Photography News Issue 63

First look 34

Photography News | Issue 63 | photographynews.co.uk

Key feature differences

ISO set

Lumix S1R

Lumix S1

Original image

£3499.99 body only

£2199.99 body only

47MP 36x24mmCMOS sensor

24MP 35.6x23.8mmCMOS sensor

187MP high r-es mode

96MP high res mode

UHD 4K/60p video capture with 1.09x crop and pixel binning

UHD 4K/60p video (1.5x crop); oversampled 4K/30p with no crop

Top ISO 25,600, 51,200 with expansion

Top ISO 51,200, 204,800 with expansion

Images To give some idea of ISO performance, here is a pair of shots at ISO 400 and 6400. The ISO 400 shot needed an exposure of 1.6secs at f/8. The Raws were processed through SilkyPix Developer Studio 8 SE with default noise reduction. Taken on a pre-production sample. Image quality is not final

ISO 400

ISO 6400

Above AF mode has face, eye and body detection, plus animal detect. Left High ISO image quality is good – this was shot at ISO 12,800.

Summary

without doing side-by-side shots) is that the S1R stamps all over it in terms of ultimate image quality. Most of my shots were taken on the 70-200mm f/4, although I managed a few on the 50mm f/1.4 and 24-105mm f/4. The 50mm is a serious lens and big even for its f/1.4 fast aperture. I did a few shots

at f/1.4 – there’s no point having a fast aperture lens if it’s unusable. No problem here though. This lens is expensive (£2400) but remarkable, even on this quick look. The 70-200mm f/4 is pretty capable too. While an f/4, it is not a compact telezoom, but handling was good and it balancedwell on the S1R.

It’s very early doors. I used the Lumix S1R for two hours, the S1 for 15 minutes and both were pre-production samples. That’s not really any basis tomake a value judgement so that will have to wait until a full test. That said, my first impressions are nothing but positive. The camera had an incredibly solid feel, the EVF is the nearest to an optical viewfinder I have seen, it has twin SD card slots and handling is mostly sound. All this counts for nothing if the images were a let-down. But they weren’t. They looked excellent with awesome detail and great sharpness and noise levels stayed low even at high ISOs – and this frompre-production kit. I will reserve final judgement until I have tested production cameras but at their body prices, both cameras represent great value. The downside is the lack of lens choice but the collective power of the L-mount alliance will definitely speed things up. Canon, Nikon and Sony are in for a full-frame mirrorless dogfight, that’s for sure because Panasonic’s S series has enormous potential.

Powered by