Panasonic S1R & S1 First Shots: Test images from the new full-frame Lumix cameras (UPDATED)

by William Brawley

posted Wednesday, February 20, 2019 at 7:01 PM EDT

UPDATE: 03/20/2019 - We've received production firmware v1.0 for the S1R and S1 bodies & lenses. We have updated our lab First Shots accordingly for both cameras.

Click here to see our First Shots:
• Panasonic S1R First Shots (beta) • Panasonic S1 First Shots (beta) •

After teasing some of the exciting features during a development announcement at last year's Photokina, the all-new Lumix S1R and Lumix S1 mirrorless camera have now arrived. Panasonic's first pair of full-frame mirrorless cameras are big, burly and feature-packed cameras, sporting tons of bells and whistles for professional and serious enthusiast photographers. Videographers aren't left out in the cold, either, especially when it comes to the Panasonic S1, thanks to its impressive set of video features.

We attended a camera launch event earlier this month in Barcelona and managed to get hands-on with both the S1R and S1 models as well as share some preliminary real-world gallery images from them both (S1R here; S1 here), albeit with pre-production-level firmware. We've now received both the S1R and S1 cameras for our reviews, however they have newer, yet still beta-level firmware installed. Nevertheless, we've been given the all-clear to begin lab-testing these two cameras, and as such, we now have our classic First Shot series of samples images ready for your perusal. Keep in mind, however, that given the pre-production nature of the firmware on each camera, the image quality is not final and might change once full production-level firmware is released.

In terms of image quality, the Panasonic S1R is the higher-res model, sporting a 47-megapixel full-frame sensor, which makes it the highest resolution full-frame mirrorless camera currently on the market. Meanwhile, the Panasonic S1 sports a more typical 24-megapixel sensor, putting it in competition with a number of other full-frame mirrorless cameras, such as the Sony A7 III and Nikon Z6. In terms of ISO range, the Lumix S1R has a native range of 100 - 25,600, which is expandable to 50 - 51,200. The Lumix S1, on the other hand, has a wider sensitivity range, spanning a fully-expanded gamut of 50 - 204,800. (Native base sensitivity for the S1 is still ISO 100).

Our First Shots series give you a chance to examine a camera's image quality performance across its full sensitivity range, both with JPEGs images and raw files. Our handy Comparometer lets you compare sample images side-by-side with practically any other camera we've lab-tested. Below are a couple of 1:1 comparisons with the Panasonic S1R and S1 against some popular competitors. The S1R is pitted against another high-res mirrorless camera, the 45MP Nikon Z7. The Panasonic S1, meanwhile, goes up against the Sony A7 III.