Panasonic GH6 seems to be good for many capturing, however low ISO DR falls behind: Digital Images Evaluation

The Panasonic GH6 makes use of a brand new 25MP 4 Thirds sensor we have not seen earlier than. It presents a Twin Output Acquire mode that means it is utilizing a special bodily design in contrast with a lot of the chips we encounter. This, mixed with Panasonic’s briefing, factors to the usage of a special sensor maker, for what we now have cause to imagine is a non-stacked BSI chip.

It is this transfer to a special design and provider that’s more likely to have the most important affect (constructive or unfavorable) on its efficiency, relative to its friends, slightly than the rise in pixel depend. We have seen it does an awesome job of studying out shortly, and we have seen its extra spotlight seize at larger ISOs in video mode, however how does it carry out for stills, and will we be hoping to see this similar chip in a hypothetical G9 successor?

Studio Scene

Our take a look at scene is designed to simulate quite a lot of textures, colours and element sorts you may encounter in the actual world. It additionally has two illumination modes to see the impact of various lighting situations.

Trying on the GH6’s element ranges, they’re primarily unimaginable to differentiate from its 20MP friends (which is to be anticipated, given the transfer to 25MP is a rise of simply 11% in linear decision). Even this small enhance in decision is risked as a result of the slightly disappointing magnified reside view on the GH6 makes wonderful focus extraordinarily troublesome.

When it comes to noise, the brand new sensor performs comparably with the one within the G9. This implies it falls just a little behind the chip within the OM-1 at very excessive ISOs, however there is not any apparent draw back for the change in sensor maker or design.

JPEG element is excellent, with refined sharpening bringing out, however not over-emphasizing, wonderful element, which means that wonderful pure textures are convincingly represented.

Default JPEG coloration seems to be good. There is a trace of magenta to the central pink patch and a touch of inexperienced to the yellow, however each are adequately subtle that we might need to verify whether or not they have any affect on real-world pictures.

Noise ranges are nicely managed at larger ISOs however that comes at the price of element and texture being misplaced to noise discount. General, it performs very equally to its quick friends.

The 100MP pixel shift excessive decision mode seems to be superb, even when downsized again to a decrease decision. The multi-shot nature brings the anticipated enchancment in noise and tonal high quality you’d count on of a number of sampling. Sadly the stills mode we’re most excited by (the primary hand-held excessive res mode with movement correction) cannot be shot utilizing our studio tripod setup, so might want to wait for extra outside testing.

Dynamic Vary

Our Publicity Latitude take a look at delves into the deep shadows of base ISO pictures to check the diploma to which you’ll be able to underexpose to guard highlights, then exploit the digicam’s full dynamic vary. The GH6 is displaying considerably extra noise when given the identical publicity because the OM-1. In precept this represents deeper shadows due to the distinction of their respective base ISOs, however the distinction is pronounced sufficient you can comfortably conclude that the GH6 has much less usable dynamic vary than the OM-1.

The ISO invariance tells the same story: above ISO 800, the place the GH6’s Twin Output Acquire system kicks in, the 2 digicam look very comparable, however push the decrease ISOs and the Panasonic reveals rising noise ranges within the very deep shadows. This implies it’s best to most likely increase the ISO on the Panasonic, when capturing in low mild, at the very least till you get to ISO 800. Above that time, you may maintain ISO pinned at 800, underexpose and brighten in put up, if you wish to embrace further highlights in your picture.

Publicity Latitude | ISO Invariance

The GH6’s twin output acquire is without doubt one of the few occasions the place there could be a major change in dynamic vary within the highlights. Nonetheless, in contrast to in video mode, we’re not seeing an additional cease of spotlight seize within the stills we have shot, so it might be that stills mode is ready up in another way, to provide a shadow profit as an alternative of extra highlights. We’ll look extra carefully at this as we shoot extra with the digicam.