Panasonic LUMIX S1II Lab Test, Part 2 – Dynamic Range and Latitude Using ProRes RAW 5.8K with DR Boost “ON”

Lab Test

by Gunther MachuJuly 11^th, 2025

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Those of you who regularly follow up on our lab tests are well aware that we found a bug in the first production firmware of the new LUMIX S1II when using 5.8K ProRes RAW with DR Boost “ON”. The merging of the two ISO values into one image was not properly implemented. Now, Panasonic has released new firmware that mainly addresses this bug. Curious to see the results? Then read on for our 2nd part of the Panasonic LUMIX S1II Lab Test…

In our first lab test of the new LUMIX S1II (head over here), we could already see the potential of the new implementation of Dynamic Range Boost mode with the internal compressed codecs and ProRes RAW in APS-C mode. Now, the time has come to evaluate the full-frame 5.8K ProRes RAW DR Boost mode.

The rolling shutter values have not changed with the new firmware implementation; hence, we have to mention the biggest downside of the full-frame DR Boost “ON” implementation: because two different ISO values are joined into one image, read-out times are more than 2x slower than when turning DR Boost “OFF”. We are talking about a rolling shutter value of 27.5ms, which is rather poor, to be honest.

However, it is a common theme with dual-gain output sensors, as we have seen similar behavior with the Canon C70, as well, for example (lab test here).

Before we begin, a big “thank you” to my colleague Florian Milz, who was a big help in shooting and analyzing this second round of testing.

Dynamic Range at ISO 1000 (DRB “ON”) using 5.8K ProResRAW

As usual, we used Final Cut Pro to develop the ProRes RAW files into V-Log before running them through IMATEST. If you are not aware of how we test dynamic range, please head over here first.

Shooting our Xyla21 chart, we get the following waveform plot:

We can see a solid 13, if not 14 stops above the noise floor with an additional 15th and 16th stop inside the noise floor – very impressive!!

IMATEST confirms this result:

We are getting 12.9 stops at a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 2, and 14.2 stops at SNR = 1. Also, we can see an additional 3 stops above the blue “14.2” line in the middle diagram above – those should be helpful in the latitude test further below.

These are very impressive results, especially for a RAW codec! Also, the “Noise spectrum” graph on the lower right-hand side reveals healthy values of amplitudes even at high frequencies, hence a very detailed picture without much internal noise reduction.

Exposure Latitude of the LUMIX S1 in 5.8K ProResRAW with DR Boost “ON”

Now, if all goes fine, we should be able to see the full power of the 12-bit RAW codec in our latitude test now. As a quick reminder, latitude is the capability of a camera to retain details and colors when over- or underexposed and pushed back to a base exposure. This test is very revealing, as it pushes the complete image pipeline of any camera to its absolute limits, not just in the highlights but mainly in the shadows.

As usual, the latitude test is performed in DaVinci Resolve, with the complication that there is no support for ProRes RAW yet. Hence, we would normally use the RAW Converter app, which can transcode the PRR files to Cinema DNG, a format that can be used in DaVinci. However, this app didn’t recognize the camera (yet), hence it didn’t transcode the files. Therefore, we developed the files in Final Cut Pro to 12-bit ProRes XQ 4444 files (and also adjusted the exposure with the exposure slider and then the ISO), and then imported them into DaVinci Resolve.

Our studio base exposure is (arbitrarily) chosen as having an (ungraded) luma value of around 60% on the forehead of our subject on the waveform monitor – in this case, my colleague Johnnie:

From here, we can overexpose by 5 stops:

The red channel on Johnnie’s forehead is at the cusp of clipping but still intact.

Now let’s underexpose by stopping down the iris of our ZEISS Compact Prime 85mm T1.5 in one-stop increments until T8, and then doubling the shutter value. All the files are then normalized back again to the base exposure levels (using the exposure slider and changing the ISO setting when developing the files in Final Cut Pro).

In general, the ProRes RAW files have a fine noise which looks very good to my eye, and at 3 stops underexposure and pushed back to base, for the first time, some fine noise starts to appear in the image:

We are already at 8 stops of exposure latitude (5 over, 3 under, and pushed back to base). This is the point where typically full-frame consumer cameras start to break up.

Not the LUMIX S1II! The 4 stops underexposed, pushed back to base image looks like this:

The fine noise, which is now all over the image, can easily be removed in DaVinci Resolve 19:

Quite amazingly, at this point we have reached 9 stops of exposure latitude and the image still looks fine! No horizontal or vertical lines, no larger blotches of chroma noise. Even colors are completely intact – that’s the power of 12-bit RAW!

Can we push it to 10 stops? The only full-frame camera that was capable of doing so was the ARRI Alexa Mini LF (lab test here) and the Sony BURANO 8K, which achieved close to 10 stops (lab test here) – let’s have a look:

Noise reduction yields the following:

Wow – now, removing luma and chroma noise in post-production is difficult without affecting image sharpness too much, but this image is still usable! The sensor performance is definitely on ARRI Alexa Mini LF level (but there is an Achilles heel of 27.5ms rolling shutter though, whereas the Alexa Mini LF exhibited 7.4ms)!! Also, colors in general are still intact, although the image has a slight greenish cast now.

Then let’s move further to 11 stops:

Now, noise is all over the place and corrupting the image. Let’s see what noise reduction can do – using now three frames of temporal NR and ULTRA NR in Resolve with higher luma values, which are now affecting the details of the image:

This still looks somewhat OK! However, three frames of temporal NR are borderline for a moving image as ghosting starts to appear. This is again a case where the static image above looks better than the moving image, which also reveals larger blotches of chroma noise hovering around in the image. Also, the shadow side of Johnnie’s face is corrupted by chroma noise that cannot be eliminated without destroying all the details in the image.

Summary of the Panasonic S1II LUMIX Lab Test, part 2

The DR Boost “ON” mode with the internal 12-bit 5.8K ProRes RAW implementation in Panasonic’s new LUMIX S1II camera has surpassed all my expectations. Not only does it show superb dynamic range values for a RAW mode (here, typically, DR values are lower as little internal noise reduction is happening in the RAW image pipeline), but it exhibits massive potential in the latitude test. From our base exposure, you can overexpose 5 stops and underexpose 5 stops, providing a solid 10 stops of exposure latitude with wiggle room towards 11.

For the first time, we have a consumer full-frame camera that is on par with the ARRI Alexa Mini LF (lab test here) in our standardized latitude test. The LUMIX S1II exhibits a very robust image pipeline with a fine, pleasing noise pattern that survives after noise reduction when heavy shadow lifting is required. All of that without large color shifts. Hence, outperforming all other consumer full frame cameras, but also professional ones in completely different price brackets like the URSA Cine LF 12K (lab test here), or the RED V-Raptor [X] (lab test here), or the Sony BURANO (lab test here).

Life is all about compromise; hence, this comes at a price. This would be the slow readout speed, resulting in 27.5ms rolling shutter for full-frame mode (with DR Boost “ON” – “OFF” yields a good 12.7ms) – the superb in-camera IBIS can, however, mitigate most of the negative rolling shutter effects for a lot of shooting scenarios. A good compromise could be the APS-C mode for ProRes RAW. The full sensor potential cropped with a rolling shutter of 18.7ms, which is much easier to handle for more demanding shooting scenarios.

Have you shot with the new LUMIX S1II? What are your experiences? Let us know in the comments section below!