Panasonic LUMIX S1H | In-Depth Review & Test Footage 

Sorry this video is a little delayed. We spent over 12 hours trying to render the damn thing (Cheers Premiere!!!). Let us know what you think of the S1H down in the comments below! Here are the timestamps for the video structure. Physical - 01:07 Menu - 05:50 Tech Specs - 14:58 Creative - 19:53

This is the best comprehensive breakdown of the S1H so far. Amazing job! Also that one girl is dressed like Kitana from Mortal Kombat lol

Holy cow, the dynamic range in the opening night scenes. This alone makes this camera worth it. Add all the other features like 6K open gate anamorphic, 5.9k 16:9, 4k Super 35 10 bit 422, in body stabilization, dual native ISO sensor, DSLR size and handling... This camera will be incredible in the right hands.

This is the 5th RU-vid review I've seen on the S1H and it is by far the best. Professional videographers should love this review. The Black Magic Pocket 6K seemed to perform quite well against the S1H in your tests, which is interesting considering the $1,500 price difference. But as I looked at your sample video you provided for each camera I liked the S1H the best - I thought it looked sharper and richer. But that's just me.

All I have to say is that this is the best camera review ever!

As a Gh5 lover for my light weight video needs, this camera is the natural addition to my kit. I shall be saving my pennies or taking a few extra commissions to obtain this most welcomed tool!😉🙏🏾

Holy crap have you just seen this is going to do RAW output to the Ninja V!! Huge game changer.

Atomos is now working with Panasonic to bring RAW to the S1H! Check out the press release.

I can't believe that this video does not have 200K views.. insane! this is probably one of the best video reviews I've seen on this camera to date. The internet is confused.

Oh how I wish they had that screen on the other S models. That design is brilliant for hybrid work and should be the industry standard on every mirrorless camera going forward.

Watch the battle between Sony and Panasonic.It’s several decades long with Sony being the winner in Broadcast video.I think the battle between these two will greatly benefit us! Canon and Nikon both on stills and video will be left in the dust.(just my opinion)Black Magic will drive them as the front runner with a end to end affordable solution..

Awesome review - loving the look of the S1, really appreciate the detailed review you guys have done! CVP killing it... Would love to see more comparisons in Dynamic Range + Skin tone shots side by side in comparison + Vlog + Slog with the Sony A7iii & BMPC6K etc... also great idea using the same lens!

Great review---detailed, well organized, and clear. Thanks so much. I own an S1H. My summation: a beast of a camera...but easy to use and navigate with a lovely image. As you said, "a full frame GH5"---true except for one thing: the color is better. Would prefer the focus peaking be better. The Fujifilm X-T4 still holds the Gold medal for focus peaking.

Thanks for the exhaustive review. That must have been a lot of work! And you've certainly given me a very detailed picture of what this camera can do.

great review, thanks for going so in depth. it was really helpful to see your real world experiences with the camera as well as all of the tech spec. thank you!

Dopeeeeeee review.... This camera is hard to beat for convenience and usability. Low light looks as great as the varicam I have to check it out again on the tv though to tell

I just ordered the S1h and the 70-200 F2.8 Lens 🍕😊 this is my dream camera..

This has been a great camera, coming from professional cinema cameras like the Red's and Arri's I am right at home with this camera and am still reasonably happy with it after all this time and will continue to use it as a B and C camera to the big cameras. Even with the advent of the Komodo.

Really great review! You say: "The beefiest codec is C4K 10 bit 422 All-I 400Mbps downsampled". You emphasise on "downsampled". It seems to me, that ALL 4K and FHD codecs are automatically downsampled from 6K (in Full Frame and Super 35, obviously not Pixel to Pixel). Not only the 400Mbps codecs. Which is good because downsampling provides more accurate colours, sharper edges and less noise.

Probably the best camera Lumix have made since the GH5. I'm looking forward in seeing the S1H Mk2.

Still one of the best cameras around

Best review I've seen! Hard work, great job! Thx for helping decide on my next kit :)

Jake, jokes apart, I would really appreciate to hear from you a technical analysis on the following: My following thoughts are solely based on reading reviews and watching bloggers telling me all kinds of things about APS-C/FF sensors, their lenses and so on. Leaving aside camera bodies finishes, ergonomics and specs on EVFs,, menus, etc., this is what I think about how to yield an optimal IQ result from any APS-C sensor camera: use a lens engineered for FF sensors! Why? Well, it is an universal fact that ALL lenses, regardless their focus length, are curved made. As a result, the light rays passing through the outer surface of the lens tend to bend, thus deteriorate, the captured image on the flat sensor, compared to the rays passing through the central area of the lens, less curved. The farther from the real world imagery produced by a lens the more occurrence of "aberrations". Optical aberrations occur when points in the image do not translate back onto single points after passing through the lens - causing image blurring, reduced contrast or misalignment of colors (chromatic aberration). Lenses may also suffer from uneven, radially decreasing image brightness (vignetting) or distortion. Also, the wider the focal length, the more susceptible to aberrations. To minimize such inevitable events under the law of optical physics, camera manufacturers developed a number of optical counter-measures by adding ingenuous and costly engineering solutions via complex computerized experiments. Yet, none of them has, so far, zeroed the threshold balance between the real world imagery and its transportation onto digital photography sensors. Some have come close and cost a fortune. How about, then, through a simple and also ingenuous economic trick, to achieve the same similar results yielded through the above costly laboratory processes? Mount a lens meant for a full frame sensor onto a smaller one, such the APS-C. By doing this, the APS-C sensor will capture the light rays coming from the less curved surface of the FF lens, its central area, leaving out all those annoying bent rays susceptible to cause the above mentioned aberrations. This same thoughtful exercise of pure ancient Greek syllogism could be applied on the correlation between large to medium, medium to full frame and APS-C to Micro 4/3 formats. As I said in my opening remarks, all of the above is just an empirical theoretical logical exercise. Therefore, in the real world of real photographers like you, I may be completely off the track from sanity thinking.

Great review. Very detailed. I am a CVP customer. Only I would change is maybe lower the levels of the music down a bit as I want to hear the dialogue please.

Someday i will upgrade from my Lumix G7 to this Lumix S1H and it will be huge!!! Great vid!

U done a lot of good work.. I wish people wouldn't put the horrid synth music in the background for the whole duration.. which swamps the voice we'd like to hear.

Thank you for your time 🙏🏽

Hard disagree on removing the evf, best part of shooting with mirrorless cameras

Just watched it again! A lot of work gone into this so thank you. Really comprehensive review. I’m a long time sony shooter but I can”t wait to try this camera. I really think it can be a great bridge between creatives like me and big cinema cameras. I just need to save up for an anamorphic lens choice to go with it!

You deserve a huge thank you. Reviewers should learn from you.

The lowlight recordings are nothing but amazing. So is the detail level of the review, thx!

Great review CVP. I too do reviews and I realize how many days, if not weeks you have into just shooting and then editing and grading this. Nice work, the camera looks pretty exciting.

That was a comprehensive review. Thank you!

Nice review! Thats alot of work! Appreciated that

Really enjoyed how comprehensive this video was

Thankyou for a outstanding review. It was clearly a lot of work.

*Hi the images out of this camera are simply gorgeous ! The fire dancers on the beach look incredible. Perfectly lit low light source images. Even the slow motion was wonderful. I'm making arrangements to order a DC-S1H body and can hardly wait to receive my camera ! I already own the Atomos Ninja V, so I'm looking forward to capturing 6K ProRes RAW 12 Bit out of the S1H.*

Wow, great work. Very exhaustive feature set covered.

This is a spectacular review. Thanks for helping make my decision to purchase this camera.

Great video

Amazing work guys! Thanks for all the effort. Would love to get my hands on one some day

By the way, amazing in-depth review

Absolutely stellar job on this Jake!

Great review and great footage. Thank you!

I had to go back to edit this. One of the best reviews on RU-vid as usual. it's your dedication and your approach to the video camera like it's a video camera. Bmpcc 4k and 6k highlight recovery is just a gimmick since it's bringing back channels that did not clip and then artificially represents them like 3 channel color. What would the comparison be if you use the same trick for Panasonic? DaVinci resolve doesn't allow that probably but there are ways to do it. Also 14 stops of dynamic range is a straight out lie-and I know that manufacturers are lie on that front all the time, but they should be at least called out for that. Varicam 35 and Lt have the same advertised dynamic range and I can guarantee you that they have three stops more than this one.

I'd love to see a dynamic range test

Great review! So in depth!

Great video man! I'm sure that was alot of work ha! you smashed it! Your getting better in front of the camera aswell I know it's not easy! Well done!

Wow, that was a really cool full on review. Cheers 👍

Fantastic overview! Thank you so much.

Best review ever? Yes.

EXCELLENT and informative video, props to you, subscribed! I wanted to ask you what camera and more importantly what mic do you use for your speaking parts? I’m currently looking to get a new camera and debating between the S1H or wait for Sony to announce an a7s III. I appreciate the video specific workflow of the Panasonic but the color science of Sony is just beautiful.

Loved the review but did think it was presented at very fast pace . I do understand you tried to give out a ton of information in as short of a time as possible. Again great great job and thank you . I at the moment use Nikon DSLRs for live music shows. Love them for their hi iso abilities. But “we” are needing to go towards a more cinema style camera system. This S1h is great for us having the fan for long runs at festivals. I’d really like to see long run time tests done in variable environments of high heat and humidity or light rain. This is what really gets to our DSLR system at the moment. Thanks again

Great review! Many thanks!

Fantastic work

Great review, cheers!!

Awesome video. What was your WB for the night shots?

Great stuff, thankyou!

I’d love to see a firmware update to the s1 which would allow shutter angle and maaaaaybe exposure control during HFR recording. That would be so, just so great.

Awesome review 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

very good review

4:46 - I too wish they removed the EVF. When the EVF is fixed like it reduces its usefulness.

Amazing review...thank you.

So what about the Elephant in the room - Autofocus? Did you get a chance to test this bane of Panasonic camera’s?

The Panasonic Lumix S-Series Camera Professionals - S1H, S1, S1R Facebook Group has a good discussion going on about this camera. I recommend joining.

@8:21 thanks for mentioning the auto slow motion settings. I really think Panasonic is missing the boat on this one.

Great review. I really doubt that the a7S III is going to come close to this... and I'm a Sony shooter.

How did you feel about the low light noise? did you push the ISO often at night and what was the highest ISO you felt comfortable with? How did you feel about the AF in video mode? Is it "doable" for gimbal follow shots?

(2) years later and this camera still hasn't really seen a price drop lol. So annoying because I'm ready to upgrade from the GH5 but, I'm not paying $3600 for the cam + no lens.. LOL.

Placed Preorder with CVP!

Thank you the comprehensive review, that's a lot of info., well done. On the live view LCD, it would have been good to have an image of something with a large tonal range, instead of a string of fairy lights.

Very good video👌🏽 Im interested if it’s possible to use the old e mount lenses.

Hello support stabilization when record anamorphic? like GH6 or S5 II and S5IIX ? thanks

UPDATE QUESTION: Can the S1H output time-lapse movie sequences in 4K and 6K resolution, or is the time-lapse movie output limited to 1080p only resolution ?

I love it! It is time to do a new prores raw review... 😂 Thanks

I hear that the S1H is one of the cameras that Netflix has approved for their arsenal.

I'm curious about the blue highlights issue when shooting v-log, because i have the S1 and i see the same issue. Have you reached out to Panasonic with regards to that?

man great video. thanks for sharing it my thoughts this camera is awesome and technology is sooooo freaking fast improving every single year. BUT the highlights look not so good. this camera is way better than pocket 6k , BESIDE the highlights and the image in general.. i would totally buy this camera if it had those highlights like the blackmagic unusable cheap but then expensive camera

21::19 I had to screen shot that. it was so damn beautiful!

How’s the rolling shutter? I’m split between the BS1H and the BGH1 but from the little bit I’ve seen the BGH1 looks like it has better rolling shutter performance. I figure the BS1H and the S1H have identical sensors.

In manual photo mode I have a big problem with the s1h which I found no fix for. In live view at display and viewfinder the image is always displayed as if it was not over or underexposed. Sometimes only after I made a photo I see: Oh it was overexposed. But I want to see if I am over or underexposed in camera in the viewfinder. But the camera in viewfinder pretends everything is fine. It is annoying to always have to check whether I hit the settings. Especially in night shoots where some lamps are much brighter than others but the human eye has hard times telling this is very frustrating. Is there a way to fix this?

Brilliant, thanks

What is the sensor readout speeds for full frame and super 35? How bad is the rolling shutter?

Hello maybe you can help me I format a brand new sd card Sony tough 300mb/s and I record a few videos with the S1H and when I try to play the videos on my computer and they can't play any clue why?

great review ! What lens you used for the anamorphic shots ?

Is better than Sony A7s ii in low light performance??

Hi, you mentioned that you use it charged with external power bank!!🤔🤔 why can i not do the same? My s1h says turn the camera off while charging through external usb?? I mean it charges the camera for sure but I am not able to record and charge at the same time. Is this the case for you too? Please advise

I will buy S2H with 8K !

In general approximation, I can assume that the image quality with S1 will be identical to the footage that I see in this video? Except for 6k and the like, of course.

Quick question... Is it true that when shooting high frame rate the camera only does auto exposure and ont allow manual?? Thanks!

Still waiting on the promise of full frame without compromise. Specifically 50p in full frame.

Ya good luck using the R5 in such situations.

in what picture profile did you tested a7iii for low light tests?

So do you think an adapter to use canon EF lenses with the s1H?

Hi, Quick question : can we use desqueeze while filming in 6K Full Frame 3:2 mode ? (since it's close to the 4/3 aspect ratio....)

How would you say the autofocus compares to the A7III?

gh5s foreva!

Does this balance on the ronin s?

Canon 90D Review Plss

U could compare it with a7 r 4