News S1Rii - Read all about it!

[Richard Wong]

@Richard Wong

I watched again and again your first Lumix S1Rii video (the very long one). In the autofocus part you said that (always for photography only) the AF of the SRii in some areas is not better than the AF of the S5ii with the newest FW update and in tracking and CAF for people the S1Rii has the edge.

When i said sometimes the S1RII is not better than the S5II, I was referring to the video mode autofocus when I was just running around in my garden.
I haven't shot any hockey matches before and none with the S1RII so can't really comment on how well it will work.
But for photo mode AF, it starts from 1:00:00 of my review. and it is noticeably better/more reliable than the S5II.
There is also the new Tracking mode + subject detection that combines the normal tracking mode with AI subject detection to improve the "stickiness" when your subject got blocked by other things in the scene temporarily. However, I think I've only tested it in video mode so I'm not sure if it works, and works well in photo mode or not. Panasonic also stated if the subject looks very similar to another subject in the scene, this may not work very well.

I've NOT heard of whether any of the AF improvements can come to S5II. I've not even asked them, because believe it or not, all reviewers are not told any information about upcoming products/future firmware until at the very most a few weeks or sometimes just a few days before the public announcement.
Since there was just a round of S5II firmware update a month ago, the next round of fw update probably will be at least a few months away. Panasonic has promised Lumix Flow support for S5II so at least we know there will be more firmware update. But that's all I know.
It seems you don't need/want a high resolution camera, and you don't care about the 8k video or 4k120 video. if that's the case, maybe just hold on to your S5II and see if the AF upgrades will come via firmware upgrade or not later this year?
Or wait for the next "normal resolution" camera whenever it will arrive, as we know Panasonic usually like to put everything they can do in their next camera + some more.

 

[Jonathan-Mac]

I wish camera manufacturers would offer a little flexibility when it comes to configuring their products. For example, if you buy a car model, you can configure the engine power, interior design, type of wheels, etc., or when you buy a computer, you can choose the processor, graphics card, internal memory, etc.

I say this because I feel like we pay for features we'll never use or don't need. For example, on the S1Rii, I don't need 8k AT ALL.

I'd like to be able to design a camera with the screen, EVF, resolution, speed, processor, or video stuff I'm going to use, and not pay for things I don't need. And I wouldn't mind if Lumix took 4 or 5 months to build it with all the different options, like what happens when you buy a new car.

By the way, this idea comes from the last video of James Popsys...

You would pay far, far more to have the feature removed than to have it developed and included in the first place. Look at the Pentax K-3 III Monochrome - the difference compared to the regular K-3 III is the removal of the Bayer filter and yet it costs about $300 more, simply because it's a more niche product. And that's for one modification.

All my cameras have shutter priority AE but I never use it and removing it would cost a fortune.