Panasonic S1H review / hands-on - a true 6K full frame cinema camera

[FranciscoB]

Does it manage to downscale the 6k to 4k prores externally? 

[Lux Shots]

38 minutes ago, Mike Mgee said:

@Lux Shots To be honest I would love to see a  basic skin tone / motion test. I had a S1H on rental  last week but sadly it has been sent back.

Now I have to go trolling for models again! I always feel like I'm cheating on my wife when I do that. Its even worse when the girls are interested in more than just modeling.

You can turn down a meal or a drink, but turning down advances from women can get you killed or at the least, incorrectly thought of as gay, (with all due respect to the LGBTQ community 🌈 😃).

[Lux Shots]

On 5/27/2020 at 2:56 PM, FranciscoB said:

Does it manage to downscale the 6k to 4k prores externally? 

It doesn't down scale to ProRes, it's that the HDMI output is down scaled to 4K so it will be able to be displayed on the Ninja V, and then it can be recorded to ProRes or DNxHR.

[Alpicat]

Here's a test I did with the S1H using Mamiya 645 medium format lenses on a Kipon Baveyes 0.7x speedbooster. Shot in 6K H.265 using the whole sensor area which works really nicely with the medium format lenses as it maximises their field of view. The resulting equivalent speedboosted frame size is approximately 51mm x 34mm - slightly larger than what you'd get with 70mm film (definitely taller due to the 3:2 aspect ratio). It's still quite a bit smaller than IMAX though - equivalent to around half the surface area.

I mostly used a Mamiya 645 Sekor C 80mm f1.9 lens and also a 35mm f3.5. I had an SLR Magic variable ND filter on at all times as it was a very sunny day.

This is shot in V-Log and edited in Adobe Premiere which is able to handle the H.265 files pretty well. Would have preferred using Davinci Resolve Studio but it struggles a lot with these files even though I have a fairly good computer (AMD 3950X with an RTX2080 graphics card).

I have updated the camera to firmware version 2.0 and set the noise reduction to -1.

One of the shots was done at 180fps / 1080p.

The IBIS works pretty well, but can get quite jittery - it's difficult to keep the camera stable handheld when pulling focus on the Mamiya lenses as they have quite a long focus throw.

I composed the music using a virtual version of the Mellotron instrument. 

 

 

[FranciscoB]

@Alpicat

Nice, I've wondered about this combination. 

Thanks.

[deezid]

5 hours ago, Alpicat said:

This is shot in V-Log and edited in Adobe Premiere which is able to handle the H.265 files pretty well. Would have preferred using Davinci Resolve Studio but it struggles a lot with these files even though I have a fairly good computer (AMD 3950X with an RTX2080 graphics card).

Noticed the same on all my Windows installations of Resolve Studio recently. Cannot really work with 6K 10 bit footage properly but works just fine in Resolve Studio on Linux 🙃

[Emanuel]

What's your input versus P6K BTW Dennis @deezid?

[deezid]

42 minutes ago, Emanuel said:

What's your input versus P6K BTW Dennis @deezid?

Pocket 6K
- better codec, raw options, small, great performance
- better screen
- better menu system
- better slow motion quality but crop

S1H
- better color (V-Gamut) and better dynamic range/low light
- much better battery life - no rig needed
- IBIS
- no crop 120p but line skipping and what seems like 10 bit readout

Artifacts are a non-issue on both now that Panasonic finally fixed the NR (-1 setting) and H265 codec issues. Motion cadence also looks similar on the S1H now.

[MeanRevert]

29 minutes ago, deezid said:

Pocket 6K
- better codec, raw options, small, great performance
- better screen
- better menu system
- better slow motion quality but crop

S1H
- better color (V-Gamut) and better dynamic range/low light
- much better battery life - no rig needed
- IBIS
- no crop 120p but line skipping and what seems like 10 bit readout

Artifacts are a non-issue on both now that Panasonic finally fixed the NR (-1 setting) and H265 codec issues. Motion cadence also looks similar on the S1H now.

For the 120P, BMPCC6K also does 2.8K while the S1H can only do 1080.  

[Emanuel]

44 minutes ago, deezid said:

S1H
- better color (V-Gamut) and better dynamic range/low light
 

(...)

Well, I'd just tend to disagree on that one anyway... : ) I immediately get when find the greenish Panny's sensor trace behind and my eyes don't "feel" the same from Aussies' footage ; -)

[deezid]

Just now, Emanuel said:

Well, I'd just tend to disagree on that one anyway... : ) I immediately get when find the greenish Panny's sensor trace behind and my eyes don't "feel" the same from Aussies' footage ; -)

Both use Sony sensors though.
V-Gamut tends to be kinda magenta with strong and vibrant reds after proper conversion tbh, but at least primaries are spot on and roll-off is fine - not great while on BMD, nah, let's not talk about this mess called BMD Film V4 🤢

[deezid]

Just now, MeanRevert said:

For the 120P, BMPCC6K also does 2.8K while the S1H can only do 1080.  

That's what I said 😄
P6K cleaner slow motion, S1H line skipped (1080p).

Wish they could do more with the Sony sensor like Z-Cam (F6) or soon Sony itself (FX9) are doing.

[Emanuel]

6 minutes ago, deezid said:

Both use Sony sensors though.
V-Gamut tends to be kinda magenta with strong and vibrant reds after proper conversion tbh, but at least primaries are spot on and roll-off is fine - not great while on BMD, nah, let's not talk about this mess called BMD Film V4 🤢

LOL Right : ) I mean the way their distinct CS contribution handles the output from : -)

[MeanRevert]

27 minutes ago, deezid said:

That's what I said 😄
P6K cleaner slow motion, S1H line skipped (1080p).

Wish they could do more with the Sony sensor like Z-Cam (F6) or soon Sony itself (FX9) are doing.

I remember when the bmpcc4k could only do 1080 before the firmware update. It was a big improvement afterwards..

[Mike Mgee]

@deezid How come you never picked up a F6?

[deezid]

On 5/31/2020 at 8:54 AM, Mike Mgee said:

@deezid How come you never picked up a F6?

After firmware 2.0 I see less reasons to do so. Would love some more less cropped high frame rate options.
Overall 2.0 is quite impressive for V-Log.

Magenta tint seems gone
Orange/yellow lights won't burst into noise anymore
Sharpening seems to be turned off
Noise reduction -1 fixes the motion related issues, also much nicer grain pattern which matches the framerate (temporal NR seems to be gone entirely)
 

Here's a small test I did for an upcoming music video
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pUW5itKQn2Jjz1pqkqh4sPxB-IgnOWgE/view?usp=sharing

[PannySVHS]

@deezidzero sharpening look is looking good! Was it shot at 1080p or 4K? Image looks creamy. What lens did you use? How is the S1 holding up to the S1H with the FW 2.0?

[Lux Shots]

16 minutes ago, PannySVHS said:

@deezidzero sharpening look is looking good! Was it shot at 1080p or 4K? Image looks creamy. What lens did you use? How is the S1 holding up to the S1H with the FW 2.0?

In my opinion, unless Panasonic adds the -1 NR setting and all that it brings to the S1, no narrative creator should even consider the S1 to work alongside the S1H as a B cam. Pony up and get another S1H!

[PannySVHS]

14 minutes ago, Lux Shots said:

In my opinion, unless Panasonic adds the -1 NR setting and all that it brings to the S1, no narrative creator should even consider the S1 to work alongside the S1H as a B cam. Pony up and get another S1H!

For me it would be: Pony up and get that S1 shortfilm on:) Just that battery issue i discovered with mine, shutting off at 20% battery life left, yikes.

[deezid]

1 hour ago, PannySVHS said:

@deezidzero sharpening look is looking good! Was it shot at 1080p or 4K? Image looks creamy. What lens did you use? How is the S1 holding up to the S1H with the FW 2.0?

was shot with the Canon 24-105 F4 lol in 4K 48p and 6K24p
The S1 isn't as smooth and organic in my last comparison. Need to do some further testing as soon as I am in Munich again.