Panasonic Lumix S1R and S1 Two Mirrorless Full-Frame Cameras

Doing Two Mirrorless Full-Frame Cameras: Lumix S1R and S1. Follow in the footsteps of Canon and Nikon invading land dominating Sony.

Panasonic Lumix S1R / Panasonic

The presence of Nikon Z 7 and Nikon Z 6 along with the Canon EOS R should have been enough to make Sony as the ruler in the mirrored full-frame camera segment to worry about. But it turns out there are still other parties who also want to participate in invading Sony's dominating land, namely Panasonic. At the Photokina 2018 event, the pioneer of the mirrorless trend announced that they were working on two mirrorless full-frame cameras.

The camera is a Panasonic Lumix S1R and S1. Like the Sony a7 series which is always divided in two (three if the a7S video-oriented is also counted), S1R is a flagship model with a full-frame resolution of 47 megapixels, while the S1 is only 24 megapixels. Quite unique, these two cameras do not use new mounts like the Nikon Z and Canon EOS R, but the L-mount made by Leica.

However, Panasonic will still develop its own L-mount lens. Three that have been planned are 50mm f / 1.4, 24-105mm, and 70-200mm, then seven others will follow not past a year after the two cameras were launched. In order to further expand the lens ecosystem offered, Panasonic and Leica have also partnered with Sigma to participate in producing the L-mount lens.

Since it is still under development (the prototype has just been exhibited), the details regarding S1R and S1 are not too complete. Some of the essentials include 4K 60 fps video recording capabilities (first for Panasonic's mirrorless full-frame), and an internal image stabilization system that can be combined with lens default stabilization.

Both cameras are equipped with a touch screen that can be tilted on three shafts (up, down and side, kind of belongs to Fujifilm X-T3), unfortunately not the fully-articulated model. There are two memory card slots, one for ordinary SD cards and one for XQD cards. Adjusting to the target market, the chassis has been designed to be resistant to unfriendly weather.

The plan, these two cameras will only be marketed in early 2019. The price is not yet known, but it's definitely more expensive than the Lumix GH5S, which is the most expensive Panasonic camera at the moment.