While smartphones were quite blatantly stifling compact
cameras and digital SLRs were losing their traditional appeal, the new market
for mirrorless 4/3, APS-C and Full Frame was capturing more and more curiosity
among the public. In this field it must be said that Sony has made school, and
probably still reigns almost undisputed today due to its aggressive prices and
its extremely compact products, but other international brands have tried to
keep up with it and among these there is certainly Panasonic .
Queen of 4/3, especially in the video field, Panasonic
recently wanted to have its say also in the professional field, with three high
quality Full Frame mirrorless cameras. We think of the Lumix S1, theLumix S1H
that we reviewed a few weeks ago and the muscular Lumix S1R , the subject of
our test today.
If the S1 can be considered the all-rounder of the range, a
declared enemy of the Sony A7 III, and the S1H is a movie set beast with
integrated fans, the S1R goes to undermine the A7R line-up , showing off a very
very high resolution and perfect image quality for studio and portraiture. So
let's talk about our experience with the Panasonic Lumix S1R .
Password: detail
In line with the sisters, the S1R sports a well-made
packaging, which immediately makes us understand that we have a high-end
product in our hands. Panasonic sells it both "Body Only" and in the
24-105 F4 kit , a solution that we have personally tried and that perhaps did
not fully convince us, we will see later why. As soon as it is take out of its
original packaging, the machine certainly stands out due to its generous
dimensions, close to those of the S1H but with a slightly more graceful overall
design - given the absence of fans and a screen orientation system. quite
classic.
The choice of Panasonic to focus on extreme solidity at the
expense of compactness can certainly make you turn up your nose, especially to
see many competing products, but if you are looking for a professional
mirrorless in war set-up, without blemish and without fear , you may have found
yours. winning horse.
Probably 148.9mm x 110mm x 96.7mm x 1.02 kg nowadays are
dimensions and a weight "out of time", reserved for the most complex
(mechanically speaking) reflex cameras, but we are aware that such a large
slice of the public is concerned " tonnage "can please, restore
security.
The true qualities of the S1R, however, are preserved
inside: the heart of this camera is in fact a 35mm Full Frame CMOS sensor with
47.30 MP effective (50.44 MP total) capable of taking exceptional images, to be
previewed on what is probably the best viewfinder on the current mirrorless
market.
If the rear display is a 2,100,000-pixel TFT Touch LCD, it's
the OLED LVF viewfinder that gets the most applause , thanks to 5,760,000
pixels, 120 fps and a lag of just 0.005 seconds. It is the exact same as
mounted on the S1H and the sense of wonder is in fact intact, in no time it
will become your best ally - and we hope to see sights of this quality on
competing products soon. Panasonic also continues the excellent partnership
with Leica with this S1R , with which it shares the L optics park, certainly
another added value of the product.
Everything under control
What we have said for the S1H, we can repeat it also in this
case: despite a few fewer buttons than the video oriented sister , on the body
of the S1R we still have everything we need . All the key functions for a
professional use of the machine can be reached quickly and easily, although of
course it will be necessary to familiarize yourself with the positions. Coming
from the world of professional reflex cameras, the transition will be quite
painless, since we will have all the dials and control buttons we are basically
used to - another aspect that on a more compact body we probably would not have
had.
Of course we found an autofocus / shutter button perhaps too
sensitive, it is not uncommon to take photographs by mistake or start sudden
bursts. Like any new camera, therefore, we will have to take
"measurements" with its electronics and its controls, but in a short
time, even with this S1R you will feel at home.
As mentioned at the beginning, we tested the body with the
kit lens, the 24-105 F4 from Panasonic , a good quality lens that, however,
fails to make the most of all the potential of the exceptional sensor mounted
on the S1R.
Having the aperture at F4 over the entire focal range is
certainly an excellent advantage, in any case we are talking about a somewhat
"dark" value, with a good but not exceptional blur, obviously
incomparable with higher-end lenses with 2.8 apertures. "to go down".
It is therefore, in our opinion, a goal that is not up to the level of the body
it is to accompany.
The Japanese company probably wanted to wink at those users
"scared" by the big leap to Panasonic in the professional field,
which has a fair number of high-quality lenses but certainly cannot compete
with other brands, at least today. Being
able to mount Leica L lenses is a great added value, in this
case, however, the prices go up considerably, with the prosumer user who could
be discouraged to say the least. For all these reasons, Panasonic has probably
chosen to create an "all-rounder" kit for this S1R too, which however
deserves glass of a completely different caliber. Despite this, we managed to take
excellent quality photos that we are now going to analyze.
Faithful colors and high dynamic range
Let's start with the colors, with the CMOS sensor chosen by
Panasonic that has given us excellent satisfaction, especially by taking photos
of close subjects and panoramas. The machine can only work with sRGB and Adobe
RGB profiles, we will not be able to go further, this is however a detail
common to many other high-end reflex / mirrorless cameras.
The S1R also allows you to calibrate color intensity, amount
of details, contrasts and so on, using different internal profiles, for our
test, however, we decided to leave everything "flat" and then see
what would have come out working the files with Adobe Lightroom .
In the photos of the flowers below you can see how the S1R
returns bright colors, saturated but realistic, and how the kit lens - despite
being a "zoom" and F4.0 - manages to create good blurs around fairly
close subjects, even if not too creamy.
If the greens and reds behave excellently, the blues also
have something to say, very natural and neutral, perfect for your landscape
photographs. You can see for yourself what the S1R can do with the sky of Porta
Garibaldi, with the bodywork of our Ford Fiesta ST or with the shades of Lake
Varese.
Colors maintain good fidelity even at high ISO. Below, for
example, you can see how the colors of the S1R remain full-bodied and saturated
even at 1000 ISO, while going up to 6400 ISO, deep blacks are the master but
never absolute, with digital noise kept at bay correctly.
Even reaching ISO 25600 the S1R can create perfectly usable
files, especially on the social network side, with the grain that is felt but
not sensationally.
This obviously if you take photographs with the correct
exposure, if you intend to recover a lot of shadows on RAW at ISO 25600 the
business starts to get particularly difficult.
Thus we come to talk about one of the most important aspects
of a high-end mirrorless: the dynamic range . Panasonic has worked hard on its
sensors, managing to achieve exceptional results even with these "first
generations" of S1. Although perhaps not at the levels of Sony's Alpha 7Rs
(III and IV), this S1R in any case manages to reach - on paper, according to
DxOMark - 14 stops around ISO 100, then gradually decreasing as the sensitivity
scale increases - as is normal.
In practice we are not very convinced that we have reached
14 stops in the recovery of lights and shadows, we are in any case at high
levels, with RAW files that leave us a great deal of freedom in processing.. We
purposely missed some shots to understand how much the S1R was able to recover
and below you will find our results.
Thus we come to talk about the aspect for which a mirrorless
of this caliber should probably be purchased, with such a detail in megapixels:
portraiture . We took a series of outdoor portraits to put the S1R to the test
in natural light, away from the safety of the studio, and the results were more
than satisfactory - always bearing in mind that we shot with the kit lens.
In this context, the naturalness and softness of the colors
perhaps make the difference, if you like a more "creamy" and less
artificial photograph, moreover all the pixels available allow you to have an
exceptional detail - or to crop if necessary without losing who knows how much
quality . (Just below you can see a 100% crop of the original file that you
find on the left)
Equipping the Panasonic Lumix S1R with a Leica L lens or
Panasonic's 50mm 1.4 Pro lens means taking home portraits of the highest
caliber, with a wide dynamic range, soft colors and a detail that we could
define as "scary" - although obviously not. it is the only machine in
the current market that allows similar possibilities, mind you. For these
portraits we thank Giulia Sabatino , you can find her on Instagram with the
nickname @lasabbi .
The Panasonic Lumix S1R is therefore large and
"safe" like a high-end SLR, with all the controls at hand, but with
the soul and technology of a full-fledged mirrorless. The Japanese manufacturer
has certainly worked very well with the S1 family, but several times we had the
impression of holding in our hands (even with the other machines of the Pro
family) a generation "passing", a great dress rehearsal for something
best to come soon.
The size and weight of the rest are felt, the battery
consumption (especially with the viewfinder set at 120 fps) the same, we also
half appreciated the choice of inserting the double slot for the memory cards
but SD / SDHC / SDXC from one side, XQD on the other, an expensive and perhaps
superfluous format on a similar model - which shoots massive bursts but which
also has a buffer worth covering the whole thing on regular Premium SD cards.
Moreover, even if this "defect" will certainly be
corrected over time as happened with the competition, we must take into account
the limited current range of optics on which the S1 can count today - which
among other things has costs of a certain type, with medium / high / very high
quality lenses that always ask for a little sacrifice on an economic level.
With the right equipment, however, this S1R will be able to
give you excellent quality images, with super-detailed portraits and delicate ,
never aggressive colors . In the hope that Panasonic will soon give us a more
compact generation, a little easier to use for less "bodied" users,
but which will continue on the same qualitative path as these first S1s.
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