Panasonic's S1R II Is a Capable, Affordable, Mirrorless Hybrid Camera
The S1RII features Panasonic's latest phase-detection autofocus, which has much better subject recognition and tracking algorithms. The S1RII can recognize people, animals (dog, cat, bird), cars, motorcycle and bikes, trains, and airplanes. In my testing, Panasonic's subject tracking system is very nearly as good as what you'll find in Nikon, Canon, Sony, and Fujifilm. It wasn't necessarily the best for everything—for example, Nikon stands out as better at tracking birds—but it's an all-around solid autofocus system that doesn't miss much.
Photograph: Scott Gilbertson
What I did not like is not what it does, but what it can't do—namely, stop tracking a subject when in subject-tracking mode. For example, if I am tracking my dog playing on the beach in the early morning and want to stop for a second and shoot the sunrise, on my Sony and Fujifilm I can tap the screens and switch the focus to the horizon, compose, shoot, and return to tracking the dog. To do that with the S1RII I had to first toggle off the subject tracking. It isn't a huge hassle, nor is it a deal breaker, but it is a little head-scratching.
The rest of the time, I found that the S1RII did a good job of tracking everything I asked it to. Oddly though, it has the hardest time with humans. Sometimes in a crowd of people, it would lose the subject, something that doesn't usually happen in my testing of Nikon, Canon, and Sony cameras. While Panasonic's autofocus system is definitely faster and more accurate than previous versions, it's not flawless. I don't find this a deal breaker at all (I still shoot many manual focus lenses), but it might be worth testing with a rental if you shoot a lot of sports or wildlife. Image Quality
I've always liked Panasonic's color rendition for its neutrality. It's not warm, it's not cool, it's just about perfectly in the middle. The only place I saw this vary a bit with the S1RII is in skin tones on my kids, who looked a little pinkish in some lighting conditions, but otherwise I did not find any color rendering oddities. Dynamic range is very good. I was able to lift shadows in RAW files 2-3 stops without really even needing to deal with noise.
Photograph: Scott Gilbertson
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