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With the A1, Sony was the first to introduce a high-resolution hybrid camera that was equally adept at stills and video but boy was it expensive. Nikon and Canon followed that template with the R5 II and Z8 models that offered similar capabilities for less money, but those were still well north of $4,000. Enter the S1R II. Its Panasonics first camera that can not only shoot up to 8K video at the companys usual high standards, but also capture 44-megapixel (MP) photos in rapid bursts. And unlike its rivals, the new model is available at a more reasonable $3,300 half the price of Sonys A1 II. At the same time, its a massive upgrade over the original S1R. The main catch is the lack of a high-speed stacked sensor found in the other models, which can cause some skewing in both images and video. As I discovered, though, that tradeoff is well worth it for the lower price and picture quality that matches its competition. All of that makes the S1R II Panasonics best camera yet and a very tempting option in the high-resolution mirrorless category. Design and handling The S1R II is similar to other recent Panasonic models like the GH7 in terms of the design and control layout. Its much lighter than the original S1R at 1.75 pounds compared to 2.24 pounds, so its less tiresome to carry around all day. As for handling, the massive grip has a ridge where your fingertips sit, making it nearly impossible to drop. The rubberized exterior is easy on the hands, though not quite as nice as the R5 IIs softer material. Ive always liked Panasonics controls and in that regard the S1R II may be the companys best model yet. Along with a joystick and dials on the top front, top back and rear, it has lockable mode and burst shooting dials on top. You also get a dedicated button for photos, video and slow and quick (S&Q) modes, each with separate settings. Theres a dedicated autofocus switch, video record buttons both on top and front, a tally light and multiple programmable buttons. The menu system is equally good, with logical color-coded menus and submenus. You can also rapidly find your most-used functions in the quick menu. All of that allowed me to shoot photos and video without fumbling for settings. You can also fully program buttons, dials and the quick menu to your own preferences. Steve Dent for Engadget The rear display is great for content creators and photographers alike. It tilts up and down to allow for easy overhead or shoot-from-the hip photography and also swivels out to the side so vloggers can conveniently film themselves. Its very sharp and bright enough to use on sunny days. The electronic viewfinder is also excellent with 5.76 million dots of resolution and 100 percent magnification, matching Canons R5 II and beating the Nikon Z8. Battery life isnt a strong point, though, with 350 shots on a charge or just 280 when using the electronic viewfinder far below the 640 shots allowed by the R5 II. It also only allows just over an hour of start-and-stop video shooting. However, Panasonics optional DMW-BG2 battery grip doubles endurance and also allows for battery hot-swapping. The S1R II supports both SDXC UHS II and much faster CFexpress Type B cards, while also supporting SSD capture via the USB-C port like the S5 IIX and GH7. The latter two storage methods enable shooting in high-bandwidth RAW and ProRes to maximize quality. Panasonic also included a full-sized HDMI port along with microphone and headphone jacks. For the best possible sound quality, the optional XLR2 accessory lets you capture four channels at up to 32-bit float quality to reduce the possibility of clipped audio. And finally, the S1R II is Panasonics first mirrorless model with a protective carbon fiber curtain that comes down to protect the sensor, just like recent Canon and Sony models. Performance Steve Dent for Engadget Although the original S1R could only manage an anemic 6 fps burst speeds, its successor can hit 40 RAW images per second in silent electronic mode, beating all its rivals though shooting at that speed limits quality to 12-bit RAW. To get 14-bit quality, you need to use the mechanical shutter for burst shooting which tops out at 9 fps. However, the Panasonic S1R II doesnt have a fast stacked sensor like rivals. The result is rolling shutter that can be a problem in some circumstances, like shooting race cars, propellers or golf swings. However, it does outperform many other non-stacked high-resolution cameras like Sonys A7R V and Panasonics own S5 IIX in that area. Pre-burst capture is now available and starts when you half-press the shutter. That lets you save up to 1.5 seconds of photos you might have otherwise missed once you fully press the shutter button. With an overhauled phase-detect autofocus system and a new, faster processor, the S1R II features Panasonics fastest and smartest AF system yet. It can now lock onto a subjects face and eyes quicker and follow their movements more smoothly, while also detecting and automatically switching between humans, animals, cars, motorcycles, bikes, trains and airplanes. I found it to be fast and generally reliable, but its still not quite up to Sonys and Canons standards for speed and accuracy. Panasonic boosted in-body stabilization to 8 stops. Thats nearly on par with rivals, though Canon leads the way with 8.5 stops on the R5 II. Still, it lets you freeze action at shutter speeds as low as a quarter second in case you want to blur waterfalls or moving cars when shooting handheld. Image quality Photo quality is otstanding with detail as good as rivals, though understandably short of Sonys 61-megapixel A7R V. Colors are as accurate as Ive seen on any recent camera, matching or even beating Canons excellent R5 II. My pro photographer friends took a number of shots with the S1R II and found it slightly superior to their Sony A1, noting that they rarely needed to white balance in post. Thanks to the dual-ISO backside-illuminated sensor, low-light capability is excellent for a high-resolution camera, with noise well controlled up to ISO 12,800. Beyond that, grain becomes more problematic and shadows can take on a green cast. JPEG noise reduction does a good job retaining detail while suppressing noise, but gets overly aggressive above ISO 6,400. If 44MP isnt enough, the S1R II offers a high-resolution mode that captures eight images with a slightly offset sensor position and composes them into a single 177 megapixel file (either RAW or JPEG). It can supposedly be used without a tripod, though I found I had to remain very still to get decent images when doing so. Video The S1R II is Panasonics best mirrorless camera yet for video, albeit with some caveats Ill discuss soon. You can capture up to 8K 30p 10-bit video at a reasonably high 300 Mbps, close to what Sonys far more expensive A1 can do. Better still, it supports oversampled 5.8K ProRes RAW video internally with no crop for maximum dynamic range, or 4K video at up to 120 fps. Finally, the S1R II is capable of open gate 3:2 capture of the full sensor at up to 6.4K (and 8K down the road via a firmware update), making it easy to shoot all types of formats at once, including vertical video for social media. Steve Dent for Engadget Some of these resolutions, particularly the 5.9K 60 fps and 4K 120 fps modes come with a slight crop of about 1.1x and 1.04x, respectively. 4K 120 fps also uses pixel binning, which introduces a loss of resolution and other artifacts like rainbow-colored moire. That takes us to the main downside: rolling shutter. The S1R II is actually a bit better than the S5 II in that regard, with a total readout speed of about 1/40th of a second, or about 25 milliseconds at any of the full sensor readout resolutions (8K or 5.8K). That can result in wobble or skew if you whip the camera around or film fast-moving objects. However, its acceptable for regular handheld shooting. One complication is Panasonics dynamic range expansion (DRE) that boosts video dynamic range by a stop, mostly in an image's highlights. Enabling that feature makes rolling shutter worse. Should you need to reduce rolling shutter, you can simply disable DRE without a big hit in quality. And shooting 4K at 60p minimizes rolling shutter so that its nearly on par with stacked sensor cameras, while still offering high-quality footage with just a slight crop. As for video quality, its razor sharp and color rendition is accurate and pleasing. Dynamic range is on the high end of cameras Ive tested at close to 14 stops when shooting with Panasonics V-log, allowing excellent shadow and highlight recovery, especially in DRE mode. Its still very good without DRE though, particularly if youre not shooting in bright and sunny conditions. Frame grab from Panasonic S1R II 8K video Steve Dent for Engadget Video AF is also strong, keeping even quick-moving subjects in focus. Face, eye, animal and vehicle detection work well, though again, the system isnt quite as reliable as what I saw on Sony and Canons latest models. The S1R II offers more stabilization options than its rivals, though. Optical stabilization provides good results for handheld video, while electronic stabilization (EIS) smooths things further . Cranking that up to the most aggressive high EIS setting provides gimbal-like smoothness but introduces a significant 1.5x crop. Along with those, Panasonic introduced something called cropless EIS. That setting takes advantage of unused areas of the sensor to correct corner distortion typical with wide angle lenses while also fixing skew. I found it worked very well to reduce rolling shutter even for quick pans and walking, which may help alleviate such concerns for some creators. So yes, rolling shutter wobble is worse on this camera than rivals like the R5 II. However, there are ways to work around it. If minimal skewing is a critical feature then dont buy the S1R II, but it shouldnt be an issue for most users, particularly at this price. Wrap-up Steve Dent for Engadget The S1R II is Panasonics best hybrid mirrorless camera to date, offering a great balance of photography and video powers. Its also the cheapest new camera in the high-resolution hybrid full-frame category, undercutting rivals like Canons R5 II and the Nikon Z8. The main downside is rolling shutter that primarily affects video. As I mentioned, though, it wont pose a problem for many content creators and there are workarounds. Aside from that, it delivers outstanding photo and video quality while offering innovative features like cropless electronic stabilization. If you need even more resolution, Sonys 61MP A7R V offers slightly better image quality. And if rolling shutter is really an issue then Id recommend Canons R5 II (though that model does cost $1,000 more) or the Nikon Z8. Should you want to spend considerably less, the Canon R6 II or even Panasonics S5 II or S5 IIx are solid picks. For other hybrid shooters, though, Panasonics S1R II is a great choice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cameras/panasonic-s1r-ii-review-an-excellent-hybrid-camera-thats-cheaper-than-rivals-163013065.html?src=rss
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Scientists have caught a colossal squid on camera in its natural environment for the very time, according to a report by the BBC. This happened around 100 years after the species was originally discovered, proving just how vast and mysterious the ocean truly is. The squid is a juvenile, so its not nearly as large as its namesake suggests. It clocks in at around 11.8-inches long. Adult colossal squid can grow up to 23 feet in length and weigh up to 1,100 pounds. They are the heaviest invertebrate on the planet. The crew was exploring the south Atlantic Ocean, near the South Sandwich Islands, as part of a 35-day mission to find new marine life. The juvenile squid was caught on camera at a depth of nearly 2,000 feet. Chief scientist Dr. Michelle Taylor said the team was unsure it was even a colossal squid at first, but filmed it anyway because it was "beautiful and unusual." The footage was then verified by another researcher. "It's exciting to see the first in situ footage of a juvenile colossal and humbling to think that they have no idea that humans exist," said Dr. Kat Bolstad. Wikimedia Commons Most colossal squid found in the wild are already dead and spotted as remains in whale stomachs. Dying adults have been spotted near the surface of the ocean but this is the first time a specimen has been filmed in its natural element. We dont even know that much about their life cycle, other than the fact that juveniles are transparent and adults are not. The Natural History Museum has said its hard to estimate the global population. Its incredible just how ignorant we still are of our own ocean in the year 2025. Only a fifth of the ocean floor has been sufficiently mapped. It truly is the final frontier of Earth-bound exploration. Maybe Katy Perry and Gayle King would have received a better reception if they took an 11-minute trip underwater instead.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/scientists-film-a-living-colossal-squid-for-the-first-time-161201996.html?src=rss
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A VPN (virtual private network) can help you stay safe online and one of our top picks is currently on sale. A two-year subscription to the ProtonVPN Plus plan is currently $86.16. Thats 64 percent off the usual price. The deal drops the cost from $10 to $3.59 per month, and it reduces the overall price for 24 months by $153. This plan allows you to use ProtonVPN on up to 10 devices at a time. It should be pretty easy to find a server to route your internet traffic through as well, since ProtonVPN has more than 8,600 of them across north of 110 countries. ProtonVPN is our pick for the best VPN overall due to a blend of its security, usability and privacy. ProtonVPN has a no-logs policy. That means it doesn't keep any records of information that passes through its network. In other words, it doesn't track your internet activity while you're using it, helping to protect you and your anonymity. Other features of ProtonVPN Plus include ad-, malware- and tracker-blocking, as well as fast performance. In our testing, ProtonVPN had a minimal impact on connection speeds in our geoblock, streaming and gaming tests. ProtonVPN is also open source, meaning that anyone with enough knowhow can take a look under the hood and validate Proton's technical claims. Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/two-years-of-protonvpn-is-64-percent-off-right-now-152355980.html?src=rss
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