Panasonic Lumix S1R II on Test
FIELD TEST & REVIEW / LUMIX S1R II
Field-tested by a professional photographer: Panasonic Lumix S1R II
I am not a typical camera enthusiast or gearhead, and I do not closely follow every new equipment release. I am also not loyal to just one brand; I regularly use systems from different manufacturers side by side in my daily work. When it comes to lenses, I mostly prefer manual vintage optics from the 1960s and 1970s.
For the summer, I received a test setup from Focus Nordic and Lumix. The kit included the Panasonic Lumix S1R II camera body, the Lumix S 24-105mm f/4 Macro O.I.S. and the Lumix S 50mm f/1.8 lenses. I also used an M42 adapter to use my own classic lenses. I am writing this review completely independently. This is not a paid collaboration, and I have received no payment for this text. My focus is purely on how the camera performs in real professional work and creative projects.
AUTHENTICITY & PERFORMANCE
Note: All images and videos in this article were shot using the Panasonic Lumix S1R II review setup.
Reliability and battery life
In professional work, the most important quality of any camera is reliability. A photographer needs to trust that the equipment works in every situation without surprises.
At the start of the test, an active setting caused the battery to drain quickly and made the body get warm. I solved this by resetting the camera to factory settings and adjusting the menus again. After that, the battery life was excellent, and the camera worked perfectly even during long shooting days.
Interface, customization and manual focus
The Lumix S1R II is a technical camera by design. The menu system is detailed and includes many features I did not need in my daily work. However, you quickly get used to the menu logic, and the camera's real strength is its flexibility. Once you set up the custom buttons to match your workflow, the body becomes a very efficient tool.
Since I often shoot with manual lenses, I am used to the focus magnification systems in Fuji and Nikon cameras. The focus window on the Lumix felt a bit small when using the M42 adapter and vintage lenses. It works fine in the field, but for photographers who rely heavily on manual focus, it could be slightly better.
Vintage lenses on a high-resolution sensor
Using manual M42 vintage lenses on a modern high-resolution sensor requires a good viewfinder and effective stabilization. Even though the focus zoom window is relatively small on this model, Panasonic's built-in image stabilization (IBIS) makes handheld shooting with older lenses much more stable in low light.
Image quality, sensor and stabilization
The image quality from the camera is excellent. The high resolution gave me great flexibility to crop images in post-production, both in commercial work and in portraits.
The same flexibility applies to video. I shot mostly in 6.4K Open Gate mode, which allowed me to crop the footage freely into vertical or horizontal formats from a single recording. The internal image stabilization also deserves special praise. Handheld video footage is so smooth that it looks like it was shot with a gimbal.
Open Gate recording for multi-channel content
The 6.4K Open Gate format uses the full height of the sensor. In client productions, this saves a lot of time during shooting because the same recording can be cropped into landscape video for websites and vertical video for social media without losing quality. This was a great asset on commercial shoots.
Autofocus performance
As someone who regularly uses manual lenses, I was curious to test modern autofocus technology. The autofocus on the 50mm f/1.8 and 24-105mm f/4 test lenses worked very fast. On the rare occasions when it missed, it corrected itself almost instantly. Autofocus algorithms and subject recognition have improved impressive amounts in recent years. Personally, I still enjoy using a mechanical focus ring because it gives me full tactile control over where the focus lands.
Summary
The Panasonic Lumix S1R II is a versatile and high-performing camera. While setting up the controls takes a bit of time at first, it offers great customization options and strong image quality for both photos and video. I can easily recommend this camera body to anyone looking for top video quality in a hybrid setup.