u/YourselfInOthrsShoes

He says that it allows him to pull the sharpest focus and micro-contrast details at the most stunning root canal depths.

"Leica F12 floor stand or long-reach stand systems made by Leica Microsystems. It is typically paired with specialized optics and microscopes for medical, surgical, or industrial uses, such as the Leica M320 F12 Dental Microscope, the Leica M220 F12 Ophthalmic Surgical Microscope, or the Leica F12 I Industrial/Forensic Stand."

Just received my Sigma 16-300 f/3.5-6.7 APS-C lens for L-mount. On L-mount you get a FoV equivalent to 24-450mm with APS-C crop and equivalent apertures f/5-10. On 44MP S1Rii you get 19MP APS-C cropped output and if you enable Hybrid Zoom, you'll get up to additional 1.4x crop applied further toward the tele end for 24-600mm effective with 10MP output at 600. These are my first shots with this lens and were taken at sunset, so there are a lot of shadows and results should be much better during daytime. While S1Rii exposes all its flaws and this lens wouldn't win any image quality awards, I found it surprisingly capable for what it offers at only $700 and 615g (it weighs nearly 200g less than S1Rii body and would work well even with S9!).

If you could only bring one superzoom lens on L-Mount knowing you'd also need wildlife capability, this one would be it. I don't have the m43 OM 12-200 f/3.5-6.3 (24-400 f/7-12 equivalent for $900 at 455g) to compare but on paper Sigma should offer more low light flexibility. I'm yet to try it on my S5ii or S9 but on S5ii with APS-C crop at 24-450 equivalent it will output 10.5MP and I wouldn't use Hybrid Zoom with it on 25MP sensors. You could set to use either body or lens IS with this lens, there's no Dual IS.

These shots were taken with Lens IS enabled by default and you could definitely feel the lack of Dual IS 2 that you would get with Lumix S 70-300 at 600mm effective, which as expected also produces much better images in the overlapping telephoto focal range. The first shot is taken at widest 24mm effective, the dog is at 290mm effective, and most of the other shots are at 600mm effective or very close. The lens hits f/5.6 by 60mm (90mm effective) and f/6.7 by 220mm (330mm effective). The zoom is on a stiffer side in usual Sigma fashion, similar to Sigma 20-200 zoom.

What do you think? Would you get and use this lens? I'm certainly keeping my copy as it offers a unique proposition on L-mount.

A few days ago I posted a shootout in challenging condition at dusk between S1Rii & S 70-300 and G9ii & PL 50-200, both Hybrid/Crop Zoomed to 11~12MP output at 560~600mm effective/equivalent and I wasn't really impressed with S1Rii output in those conditions. Well today we did a similar outing but went out earlier before the sunset (although a lot of the attached shots are in the sunset shade) and I can happily report that S1Rii setup DID in fact outperform G9ii setup in these brighter conditions. Today I'm only posting S1Rii shots but you can check my previous post and see how bland S1Rii shots looked after dusk at ISO-6400, even G9ii at ISO-3200 was edging it out. Everything was set the same today, except last time I only had "animal detect AF" enabled but today we had "animal eye detect AF" enabled. Well, aside from better matched AF settings for the task, today there was quite a bit more light that we weren't shooting at ISO-6400 on S1Rii and ISO-3200 on G9ii and this made all the difference in the results.

Hybrid Zoom was enabled and set to 11MP output limit (up to 2x crop). Animal Eye Detect AF and AFC was enabled. All bird shots and airplane shot are at 600mm effective with Hybrid Zoom. It wouldn't let me upload some 44PM photos taken at 70mm wide end, such as photos with trees & skyline because they are over 20MB SOOC, so I just opened them in Windows Photos and saved them right back (that compressed them to ~10MB with some detail loss) to be able to upload.

Some observations: 600mm isn't really enough for birds, you'd want 800+, so a different FF lens, such as Sigma 500mm f/5.6 with 1000mm effective at 11MP output. That would make it easier from light gathering capability than G9ii & 100-400ii (with or without 1.4x TC) that you'd probably mostly use at 400 anyway.

My wife and I went out for our evening walk after dinner around our neighborhood to do this side-by-side comparison shootout of my brand new S1Rii vs G9ii in challenging conditions at dusk. But wait, there's a reason to this madness. I shot S1Rii with 70-300 at 280-300 f/5.6 ISO-6400 (550-600mm equivalent with Hybrid Zoom limit at 11MP output, 1.9-2.0x crop). My wife shot G9ii with PL 50-200 at 200mm f/4 ISO-3200 (560mm f/8 equivalent with Crop Zoom limit at 12MP output 1.4x crop). Animal subject detection with AFC and Dual IS 2 was active for both setups along with respective crop zooms to produce similar 11-12MP SOOC JPEG output. Both are rated for up to 8 stops of Dual IS. All body and lens firmware was up to date. It was a very interesting comparison in challenging conditions at the dusk that would stress any gear, and these are the results (rather a small subset of the results that I could actually pair together side by side due to framing and timing challenges). Photos are grouped in pairs by subjects, with S1Rii photo (3:2 aspect) first, followed by G9ii photo (4:3 aspect). S1Rii setup is $4k & 1.6kg and G9ii setup is $3k & 1.3kg.

Which is better? It's still hard to say for me right now. After initial testing in the basement in dim lighting (the final shot pair), I thought that G9ii & PL 50-200 had a better Dual IS 2 and was more reliable to produce better output at 560mm equivalent Hybrid/Crop Zoom but maybe in practice it was more evenly matched and S1Rii made up with slightly better subject detection AF. I suspect that S1Rii with its resolution might have exposed some flaws of $1k 70-300 lens shot wide open at f/5.6 at 280-300, which is not ideal but it's more or less 1:1 equivalent comparison against another system and lens which was also shot wide open. S1Rii resolution puts much higher demand on the lenses paired with it and Lumix 70-300 was an odd pairing choice that made this 1:1 comparison possible. Sure, Lumix 100-500 might be a bit sharper at 300 wide open but I'm seriously considering sticking with 70-300 for its size and weight. So, I recommend other S1Rii users who shoot wildlife to go straight to $3k and 1.4kg Sigma 500 f/5.6 for use with S1Rii 2x Hybrid Zoom for 500-1000 equivalent.

My first evening stroll with Lumix S1Rii right after I received it with Lumix S 70-300 with Hybrid Zoom limit to 11MP (2x crop). All these were shot at the dusk right after the sun went down. All but the sky shot at 300mm, so 600mm equivalent with Hybrid Zoom crop - you can still see the details of the veins and fine hairs in bunny's ears if you zoom in. Admittedly I didn't really get a chance to go through the menus and transfer all my settings I use on S5ii and S9 over to S1Rii.

My next test would be this S1Rii setup pitted against G9ii with PL 50-200 and Crop Zoom limit set to 12MP (1.4x crop), which I expect would be interesting since both setups would top out at 600mm and 560mm equivalent with comparable 11-12MP output, S1Rii with 4x larger sensor but 1.4x higher crop in.