A near-perfect creator’s camera if money is no object

After a six-year wait, Panasonic’s S1 II is finally here and there’s a lot to unpack. As you’d expect from this company, it’s creator-centric with up to 5.8K ProRes RAW internal video recording. At the same time, it’s Panasonic’s fastest full-frame photo camera ever with 70 fps burst speeds and reduced rolling shutter distortion thanks to the new partially stacked 24-megapixel sensor. And with an AI-powered hybrid phase detect system, autofocus is no longer a weak point as it was with the original S1.

There is one issue though, and a surprising one for Panasonic: the price. The $3,200 S1 II is similar to Nikon’s Z6 III, right down to the partially stacked sensor and internal RAW video. However, the latter is some $700 cheaper and can often be found on sale for even less. Since Panasonic often undercuts rivals, that puts the S1 II in the unusual position of being overpriced next to the competition. After testing it for the last month, I’ve found that whether it’s worth it depends on your priorities.

Handling and design

The S1 II shares its excellent body design with the higher-resolution S1R II and the cheaper, non-stacked S1 IIe. It’s considerably lighter than the original S1 at 1.76 pounds and much smaller as well, both of which make it less burdensome. It’s also easy to hold thanks to the big ridged grip. However, it’s more angular and has a harder rubber skin than Canon’s rival EOS R6 II, so it’s not quite as comfortable over long shooting sessions.

The excellent control layout makes the S1 II a breeze to use. It has all the buttons and dials you need and they’re well located — particularly the joystick and control dials. There’s a dedicated switch for photos, video and slow and quick (S&Q) modes, and each has separate adjustments so you won’t mix them up. It also has a dedicated autofocus switch, two video record buttons (top and front), 10 other programmable buttons and a tally light.

I rarely needed to search for settings thanks to the logical color-coded tabs and easy-to-use quick menu, both accessible by touch or the joystick. Panasonic also made it simple to program buttons, dials and the quick menu to your personal preferences and it allows you to save them to a memory card as a backup.

The S1 II’s electronic viewfinder is bright and sharp, matching the Z6 III with a resolution of 5.76 million dots and 0.78x magnification. The rear display not only swivels out but also tilts up and down for overhead or hip-level photography. In comparison, Nikon’s Z6 III screen doesn’t tilt, so it’s not as versatile.

As with the S1R II, battery life isn’t a strong point here, with only 360 shots on a charge or 320 when using the EVF. To be fair, that matches the Z6 III exactly (and Panasonic’s non-stacked S1 II is only slightly better at 380 shots), but Canon’s cheaper R6 II has more than twice the battery life at 760 shots.

In order to capture RAW video, the S1 II has a CFexpress Type B card slot along with a slower SDXC UHS-II slot. Like the S5 IIx and GH7 (and several Fujifilm models), it also supports high-bandwidth RAW video capture to an SSD via the USB-C port.

The S1 II comes with a full-sized HDMI port that supports Blackmagic and ProRes RAW capture. You also get mic and headphone ports, and you can capture 32-bit float audio via the optional XLR2 accessory to reduce the possibility of clipping. Finally, the S1 II has a carbon fiber curtain that comes down to protect the sensor like recent Canon and Sony models.

Performance

The S1 II can fire bursts at a pedestrian 10 fps in mechanical shutter mode, but supports a superb 70 RAW images per second with the electronic shutter. And if you’re worried about skewed images, don’t fret. Distortion is minimal in electronic mode thanks to the partially-stacked sensor that has a rapid readout speed of around 12 milliseconds. That’s fast enough for sports or wildlife photography, unless the subject moves very rapidly.

Pre-burst capture, which starts when you half-press the shutter, is also available at the highest speeds. That lets you save up to 1.5 seconds of photos you might have otherwise missed once you fully press the shutter button. The buffer is a bit small, though, so you can only capture about three seconds (220 shots) at the 70 fps speed.

The hybrid phase-detect autofocus is the best of any Panasonic camera I’ve tested to date. However, it’s not yet up to Sony and Canon’s standards for speed and accuracy, and falls a bit short of Nikon’s Z6 III. If you’re shooting a fast-moving subject at the maximum burst rate of 70 fps, you may see more than a few out-of-focus photos.

The S1 II supports multiple AI modes — including animals, birds and vehicles — on top of human eye-tracking modes. I had mixed success with those as the camera had trouble locking onto the eyes of some birds and marine mammals I shot at the Vancouver Aquarium. However, it was better with more typical animal subjects like dogs, cats, horses and geese. Panasonic also introduced an AF mode called Urban Sports that improves tracking for breakdancing, skateboarding and parkour. I tested that mode with some skateboarders at the highest burst settings and saw a high percentage (90-plus) of in-focus shots.

One area where Panasonic tops its rivals is stabilization. That’s been boosted to eight stops (slightly short of the R6 II’s eight and a half stops), which allowed me to shoot at shutter speeds down to a half second and still get sharp shots. And as I’ll explain shortly, the S1 II is peerless when it comes to video stabilization.

Image quality

I’ve been impressed with Panasonic’s color science of late, finding that it matches Nikon in delivering some of the most color-accurate images of any system. By comparison, Canon’s images skew warmer, and I feel that Sony models like the A7 IV lack some accuracy, particularly with blue-green colors.

The S1 II delivers pleasing JPEGs with a nice balance between sharpness and noise reduction, though the latter can get overly aggressive at high ISO levels. RAW images offer plenty of detail in light and dark areas of the image, letting you tweak and correct to a fine degree. Keep in mind that using the electronic shutter in burst modes reduces RAW bit depth from 14 to 12.

The downside of any stacked sensor is additional noise, and the S1 II is no exception. This is most apparent at higher ISO levels where the camera exhibits a bit more grain than Panasonic’s S5, which has the same resolution but isn’t stacked. That said, the S1 II has about the same low-light prowess as the Z6 III and beats most fully stacked cameras.