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Panasonic S1R - first impressions, first pictures

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PaulSnowcat

PaulSnowcat

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After quite some time of doubts, after looking through thousands of pictures, I've decided to dive into FF world once more.



I've bought a used Panasonic S1R with Pana S 20-60/3.5-5.6.

My first impressions:

1. Wow its large!

2. Oh, gods, how COMFORMABLE it is! It is THE most comfortable camera I've had in my hands! (My hands are not large, on the contrary, I have quite small fingers).

3. What a cleverly thought out menu! Extremely logical and easily can be remembered.

4. Features ergonomics are very well thought out. For example how Auto ISO feature setup is organized - a real treasure for a photographer!

5. Only UNCOMPRESSED RAWs!? Seriously!? Oh my, I am in trouble. I'll have to quit keeping all the raws I shoot and go only with good ones, deleting all that are not chosen for processing.

And I took some first pictures... Of my cat, as usual.

What can I say... ISO 12800 easily gives great results (DXO). Easily. And I've had my first "wow". It is the first camera ever (I am in digital photography from 2007) that gave right colors of the cat under artificial lights in 0 stops. I mean I just took thee pictures, processed them with NO color tweaking and they have an IDEAL color. All other cameras required to tweak vibrancy, saturation, some additionally require to tweak yellow color a bit... Here - NOTHING! Just take a picture and crop it and it's done!



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Looking forward for taking more pictures!

--
Gallery http://www.alphatraveller.org/gallery/
Blog (Russian lang) http://www.alphatraveller.org
 
Congrats! One of my favorite cameras I've ever owned. Panasonic engineers definitely have some top level talent.

Hoping they'll release a 46/187MP+ S5R and something like a 24-240 lens. Traveling with two S1Rs and a bag full of lenses in my older years isnt as easy as it used to be.
 
Yeah, 24-240 would be nice! I love good ultrazooms (and yes, that is a possible thing :) ). I use Tamron 16-300 on crop and it gives really enjoyable results.
 
Sony's 24-240 is actually very good. Of course not as good as 24--70 and 70-200 f/2.8 combo. I sell prints. Even the largest prints few people can tell the difference.

Before the S1Rs I was using a Sony A7RII and A7R with a 24-240mm and Sony/Zeiss 35mm f.2.8. Excellent compact and lightweight travel setup. Now it's two big heavy S1Rs, 24-105mm, Sigma 24, 35, and 50 f1/4s. I need the f/1.4s to overcome the one second shutter limitation of the high-res mode for low light. Since the hi-res mode really needs a tripod for any light, I usually still bring the A7RII/24-240 for long shots and quick shots where using a tripod is a pain.

If Lumix doesn't do an S5R and Sony straightens out their trainwreck high-res mode, I may go back to Sony at some point.
 
PaulSnowcat said:
!

5. Only UNCOMPRESSED RAWs!? Seriously!? Oh my, I am in trouble. I'll have to quit keeping all the raws I shoot and go only with good ones, deleting all that are not chosen for processing.
Click to expand...
On what base you are talking about uncompressed Raw? There is only one Raw setting and by viewing the size of around 60MB per picture this is only possible with compressed raw (for a 47MP sensor).

with a 14bit readout an uncompressed raw will be more than 80MB each…
 
Sony is a dead end for me. I was using Sony's SLTs and was happy wot them, then I've switched to A7-2. That was the most terrible mistake I've made in all my photographic life.

I hated it. Weak AWB, not-so-good colors, extremely weak battery topped with the worst ergonomics I've ever seen. That camera almost made me to stop taking photos at all but I escaped to to Nikon in time.

Since then I am allergic to Sony and it's A7-A9 line of cameras.
 
reinhard becker said:
PaulSnowcat said:
!

5. Only UNCOMPRESSED RAWs!? Seriously!? Oh my, I am in trouble. I'll have to quit keeping all the raws I shoot and go only with good ones, deleting all that are not chosen for processing.
Click to expand...
On what base you are talking about uncompressed Raw? There is only one Raw setting and by viewing the size of around 60MB per picture this is only possible with compressed raw (for a 47MP sensor).

with a 14bit readout an uncompressed raw will be more than 80MB each…
Click to expand...
They MAY be compressed but VERY slightly. Try to zip them - they reduce their size quite substantially. This means no good lossless compression is applied to them.

Anyway, I'd prefer to have several different types of RAWs to be available, including lossy compression.

BUT that's not a blocker for me, I can live with how it is now.
 
PaulSnowcat said:
Sony is a dead end for me. I was using Sony's SLTs and was happy wot them, then I've switched to A7-2. That was the most terrible mistake I've made in all my photographic life.

I hated it. Weak AWB, not-so-good colors, extremely weak battery topped with the worst ergonomics I've ever seen. That camera almost made me to stop taking photos at all but I escaped to to Nikon in time.

Since then I am allergic to Sony and it's A7-A9 line of cameras.
Click to expand...
they have come a long LONG way since then, but I still much prefer the UI and ergo of Panasonic. What is impressive is how well Lumix has done w/ 1st gen FF!
 
welcome to this very small forum! You have selected a winner. (keep your eye out for a nicely priced S5)

I especially appreciate how well panasonic color science does under artificial lights for night street and city-scapes. I shoot Jpeg, but play lots w/ the white balance. A quick white balance calibration on white/grey surface does wonders; then i usually cool down the photo in Apple Photos.

The Sigma lenses are a wonder; and more affordable than all but the Lumix f1.8 primes.

I have the incredible 14-24f2.8; the 35&65f2, 105f2.8A, 100-400C, & 28-70f2.8C. All = great

Am currently debating getting either 35mm Art, f1.2 or f1.4 DN. I used to have Tam 35f1.4 adapted w/ MC-21. Brilliant lens, that did SAF pretty well (w/ eye AF). I miss the speed, but need a lens that performs wide open - otherwise the little 35f2 is plenty sharp
 
rashid7 said:
PaulSnowcat said:
Sony is a dead end for me. I was using Sony's SLTs and was happy wot them, then I've switched to A7-2. That was the most terrible mistake I've made in all my photographic life.

I hated it. Weak AWB, not-so-good colors, extremely weak battery topped with the worst ergonomics I've ever seen. That camera almost made me to stop taking photos at all but I escaped to to Nikon in time.

Since then I am allergic to Sony and it's A7-A9 line of cameras.
Click to expand...
they have come a long LONG way since then, but I still much prefer the UI and ergo of Panasonic. What is impressive is how well Lumix has done w/ 1st gen FF!
Click to expand...
Agreed. Exceptional first effort, I hope Lumix can pick up momentum like Sony did.
 
Yes, I know that A7rIII and A7 IV are MUCH better then A7-II was. I get invites to presentations from SONY as a tester (I have my own site with camera and lenses tests). So I am fully aware of their really impressive development.

YET my described experience was too negative, I can't help it, I still feel bad when I am taking any A7 series camera in my hands... That's something irrational already.
 
Thanks, Rashid, for a brief overview of the lenses.

For some time I'll have to use my 20-60 only... But it seems to be a surprisingly good lens for a kit lens. And it should be a good lens for city photography as it is very wide.
 
PaulSnowcat said:
Thanks, Rashid, for a brief overview of the lenses.

For some time I'll have to use my 20-60 only... But it seems to be a surprisingly good lens for a kit lens. And it should be a good lens for city photography as it is very wide.
Click to expand...
yes, the 20-60 (other than being slow) is surprisingly good. Excellent even! And the IBIS allows you to easily used 1/2 sec SS on the wide end. Lovely travel lens, at very modest weight
 
I remember Lumix S camera use Lossless compressed Raw format, no quality loss in the file for a similar size of a lossy compressed raw. No uncompressed option. Please let me know if I'm correct. Can't be uncompressed because so the file size of a 47mp sensor must higher, and can not be only a single option with lossy compressed file because it w'd be a non-sense for this kind of camera. To me seems a lossless file Raw IIRc.
 
Had it loved the picture quality and feature. The weight was too much.
 
Let's just calculate.

14 bits per pixel. 47 millions of pixels.

14*47 000 000 = 658 000 000 bits = 82 250 000 bytes = 80322 Kilobytes = 78 Megabytes

So a RAW file without compression should weight 78 Megabytes. (+ some headers, EXIF, ETC).

So I was wrong - R1S Files ARE compressed. Their real size is about 66.5 Mb. That's less then 10% of weight loss. So this is definitely a lossless compression as lossy compression should give much more effect.

P.S. My first ever hard drive had a capacity of 40 Megabytes :) Now ONE picture is weighting more than the whole HDD in 1992. Wow.
 
PaulSnowcat said:
Let's just calculate.

14 bits per pixel. 47 millions of pixels.

14*47 000 000 = 658 000 000 bits = 82 250 000 bytes = 80322 Kilobytes = 78 Megabytes

So a RAW file without compression should weight 78 Megabytes. (+ some headers, EXIF, ETC).

So I was wrong - R1S Files ARE compressed. Their real size is about 66.5 Mb. That's less then 10% of weight loss. So this is definitely a lossless compression as lossy compression should give much more effect.

P.S. My first ever hard drive had a capacity of 40 Megabytes :) Now ONE picture is weighting more than the whole HDD in 1992. Wow.
Click to expand...
So lossless, by the way if you look at newer Sony cameras there is very negligible difference in file size between lossy compressed and lossless compressed raw, very small indeed. Considering is the only option BTW is obvious that you don't have a lossy file here on the S1r. It's still the best IQ full frame according to Dxo, so full potential from its raw file. :)
 
Last edited:
Set “Left Arrow” as a second very intuitive “playback”. It works a little differently to the dedicated button that can only be reached with left hand.

Dedicated = on/off toggle

Left Arrow = click once for last image, again for next previous, etc … and right to move forward. Soft press of shutter cancels.
 
Thanks for the tip! Quite unusual and useful!
 
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