5 years now, wasn’t even aware of its existence so… 🤷‍♂️

I understand. On the other hand, they could just call it Panasonic Pro Services and it would be completely seamless.
I can’t help but feel there’s something going on behind the scenes, though. You’re right — moving from Lumix Pro Services to My Panasonic just doesn’t make sense from a user’s perspective, at least in my opinion. I smell a rat — the whole thing feels a bit fishy.

MYPANASONIC ?
That would be 6 more letters to fill in with my black sharpie than I already have to and 6 too many.
They are not going to change the camera brand from LUMIX.
Maybe for some kind of service, but not the brand itself.
Unless they have been smoking some serious grade shit and/or are ‘seeing someone’ for their personal difficulties.

This name screams "consumer". You just don't replace "pro" with "my" if you're targeting professional shooters. But nothing is impossible with Panasonic marketing team. However ditching Lumix brand is bigger mistake. Unlike Canon/Nikon and even Sony, their customer base are 80% video 20% still users, and all of them call their cameras Lumix.
But marketing aside, they're facing a economic challenge they exacerbated themselves with not being fully committed to low budget segment of the market. The reality is pro folks don't upgrade their tools very often. You need enthusiasts/younger generations to keep the cash flow. But they just updating the high end full frame cameras. M4/3 is perceived as dead. L mount APSC is nowhere to be seen. LX compact in GX7 resurrection era? None. 

I hope that’s not the case - I mean somehow Pentax is still kicking around, (thanks to the Ricoh GR 😅).

Big markets of sports, journalists, news agencies, they need fast troubleshooting, fast lane repair, and so on.
It does look like Panasonic has given up targeting these customers and will only be focusing on consumers, content creators and enthusiasts with future cameras.
So does that mean no more high-end or pro cameras?
(Could explain lack of S1H Mark II)

Remembered it now, they are called Nikken Techno and are the official repair centre for France for Lumix cameras…or so I was told and guided to by Panasonic France.
Used them twice to date. Very efficient.

Its equivalent of Nikon and Canon announce they are closing down their NPS and CPS service. Sport shooters, photo journalists, news agencies, would panic. But Panasonic has no dog in that fight, and probably just gave up. 

Same here, I've always been super happy with the build quality of every Lumix camera I've ever owned.
I am starting to wonder about the GH6 screen and if there is some sort of defect with it because I've seen several other people on various forums mention the same issues I had, and my second body gave me a scare just the other day when the image on the LCD was shifted slightly to the left (back to normal now....) This is exactly how my problems started on my first body and eventually the image wouldn't flip itself to the correct orientation, it would be shifted off center and would flicker every now and then before completely dying. The only thing I could think of at the time was having the camera in some light rain, maybe somehow the weather sealing for the whole screen mechanism isn't great?.. Who knows. 
 

I've never had a Panasonic really break on me. It did happen to me with an Olympus E-P7. It had faulty IBIS. I sent it in and they eventually replaced it with an E-M5iii (an upgrade). I was super happy. Not it's the same service today. 

I had the LPS Red service included with my GH6 when I bought it new, and unfortunately had to use it the next year when my camera screen started glitching out and eventually died. 
Other than the fast turnaround it was a huge headache and the communication from Lumix Pro Services was terrible. I had to pay out of pocket for shipping both ways, an inspection fee, and then parts and labor. The third party repair facility was great, but there was a glitch in the LPS system showing on their end that my camera wasn't registered even though I had proof on my end. I could never communicate with anyone at LPS efficiently and the email tag back and forth was incredibly slow and nothing was ever resolved and did not get the said warranty coverage. Maybe I'm the only one that has had this issue with them, but then again maybe this is why it's going away.  
 

I had no idea it existed and send my stuff to a place in Paris and a company whose name I forget…
And Panasonic Lumix told me to do this with no mention of these so called pro service so 🤷‍♂️

GH5 for $350 is pretty good but I've seen GH6 for under $750, that's possibly an even better deal.
GH7 is too new to see a big fall on the used market unless you get lucky, but you can get the similar spec G9 II for a pretty nice $1400-ish.
Keep an eye out for GH5S too, it's an underrated bargain now

You sure its Alexa?
Here is ZR 4k120 in super35 crop for comparison 


 

Some test results...
SlashCam have the S1R II 8K at 22ms, but I think open gate brings that closer to 30ms?
Sony a1 is at 15ms for 8K, no crop.
The 4K/120p is also much better / cleaner on the a1:

S1R II

https://www.slashcam.de/artikel/Test/Panasonic-LUMIX-S1R-II-Sensor-Bildqualitaet---Debayering--Rolling-Shutter-und-Dynamik--Rolling-Shutter---Panaso.html#RollingShutterPanason
This is important because 4K/120p is usually what sets apart your £3k new camera from a £1k used S1H.
Granted there's a few new features that have come through since.
But if you don't need the speed, the a1, S1R II, Z8 and so on seem a bit pointless to me?
There's so many cheaper options if 60p or even 30p is your only need.
a7 IV, S1H, Fuji X-H2, and so on.

Or maybe you will not 😂
I still stand by the ‘fact’ that it’s an excellent choice for my needs and the only alternative combo I would switch to right now at the end of 2025, would be Nikon Z8 + ZR + Z6iii (or perhaps 2x ZR’s) vs 2x S1Rii + S5ii and if a fairy waved her magic wand in my direction and said it could happen overnight with zero faff or cost, I’d accept her offer.
But as fairies don’t exist, I’ll just have to stick with what I have!

How does the stabilisation stand up on the Nikons and Sonys compared to Lumix? It’s such a huge plus for me when covering events etc

Going back to the GH7, one thing that surprised me on the trip was the GH7 + Voigtlander 42.5mm F0.95 + Sirui 1.25x anamorphic adapter combination. 
When I saw that the Sirui was under USD300 / AUD500 I was stunned as anamorphic was something that I had dismissed as simply being inaccessible to me - too expensive / difficult / complicated.  I ordered it immediately.
When my tests revealed it was quite happy paired with the Voigtlander F0.95 primes shot wide open, I decided to take the 42.5mm on the trip with me as a creative experiment.  The FF horizontal equivalent for the 17.5mm and adapter is 28mm F1.5, which is interesting but I'm not a huge fan of the 28mm FOV, so I chose the 42.5mm lens to pair with it, which gives an equivalent of 68mm F1.5.  It's a longer lens for street shooting, but will give me some distance to work with (useful for a rig that is as large as this combination) and will give some great shallow DOF too.
Here are some sample frame grabs from the night markets in Xiamen Island, China.








When I used it in Hong Kong I found the focal length really came into its own.  There were so many layers and so much movement, the best shots are just a confusing mess without the motion that helps you identify what is going on.  Here are some more minimal frames.







I have pushed the grade in these very heavily.  Loads of contrast and vignetting and a strong application of Film Look Creator too.  The Voigtlanders are soft wide-open too, adding to the look.
IIRC these images were shot with the lens stopped down a bit (I'd forgotten my ND filter!) so it can be quite well behaved.


It has sent me down a rabbit hole of looking at how to get a more vintage S35 / FF look.  More on that later.
My mini-review of the Sirui is this:
It's very affordable It's large and heavy, but build quality feels very good and seems to have tight tolerances It's sharp It doesn't flare much at all, even shooting in the streets at night I only saw flares on a few occasions when the headlights of a car hit the lens just right The focusing mechanism is a joy, I used one finger to focus it for a lot of the time I was using it The bokeh is surprisingly cats-eye / swirly, and doesn't have that strong a vertical stretch (at 1.25x it's only a mild squeeze factor so that makes sense) It has a bit of coma with bright lights If you like what you see above, I'd recommend it.
I started off thinking that my bag was very heavy and not taking this combo next trip would be a good way to lighten my luggage a bit, and on the trip home was thinking that I'll take it everywhere and just pack less clothes.

Fujifilm will probably release a GFX 100RF with a 28mm f/2.8 in 3-4 years, with IBIS, and an updated sensor and no one will give a shit about wanting a FF fuji camera. They'll instead be asking Leica why there isn't a MF sensor in their Q, hmmm?

FWIW, the Canon EF 40mm f/2.8 pancake is popular among Fuji GFX users because it's the smallest (or one of the smallest) autofocus lenses that covers the GFX sensor.
If there's a market for the Canon lens, there's almost certainly a market for a similar lens that's one stop faster. Not even sure why Sean would equate it to a shitty 26mm f/8 lens.

That’s definitely a shift in their marketing strategy—not one that really appeals to me. Owning the S9 (though not the painted gold version), I can’t help but feel Panasonic has done the camera-world equivalent of polishing a turd.
That said, I actually like the S9 for what it is—though not at the original price. At the discounted sub-1000 euro mark, it makes sense. My main issue is that it didn’t deserve the attention of a redesign because it’s a fiddly little camera that lacks proper lenses. I’m still waiting for a Panasonic-branded, real pancake lens with autofocus—the kind that should have been released alongside the S9.
I even mentioned this to Sean on his weekly livestream. I asked why Panasonic wouldn’t create a lens like the 40mm f/2 that TTArtisan just released, even if it cost twice as much. His response was that they wouldn’t, because everyone would hate on it—much like the 26mm joke of a lens. I disagree. I believe they’d sell plenty of copies of a 40mm f/2 with AF (even if plastic) at around 350 euros.
Sometimes, Panasonic just can’t see the obvious, IMO.

Sorry, my mistake, it’s the 18-40 lens of course and not the Titty Artisan lens 🙈
But still a really good looking little kit etc even though it doesn’t have any more capability than any other colour including good old black.
There are some other EU only release colours I think.
I have a red one. Thought about selling it since I got a pair of S1Rii’s but repurposing it instead as a static extra video unit for those occasions when I could do with such a thing. Rather than pocket £500, makes sense to me as business user.

Possibly and from my perspective, yes!
But that’s based on my own selfish desires.
And then again, since acquiring first one and then a second S1Rii, I ask myself what is missing from those that I need and the answer is absolutely nothing!
I loved the design of my S1H and its video capability. The S1Rii beats it.
I loved the photo capability of the OG S1R but hated the body. I now have that capability on the S1H ‘lite’ body.
I have literally zero complaints.
The S9 has limitations however and despite my liking the little fucker, a season’s pro use with it has shown up it’s shortcomings…