The Lumix S1II is easily one of the best full frame video cameras Panasonic has ever made, and I’m going to spoil my conclusion right now because I respect your time. If you’re looking for a camera that can film 6K internal RAW video, has a fan that helps prevent overheating, has great autofocus, and gives you the widest dynamic range of any Panasonic S series camera, this is the one you want. It gets my full recommendation.

I’m reviewing this from the perspective of a wedding, documentary, and event freelance filmmaker, so if you use your camera to make money, this review is for you.

Also, for the sake of ethics, I want you to know this video is not paid or sponsored by Panasonic, but the camera is on long term loan from them, and whenever they ask for it back, I will happily return it to them.

Waiting On GH7 Features In Full Frame

I’ve spent most of the last decade filming with Sony cameras, but I’ve been paying attention to what Panasonic has been doing, filming weddings with cameras like the GH5 and more recently reviewing the GH7 and really loving it. The GH7 checked pretty much every box I’d have for a video camera other than extreme low light performance.

I ended that review by saying I had zero doubts Panasonic would take everything they put in the GH7 and release a larger full frame camera built on all of it, giving us shallower depth of field and better low light. My prediction was correct. The only thing I got wrong was the name, because I thought they’d call it the S5III and forgot they still had the S1 line to update. Oopsie.

Resolutions & Frame Rates (Just Right)

This camera uses a brand new, partially stacked sensor capable of filming up to 6K at 60 frames per second in full frame. And let me just say, 6K feels like the sweet spot for filmmaking these days. I know there are cameras out there that film 8K, but that resolution feels like overkill to me, because even if you want to do a good amount of reframing you can do that with 6K while having significantly smaller file sizes, a faster sensor readout, and a more affordable camera.

You get 6K at 60fps in full frame with no crop, and 4K at 60fps with no crop either. There is about a 1.3 times crop in 4K at 120 frames per second.

Open Gate FTW

The S1II supports several other aspect ratios including Cinemascope and open gate, and open gate in particular is something Panasonic has embraced far more than most other manufacturers. Whenever I think of the competition for this camera, it’s something like the Nikon Z6III, which has similar specs in a lot of ways and does have internal RAW recording, but has no open gate capability at all. That’s a big deal.

Open gate records the full width and height of the sensor, so instead of a traditional 16 by 9 you’re getting 3 by 2 or 4 by 3, and that does two important things for you. First, if you want to reframe in post you have significantly more pixel data vertically, so you can film horizontally and still very easily crop a full resolution vertical video out of the same clip. If you deliver a lot of vertical video, open gate is absolutely the way to go.

Second, if you like shooting anamorphic lenses, many of them require a taller aspect ratio like 4 by 3 or 3 by 2, so you really need open gate to use them properly. This camera will record up to 6K at 30fps or 5.1K at 60fps in open gate.

Internal RAW Recording!

Panasonic introduced internal ProRes RAW recording with the GH7 last year, no external monitor required, and that capability is here too. You can record regular ProRes as well as ProRes RAW and adjust things like ISO and white balance while editing, which is extremely useful.

If you do have an external monitor and recorder from Blackmagic, this camera will also record Blackmagic RAW externally over HDMI. I really wish we could get Blackmagic RAW internally as well. Please Panasonic, that would be the icing on the cake.

V-LOG & Dynamic Range Boost

Like pretty much every Panasonic camera going back to the GH5, the S1II supports the V-Log photo style, which gives you the widest dynamic range the camera can record, and it’s what I recommend filming in pretty much all the time. If you have not used it before, I have a tutorial on filming in V-LOG that walks through the best settings for it. Panasonic has also included the Like2 photo style, which gives you a pretty color graded image straight out of camera with minimal work, and in a future paid update they’ll be unlocking ARRI LogC on this camera just like on the GH7, which makes matching it to an Alexa pretty darn cool.

Now, there’s a new feature you need to know about called Dynamic Range Boost. Enable it in the menu and the camera picks up roughly 0.8 more stops, giving you approximately 15 stops according to Panasonic, which is the widest dynamic range of any Panasonic full frame camera to date.

So why wouldn’t you leave it on all the time? Because it has compromises in frame rates and rolling shutter. It needs more processing power, which comes at the cost of a slower sensor refresh rate. You’re limited to 30 frames per second at any resolution with it enabled, and the slower readout makes rolling shutter more noticeable. If you commonly film handheld, that matters. Personally I prefer smoother movements either with slow handheld or on a gimbal, so I’ll take the extra dynamic range at the slower frame rates, but you need to weigh that against the style of filmmaking you actually do.

ISO & Lowlight Performance (And Quirks)

This camera has a dual native ISO, so there are two ISOs where the image looks its cleanest when filming in V-Log. The first base is 640, which will be very familiar if you’re coming from a Sony like the a7S III since it’s the same. The second base is 5000, which is a really nice jump in low light performance. It isn’t as high as the a7S III or FX3 at 12,800, but this camera is still very good in low light, especially with an f/2.8 or faster lens on it. I put that comparison head to head in Panasonic S1ii Vs Sony a7S III.

Here’s the quirk. Dynamic Range Boost also affects your ISO, and whenever you enable it in a supported resolution and frame rate, the base ISO jumps from 640 up to 1000. It isn’t a crazy jump, but filming outdoors on a sunny day you’re going to need an ND filter of some sort, or to adjust your aperture, or to crank your shutter speed.

Dramatically Improved Autofocus

Historically this has been one of Panasonic’s weakest points, with every iteration making small improvements while still struggling to be fast and accurate. With the GH7 I was thrilled to find the autofocus dramatically improved, essentially on par with Sony and Canon, and I’m very happy to tell you the S1II performs incredibly similarly. It’s fast, it’s accurate, and Panasonic tells me it’s enhanced with AI, because you can throw AI into anything these days.

The camera recognizes people’s bodies in a huge variety of positions, including on skateboards. While testing I was very pleased to see focus lock onto the back of a person’s head, putting a box around it, which tells you it knows that’s a person and won’t drop focus just because it can’t see a face.

The only time I found it struggling was filming fast moving bats under a bridge in Austin, in very dark twilight at a very high ISO, where the focus hunted and pulsed a few times. Keep that in mind for very dark conditions. I’d also point out I was using essentially the stock autofocus settings for that test, and once I made some tweaks a few days later I’ve not been able to replicate that hunting again, so it may well have been default sensitivity rather than the camera.

IBIS

Just like every other Panasonic, the S1II has absolutely stellar in body image stabilization, and if you need a handheld shot it will get you there without a gimbal or monopod. I’m especially appreciative that there are stabilization modes specifically for anamorphic lenses.

Overheating Tests & Results In Texas Heat

It wouldn’t be a camera review from me if we weren’t talking about overheating, and being based in Texas makes this the perfect place to test it. The S1II does have a fan with an intake and vent at the top, which is very appreciated, but so did the S1RII, and I’d read stories of people overheating that one even indoors in air conditioning, which made me nervous going in.

So I put it outdoors in mostly sunny, roughly 85 degree weather, screen pulled out, fan on auto 2 so it ramps as needed, the high heat setting enabled in the menu, and a Panasonic approved CFexpress Type B card in the slot. Recording 6K at 60fps, it lasted 33 minutes and 57 seconds before shutting down and needing a few minutes to cool.

Now before you panic at that number, remember the frame rate. I have real difficulty thinking of any filmmaker who needs to record 6K 60fps for longer than a few minutes at a time, given how massive the files are. I tested again with the fan on fast mode, where it runs constantly, in slightly warmer weather around 90 degrees, still at 6K 60fps, and it only lasted 26 minutes, which surprised me. So if you’re buying this to film outdoors at 6K 60fps, be prepared for 25 to 30 minutes of straight recording before it needs to cool off.

Then I tried something realistic. Back outside in 90 plus degree heat and direct sunlight, fan back on auto 2, recording 6K at 24fps in 16 by 9, which is what I would actually use for an outdoor wedding ceremony. It ran 44 minutes with no signs of overheating at all, and I only stopped because the sun went down and I had to go take care of my children instead of babysitting a camera. It was warm, but I couldn’t hear the fan running fast and I highly doubt it would have quit.

So if you film outdoors in the sun like I do, you should be fine, as long as you’re not recording 6K 60fps for more than half an hour. And if you are that person, genuinely, what are you doing? I want to know.

32 Bit Float Audio Recording

Whenever I saw the XLR hot shoe adapter arrive with the GH7, my immediate thought was that they didn’t build that just for one camera. I’m happy to tell you it’s fully compatible with the S1II. If you want to record pristine 32 bit float audio in camera, which in my opinion is the best audio format there is, and you don’t want to deal with syncing audio in post from a separate recorder, I’d highly recommend buying that adapter along with the camera. You’re going to be extremely happy with it. I know that I am.

Timecode Upgrades (And Complaints)

First the good news. The S1II is the first Panasonic camera to support timecode over Bluetooth, so with an Atomos UltraSync BLUE you can wirelessly sync the camera to a Zoom or Tascam recorder, which saves a ton of editing time because you’re not relying on audio waveforms that sometimes just fail.

But there are two things I’d like improved. One is more Atomos than Panasonic: that UltraSync BLUE feels rather cheaply made, the interface is clunky, there’s no smartphone app, and it feels like it hasn’t been updated in years, especially next to the much better devices from Deity or Tentacle Sync.

The other is curious. The GH7 and the S1H have a flash sync port you can attach a timecode adapter cable to, which makes syncing with a Deity or Tentacle device easy. The S1II strangely does not have one. Whenever I asked Panasonic about using a USB cable for timecode instead, I was told there’s a latency issue preventing it, which in my mind explains why Sony sells a relatively expensive USB timecode cable that’s clearly doing special work to translate the signal and remove latency.

What it all means is that if you want to use a non Atomos device, you’ll need to run it into the microphone jack to send timecode into the camera. It works great, but it’s annoying to have to do, especially when the GH7 doesn’t have this problem. If you want to use Bluetooth timecode anyway, I put together an in depth tutorial showing exactly how.

Should You Buy The S1 II?

If you’re looking for a high quality camera to film weddings, corporate work, commercials, documentaries, basically anything where you’re getting paid to point a camera at something, the answer is yes. If you want high quality 6K full frame, and especially if you’re shooting anamorphic or recording ProRes RAW internally, or you’re upgrading from the original S1 and you want uncropped full frame 6K 60, this is easily the best camera you can choose today and you’re going to love it.

The one thing that complicates the decision is the other camera Panasonic announced at the same time. The S1II at B&H is $3,200, which I don’t think is a bad price for everything you’re getting. But the S1IIE is $700 cheaper in the same body, and gives you many of the same anamorphic and filmmaking capabilities. It doesn’t have quite everything, but it’s pretty darn close, and it’s worth understanding before you spend the extra money.

My Dream S1H II Upgrades

Looking at everything Panasonic crammed into this camera, I find myself genuinely wondering whether they even need to make an S1IIH. But if they do, here’s my dream list. First, a larger cooling vent like the GH7 has on its side, to guarantee it never overheats even at 6K or 8K, because if you’re releasing an ultra powerful video centric camera I don’t want any chance of that. Second, a dedicated hardware timecode connection. A flash sync port is fine, I just want it. And if we’re dreaming together, let’s have internal 32 bit float audio with no adapter required, plus internal Blackmagic RAW, because ProRes is nice but it isn’t the most supported codec out there.

If you want to get the most out of whichever body you land on, I’ve put together a Panasonic S1 II Menu Setup Guide with my settings plus a signup for new guides as they land, and I spent a couple of days with this camera first in 48 Hours With The Panasonic S1 II. Everything you’ve seen here was graded with my own WhoisMatt LUTs, and if you want to get faster and better at the editing side of it, you can grab my free Filmmaker Gear Guide, which shows you every piece of equipment I recommend for filmmaking.

What would you want to see from a future Panasonic body, and are you leaning toward the S1II or the S1IIE? Let me know in the comments!