10 small features PROs will LOVE in the S1H

in our pursuit of the perfect look we usually focus on finding the camera with the best image quality highest resolution and dynamic range but are these features all you should care about when looking for the right camera having worked in many professional sets I found that even pro level productions often choose cameras that score lower in image quality yet scoring very high in other areas that are more critical to their shoots such as size battery life set-up time remote operation and so on which explains why I often choose this tiny jh5 over the much beefier red camera in many of my smaller production troops those reasons are behind all the small and often overlooked secondary camera features that are designed to make the camera work for you on set not against you these are features that pruney piece would look for in their camera of choice especially with that nowadays it seems that all cameras has gotten really high in quality that it's not a battle of resolution or dynamic range anymore but rather a battle of features fortunately for us the Panasonic s1h has a plethora of those awesome secondary features that together can become primary reason for you choosing this camera over obvious others in this episode I'll share with you ten small features that you will love about the Panasonic s1h I'll show you how those features will make a huge difference on set and how they made this camera stand out from all other popular cameras out there ultimately letting the s1h help you focus on what matters the most which is your creative process on set [Music] if you like the music in this intro and in this episode then I invite you to check them excel they're offering an awesome collection of royalty-free music and sound effects to score your projects I personally use the commercial plan which will not only let you use their tracks on personal projects but also on unlimited commercial work that's cleared on all online platforms perfect for all of us freelance filmmakers I'll leave a link in the description below for you to get one month free subscription with epidemic sound before I start small disclaimer confirming that Panasonic did not sponsor this episode everything I mentioned here reflects my personal opinion I happily paid the full price for this camera so if those features make sense to you then the s1h could potentially be a great camera for you as well with that out of the way let's dive in this one each can record 4k 60fps in 10 bit internal pretty amazing feature compared to all Meredith's cameras out there but the frustrating catch was how this is restricted to 35-millimeter mode which has an almost 1.5 X crop on this sensor an unexpected drawback from a camera that strongly advertised as a full-frame camera for switching to full frame your 4k or even 6k recording will max out at 30 frames per second so is there a way to shoot high speed in full frame the answer is yes this one H is capable of shooting 120 frames per second 10 bit and 180 frames per second 8 bit with a slight drop in the frame making it the only mirrorless camera that shoots at that speed and bit depth covering a full-frame sensor the catch as you might have guessed is that you restricted to full HD resolution but that shouldn't throw you off since most of the media content we consume these days are displayed in small screens and are very often published in full HD to prove my point here's the slow motion clip shot in Full HD which blended pretty seamlessly with other 4k clips in this music video I shot recently with s1 aged now check your streaming resolution and probably you don't realize that you're watching this video at Full HD if not even at 720p while I uploaded it in 4k I hope I made my point this feature of shooting 120 fps in full frame mode exists in the current full-frame mirrorless contender this 187 3 & a 7 s2 which falls short against s1h already as it shoots at 8 bit not 10 bit and loses again since the s-1 it shoots up to a 1 eighty FPS but an 8-bit this time let's bring in the Blackmagic 6k the other contender on the 6k front first of all it has a super 35 sensor which is already cropped to almost 1.6 X and the food at 120 fps the Blackmagic will dwindle the sensor further to a staggering 3.5 X which is a major drawback as well force you to change to a much wider lens if you want to match the field of view for example if you shoot with a 50 millimeter you'll have to swap it with a 40 millimeter super wide lens to match the framing in high speed to give you a better perspective on how that would look like this is your 120 fps on the s1h and this is how much it will crop shooting on the Blackmagic 6k on the same 120 fps the only two advantages in the Blackmagic though are first it shoots hundred and twenty FPS in 2.8 K resolution and in 12 bit as well as being able to shoot RAW internally on sd card versus compressed on both cameras yet soon we will hopefully have the ability of external raw recording on the s1 each once a thermos and Panasonic released the new firmware there are rumors about the new Canon ears are that could beat all of that but it would be launched probably sometime mid 2020 and we're not even sure about the information so we'll deal with that when the time comes this one each has a ridiculous amount of recording quality presets to choose from 42 to be exact so much that they have introduced the option to filter them in the recording format menu but this overwhelming amount would be extremely unpractical to fill it through on set that's why my list feature is a perfect solution for it it's a way to group all the preferred formats under one list which you can later assign to a custom button for easy access while on set I personalized my recording presets to include the highest resolution of 6k followed by the highest 4k quality then followed by the highest framerate options of 120 180 fps that we just talked about in the first point which dramatically reduced my menu to only 7 presets that's also very practical for me since my shoots are very diverse from commercials to music videos the narrative and documentary so every time I would do some minor adjustments in the list to include the ones relevant to my truth I haven't found that level of customization in any other mirrorless camera take the gh 5 for example they lay that all the presets in this grid they created a clutter and will distract you on set when you try to hunt for the right setting we for monitor and vector scopes pro-level cinematography tools used to measure both the brightness levels and the colors in your scene they're one of the primary reasons why DPS use external monitors as those features are rarely found in any camera even in the professional cinema cameras I personally find the waveform as an indispensable tool in all my shoes especially when you're not shooting in RAW but in compressed formats that are not very forgiving when it comes to recovering highlights waveform helps me nail and confirm perfect exposure without relying too much on the cameras monitor as it can be very deceiving with all that said having a waveform monitor in a mirrorless camera is mind-blowing it helps in those days when I'm only relying on the cameras monitor and ensures perfect exposure metering it's worth mentioning this was another great and unique feature in the gh 5 the reason why this is one of my favorite compact video cameras we form is surprisingly missing from the Blackmagic 4k and 6k and not surprisingly missing from the a7 series since it's a more for eccentric camera you might argue that many cameras have histograms which is more of a photography feature than video and it does almost the same thing to which I would respectfully disagree I come from photography background where histogram is the standard exposure tool but discovering the waveform when I made the leap into film made me appreciate its awesome advantage over histogram a subject that can be discussed in a separate episode before we check the s-1 each revolutionary screen design let's have a look at the common designs out there most cameras in the market have some sort of articulation in their screens yet each with its own set of limitations the Sony a7 series only has a tilt option with a limited range of around hundred and forty five degrees between up and down it's good enough for high and low angle shooting but it doesn't allow any side viewing or selfie mode the Blackmagic screen is completely fixed with a slight 9 degree tilt and appreciated but not good enough attempt to be filmmaker friendly the best option we had out there was in the gh 5 it's screen flips out until a full 270 degrees which solved all problems other cameras suffered from but created two other problems in the process first when the screen is closed it's pretty much fixed you have to flip it out in order to be able to tilt it up and down to make use of those 270 degrees and flipping out would almost double the horizontal footprint of the camera which would throw her off balance on a gimbal and forces you to rebalance the roll axis every time you flip up the screen but the major drawback was how flipping it out would block the HDMI so if you try to connect it you would drastically restrict the tilting of the screen a design flaw that left us all scratching our heads somebody should have been fired for that back in Panasonic HQ now comes the s1h with a revolutionary and unique articulated screen design that combine best of both worlds the screen can tilt up almost 80 degrees for those low angle shots similar to the sony then if you flip it out then you get the full 270 degrees range of rotation similar to the G h5 which works perfectly for high angles as well as for selfie mode and most of all offers clearance from any obstruction to the HDMI port while enjoying a full range of tilt I feel this could become the new standard in screen design which seems to have inspired the new Fuji HD 4 based on those rumours one of the first things I'll do when I buy or rent the camera is customize its menu and buttons to my shooting styles something I loved about the GH 5 is the amount of customizable physical and virtual buttons at hand addition to the ability to save the full layout of all your custom button preset in one file a huge time-saver when you want to transfer the settings to another camera or simply switch between settings for different types of shoots now this one H took this customizability to another level first they offered you a very broad and deep level of customization to every single button wheel and dial in the camera with expanded amount of function possibilities for each second the dedicated is the top recording video button with a distinctive red color then added one more button in the lower left side of the camera not to forget that the shutter release acts as the recording button as well having multiple recording buttons is a feature commonly found in pro level cinema cameras my red camera also has three buttons one on each side of the camera and one on the side grip the reason is to have the record button more accessible from all sides especially when you're rigging the camera in different ways that could prevent you from reaching the shutter button third compared to the gh 5 this one H added to customizable buttons on either sides of the EVF and one extra button next to the lens addition to the fact that the control wheel and joystick in the back are fully customizable with endless amount of assignable options and third if those physical buttons are not enough you can still add virtual buttons on the touchscreen and the beauty is you can disable them here to clear the display something you couldn't do with the gh 5 I honestly haven't seen that amount of customizability throughout my filmmaking career starting from mirrorless cameras all the way through cinema cameras of all kinds they all have different levels of customized ability but not to that level and depth short battery life is not a foreign concept in bigger cinema cameras such as the red they eat up a full average-sized v-log battery in around 45 minutes which is expected since those cameras have power-hungry processors with multiple fans to cool them down but those big cameras usually exist in bigger productions with bigger crews and camera assistants that would take away all your short battery life anxieties and let you focus on your shoot that's why a true smaller mirrorless cameras such as the jh5 for shooting my smaller productions as it lives for up to three hours or more on a single battery cycle so designing mirrorless cameras with a short battery life like cinema cameras that barely runs for one hour simply did not make much sense to me such as the case with the a7s2 and Blackmagic 4k and 6k especially when Blackmagic cameras have internal fans and need high processing power for all those internal raw recordings and high frame rates pro res files simply a bad decision that I hope they fix in their next generation so let's agree that the average of two hours is a reasonable amount to get you through a day of shoot with only three spare batteries and the s1h delivered despite its capability of internal 6k recording in very high data rates and the fact that it even has an internal fan to cool down the huge processing power it's battery life lasts for two hours or more depending on your settings I used it in more than six shoots already and battery anxiety never kicked in like it did with the Blackmagic or the red camera so the s1h has proven to be a very power efficient camera one of the main advantages of cine lenses is their mechanical focusing system that has a linear focus transition which sets them apart from porou lenses meaning that focus and cine lenses changes in direct and linear relation to the rotation degrees of the focus ring which is crucial for nailing perfect focus on the subject by marking its position on the follow focus knob and hitting it perfectly every single time you go back to it something we don't experience in modern photo lenses since they're focusing system is electronic and it's electronically controlled by the focus rings rotation speed instead not its rotation degrees like in cine lenses which is not linear but rather inconsistent and varies every time you change the focusing speed in a way that's hard to precisely predict that system is called focus by wire or fly-by-wire so the problem is how hard it becomes to nail perfect focus on the subject by marking its position on the focus ring since it has virtually never fall in the same spot simply because every time you change your focusing speed this focus position will change its place accordingly on the focus ring this system works in favor of autofocus but turns to be a pretty frustrating system in manual mode that's almost impossible to master thankfully the s1h solved this issue by offering you an option to convert the lens focus by wire system in your photo lens into a virtual linear focus it's like turning it into a cine lens which I find not only revolutionary but it's extremely economical if you once considered buying the cine version of the same lens for the linear focus ability of course take for example the Sigma 50 millimeter we have here the cine version cost three and half times the amount of the photo lens despite the fact that the optics used in both lenses are identical the only difference is the bigger housing and electronic motors that were replaced with manual gears in the cine version resulting in a bigger size and almost double the weight of course I'm not saying this option will save you from buying cine lenses since there's much more to cine lenses than just focus or weight especially the ones that have no electronic photo version available what I'm saying is how the s1h virtually upgrades all your existing photo lenses with a pro level manual focusing system that could make your life a lot easier if you're a manual focus type of filmmaker which is an essential skill you need to acquire as an indie filmmaker the top state is LCD is making its way back to somewhere less cameras these days namely the nikon z7 and the canon eos are for example but those screens suddenly look very primitive miniatures compared to what the s1h is brought to the market set here side by side and to scale you can see how this one each screen is almost triple the size of the nearest competitor it can host a lot more info rendering it a lot more useful so why do we need two screens to me they're very practical and useful references to have for a quick peek at the essential camera settings especially when you prefer having a clean back screen without all the clutter displayed the all-around or in a similar setup when you connect the monitor with a clean feed this way your top LCD will be a reference for your settings info so what makes it special apart from being the largest top LCD I found in any merliss camera of that calibre it also lets you toggle between two input displays the first is useful before you shoot for confirming the basic recording settings such as FPS resolution codec iris white balance and so on the second is a status monitor perfect for using after you start recording as it displays what's more important during the shoot such as the battery level remaining recording time on your cards timecode and most of all audio meters you can also customize their color from white to black and the reverse or even backlight it during those shoots and dark sets or at night again going this extra mile and beyond with their customized ability and finally you can have it display the remaining record time on both cards and battery level even when the camera is off so no need to boot up the camera anymore to check these infos in body image stabilization aka ibis a feature that's common in smaller cameras such as the g h5 and the sony a7 and just started gaining popularity now in higher end cameras that's one each broke the norm again from your typical either settings usually found in other cameras and hopefully will set a new standard with what I'm about to show you now from body stabilization tool and stabilization to a combination of both then we have anamorphic lens stabilization with all different sorts of anamorphic ratios we have horizontal stabilization vertical or auto if you're feeling lazy even electronic stabilization with a boost option that combines all the above to give you a rock-solid image virtually turning your hands into our tripod and most of all you can register lenses that cannot communique with the camera so the camera would calculate the amount of stabilization based on the image projection circle of that lens whether it's an anamorphic lens which would use the full 3 by 2 sensor area a full frame 16 by 9 or a super 35 lens I really respect the impressive amount of effort that went into this feature honestly again I wish other cameras would use this as a reference of how it's done there's a feature called the image area of video I have a full episode talking about how awesome it is I highly advise you check it out I'll leave the link in the description but in brief it's an option that enables you to have three different field of views while using the same lens by activating different areas of the sensor to capture the image namely the full frame the super 35 and finally a pixel to pixel area which is based on your final resolution output it also enables you to use both full frame and aps-c or super 35 lenses on this full-frame camera and finally it over samples the 6k sensor to recall in 4k and Full HD resolutions which improves the color accuracy noise and overall quality of the recordings again if you want to know more details and how to take advantage of its full potential then I invite you to check this episode as there's a lot more to understand in it that can fit here since this camera is full of those little things that made my life easier on set I realize that 10 features won't give it justice so I added this lightning round of smaller yet honorable mentions first I just fell in love with this new lock lever on the left side it lets you selectively disable the functionality of those camera controls as well as the touchscreen preventing you from accidentally changing the camera settings while shooting if you hit any of them by mistake a very common issue I personally suffered from in many of my shoots I used to love this feature in my old Canon 5d Mark 3 but it's only locked the back wheel it didn't have this awesome level of customization we have here in the s1h ii i was never a fan of the recording red dot it's too small and discreet for me as an indication that the camera is recording on a screen cluttered with loads of info overlays especially that it has an inconsistent placement that keeps on changing from one camera to the other now the s1h solved everything with this red frame indicator simple obvious and effective not to forget the to tally lights as well in the back and the front of the camera I really hope you camera would adopt this approach third this camera has a USB C 3.1 that will not only transfer data and high speed from the card but it can also quickly charge your battery in only two hours virtually acting like a DC power and offering you uninterrupted operation time if you hook it to the wall or even to a portable battery pack perfect case for those lengthy interviews type of shoots you might argue that the a7 3 is capable of charging via USB as well but the main two differences are first it's not fast charging so eventually the charger won't keep up with the power consumption second the a7 3 doesn't have a fan like the s-1 H so it heats up much quicker which could potentially result in an increase in the amount of noise in the image and eventually the camera could overheat and shut down finally despite that this camera has a cooling fan in the back Panasonic somehow found a way to make the s1h weather sealed this is pretty substantial as weather proofing opens up a whole slew of future opportunities in challenging weather conditions that could prevent you from choosing other similar leverage cameras such as the Blackmagic 6k or higher end cameras such as the canon c300 and of course cinema cameras such as Alexa or red which have their fans very exposed to the elements Panasonic proved to be very keen on weather proofing their cameras as we can see it's smaller dh5 sister was also weather sealed they seem to understand how the smaller cameras are more likely to fit or be in more challenging weather conditions and intro to offers peace of mind with such features there's a lot more in this camera to fit in one episode honestly but this gives you some ideas to why the s1 itch is for the series filmmakers I'm not saying that this camera is all sunshine and rainbows there will never be a perfect camera but it seems that Panasonic we're aiming in that directions with s1h as you know I was only focusing on the smaller features you might have missed while reading about those flashy respects everyone is talking about and as you saw some of those small features are unique to the s-1 age while others are found with less impressive twists in other cameras but I personally haven't found one camera that has them all leave us a comment with your favorite feature or maybe tell us about the ones that I missed that are worth mentioning I hope you enjoyed this episode don't forget to Like and subscribe thanks again for watching I'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: The DP Journey

Views: 31,625

Keywords: s1h review, s1h vs gh5, s1h vs bmpcc 6k, s1h cinematic, lumix s1h, panasonic s1h, full frame, full frame mirrorless camera, panasonic s1h review, ibis, image area of video, high frame rate video, a7III, red camera, gh5, flip screen camera, image stabilization, mirrorless camera for video, panasonic s1h footage, panasonic lumix s1h, lumix s1h review, features, s1h panasonic footage, 6k, panasonic s1h vs bmpcc 6k, fuji xt4, canon eos r5, bmpcc 6k, pocket 6k

Id: O65-6vUqgXc

Length: 20min 21sec (1221 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 20 2020