Panasonic S1R II Review: Capable, Affordable, Mirrorless Hybrid Camera Leave a comment

The S1RII options Panasonic’s newest phase-detection autofocus, which has significantly better topic recognition and monitoring algorithms. The S1RII can acknowledge folks, animals (canine, cat, fowl), automobiles, bike and bikes, trains, and airplanes. In my testing, Panasonic’s topic monitoring system could be very almost pretty much as good as what you may discover in Nikon, Canon, Sony, and Fujifilm. It wasn’t essentially one of the best for every part—for instance, Nikon stands out as higher at monitoring birds—nevertheless it’s an all-around stable autofocus system that does not miss a lot.

What I didn’t like shouldn’t be what it does, however what it could actually’t do—specifically, cease monitoring a topic when in subject-tracking mode. For instance, if I’m monitoring my canine taking part in on the seaside within the early morning and wish to cease for a second and shoot the dawn, on my Sony and Fujifilm I can faucet the screens and change the main target to the horizon, compose, shoot, and return to monitoring the canine. To try this with the S1RII I needed to first toggle off the topic monitoring. It is not an enormous trouble, neither is it a deal breaker, however it’s a little head-scratching.

The remainder of the time, I discovered that the S1RII did an excellent job of monitoring every part I requested it to. Oddly although, it has the toughest time with people. Generally in a crowd of individuals, it could lose the topic, one thing that does not often occur in my testing of Nikon, Canon, and Sony cameras. Whereas Panasonic’s autofocus system is unquestionably sooner and extra correct than earlier variations, it is not flawless. I do not discover this a deal breaker in any respect (I nonetheless shoot many handbook focus lenses), nevertheless it could be price testing with a rental when you shoot a number of sports activities or wildlife.

Picture High quality

I’ve all the time favored Panasonic’s shade rendition for its neutrality. It isn’t heat, it is not cool, it is nearly completely within the center. The one place I noticed this differ a bit with the S1RII is in pores and skin tones on my youngsters, who appeared a bit pinkish in some lighting circumstances, however in any other case I didn’t discover any shade rendering oddities. Dynamic vary is superb. I used to be capable of raise shadows in RAW recordsdata 2-3 stops with out actually even needing to cope with noise.