The Panasonic S1H is an absolute monster of a camera that's aimed squarely at videographers and filmmakers. And while it looks fantastic on paper, you might be wondering how it holds up in real-world use. This excellent video review answers just that question.
Coming to you from CVP, this video review takes a look at the new Panasonic S1H camera. The Panasonic S1H is quite the video-oriented mirrorless camera, and it understandably has many filmmakers quite excited. It features a 24.2-megapixel sensor, whopping 6K video at 24p as well as 4:2:2 10-bit 4K, V-Log, dual native ISOs, HFR with sound, a super-sharp 5.76-million-dot 0.78x OLED EVF, 3.2" free-angle rear touchscreen, up to 9 fps continuous shooting, 225-point contrast-detect AF, weather-sealing, and 5-axis sensor-shift image stabilization. Altogether, on paper, it looks like an absolute powerhouse camera, and if it is anything like its siblings, the S1 and S1R, it should be quite a treat to use. Furthermore, since it uses the L mount, you can expect lots of lenses from Leica, Sigma, and Panasonic, giving a wide range of options for filmmakers to achieve the exact looks they desire. Check out the video above to see if it's the right camera for you and your work.
I don't understand why these companies just don't make these filmaking cameras proper, instead of this DSLR-ish motif. I suppose there's enough of a cottage perpheral industry around this format, but still...
If you're on a budget you probably want to be able to take photos and shoot video from the same device, which makes the DSLR form factor the sensible choice. Companies also have the tooling for DSLR's so given that and the fact that any video camera is likely to share a lot of parts, it would probably make sense to just recycle as much as possible which would include the body. The small size of DSLR's (relative to proper video cameras) also enables things that would not really be practical for something larger.
Another possibility is that there might not be enough room in a higher end market for it to be worth it. They might just have determined that they'll make more money selling these low-end cameras than a "proper" video camera. And before anyone jumps on me about the "low end" comment, these are basically the equivalent of disposable cameras and lenses in the video world when you compare prices.