Handling, Setting up and Operating the S1RII

[CharlesH]

I only have about half a day with the S1RII, so I will post just a few notes for now. As we all learn more about our S1RII's we can chime in.

Handling
The camera is very much like a S5II or S5IIx. But there are a few changes. The grip is slightly deeper; for me I hardly notice the difference. If you have large hands it might be welcome. A thing I did notice, the On/Off switch is rotated a little counter-clockwise, and this makes it easier to operate with your thumb. Also, if you use a cage the switch is more accessable. The tilting screen is a biggie, and makes a lot of difference with handling. I do video as well as photos, and prefer a tilting screen to a swiveling screen for video much of the time. But the swiveling screen is there if you need it.

The photo/video/S&Q lever is also a big deal. This plus the five custom modes has completely changed how I think about setting up a Lumix camera. Frankly I'll probably work on this and think about it for quite a while.

Setting up
The SmallRig S5II/S5IIx cage will fit on the S1RII. But when it is on the battery door won't open, so if you use a cage you will need another one. I got an Angelbird 2TB CFexpress B card and have been using it in my GH7 while waiting for the S1RII. But, it won't format in the S1RII. The wait symbol just spins and spins and never finishes. I have been formatting the card in the GH7 and using it in the S1RII, which seems to work, but I'll trade it for a Lumix qualified card and hopefully that will solve the issue.

Next up
I've been running telephoto zoom lenses in the Hybrid Zoom mode, set to Minimum Image Size "S" which add a 2X zoom. This is great fun, and I'll post about it tomorrow.

 

[CharlesH]

Hybrid Zoom
The higher pixel count on the S1RII compared to the S5II or S9 means it has more pixels available for HybridZoom. With the Minimum Image Size set to "S", the image size zooms from 8144 x 5424 pixels (44.17 MB) down to 4128 x 2748 pixels (11.34 MB), which shows on the camera as an added X2 zoom. This happens smoothly as the lens is zoomed through its range. I looked at three zoom lenses, the 28-200mm, the 70-200mm f/4 and the 70-300mm. I also looked at the 70-200 with a 1.4x extender.
The 28-200mm becomes 28-400mm
The 70-200mm becomes 70-400mm
The 70-300mm becomes 70-600mm
The 70-200mm with a 1.4x extender becomes 98mm to 560mm

I took dozens of pictures, but I'll only show a few. The shots are RAW, and I used Lighroom to look at them. HybridZoom only works with JPEG, so to get RAW I shoot RAW + Fine, and I only took the RAW photos to Lightroom. When you open a photo it is scaled to the Hybrid Zoom focal length. But the entire picture is there as well, scaled to the native focal length without the Hybrid Zoom factor. The way to view the entire picture is to use the Crop Overlay button. This shows the entire picture, mostly greyed out, plus the smaller Hybrid Zoomed image not greyed out. Like with a normal crop in Lightroom you can move cropped region around, or change the crop size and shape if you want. Hit enter and it goes back to the Hybrid Zoom image. If you normally edit in Lightroom this probably makes sense - otherwise I'll move on.

The advantage of the 28-200 is that it is small and light. It was a medium performer, good enough I'll probably carry it on a hike now and then. The 70-300 had the worst performance. This was a surprise, I wanted it to perform well but it had a couple of problems. First, the stabilization did not work as well as the other two lenses and I felt I needed a little higher shutter speed. And when I did have it stable and focused well it was not as sharp as the 70-200 or the 70-200 with the 1.4x extender. The 70-200 was the superstar, with 400mm and 560mm images as sharp as I've ever seen with my back yard telephoto tests. Of course this lens is heavy; big and heavy. So I'm not taking it on a long hike.

My usual telephoto test shot is some fire station antennas on a ridge about 1.1 miles (1.8 km) from my back yard. I'll just show one. This was with the 70-200 and the 1.4x extender (560mm equivalent). It was getting late in the day, with quite a few clouds around, so it isn't a pretty picture, but I only look at the antennas themselves. The detail on the antennas may be the best I've seen. (The photos shown here are scaled down to meet the forum size limits.)

• Panasonic - DC-S1RM2
• LUMIX S 70-200/F4+STC1.4
• 280.0 mm
• ƒ/5.6
• 1/320 sec
• Pattern
• Manual exposure
• ISO 80

I did a test to compare the 70-300 to 70-200 with 1.4x extender. For this I un-zoomed the 70-300 to 560mm equivalent.

The 70-300mm

• Panasonic - DC-S1RM2
• LUMIX S 70-300/F4.5-5.6
• 291.0 mm
• ƒ/5.6
• 1/800 sec
• Pattern
• Manual exposure
• ISO 400

The 70-200 with 1.4x extender

• Panasonic - DC-S1RM2
• LUMIX S 70-200/F4+STC1.4
• 280.0 mm
• ƒ/5.6
• 1/800 sec
• Pattern
• Manual exposure
• ISO 400

The 70-200 with 1.4x extender is the clear winner here. The test had the same results with multiple shots.

The 28-200mm and the 70-300mm might benefit from DxO PureRaw processing for better sharpness, but this is not available for S1RII RAW yet. When it's released I may try this again.

 

[Nevyn72]

The advantage of the 28-200 is that it is small and light. It was a medium performer, good enough I'll probably carry it on a hike now and then. The 70-300 had the worst performance. This was a surprise, I wanted it to perform well but it had a couple of problems. First, the stabilization did not work as well as the other two lenses and I felt I needed a little higher shutter speed. And when I did have it stable and focused well it was not as sharp as the 70-200 or the 70-200 with the 1.4x extender. The 70-200 was the superstar, with 400mm and 560mm images as sharp as I've ever seen with my back yard telephoto tests. Of course this lens is heavy; big and heavy. So I'm not taking it on a long hike.

That is really a surprise, I would not have expected that. I love my 28-200 but that it would perform better than the 70-300

That the 70-200 would be the clear winner was ofcourse to be expected.

 

[CharlesH]

That is really a surprise, I would not have expected that. I love my 28-200 but that it would perform better than the 70-300

There are a few things about the 28-200. The O.I.S. is really good, and is quite a bit better than the 70-300. So the stability is very good with my not really stable hands. The focus of the 28-200 drops off badly at the edges at longer focal lengths (at least with my copy). But with Hybrid Zoom you work just in the middle of the image at the longer focal lengths, so it is less of a problem. The 28-200's detail on my antenna telephoto target isn't up to the 70-200, but it's acceptable for a carry around lens. Also, for the more normal non-telephoto pictures the Hybrid Zoom doesn't kick in much so it is close to full frame.

I was out in the yard this morning trying Animal detection with the 28-200 (with Hybrid Zoom on). This is 68mm for the lens, and 75mm Hybrid Zoom.

• Panasonic - DC-S1RM2
• LUMIX S 28-200/F4-7.1
• 68.0 mm
• ƒ/8
• 1/160 sec
• Pattern
• Auto exposure
• ISO 400

 

[CharlesH]

High Resolution mode
The high Resolution mode in the S1RM2 is close the same resolution as the camera I'm replacing, the Sony A1. The A1, and I believe all Sony cameras, require post processing for High Resolution. This makes it not very convenient; you save the stack of photos to your computer and import and process them in Sony software. I used this a few times over the years, but not very often - it was not worth the hassle. Panasonic processes this in the camera; it takes a few seconds but it is a far far better way. I took some test shots. First, I'm not very good with hand held high resolution - I'm not known for steady hands. So I used a tripod. I shot with RAW+Fine. Lightroom still doesn't process High Resolution RAW from the S1RM2, so I looked at the RAWs in Capture One. But I looked at the JPEGs in Lightroom, and that's what I'm showing below. When you take a High Resolution Picture, you get both the high resolution version and one of the normal resolution shots as well. (With RAW + Fine you get four pictures with every shot.) You can directly compare the normal 8144 x 5424 pixel image with the high resolution 16288 x 10848 pixel image, either RAW or Fine.

The picture was of a house, and in Lightroom I zoomed in on a small segment of the image, looking at some irrigation control valves. I expanded this to 200% for the high resolution image, and to get the same size I expanded the normal resolution image to 400%. This was with the 20-60mm lens, zoomed out to 50mm. This was at ISO 80, f/6.3 and 1/320 sec. The images are screen grabs from Lightroom.

Normal resolution (at 400%)


High Resolution (at 200%)


The conclusion, the High Resolution mode works well with the S1RM2. I expect to use it quite a bit. And the 20-60mm lens is awfully good. (Good at the center, it falls off at the edges.)

 

[dirk]

Thank your for testing this. Especially the comparison Lumix S1Rii vs. Sony A1. Very hard to find something like this on the internet.

 

[CharlesH]

Dynamic Range Expansion [Log]
This is for video shooters (for photography only users, read at your own risk).

Panasonic introduced a new video function with the S1RM2 called Dynamic Range Expansion [Log]. The purpose is to increase the dynamic range of V-Log at the upper end. For background, the V-Log function has never fully lived up to the potential of HDR video, which is typically based on a target maximum screen brightness of 1000 nits. Note that the other brand cameras also fall short with their log profiles, so if Panasonic can improve this it is a good advancement. YouTube reviewers have found that the Dynamic Range Expansion [Log] function increases the rolling shutter issue with the S1RM2. This new camera is not exceptional with rolling shutter anyway, so making it worse is touted as going in the wrong direction. However, in my case (and perhaps for most people), I don't shoot videos where rolling shutter comes into play. And I mostly make HDR videos, so I'm very interested in any advancement that can make them better. So I wanted to test this new function.

I set up a scene where the sun was hitting a low white wall and the rest of the scene was largely in shadows. In other words it was a high dynamic range scene. I shot two short V-Log clips, one with the Dynamic Range Expansion [Log] function turned ON, and another with this turned OFF. With the function ON, ISO was set to the prescribed 200, and with the function OFF, ISO was set to the prescribed 400. The exposure with the function ON was set with the Waveform Monitor to be close to saturation for the white wall. The exposure was not changed when I turned Dynamic Range Expansion [Log] OFF. Then I loaded the clips into DaVinci Resolve and looked at the Parade Scope. Here are screen images of the Scope from both clips. Dynamic Range Expansion [Log] OFF is the scope image on the left. Dynamic Range Expansion [Log] ON is the scope image on the right.



Look at the exposures for both clips. Note that the low and middle exposures are identical, but they are different at the high end. With the Dynamic Range Expansion [Log] function OFF, the clip is saturating at about 500 nits. With this function turned ON it is at 800 nits, and maybe saturating. This shows that using Dynamic Range Expansion [Log] picked up 300 nits for this test. Over time I will test this more, but for now it looks like a big advantage and I expect to use this when I shoot V-Log.

 

[Nevyn72]

Dynamic Range Expansion [Log]
This is for video shooters (for photography only users, read at your own risk).

Panasonic introduced a new video function with the S1RM2 called Dynamic Range Expansion [Log]. The purpose is to increase the dynamic range of V-Log at the upper end. For background, the V-Log function has never fully lived up to the potential of HDR video, which is typically based on a target maximum screen brightness of 1000 nits. Note that the other brand cameras also fall short with their log profiles, so if Panasonic can improve this it is a good advancement. YouTube reviewers have found that the Dynamic Range Expansion [Log] function increases the rolling shutter issue with the S1RM2. This new camera is not exceptional with rolling shutter anyway, so making it worse is touted as going in the wrong direction. However, in my case (and perhaps for most people), I don't shoot videos where rolling shutter comes into play. And I mostly make HDR videos, so I'm very interested in any advancement that can make them better. So I wanted to test this new function.

I set up a scene where the sun was hitting a low white wall and the rest of the scene was largely in shadows. In other words it was a high dynamic range scene. I shot two short V-Log clips, one with the Dynamic Range Expansion [Log] function turned ON, and another with this turned OFF. With the function ON, ISO was set to the prescribed 200, and with the function OFF, ISO was set to the prescribed 400. The exposure with the function ON was set with the Waveform Monitor to be close to saturation for the white wall. The exposure was not changed when I turned Dynamic Range Expansion [Log] OFF. Then I loaded the clips into DaVinci Resolve and looked at the Parade Scope. Here are screen images of the Scope from both clips. Dynamic Range Expansion [Log] OFF is the scope image on the left. Dynamic Range Expansion [Log] ON is the scope image on the right.

View attachment 10350

Look at the exposures for both clips. Note that the low and middle exposures are identical, but they are different at the high end. With the Dynamic Range Expansion [Log] function OFF, the clip is saturating at about 500 nits. With this function turned ON it is at 800 nits, and maybe saturating. This shows that using Dynamic Range Expansion [Log] picked up 300 nits for this test. Over time I will test this more, but for now it looks like a big advantage and I expect to use this when I shoot V-Log.

Charles looks like a huge difference between clippping and nice rolloff. What I do understand from reviewers is that when you use this mode, the rolling shutter gets worse. It seems that also here there doesn't exist something like a free lunch... So it depends what you are shooting.