New Panasonic Mirrorless S1R and S1

Panasonic has decided to do what any self-respecting camera manufacturer does before a major trade show and dropped a big, exciting bombshell: the company announces the development of two mirrorless cameras incorporating a 35mm full-frame image sensor.

Called the S1R and S1, the cameras will form what Panasonic calls the LUMIX S series. Both devices use the Leica L-Mount lens system and support 4K video at up to 60 fps, and feature a dual IS image stabilization system. There is also a dual XQD memory card slot along with dual SD. A tri-axial tilting LCD screen is also part of the feature list.

Panasonic says the sensor has just been developed with 47 million effective pixels for the S1R and 23 million for the S1, along with a new image processing engine. In parallel with the new camera development, the company has also announced a new MFT lens with a focal length of 10-25mm and a constant f / 1.7 aperture.

Both lenses and cameras will retail in 2019. There is talk that this is a development and further reinforces the slow but sure demise of the digital single lens reflex camera as mechanical mechanisms become increasingly redundant. What is your opinion?