This is the Panasonic S1 with the V-Log upgrade,
and this is the Panasonic S1H.
Both of these cameras are capable of producing,
likely, the best video image quality you're gonna find
this side of an expensive cinema camera,
but there's a pretty sizable difference in the pricing
between these two models.
So today, we're going to talk about
all the differences between them
from a video shooter's perspective,
focusing on the some of the smaller details
that I haven't seen discussed that much here on YouTube.
Let's get undone!
[offbeat music]
♪ Gerald Undone ♪
♪ He's crazy ♪
What's happening, everybody? I'm Gerald Undone
and lesser leather never weathered wetter weather better.
First try! Nailed it on the first try!
First off, I want to take a minute to thank Camera Canada
for lending me this stuff so that I can make this video.
They're a great store and I'm always happy to support
my local economy. So, if you're Canadian like me,
make sure you check out Camera Canada using the product
links below. To start, let's talk broadly about
some of the main things these two cameras have in common.
While they do have some minor differences
in button placement and size, they fundamentally operate
the same way, and the inputs and outputs on the side,
the feel and ergonomics, and the menu and interface
are nearly identical. There are a couple of menu items
that have been shifted around and renamed,
but it's 99% the same, and those are all good things
because that means both cameras are offering full size HDMI,
headphone and microphone ports,
USB-C with power delivery and one of the best menu layouts
and touch interfaces in the business, in my opinion.
Now, the most obvious difference in the body
is the inclusion of these vents on the S1H
and the more versatile screen.
The vents allow it to stay cool when using
the more intensive recording modes and thankfully,
you have control over the fan in the menu,
so noise isn't a problem,
and the screen is now much more useful for filming.
It flips up, allowing you to see you while behind the lens
from above. And it's also fully articulating,
so it's better for self-filming, and also if you're using it
in an overhead situation, you can flip the screen down
like that, so you can see it from below.
Now, the screen on the S1 isn't terrible.
In fact, from a photography screening,
it's probably one of the better ones out there.
It has the three-way tilt, so you can still do that flip up
from behind, which I prefer, again, when shooting video,
but it also has the ability to flip this way,
which you can use if you're doing portrait shots
and you have that kind of angle on it,
so both screens are great, but the S1H is an improvement
for video work. Also, what some people might like about
the fully articulating screen is that it allows you
to flip it around and then close it so that you have
a more protected screen, which is important to some people.
Overall, I would say this is probably the best
screen implementation we've seen to date on
a mirrorless camera. And according to Panasonic,
these changes haven't affected its weather-sealing over
the S1. Both are excellently weather-sealed.
So, it's only upsides, except for the added bulk, I suppose.
This camera is definitely bigger and heavier.
Also, from a photography standpoint,
both are equal in terms of stills capability.
There's a couple more photo-based features on the S1
and the S1 doesn't have the AA filter that's in the S1H,
but again, they're 99% the same in this regard.
And as Richard Wong pointed out, when he recently did
a video comparing the optical Low Pass filter in the S1H
to the S1, he found that the images
were pretty much identical, and it was really hard to see
diminished sharpness on the S1H in a photo
until you punched into like 200%,
and even then it wasn't that noticeable.
I'll put a link to his full video in the description below.
And if you get the V-Log upgrade for the S1,
both of these cameras also share a vast number
of video capabilities as well, including the Gamma View Assist
for HLG and V-Log, proper V-Log recording
and waveforms. However, the S1H does also offer
vectorscope and the waveform size can be adjusted
on the S1H, but you can't do that on the S1.
And although it's not advertised as such,
both cameras also have a Dual-Native ISO.
When shooting V-Log, the S1H clearly indicates
that at ISO 4000, you use the higher gain circuit
and get a cleaner image. But on the S1,
you can also see a noticeable reduction in noise
when moving from ISO 3200 to ISO 4000 in V-Log.
So, in that regard, they're actually the same.
It's just as if the S1 is always set to Auto
for the gain switching. However, I have noticed
that the S1 is a touch cleaner in many of the ISO values
leading up to that 4000 switchover.
If you look at ISO 1600 to 3200 on the S1,
you can see a small advantage to the S1H in terms
of overall noise performance. The samples you're seeing now
were shot using the same lens, the same lighting
and the same settings and only moments apart,
and the S1H does produce a slightly better image.
And I've also noticed a temperature shift
of about 50K between the two
when white balanced the same.
Now, I probably wouldn't call this a major deciding factor,
because both of these cameras produce a similar
and outstanding image. And if we defer to Cinema5D
who did some lab tests on this sensor,
they recorded a dynamic range of 12.7 stops
with an SNR of 2, which is the second best result
they've ever measured. Again, I'll put links
to all the stuff below. Also, the white balance differences
should be eliminated when setting your white balance
properly while shooting, and the vectorscope shows
pretty much exactly the same colour accuracy between
the two. So, when shooting 4K, you're getting pretty much
the same spectacular image on the S1 as you would
on the S1H, but for $1,500 less.
In some cases, you might actually be getting
a better image now that the S1 had a firmware update
to reduce the ghosting and smearing issues it had,
which might still be plaguing the S1H.
Let's take a minute to phone a friend who's been quite vocal
about this issue to learn more. So, I've got Dennis
on the phone here and he's somebody who watches
my videos, I think, pretty regularly, commenting on things
that he's observed with cameras and I've also seen him
on the forums talking specifically
about the S1 and S1H
and their ghosting and smearing issues.
Dennis, talk to me about the problem you've been finding
with the, with the S1H.
Hello, Dennis here.
I'm a filmmaker from Germany and the S1H
is my main camera right now, and so far, so good.
Dynamic range, colour science, everything is amazing,
and there's one big issue where there's lots of artifacts
going on in darker areas or areas which are out of focus
or areas with, um, low-contrast texture.
And these areas tend to, um, smear a lot when, uh,
ever the camera is moving or the object itself,
if there's any kind of motion,
then there will be smearing or even ghosting in these areas.
[Gerald] You said this only happens in V-Log,
or is it in other profiles as well?
Basically, um these issues don't only occur in, um, V-Log,
but, um, they are almost invisible in the other profiles.
I did some tests in, uh, like Rec.709 and in HLG.
Do you have a, a theory or an opinion on what you think
is causing it and why you see it
see it less so in the HLG profile?
I think Panasonic made quite an effort, um,
trying to get rid of noise in shadow areas and,
but did a bit too much and probably didn't do
any quality checks. I have no idea what else is going on
and these, these artifacts are caused by, uh,
so-called temporal noise filtering
and show up on other cameras by other manufacturers
such as the X-T3 or the a7 III as well, but not in that amount.
[Gerald] So you think that the, the temporal noise reduction
is, like, too high on the S1H in those modes?
[Dennis] It's both too high, but there's also something
going wrong with the motion estimation in that mode,
which, uh, in other profiles just works, but not in V-Log,
for whatever reason, something is going on
and I have no idea what it exactly is,
but Panasonic is aware of it. They actually fixed this issue
last year on the S1 and not on the S1H yet,
but I guess that has to do with lots of different modes,
uh, that this camera provides which are not available
on the S1. It probably was, uh, easier to fix these issues
on the S1. On the S1, you're, uh, can shoot
in whatever profile you want. HLG is clean, V-Log is clean,
all the other Rec.709-based profiles are clean.
It doesn't matter which profile you shoot on the S1,
but it's a huge problem on the S1H, and I hope this up--
that there will be an update which fixes this issue soon.
Now, the raw update would also fix this issue, right,
because then the, the there would be no noise reduction
or whatever that you think is the cause that wouldn't,
the processing wouldn't be taking place, right?
What the raw does is, um, it captures the raw stream
from the sensor and the camera won't be able to apply
any internal processing, which would actually, uh,
get rid of the, of the noise reduction issue
but it also means that there will be a lot more noise in the,
in the image but you can decide what you want to do.
If you want to denoise it or not, it's your decision.
So generally then, some tips to deal with the problem
in the S1H between and when there's hopefully an update
to fix it would be to probably shoot on the higher exposure--
-Yeah. -side of things,
maybe overexpose a little bit to reduce
the impact of it.
Is there anything else in terms of, you know,
codec options or a frame rate that has an impact on it?
So, what definitely helps is staying in 4K,
don't touch any of the 6K and 5K modes,
they apply way more noise reduction even.
Overexpose at, at least one stop.
Try to expose two stops over, even, if possible.
Of course, uh, protect highlights.
At that point, if you are shooting 4K, potentially in HLG,
you're not using the 6K modes, then it becomes very similar
to the S1 in terms of its capabilities
because the image quality is almost identical between
these two cameras, um, I found anyway, in my tests.
Mm-hm, it is.
So, for you, what are the important factors
that you would say make the S1H worth the upgrade?
The reason why I updated from the S1 to the S1H
was basically, um, the real 24p. I need that to provide,
uh, to be able to provide DCI 4K DCP masters,
which rely on real 24p. There's also the 180° shutter option,
so basically shutter angle in general,
which is really important to me, so I can provide 24p
with a shutter of 48, which isn't possible on the S1 yet.
It may change in the future. I think both the S1
and the S1H provide a really convenient package for me
as a filmmaker. You don't really have to rig it that much.
You've got great battery life, you've got IBIS,
you can basically shoot shoulder camera-like footage
out of your hand, but since I switched to HLG
after I discovered all the artifacts
and that HLG basically provides the same dynamic range,
according to Cinema5D,
as an example but also in my own tests.
Um, I noticed that the colour was quite hard to deal with.
But when dealing with that HLG,
you've made your own LUTs. You've sent me some of them
to, to review. Have you found that your HLG LUT
and your V-Log LUT produce, like, the same, like,
are you happy with the HLG result the same way
that you were really happy with the V-Log result?
Have you, sort of, fixed it with your LUT, so to speak?
[Dennis] I did my best, I guess, and I tried to keep
your exposure around 0 EV. The image will look fantastic
but you can never overexpose HLG, it goes into
really heavy compression, but in case you avoid that,
you get fantastic image which can be easily matched
with any V-Log footage you shoot.
[Gerald] Well, I can say personally that I just shot
a bunch of shots last night when I was testing the IBIS,
and for a quick turnaround, I just threw the LUTs
that you sent me to test right on the footage and it,
and it looked pretty great. I, I only really, like tweaked maybe
like, the midtones a little bit or just add
a little contrast here and there but it was really minor,
what I did, and I thought it looked fantastic,
so I highly recommend your, your LUTs and I found
that they're also really colour accurate which has always been
something that's important to me.
A lot of people make LUTs that look good
or have a certain look, but they're not necessarily
colour accurate. They just have a nice feel to them.
-[Dennis] I agree. -Yours, I find,
have a, have a nice contrast but also have
a high level of colour accuracy and that's something
that we've talked about in the past. So, if people wanted to,
to find your LUTs, I'll put a link in the description,
but what, what are you selling them under, under,
like a company name or you know, what are the LUTs called,
what should they look for if they're doing a manual search?
So basically, uh, these LUTs are, uh, sold under
the 55Media brand, which I am working on at the moment,
with, with my friend. I am glad to hear that,
that you're satisfied with um, with the LUT
and that was quite my intention, to provide a LUT
which has some kind of, um, soft, cinematic look,
which is not too contrasting, but also provides,
um, really accurate colour.
[Gerald] And I'm assuming these LUTs will work on the S1
as well, because it's pretty much the same image, right?
They do, they do.
All right, well, thanks, Dennis, great tips and again,
great work on the LUT, and I appreciate you coming on
the video here and sharing your experiences with the S1H
and talking about that ghosting issue.
I wanted to get somebody's opinion on it
who's had more experience with it.
You've been really vocal about it so I thought
you were a great candidate to talk about it.
Thanks so much for being on the video, uh,
-it was my pleasure. -Yeah, thank you for having me,
and hopefully, next time. Bye bye.
Also, when it comes to pans and movements
that can cause that ghosting issue,
the S1 also has slightly better rolling shutter performance.
So at the moment, it might be the winner
for capturing faster movement.
Of course, this could all be reversed
if and when the S1H gets its raw update
because it should bypass the processing
that's causing many of these issues, but regardless,
when shooting a static subject, the S1H will have
a slightly cleaner image and be less likely to introduce
moire and aliasing due to the filter, and of course,
it can also shoot in 6K resolution.
But there are a few more differences regarding bit depth
and chroma subsampling at 4K and below.
First off, you can shoot full HD up to 120fps
on the S1H and keep your 10-bit colour while that drops
to 8-bit on the S1. So, that might be important
if you do a lot of slow motion. You can also record 4K60
at 10-bit internal on the S1H, but you require
an external recorder to do that on the S1
because again, it's only 8-bit internal, and then 8-bit 4K60
also has a 30-minute record limit on the S1,
which the S1H doesn't have.
So again, you need an external recorder
with the S1 to bypass that record limit
and match the S1H. And you'd also need
that external recorder if you want in an All-Intra codec,
because the S1H can do it internally but the S1 cannot,
even with the V-Log upgrade.
But that also, kind of, closes the pricing gap on the S1
if you need those features, because now it becomes
the price of the S1H versus the price of the S1
plus the V-Log upgrade, plus the Ninja V,
which will be closer to either $3,400
or only $600 less than the S1H.
Let's talk about what you're getting for that $600
so you can decide if it's important to you.
First off, the S1H has way more resolution options.
It has true cinema 4K options for each read combination,
where the S1 only offers UltraHD.
But the biggest resolution difference
is that the S1H allows for 6K full frame recording
and is Netflix-approved, but you probably knew that already,
and if you needed 6K, we wouldn't be having
this conversation. So, instead, let's talk about
the smaller things that actually make a big difference
in your experience with these two cameras.
On the S1H, you get shutter angle control
instead of shutter speed and this can be
extremely convenient if you change your frame rates a lot
as your shutter speed will be
adjusted correctly automatically.
You'll get more refined controls
over what's transmitting over HDMI,
allowing you to choose down conversion options
and sound transmission control with the S1H,
where the S1 is good in this regard, but a little limited.
You get anamorphic desqueeze which brings this camera
much closer to cinema camera level
and the image stabilisation works with anamorphic lenses,
which is pretty awesome, because the IBIS in this thing
is outstanding. But luckily, that's the case
for both of these cameras. Not the anamorphic support,
but both of these cameras have terrific image stabilization
and easily the best you can get on full-frame.
It might be the best Panasonic has ever produced.
In fact, I recently just posted a sequence to Instagram
and Twitter where I shot almost entirely with these cameras
at a 105 mm, handheld using just the IBIS,
and some of them were even from a moving car,
and I was impressed at how smooth they looked.
I would recommend that you go check out my Twitter
and Instagram if you haven't already,
because I'm going to be posting some more samples
from these cameras there soon. I know that this video is,
kind of, dense in the usability factors that we're, kind of,
blasting through here, but if you want
to see some more samples, go check me out on social.
Anyway, audio recording is much better on the S1H as well.
The S1 has the same problem that the GH5 had
where you can only turn it down to -12dB,
and for many voices on many microphones,
that's not enough to prevent a hotter mic from clipping.
The S1H solves this problem by not allowing you to reduce
the gain down to -18dB, but you can also drop
the entire amp from standard level to low level,
which will completely remove any of those hot signal issues
on the S1. This is huge for people that record audio
in camera a lot, and it also has better audio meters
which can be displayed on the top screen as well.
And that top screen is also much bigger
and much more useful on the S1H, which can be customized,
allowing you to change the display
and the information that's shown,
like those audio meters I was talking about earlier.
Both cameras have zebras, but the S1H allows you
to enable both sets, zebras 1 and 2, simultaneously,
so you could set one to skin tone and one to white clipping
if you wanted, and this can be helpful
when you're running and gunning.
Both cameras also have dual card slots with the same backup
or sequential capabilities, but both slots are SD on the S1H,
while the S1 features an XQD slot.
Although you can get away with cheaper SD cards
for the S1 because there's no ALL-I options,
so the more affordable V30 cards will do,
where you'll need a quality V60 card or better
for the S1H if you want to use the All-Intra recording.
The S1H also has timecode, which is going to be crucial
for some people, and the S1H has those video features
from the GH cameras like live cropping,
where you can punch in and focus transitions
that allow you to change focus throughout a shot automatically,
which is easy for a solo shooter
and it also has this loop recording mode that allows you
to continuously write to the card, and when it's full,
it just goes back to the beginning
and starts writing again in a continuous loop.
I think that's pretty much it for notable differences,
but how does that signal to you which one to buy?
Well, I think you need to draw the line earlier
than the $600 difference.
I think that if you're planning to go
that far with the V-Log upgrade, the Ninja V and so on,
you might as well get the S1H instead and take advantage
of all the extras we just discussed,
including 6K resolution,
but if instead you fall into the category of someone
who generally only shoots 4K at 24 or 30fps,
you're fine with compressed codecs
and you don't have issues with the GH cameras
hotter than average preamps,
or use an external audio recorder,
then you can probably get away with just the S1
and still take advantage of that excellent image quality
and IBIS, assuming you don't need autofocus, of course,
because neither of these cameras are the way to go
if you need reliable AF.
Of course, at that point, we open ourselves up
to the conversation of why not just get the Sony a7 III,
which I've already made that video, link in the description.
But then, it becomes a conversation
of great autofocus versus 10-bit, amazing IBIS
and improved dynamic range found on these Panasonic cameras.
But, getting back to the S1 versus the S1H,
it's a tricky topic because the S1H is clearly the better
video camera, and it's only one firmware update away
from being the ultimate version of itself.
But, you can produce the same images at 4K 24
and 4K 30 on the S1 with the V-Log upgrade,
which is anywhere from $1,300-1,800 less
depending on the sales at the time in your region,
and that's the price of an excellent lens or two.
And if you happen to have a Ninja V kicking around already,
the gap closes significantly. For me, I can say
that when going back to the S1 recently,
I didn't miss the live cropping, the transitions or the looping.
I didn't miss the dual card slots. I mostly shot at 4K 24p
and was fine with the LongGOP codec.
I didn't really use the timecode
and although I prefer shutter angle, since I'm mostly on 24p,
I was fine with just using shutter speed,
and I got by just fine using the single set of zebras
and didn't need the extra monitoring tools.
The only things I did really miss is the more controlled
audio preamps that you find on the S1H
and the articulating screen. Oh, and this one weird quirk
where the S1's focus peaking gets a bit dimmer
when you start recording, but it doesn't do that on the S1H.
That's something I noticed quite regularly.
So, for me, those were the biggest impacts,
but only you can really know which you need for your purpose,
but I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below
on which one you'd buy and why.
But that's gonna be it for me.
I hope you found this video entertaining
or at least helpful.
And if you did, make sure you leave it the old thumbs up
and consider subscribing if you haven't already.
But if you did not find this video helpful or entertaining,
blame Dennis. Alright... I'm done.