Panasonic Lumix BS1H Box Cinema Camera

The quality is really good you get 4k 5k quality. The camera don't come with a battery (and battery charger) so you have to order that. You need a monitor and battery charger for that too. You need a autofocus lens to use the autofocus but if you are a TRUE filmmaker/creative you can work your way around that.

I've only had the camera for a couple weeks, used on one project so far, and starting to form an educated opinion. Love the size, weight and shape of this box camera. SDI out AND full size HDMI port are God sent on such a tiny body! Picture quality is fantastic and should cut nicely with its bigger sister the EVA1. Also, if you already own an EVA1 you can use the same batteries which is super convenient. It seems like a no brainer as a great camera for gimbal, car rigs or any other hard to reach places. Should also be great for interviews and other applications. But, there are a couple drawbacks. First, the rolling shutter. It is very pronounced with fast pans, so if you rig the camera for action packed hand held work it will be very noticeable. You can minimize it by using the cropped sensor mode. Second, the menu and buttons. A little confusing and doesn't seem terribly intuitive (even though I'm familiar with it from the S5). The bluetooth connection works well and you can connect the camera and control it on your phone, BUT... if you change some settings via your phone you must also undo those changes on the phone. I've chosen a specific record quality on my phone (reduced to 8bit recording for slow motion work) and suddenly the camera was missing all the ALL-Intra options in the menu, and it took me FOREVER to figure out what happened. It doesn't make sense that the camera stays under the spell of bluetooth remote control even after bluetooth is turned off, but it does... so be aware. Speaking of slow motion, I do wish a higher quality (422 10bit) slow motion was available at this point. Also, I understand it's impossible to squeeze internal NDs into such a tiny body, but the lack of Image Stabilization is almost criminal. Still, with the fabulous Panasonic color science and 6K capabilities, I'm hoping to get some good use out of it for the next few years.

The quality is really good you get 4k 5k quality. The camera don't come with a battery (and battery charger) so you have to order that. You need a monitor and battery charger for that too. You need a autofocus lens to use the autofocus but if you are a TRUE filmmaker/creative you can work your way around that.

Loving this as my first starter camera. Is Netflix ready and isn't to complicated to get rolling and learn on. Has simple setting and becomes and easy rig to get up and running in matter of minutes. I shoot small independent films and skits for streaming and so far it hasn't let me down. Light easy to replace if €€ broken and has a been 0 issue camera so far. I'm glad I started here with a full frame box camera and moved away from the smaller sensors. I wanted something with a full sensor to capture nice big shots with a lot of space and so far I've been loving the empty space I have to play with. I'm very new to the industry so I'll most likely update this after I've had it up and running for a year or so! More to come!

I bought the BGH1 and then less than two months later Panasonic announced the BS1H. It made sense to go ahead and get its bigger brother. It's the same size, but bigger in abilities. Two months from now they will probably announce a bigger body that will have a built-in menu screen. Is this camera perfect, no. But if you rank it based on value I would give it six stars. You have to buy this camera knowing that it is relatively useless until you rig it out. Panasonic realized that the industry is rigging out DSLR and mirrorless still cameras for production so why not give them an actual video body to rig out that wait for it, actually takes a full size video battery and continuously records. The Atomos monitors have become almost standard production gear. You just need to know that you need to permanently pair the Atomos with this camera. You also need to include the XLR adapter in your set-up/rig. You should note that the Atomos mount adapter will not work well when the XLR adapter is installed, if you want the monitor to mount in front of the XLR adapter (not included) then you should get the small rig atomos mount that has a lower profile and will fit just underneath the XLR adapter. Also, you do need to get quite familiar with some of the quirks of this camera before relying on it in the field. I recommend using it as a back-up until you become fully acquainted with the function buttons and flipping back and forth from on screen monitor to clean feed on the Atomos. You will mostly want to use the Atomos as a monitor rather than a recorder to have the heads up display in a run and gun situation.

I bought the BGH1 and then less than two months later Panasonic announced the BS1H. It made sense to go ahead and get its bigger brother. It's the same size, but bigger in abilities. Two months from now they will probably announce a bigger body that will have a built-in menu screen. Is this camera perfect, no. But if you rank it based on value I would give it six stars. You have to buy this camera knowing that it is relatively useless until you rig it out. Panasonic realized that the industry is rigging out DSLR and mirrorless still cameras for production so why not give them an actual video body to rig out that wait for it, actually takes a full size video battery and continuously records. The Atomos monitors have become almost standard production gear. You just need to know that you need to permanently pair the Atomos with this camera. You also need to include the XLR adapter in your set-up/rig. You should note that the Atomos mount adapter will not work well when the XLR adapter is installed, if you want the monitor to mount in front of the XLR adapter (not included) then you should get the small rig atomos mount that has a lower profile and will fit just underneath the XLR adapter. Also, you do need to get quite familiar with some of the quirks of this camera before relying on it in the field. I recommend using it as a back-up until you become fully acquainted with the function buttons and flipping back and forth from on screen monitor to clean feed on the Atomos. You will mostly want to use the Atomos as a monitor rather than a recorder to have the heads up display in a run and gun situation.

I've only had the camera for a couple weeks, used on one project so far, and starting to form an educated opinion. Love the size, weight and shape of this box camera. SDI out AND full size HDMI port are God sent on such a tiny body! Picture quality is fantastic and should cut nicely with its bigger sister the EVA1. Also, if you already own an EVA1 you can use the same batteries which is super convenient. It seems like a no brainer as a great camera for gimbal, car rigs or any other hard to reach places. Should also be great for interviews and other applications. But, there are a couple drawbacks. First, the rolling shutter. It is very pronounced with fast pans, so if you rig the camera for action packed hand held work it will be very noticeable. You can minimize it by using the cropped sensor mode. Second, the menu and buttons. A little confusing and doesn't seem terribly intuitive (even though I'm familiar with it from the S5). The bluetooth connection works well and you can connect the camera and control it on your phone, BUT... if you change some settings via your phone you must also undo those changes on the phone. I've chosen a specific record quality on my phone (reduced to 8bit recording for slow motion work) and suddenly the camera was missing all the ALL-Intra options in the menu, and it took me FOREVER to figure out what happened. It doesn't make sense that the camera stays under the spell of bluetooth remote control even after bluetooth is turned off, but it does... so be aware. Speaking of slow motion, I do wish a higher quality (422 10bit) slow motion was available at this point. Also, I understand it's impossible to squeeze internal NDs into such a tiny body, but the lack of Image Stabilization is almost criminal. Still, with the fabulous Panasonic color science and 6K capabilities, I'm hoping to get some good use out of it for the next few years.