We got play with a shoot ready pre-production sample of the Panasonic S1 at WPPI 2019; and here are sample photos.
At WPPI 2019, our staff had the opportunity to play with a Panasonic S1 camera for a while. The Panasonic S1 is the latest offering from the company to photojournalists who want a full frame mirrorless camera. The Panasonic S1 sports dual card slots in form of both SD and XQD–which later on will be firmware upgradable to CFexpress. The unit that we used is a shoot ready pre-production sample, and we’re pretty positive that there is a Sony sensor at the heart. But we’ve got image samples nonetheless which you can find in our Panasonic S1 first impressions.
For your convenience, we’ve put a bunch of the sample images below in this post too.
The Panasonic S1 is designed to compete with the Sony a7 III and the Nikon Z6. In some ways, it will probably also compete with the Canon EOS R. The Panasonic S1 is boasting weather sealing in addition to a number of other cool features for photographers like changes to the diopter and viewfinder when shooting. Of the bunch, the Panasonic S1 seems to be the biggest competitor to the Sony a7 III–which is arguably now the king of the bunch. Panasonic’s price point though is pretty high up there. However, you get access to a number of lenses within the L mount system from Panasonic and Leica. Additionally, Sigma announced that new Art series primes are coming.
This is going to be a very interesting time for the camera manufacturers. Everyone is getting into full frame mirrorless as they’ve seen that this is the best approach when it comes to sales. Of course, a larger sensor isn’t everything and we have yet to really fully test the camera. But stay tuned, we’re working on securing units.