S1Rii loan this weekend

[pdk42]

I’ve arranged a free loan of an S1Rii from Panasonic UK this weekend. I’m planning on some head to head IQ tests against the S1R for typical landscape shots - including some long exposure stuff and performance above base ISO.

MPB have a Like New one up for sale at the minute at £2700 and they’ve offered me £750 for my current S1R, so let’s see…

 

[dirk]

I’ve arranged a free loan of an S1Rii from Panasonic UK this weekend.

Resistance is futile. Come to the dark side of the power...

There is no hide. Sooner or later we will get you...

 

[Miker]

I’ll be interested in your findings. I have an SL2 which is similar to the S1R IQ wise, and wonder if there there is any real advantage to the S1Rii strictly in terms of image IQ for photography.

 

[pdk42]

I’ll be interested in your findings. I have an SL2 which is similar to the S1R IQ wise, and wonder if there there is any real advantage to the S1Rii strictly in terms of image IQ for photography.

I do notice noise issues with the S1R if I push shadows hard or shoot at ISOs above about 200/400. Long exposure noise is pretty ugly too, but you need to be 45s or more for it to a real nuisance. It’s mitigated somewhat by the dark frame NR (long exposure noise reduction), but that doubles the wait time on every shot. If the S1Rii can do 60s shots without a dark frame exposure then I’ll be really tempted.

 

[RichardC]

It's smaller. It's lighter. The AF is much improved (that's important to me). It does live composite, pre burst etc. Like a big version of the EM1 Mk2. It does the long exposure noise reduction thing on a 60 second exposure though, so a 60 sec exposure takes 2 min (but you can switch that feature off).

Either the S5 or S1R has got to go. At the moment, I think I'm going to part company with the S5.

 

[GeorgeHudetz]

If the S1Rii can do 60s shots without a dark frame exposure then I’ll be really tempted.

It can easily do 60 seconds at most ISOs without LENR, although I'm not sure about above ISO 6400.

If you really push it - say, 8 minutes at ISO 800 - the blue channel starts to fall off and thus you get a green tint. But 4 min at ISO 800, for example, is fine. So I think you'll be happy with 60 second exposures, but it will be interesting to see how you make out with it.

So, it sort of has that same behavior as the S1R - where you can push the sensor out of it's comfort zone - but that comfort zone is far larger on the S1RII.

 

[GeorgeHudetz]

Here is an example from an astro shoot I did over the weekend. Foreground (obviously).

This is 60 seconds, ISO 400, +2.26 on the exposure, +30 on the blacks, and a nudge on Brightness to boot. 100% crop. Standard NR settings, no single-pixel NR.

• Panasonic - DC-S1RM2
• 20mm F1.4 DG DN | Art 022
• 20.0 mm
• ƒ/1.4
• 60 sec
• Pattern
• Manual exposure
• ISO 400

 

[Markuswelder]

I’ve arranged a free loan of an S1Rii from Panasonic UK this weekend. I’m planning on some head to head IQ tests against the S1R for typical landscape shots - including some long exposure stuff and performance above base ISO.

MPB have a Like New one up for sale at the minute at £2700 and they’ve offered me £750 for my current S1R, so let’s see…

I'd be interested to see how it goes back to back against the S5 classic. Cranking shadows a couple of stops at base ISO, and at say ISO 400 or 800. That sort of thing. If that's not too much trouble.
Everything I look at out of the S1RII impresses me greatly with its colour rendition. It just looks really really nice

 

[xaviergut]

I wonder if this Dynamic range boost feature applies for photo mode too, because all the information about this is normally regarding video in v-log...

The same with double native ISO. For example photo Joseph made a video about it but forgot to mention how it works for photo too. He corrected it in the comments, after a quiestion from Marlene Hielena:

 

[Quentinquirelino]

I wonder if this Dynamic range boost feature applies for photo mode too, because all the information about this is normally regarding video in v-log...

The same with double native ISO. For example photo Joseph made a video about it but forgot to mention how it works for photo too. He corrected it in the comments, after a quiestion from Marlene Hielena:

The S1RII doesn't have DR boost. It has DR expansion instead. The S1II, GH7, GH7 and G9II havr DR boost.

The difference is, with DR expansion, the camera reads in 14 bit instead of 12 bit. In photography 14 bit is the standard, but it goes down to 12 bit in some burst modes. In video mode 12 bit read out is the standard, so calling 14 bit read out a DR expansion makes more sense.

With DR boost, the camera reads both base ISO in every sensor readout. That means you end up having a single native ISO instead of two. The methods Panasonic is using in the G models seems to be a little different than in the S1II. In the S1II it seems like the camera is reading each pixel two times successively in every readout, which means the reading time doubles more or less. In the G models Panasonic seems to have a sensor that is able to read two circles simultaneously, so the reading time doesn't decrease much. In the G models DR boost is offered in Photo mode too. In the S1II it isn't, but I think it would make sense if it was, because many types of photography don't need the highest read out speed and DR boost could be beneficial. For example for landscape photography.

 

[pdk42]

I'd be interested to see how it goes back to back against the S5 classic. Cranking shadows a couple of stops at base ISO, and at say ISO 400 or 800. That sort of thing. If that's not too much trouble.
Everything I look at out of the S1RII impresses me greatly with its colour rendition. It just looks really really nice

I'm planning to do comparisons against the S1R and the S1. The S1 is the same sensor as the S5, so it should be valid for both.

 

[pdk42]

I wonder if this Dynamic range boost feature applies for photo mode too, because all the information about this is normally regarding video in v-log...

The same with double native ISO. For example photo Joseph made a video about it but forgot to mention how it works for photo too. He corrected it in the comments, after a quiestion from Marlene Hielena:

If it's anything like the existing 24Mp sensor then the dual ISO will mean that the best noise performance will be at base ISO, but there will be another low point as the ISO climbs. In the case of the S1/S5/S5ii, that is ISO 640 where the noise is less than at ISO 400.

 

[pdk42]

The S1RII doesn't have DR boost. It has DR expansion instead. The S1II, GH7, GH7 and G9II havr DR boost.

The difference is, with DR expansion, the camera reads in 14 bit instead of 12 bit. In photography 14 bit is the standard, but it goes down to 12 bit in some burst modes. In video mode 12 bit read out is the standard, so calling 14 bit read out a DR expansion makes more sense.

With DR boost, the camera reads both base ISO in every sensor readout. That means you end up having a single native ISO instead of two. The methods Panasonic is using in the G models seems to be a little different than in the S1II. In the S1II it seems like the camera is reading each pixel two times successively in every readout, which means the reading time doubles more or less. In the G models Panasonic seems to have a sensor that is able to read two circles simultaneously, so the reading time doesn't decrease much. In the G models DR boost is offered in Photo mode too. In the S1II it isn't, but I think it would make sense if it was, because many types of photography don't need the highest read out speed and DR boost could be beneficial. For example for landscape photography.

The DR boost on the G9ii is quite remarkable. At base ISO in photos it has the cleanest shadows of any m43 camera - by quite a margin. I think it works using the "dual gain" of the sensor - which effectively gives a double sensitivity readout at each pixel.

 

[Markuswelder]

The DR boost on the G9ii is quite remarkable. At base ISO in photos it has the cleanest shadows of any m43 camera - by quite a margin. I think it works using the "dual gain" of the sensor - which effectively gives a double sensitivity readout at each pixel.

You're the first person I've ever seen or heard, other than myself, to say that. I was really really surprised at just how clean the shadows were, I downloaded stacks of raw files from multiple sources around the place, played around with them and was pretty shocked by just how good they were. Yet none of the reviewers even mentioned this. Well, none that I saw anyway.
Which is why I pretty much don't bother taking any notice of them any more. Same story with the S5 autofocus. They're about useless

 

[pdk42]

You're the first person I've ever seen or heard, other than myself, to say that. I was really really surprised at just how clean the shadows were, I downloaded stacks of raw files from multiple sources around the place, played around with them and was pretty shocked by just how good they were. Yet none of the reviewers even mentioned this. Well, none that I saw anyway.
Which is why I pretty much don't bother taking any notice of them any more. Same story with the S5 autofocus. They're about useless

Yes, I too thought it strange that very few people remarked on this. Frankly, if the G9ii had been around when I was getting frustrated with Olympus gear I’d probably still be using m43.

 

[CharlesH]

Frankly, if the G9ii had been around when I was getting frustrated with Olympus gear I’d probably still be using m43.

The GH7 has the same capability as the G9II, which is one reason I really like it.

 

[Markuswelder]

Yes, I too thought it strange that very few people remarked on this. Frankly, if the G9ii had been around when I was getting frustrated with Olympus gear I’d probably still be using m43.

Yeah, I thought long and hard about it, but a couple of factors tipped me to L mount. I have to admit, price was one of them. I think I picked up my S5 with the 20-60 mm plus 50 mm F1.8 for less than just the G9 mkII body only.
The other thing was size and weight. For the majority of how and what I shoot, (85 mm equivalent and less) any difference is quite insignificant, to me. I just figured that if I'm going to carry an S5 body around, I may as well have the sensor to go with it.
I'm not bashing m4/3 in saying that, it just went in a different direction than what I was happy spending my hard-earned on.

Edit -I have to admit, that if even a G100, or proper GX8 successor appeared with the G9 mkII/GH7 sensor I'd be sorely tempted

 

[Pete_W]

Yes, I too thought it strange that very few people remarked on this. Frankly, if the G9ii had been around when I was getting frustrated with Olympus gear I’d probably still be using m43.

And even stranger (or maybe not ) is that in the DP Review m4/3 forum, the G9II was pilloried constantly after it was released over problems when raising shadows. There was a constant campaign from a number of forum regulars who seemed intent on demolishing this camera as being inferior in every way to the OM1.

 

[pdk42]

And even stranger (or maybe not ) is that in the DP Review m4/3 forum, the G9II was pilloried constantly after it was released over problems when raising shadows. There was a constant campaign from a number of forum regulars who seemed intent on demolishing this camera as being inferior in every way to the OM1.

I had a loan one for a few days and I can see why it might get both reactions. So long as the camera uses its DR Boost mode then the shadows are super clean, certainly much better than the OM1. But if DR Boost is disabled (and the camera will silently disable in various modes, such as burst shooting, long exposures beyond some limit, …) then the shadow performance is notably worse than the OM1.