Panasonic S1R Field Test

Panasonic S1R Field Test

The Panasonic S1R expertly blends classic feel and functionality with modern performance

by Jeremy Gray | Posted 08/16/2019

The Lumix S1R is Panasonic's first high-resolution full-frame mirrorless camera. Compared to the company's long tradition of Micro Four Thirds cameras, the new full-frame Lumix S system is a big jump up in terms of sensor size.

A large aspect of any camera system is its lens selection, which is particularly challenging when launching a brand-new camera system, especially one which must use a different lens mount. Fortunately, Panasonic has long had a productive relationship with Leica, who has their own full-frame lens mount, the L mount. While Panasonic is making their own lenses (the S1R and S1 launched alongside three Panasonic S lenses), users can also attach existing L mount lenses from Leica. Further, Sigma has joined the newly-formed L Mount Alliance, promising to release native versions of their Sigma Art lenses in addition to offering mount and conversion options to existing Sigma owners.

When considering the intelligent design of the S1R, Panasonic's imaging expertise, and the new L-Mount Alliance, Panasonic has done a really good job of positioning themselves during the critical launch period of their new full-frame mirrorless cameras. They've jumped in with both feet and it shows when using the Panasonic S1R. Let's take a close look at how the camera performs in the field, including a look at image quality, autofocus performance, video features and more.

Key Features and Specs

• Full-frame mirrorless camera
• L lens mount (developed by Leica)
• Part of the new L Mount Alliance with Leica and Sigma
• 47.3-megapixel MOS full-frame image sensor
• Native ISO range of 100-25,600, expandable to ISO 50-51,200
• Weather-sealed body
• High-resolution electronic viewfinder
• Triaxial tilting touchscreen
• Dual card slots (UHS-II SD and XQD)
• Up to 9 frames per second continuous shooting with AF-S, 6 fps with AF-C
• 4K/60p video
• Sensor-shift image stabilization
• High Resolution shooting mode
• $3,700 USD for the body

Camera Body & Handling: A large, but very well-designed camera

If you buy into the conventional wisdom that mirrorless cameras are always small and lightweight, the S1R will quickly make you realize that is not the case. The camera weighs 2.26 pounds (1,021 grams), which is quite a bit more than the Nikon Z7, Canon EOS R and Sony A7R Mark IV full-frame mirrorless cameras, for example. Further, the S1R is large. It is 5.9 inches (148.9 millimeters) wide, 4.3 in. (110mm) tall and 3.8 in. (96.7mm) deep, which is between half an inch and an inch larger than the Sony A7 IV in each dimension.

However, this bulk comes with excellent build quality and an intelligent control layout. The S1R feels very good in the hands. Its buttons and dials are plentiful and easy to operate, and the front grip is deep and comfortable to hold. If you have gone hands-on with different mirrorless cameras and found any of them a bit too cramped, the S1R will likely be a breath of fresh air.

Another excellent aspect of the camera is its electronic viewfinder. The OLED EVF has 5.76 million dots and a 0.78x magnification. The display is sharp and works great. It is not just high resolution, but it's also smooth thanks to its 120Hz refresh rate. Further, the circular eyecup around the EVF is comfortable, which may not sound like an important consideration, but it is when you are shooting for an extended period of time. The rear touchscreen is nice too, although it's not a tilt/swivel display but rather a triaxial display. This means that it tilts up and down and about 45 degrees to the side. The 3.2-inch screen looks good, but I do miss the fully articulating display design of Panasonic's higher-end Micro Four Thirds cameras.

The camera also has a third display, a useful, easy-to-read top-deck information display. The backlit, monochrome screen shows settings such as shutter speed, aperture, exposure compensation, ISO, battery life, image quality, white balance and remaining shots. Further, by double tapping the illumination button on the top deck of the camera, some of the S1R's buttons also light up. The buttons which light up are the playback, Q, back, DISP., and delete buttons.

In terms of button placement, I don't have much to complain about. Most controls are within reach of your shooting hand except for the playback button, which is to the left of the viewfinder and requires your left hand to press -- a mild annoyance. My favorite aspect of the design are the white balance, ISO and exposure compensation buttons located near the shutter release. They're all the same size, but to make them easier to differentiate while looking through the viewfinder, the white balance button sits higher, the ISO button in the middle has two bumps, and the exposure compensation button sits the lowest. You can easily feel the difference between the three. Another great aspect of the S1R's design is its dedicated autofocus joystick; super convenient and easy to use.

While I like the size of the camera and the overall design, I found that the directional pad on the back doesn't feel good at all. It's mushy and I found it difficult to use for menu navigation, opting instead to use the joystick. This is a small nitpick in the grand scheme of things, especially since it's by no means a required method of input when using the S1R.

Image Quality: The 47.3MP full-frame sensor delivers great images

The Panasonic S1R features a 47.3-megapixel full-frame image sensor. At the time of its original announcement and release, it was the highest-megapixel full-frame mirrorless camera. Since then, Sony has announced the 61-megapixel A7R IV, but that nevertheless leaves the S1R as still a very high-resolution option in the ever-more-crowded full-frame mirrorless market.

Sharpness and colors

Considering the 47.3-megapixel full-frame image sensor, I expected the S1R to capture highly-detailed images, particularly when considering raw files. Fortunately, the S1R has certainly met my expectations, with the camera producing very detailed images, particularly at low ISO settings.

The above crops are from a raw file, which I processed in Adobe Camera Raw. If you are looking for the ultimate in detail from the S1R, you will certainly want to process raw files. With that said, the camera does well with its JPEG processing as well. In the crop below, we see a good amount of detail with the S1R applying moderate in-camera sharpening. I like this approach because while it doesn't produce quite as much detail as a processed raw file, it also doesn't introduce any unsightly artifacts. For comparison's sake, I have also included the same image processed to taste as a raw file, which has sharpening slightly stronger than the Adobe Camera Raw default value.

When considering how the S1R handles colors, let's consider a few examples below. The first shows how the S1R handles pink, magenta, orange and green. The first two colors are particularly challenging for many cameras, but I think that the S1R does a nice job of capturing the natural vibrance without overdoing it or producing ugly color blocking.

In this second image, we see a different shade of green, along with nicely-rendered bright yellow sunflowers. They are saturated without appearing unnatural.

In this third image, I want to bring attention to the reds in the scene. The S1R reproduces the reds well here, too, without overdoing it.

High ISO

The S1R has a native ISO range of 100-25,600 and can be extended down to ISO 50 and up to ISO 51,200. Of course, a full-frame 47-megapixel image sensor is being pushed pretty hard at ISO 25,600. With the image below, which was shot at ISO 6400, I am quite impressed by how the camera performed. Considering first the JPEG image, the camera does a decent job of retaining quite a bit of fine detail while also suppressing noise. There is still a bit of detail in the fur, although obviously some very fine details get blurred. Look in particular at the whiskers, which get blurred quite heavily. In the repeating patterns of the fur, detail is preserved pretty well. Looking at the 100-percent crop from the bottom left corner of the image, the camera does a pretty nice job of handling noise in smoother areas of the image.

When looking at the raw file, I am even more impressed. After editing the file and performing some manual noise reduction within Adobe Camera Raw, I was able to preserve detail better than the camera did with the JPEG while also maintaining better color and contrast. There is slightly more noise, but I prefer a fine-grained noisy image to a smoother, somewhat blotchy, image. I could have done additional noise reduction to really smooth the image out, but it would come at the cost of detail. For the S1R to be able to produce such nice fine detail at ISO 6400, even after making adjustments to the raw file and performing noise reduction, is impressive.

In another example, we can more easily see the effect of in-camera noise reduction when shooting at high ISOs. In the JPEG image, seen first, there's some blurring of fine feather details. In the raw file, which does not have additional noise reduction applied, you can see more detail in the feathers.

Raw file flexibility

When considering the flexibility of the S1R's raw files, you can make considerable adjustments to exposure, shadows and highlights while retaining a natural appearance to the image file. Consider the image below, which is shown first in its original JPEG form and then shown with raw processing adjustments. In the original image, the camera does a pretty nice job of capturing some shadow detail in the foreground while not blowing out the sky and building in the back. When processing the raw file, I was able to pull out a lot more detail from the dark foreground and also bring back some finer details from the sky by reducing highlights.

This example also brings to light the dynamic range of the S1R. While I did choose to make adjustments to the raw file, it is worth considering that the S1R did a nice job with this challenging scene. If we look at data from Photons to Photos, we see that the S1R performs quite nicely, maxing out at about 12 EVs of dynamic range at its minimum ISO of 50. At its base native ISO of 100, the situation remains very good, with the S1R producing 11.4 EVs of dynamic range. These results are comparable to those the Sony A7R III and Nikon Z7.

High Resolution Shooting Mode

The Panasonic S1R includes a High Resolution Shooting mode, which can create a 187-megapixel raw image. This mode has some restrictions worth considering. For one thing, you really need to use a tripod in order to minimize camera shake and capture the best quality image possible. The camera can also take a while to create such a high-resolution image, so it's certainly a slower shooting process. Also, the ISO's top limit is capped at 3200. With all that said, being able to produce a 187-megapixel raw file, which can then be easily opened in editing software such as Adobe Lightroom and Camera Raw, is really cool.

To enable High Resolution Mode, you simply go into the camera's menu, head to the Image Quality 1 menu, which is the very first page in the menus, and head down to High Resolution Mode. From here, you can start the mode and adjust settings, including simultaneous recording of regular shots, setting a shutter delay and selecting your motion blur processing mode. There are two motion blur processing modes to choose from. The first (default) setting gives priority to resolution, which just keeps subject blur in the shot. The second mode reduces afterimage from subject blur by deferring those sections of the image to regular shooting resolutions. The camera analyzes the frame for blur and leaves areas which are sharp in the composite image while replacing blurry areas with data from a single image capture.

As you can see in the comparison images below, High Resolution Mode produces an image size of 16736 x 11168 pixels. In contrast, the 47.3-megapixel sensor in its normal shooting mode captures an image size of 8368 x 5584 pixels.

When the situation is well-suited to the mode, such as when photographing a stationary (or primarily stationary, at least) subject and when you can use a tripod, the High Resolution shooting mode produces good results. If there was more movement from objects in the frame (i.e. leaves or trees, etc.) and I was using Mode 2 to remove afterimage artifacts, I found the compositing process would take longer. The S1R's High Res Mode is somewhat limited, but overall, it works well within its limitations. The S1R does a great job of producing sharp 47-megapixel raw files in its normal shooting modes, of course, but who doesn't want more megapixels on occasion?

Overall

Overall, I am very impressed with the Panasonic S1R's image quality. The sensor produces highly detailed images with pleasing colors and smooth tonal transitions. The S1R also performs well in low light. Further, the camera has impressive dynamic range and produces very flexible raw files. The High Resolution shooting mode is a neat feature, too, and works well in certain situations.

Shooting Experience: Impressive usability highlighted by strong performance

The S1R delivers a very positive overall shooting experience. The camera is easy to use thanks to its straightforward design, array of shooting modes, and its built-in sensor-shift image stabilization. The 5-axis IS system works well and is rated for up to 5.5 stops of image stabilization. It can also work with Panasonic's Dual I.S. 2 technology when using compatible O.I.S. lenses, such as the 70-200mm f/4 S lens, combining optical lens stabilization with sensor-shift IS.

When considering shooting modes, like Panasonic's Micro Four Thirds cameras, the S1R offers 4K Photo modes. This allows you to capture 8-megapixel still images at 30 or 60 frames per second and comes with a few different burst modes. The S1R also offers 6K Photo, which can capture 18-megapixel still images at 30 fps.

For photographers who want to tweak the appearance of JPEG images with the S1R, this is easily achieved. For starters, the camera has a variety of Photo Style modes, which can be tweaked. These include: Standard, Vivid, Natural, Flat, Landscape, Portrait, Monochrome, L. Monochrome, L. Monochrome D, Cinelike D, Cinelike V, HLG and more. Personally, I like Natural and Landscape styles. Additionally, you can record in different aspect ratios: 3:2, 4:3, 1:1, 16:9, 65:24 and 2:1, with the lattermost two being panorama image formats.

Autofocus: Depth from Defocus system works well in most situations

A large aspect of the S1R's positive overall shooting experience comes down to its autofocus system. The S1R relies upon Panasonic's tried-and-true Depth from Defocus (DFD) autofocus system, which utilizes contrast-detect autofocus rather than phase-detect. In many situations, I found that the DFD system worked very well, delivering quick and accurate autofocus performance, even when shooting in low light. In fact, the camera is rated to focus down to -6 EV when using Low Light AF.

An area of some weakness with the S1R is with respect to continuous autofocus performance. Like many contrast-detect autofocus systems, the S1R produces some wobble. This means that the camera is hunting to lock on and can focus too far or too close, making regular minor adjustments. This is a bit distracting when shooting and does result in some missed focus when shooting a moving subject using burst shooting modes.

Back to the positives, the S1R offers numerous interesting autofocus modes and features. It has body and eye-detect autofocus, for example, and allows you to switch between faces if multiple are detected in a scene. Like other Panasonic cameras, the S1R also allows you to create your own autofocus point pattern from its 225 autofocus points. If you prefer traditional autofocus area options, the camera has a full multi-area mode, vertical and horizontal zones, square and oval zones and single-point area modes. There is also a pinpoint autofocus mode, which allows you to focus on very small objects in the frame.

While autofocus is important, how a camera handles manual focus matters, too. The S1R performs nicely here as well, offering features such as adjustable focus peaking as well as 3x and 10x zooming options. Further, you can also change how the electronically-controlled focus ring behaves on compatible lenses. The default option is "non-linear," which means that the change in focus speed corresponds to the speed with which you rotate the focus ring. However, there's also a linear option, which changes focus based upon the rotational angle of the focus ring, which makes it behave more like traditional, mechanically-focused lenses, rather than modern focus-by-wire mirrorless lenses. I prefer the linear option. Further, the camera's focus peaking works well, as it is not overly sensitive.

Overall, the S1R delivers good autofocus performance in many situations, although it is not particularly well-suited to photographing fast-moving subjects. It can certainly succeed in that type of shooting scenario, just not quite as well as some other mirrorless cameras I have recently used.

Performance: The S1R mostly stays out of your way, but is not an action camera

The S1R is equipped with Panasonic's latest Venus Engine Image Processor, resulting in very good overall performance. For starters, the camera is quick to power on, and it's fast when switching between shooting and playback modes. Further, the camera delivers fast continuous shooting in AF-S mode (9 frames per second). Burst shooting with continuous autofocus is a bit slower, however, at 6 fps, and there are some buffer clearing issues. In our lab, and in my own experience in the field, the S1R took nearly 20 seconds to clear a full buffer when shooting raw + JPEG (my preferred setup when doing Field Tests), with both a fast SD card and with XQD. This is a bit sluggish when you are in an action-shooting situation, but you need to keep in mind that the camera is capturing 47MP images!

When considering battery life, the situation is fine although not particularly impressive. The S1R is rated for 340 shots when using the EVF and 360 shots when using the LCD. With that said, the S1R has a Power Save mode that automatically puts the camera to sleep when you haven't used it for a set period of time. With this mode enabled, the camera is rated for over 1,000 shots. When in the field, battery life seemed a bit better than the CIPA rating, but that's pretty typical for me.

Overall, the S1R delivers strong overall performance. The camera feels quick in every way, save for perhaps the buffer clearing times. When considering continuous autofocus performance and the buffer clearing times, however, it becomes evident that the S1R is not the perfect action camera. Being able to shoot between 30 and 40 raw/JPEG frames and needing to wait nearly 20 seconds or the buffer to clear could be limiting for some photographic applications.

Overall

The Panasonic S1R delivers a very good overall shooting experience. The camera's menus are easy to navigate, the controls are designed well, autofocus is generally fast and precise, and the camera's performance is very good overall. It may not deliver the ideal shooting experience in every situation, particularly if fast action is your specialty, but for most types of photography, the S1R excels.

Video: 4K/60p capable, but video is not the focus of the S1R

Alongside the Panasonic S1R, Panasonic also has the 24MP Lumix S1. The S1 is the more video-centric of the two cameras, although they are both more geared toward still photography than many of Panasonic's Micro Four Thirds cameras. Nonetheless, the S1R includes a lot of impressive video features and offers strong 4K video performance.

The S1R can shoot 4K video at up to 60 frames per second (as well as 24p and 30p, of course) and can record Full HD video at up to 180 frames per second, which results in up to 6x slow motion. With that said, the S1R does lack HLG video recording, doesn't do 10-bit video and its full-frame 4K video performance is only okay. When considering frame area, the full-frame 4K has a slight 1.09x crop, and there are also APS-C and pixel-for-pixel 4K area options, which crop in further. Further, the S1R only records 4K video in MP4 format and has limited continuous 4K recording time of just 15 minutes.

When considering autofocus performance while recording video, I found the S1R to do pretty well. In the example video below, I rotated focus between the three sunflowers in the frame by using the touchscreen. Focus was not super quick, but it was pretty smooth and was able to lock onto the selected subject without any hunting.

At lower ISOs, the 4K quality is impressive. As you increase the ISO, performance remains fairly good. The ISO range during video recording is 100-25,600, and the S1R offers auto ISO which has user-selectable minimum and maximum settings. The video below was captured at ISO 6400, and while there is certainly visible noise, performance overall is alright and there's still good detail.

As mentioned earlier, the S1R can also record Full HD video at up to 180 frames per second, which is then played back at 30p, resulting in a 6x slow-motion video. This mode is restricted to manual focus and automatic exposure, however, but overall, it's a neat feature.

When considering usability and other video features, there's quite a bit to like about the S1R. When in the dedicated movie mode, you can start and stop recordings using the shutter release, which is nice. Otherwise you must use the dedicated movie record button on the back of the camera. Another nice feature is that the S1R has a full-size HDMI port (Type A), which you can use to record externally. The camera also includes 3.5mm microphone and headphone jacks.

Overall, the S1R is a solid video camera. Its 4K quality is pretty good, autofocus works well in many situations and the camera offers quite a few nice usability features. The lack of more advanced features such as unlimited 4K recording time, full-width (and non-lineskipped) 4K, 10-bit video and HLG could be a concern for some users, and particularly video-oriented photographers may want to look closer at the Panasonic S1 or even the Panasonic S1H, as that is the S-series camera more targeted at video.

In the Field

Landscape photography with the Panasonic S1R

Landscape photography is my favorite genre, so I regularly evaluate cameras from that perspective. This means that there are aspects of performance or features I consider differently than someone who is primarily a portrait photographer, for example. I also think about the design of the camera somewhat differently. A camera being large is not necessarily a major drawback for me, meanwhile it being rugged and weather-sealed is critically important. The S1R does well here. The large camera feels very solid in the hands and appears built to last. Further, its tilting display works well for shooting on a tripod.

Image quality matters a lot to me, and the S1R fares well here, too. Its 47-megapixel raw files look good, offer nice resolution and handle a variety of colors well. The S1R also offers its 187MP High Resolution shooting mode, which is good for some types of landscape photography. Further, raw files have pretty good dynamic range and are malleable during processing.

Photographing wildlife with the S1R

While landscape photography is often done slowly and with stationary subjects, wildlife photography can be much more chaotic. The S1R still does well here but is hindered somewhat by autofocus performance. The contrast-detect DFD AF system works well in many situations but can struggle to keep up with erratic subjects. Further, the camera is limited to 6 fps shooting with AF-C and its buffer can take a while to clear, meaning it's not a great choice for repeated burst shooting.

With that said, the high ISO performance of the S1R is pretty good, as is its low-light autofocus. Even when using the 2x teleconverter on the Panasonic 70-200mm f/4 OIS lens, which produces an effective aperture of f/8, the S1R was able to focus pretty quickly, which is impressive.

Overall, it is not the best action camera, which means it's not the best wildlife camera either, but the S1R is no slouch for the most part.

The state of the Panasonic S-series system and my overall thoughts on the Panasonic S1R

There have been numerous new camera systems in the last few years, including new full-frame mirrorless camera systems from Canon, Nikon and now Panasonic in the last year or so. The market is seemingly flooded with great options, especially when you also consider the mirrorless stalwart, Sony, which has the most robust mirrorless full-frame camera and lens lineup in the industry. Where does this leave Panasonic, who are the most recent competitor to enter the fray?

For some photographers, Panasonic will likely become one of the better options, despite being the newest player. The S1R is a really good camera, with great image quality, solid features and impressive overall performance. As part of the new L-Mount Alliance, it will also quickly deliver a lot of great lens options, including an array of Sigma Art lenses.

However, the S1R has some weaknesses. For starters, the barrier to entry is quite high with this camera body priced at $3,700 USD by itself. That's quite a lot, and then you need to consider lenses. Currently, there are only three Panasonic lenses available for the S1R right now, the 24-105mm f/4, 70-200mm f/4 and 50mm f/1.4. Per Panasonic's roadmap, users can expect 24-70mm f/2.8, 70-200mm f/2.8 and 16-35mm f/4 lenses to arrive this year with additional lenses, including super telephoto, prime and macro lenses to arrive in 2020. Of course, this lack of lenses is not as big of an issue when you consider that Sigma is releasing L-mount versions of its Art lenses this year. And there's Leica's existing lineup of L-mount lenses -- although beware the high price tags!

There are so many excellent cameras out there and if you are looking to buy into a full-frame mirrorless camera system for the first time, you won't be going wrong with the Panasonic S1R. If you are after a small, lightweight camera, then the S1R is not for you. However, some photographers prefer a large, solid-feeling camera, and some mirrorless cameras can feel too small and cramped in real-world use. This is an area of particular strength for the S1R, as its robust body feels great in real-world use.

Another strong suit is the S1R's image quality. The 47.3-megapixel sensor is very good, and the camera produces really nice images, both in terms of straight-from-the-camera JPEG files and with respect to flexible, versatile raw files.

Simply put, I really enjoy using the Panasonic S1R. I liked it a lot when I went hands-on back in February and I like it just as well now. The camera feels modern in terms of performance and features but feels sort of classic in terms of build quality and the controls.

Panasonic S1R Field Test Summary

A great way to kick off Panasonic's new mirrorless camera system

What I liked:

• Very good build quality
• Excellent electronic viewfinder
• Impressive image quality
• Reliable autofocus in most situations
• Good overall performance

What I didn't like:

• Camera will be too large and heavy for some
• Struggles a bit with some action photography situations
• Quite expensive

The Panasonic S1R is a really good full-frame mirrorless camera. The image stabilization and reliable autofocus help make capturing high-quality images with the S1R very easy. The electronic viewfinder is excellent as well, helping to make shooting with the S1R an enjoyable experience. Further, image quality is impressive across the board. It's not the best choice for every photographer, but for those who emphasize a well-built, rugged camera body and high-end image quality, the S1R should absolutely be considered.