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Panasonic S1RII: Studio tests confirms image quality is up to par
When you use DPReview links to buy products, the site may earn a commission. Photo: Mitchell Clark As part of our ongoing review of the Panasonic Lumix DC-S1RII, we shot our standard test scene, to see how its sensor performs. We're moving to a pattern of shooting test scenes together in batches, rather than risking delays to reviews, but the S1RII is a camera built around a sensor we've not seen before, so we rushed it straight into our studio to see how it performs. Buy now:Buy at Amazon.comBuy at AdoramaBuy at B&H Photo Our test scene is designed to simulate a variety of textures, colors and detail types you'll encounter in the real world. It also has two illumination modes to see the effect of different lighting conditions. Image ComparisonThis widget is not optimized for RSS feed readers. Click here to open it in a new browser window / tab. The results are pretty positive. In terms of detail capture, the S1RII performs as we'd expect, capturing less detail than the 61MP Sony a7R V but with no meaningful difference vs the likes of the Canon EOS R5 II, Nikon Z8 or its own predecessor. There's a fair bit of moiré visible in various places suggesting there's no anti-aliasing filter. But it's not significantly more pronounced than in most of its rivals, suggesting we were just unlucky that we got to see some artefacts in one of our real-world shooting. If anything, looking around various high-frequency targets in the scene, Panasonic's JPEG engine seems to be doing a pretty good job of suppressing the effects of moiré. In terms of color rendition the Panasonic looks a lot like its immediate peers, with no significant differences in most colors, compared with its peers. The light skin tone patch is perhaps a fraction more pink than Canon's rendering, but there aren't any nasty surprises: something backed-up by our experiences of shooting with the camera. Noise levels seem competitive at low to moderately-high ISO settings but it looks like noise reduction is being applied to the Raws at the higher ISO settings, with distinct blurring of the noise patterns. JPEG noise reduction strikes a pretty good balance between noise suppression and detail retention, but gets a bit overwhelmed at the highest settings. Dynamic range: The S1RII's sensor is a modern design with dual conversion gain, it has Panasonic's 'Dual Native ISO' function that lets you decide exactly where the switch in modes happens, but at default settings, it's at ISO 400 that the switch happens. Sure enough, if you brighten an ISO 320 image, you'll see it has slightly more noise than images shot at ISOs above that point, with the same exposure. The further you venture into the ISOs from that low gain mode, the more noisy you'll find the very deep shadows (this is exactly the read noise that using the higher gain step minimizes). So the widest possible dynamic range is encountered at ISO 80, but if you're tempted to underexpose in low light, to protect highlights, you shouldn't venture below ISO 400. The S1RII has a lower base ISO than its predecessor, so you can't make a direct comparison (the new camera has received a 1/3EV more light), but even with that slight discrepancy, it's results seem comparable. It's a competitive result, even compared with the best of its peers. Summary It's pretty apparent that the Panasonic Lumix DC-S1RII is built around the IMX366 sensor from Sony Semiconductor. So we see a sensor with dual conversion gain giving lots of dynamic range at base ISO and well-controlled noise once you move to the second gain mode. Its BSI design means its high image quality should be maintained right to the corners of the image, as it means the pixels can reliably receive light from more acute angles than on older FSI sensors. Buy now:Buy at Amazon.comBuy at AdoramaBuy at B&H Photo It does this while being fast enough to deliver 8K footage at an acceptable rate (though not great by video camera standards), despite taking the unusual step of using a slower, 13-bit readout mode, which should give it a DR edge over its peers. We'll be looking more closely at that in the coming weeks. But on the stills side of things, the S1RII seems to be built on predictably firm foundations.
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| Photo: Mitchell Clark |
As part of our ongoing review of the Panasonic Lumix DC-S1RII, we shot our standard test scene, to see how its sensor performs.
We're moving to a pattern of shooting test scenes together in batches, rather than risking delays to reviews, but the S1RII is a camera built around a sensor we've not seen before, so we rushed it straight into our studio to see how it performs.
Our test scene is designed to simulate a variety of textures, colors and detail types you'll encounter in the real world. It also has two illumination modes to see the effect of different lighting conditions.
The results are pretty positive. In terms of detail capture, the S1RII performs as we'd expect, capturing less detail than the 61MP Sony a7R V but with no meaningful difference vs the likes of the Canon EOS R5 II, Nikon Z8 or its own predecessor.
There's a fair bit of moiré visible in various places suggesting there's no anti-aliasing filter. But it's not significantly more pronounced than in most of its rivals, suggesting we were just unlucky that we got to see some artefacts in one of our real-world shooting. If anything, looking around various high-frequency targets in the scene, Panasonic's JPEG engine seems to be doing a pretty good job of suppressing the effects of moiré.
In terms of color rendition the Panasonic looks a lot like its immediate peers, with no significant differences in most colors, compared with its peers. The light skin tone patch is perhaps a fraction more pink than Canon's rendering, but there aren't any nasty surprises: something backed-up by our experiences of shooting with the camera.
Noise levels seem competitive at low to moderately-high ISO settings but it looks like noise reduction is being applied to the Raws at the higher ISO settings, with distinct blurring of the noise patterns. JPEG noise reduction strikes a pretty good balance between noise suppression and detail retention, but gets a bit overwhelmed at the highest settings.
Dynamic range:
The S1RII's sensor is a modern design with dual conversion gain, it has Panasonic's 'Dual Native ISO' function that lets you decide exactly where the switch in modes happens, but at default settings, it's at ISO 400 that the switch happens. Sure enough, if you brighten an ISO 320 image, you'll see it has slightly more noise than images shot at ISOs above that point, with the same exposure.
The further you venture into the ISOs from that low gain mode, the more noisy you'll find the very deep shadows (this is exactly the read noise that using the higher gain step minimizes). So the widest possible dynamic range is encountered at ISO 80, but if you're tempted to underexpose in low light, to protect highlights, you shouldn't venture below ISO 400.
The S1RII has a lower base ISO than its predecessor, so you can't make a direct comparison (the new camera has received a 1/3EV more light), but even with that slight discrepancy, it's results seem comparable. It's a competitive result, even compared with the best of its peers.
Summary
It's pretty apparent that the Panasonic Lumix DC-S1RII is built around the IMX366 sensor from Sony Semiconductor. So we see a sensor with dual conversion gain giving lots of dynamic range at base ISO and well-controlled noise once you move to the second gain mode. Its BSI design means its high image quality should be maintained right to the corners of the image, as it means the pixels can reliably receive light from more acute angles than on older FSI sensors.
It does this while being fast enough to deliver 8K footage at an acceptable rate (though not great by video camera standards), despite taking the unusual step of using a slower, 13-bit readout mode, which should give it a DR edge over its peers. We'll be looking more closely at that in the coming weeks. But on the stills side of things, the S1RII seems to be built on predictably firm foundations.
