During Photokina 2018, Panasonic announced that it would be entering the full-frame mirrorless camera space to take on Sony, Canon, and Nikon. Now, the company has finally revealed all the details of its Lumix S1 and Lumix S1R full-frame mirrorless cameras, which are scheduled to go on sale in early April.
The Lumix S1 is priced at $2,499 (around Rs. 1,77,900) for the body only or $3,399 (around Rs. 2,42,000) with a 24-105mm lens. The Lumix S1R is priced at $3,699 (roughly Rs. 2,63,300) for just the body or $4,599 (Rs. 3,27,000) with the 24-105mm lens. Panasonic also announced three new lenses for the S series cameras — the Lumix S Pro 50mm F1.4 prime lens; Lumix S Pro 70-200mm F4 O.I.S zoom lens, and the Lumix S 24-105mm F4 Macro O.I.S medium zoom lens with macro capability.
Panasonic started trickling information about the Lumix S1 and S1R, first at Photokina back in September and then later at CES 2019, we got some more nuggets of information such as availability details and the fact that the cameras would have the highest resolution EVF.
The main difference between the two cameras is the size of the sensor. The Lumix S1 sports a 24.2-megapixel full-frame CMOS sensor with a maximum native ISO of 51,200. The Lumix S1R is designed for photographers who need maximum resolution, as it packs in a 47.3-megapixel CMOS sensor without any low-pass filter and a maximum native ISO of 25,600.
Both cameras are powered by the Venus imaging engine and boasts of features such as High Resolution multi-shot mode, 5-axis in-body image stabilisation, 4K video recording up to 60fps, contrast detection autofocus with DFD (Depth From Defocus) technology, autofocus speeds of roughly 0.08 seconds and burst shooting at 9fps or 6fps (with continuous autofocus). Eye autofocus is also present along with AI technology which is said to be able to detect humans as well as animals and birds for more accurate tracking. There’s 6K and 4K burst shooting which lets you extract a frame from a series of images shot at either 30fps or 60fps respectively.
Another highlight feature in both cameras is the electronic viewfinder (EVF) which boasts of a market-leading resolution of 5.76 million dot resolution and a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. The rear 3-inch touchscreen panel has a resolution of 2.1 million dots and can be tilted. It also has something called Live View Boost, which is said to boost the sensitivity of the display when shooting in complete darkness. The camera bodies are built from a magnesium alloy and are dust, splash and freeze resistant.
Professional photographers and videographers will be happy to see two card slots in the cameras. It’s compatible with SD (up to UHS-II) or XQD cards. A future firmware update will also make them compatible with CFexpress cards. There’s also support for 5GHz Wi-Fi 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.2 with Low Energy profile.
