Why the Panasonic Lumix S1RII Is a Great Buy for Everything but Sports

The Panasonic Lumix S1RII pairs a 44-megapixel full frame sensor with 8K video for about $3,300, and that sensor isn't stacked, so it reads out slowly. If you shoot both stills and video, that one design choice shapes nearly everything about how the camera behaves in your hands.

Christopher Frost puts the Lumix S1RII through a long run of stills and video tests, and the sensor keeps coming up. Slow readout means warping on fast-moving subjects when you use the electronic shutter or record video. It also tends to mean more dynamic range, and Frost shows how much: a 14-bit raw file shot seven stops underexposed comes back with heavy color noise but a surprising amount of usable picture and detail. Burst numbers are respectable, with 10 fps on the mechanical shutter with continuous autofocus and 40 fps electronically, though the buffer tops out around 70 raw files at that speed. There's also a pre-burst mode that captures up to 1.5 seconds before you fully press the shutter button. Those numbers point toward landscapes, architecture, and portraits more than sports.

Autofocus has clearly improved since launch. Frost ran around in front of the camera with the inexpensive Panasonic Lumix S 50mm f/1.8 wide open, and most frames landed on his eye. He places subject detection and tracking a touch ahead of current Fujifilm bodies and a step behind Canon, Sony, and Nikon. The eye-detection crosshair that some users disliked can now be swapped for a box in the menus. Out of camera, the colors are rich without drifting from reality, and auto white balance holds up well. Default JPEG sharpening runs a little hot, causing slight blooming on high-contrast edges, so he dials it down to -2.5 and sharpens on the computer instead. His 8K footage shows even more detail than the Canon EOS R5 Mark II, with slightly more noise.

Panasonic now sells the readout tradeoff as a choice within its own lineup. The Panasonic Lumix S1II uses a partially stacked 24-megapixel sensor, giving up resolution for faster readout, much like the Nikon Z6III does in Nikon's range. At the high-resolution end, Canon put a fully stacked sensor in the EOS R5 Mark II, while the Sony a7R V sticks with a conventional 61-megapixel chip. Manufacturers are no longer treating speed and resolution as features that one flagship body must deliver all at once. That gives you a practical way to shop. List what you actually photograph in a typical month, and count how often a subject moves fast enough for rolling shutter to show. If the answer is rarely, a slower, higher-resolution sensor gives you more detail and more room to push shadows, and the money you save over a stacked body can go toward glass. If you photograph kids' soccer every weekend, the math flips.

Physically, the S1RII is a substantial camera at 795 g with the battery and card, built on a magnesium alloy chassis with weather-sealing throughout. Every port gets its own sealed flap, and you get a microphone input, headphone jack, full-size HDMI, and USB-C charging, which works best with a power delivery charger of at least 27 W. With the optional Panasonic DMW-XLR2 adapter, it records 32-bit float audio. Three control dials, a joystick, and a lockable mode dial with five custom slots make it one of the most configurable bodies around. Even the control lock button can be customized. The screen tilts and swivels, the viewfinder is large and sharp, and the card slots pair CFexpress Type B with SD. Frost found the menu system messy and slow to learn, though. Battery life came in around 350 to 400 shots, or about an hour of 8K recording, and the internal fan, which you can adjust in the menus, kept heat in check during his 8K shooting in cool weather.

If you vlog, stay for the final test in the video, where Frost walks through each of the camera's stabilization modes with a Panasonic 24mm lens, ending on a crop-less mode he calls "almost electronic gimbal quality."