Kalakshar US

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. It’s Panasonic’s first camera that can not only shoot up to 8K video at the company’s 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 Sony’s A1 II. At the same time, it’s 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 Panasonic’s 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. It’s much lighter than the original S1R at 1.75 pounds compared to 2.24 pounds, so it’s 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 II’s softer material.

I’ve always liked Panasonic’s controls and in that regard the S1R II may be the company’s 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. There’s 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.

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. It’s 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 Canon’s R5 II and beating the Nikon Z8.

Battery life isn’t 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, Panasonic’s 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 Panasonic’s first mirrorless model with a protective carbon fiber curtain that comes down to protect the sensor, just like recent Canon and Sony models.

Performance

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 doesn’t 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 Sony’s A7R V and Panasonic’s 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 Panasonic’s fastest and smartest AF system yet. It can now lock onto a subject’s 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 it’s still not quite up to Sony’s and Canon’s standards for speed and accuracy.

Panasonic boosted in-body stabilization to 8 stops. That’s 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 outstanding with detail as good as rivals, though understandably short of Sony’s 61-megapixel A7R V. Colors are as accurate as I’ve seen on any recent camera, matching or even beating Canon’s 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 isn’t 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 Panasonic’s best mirrorless camera yet for video, albeit with some caveats I’ll discuss soon. You can capture up to 8K 30p 10-bit video at a reasonably high 300 Mbps, close to what Sony’s 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.

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, it’s acceptable for regular handheld shooting.

One complication is Panasonic’s 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 it’s nearly on par with stacked sensor cameras, while still offering high-quality footage with just a slight crop.

As for video quality, it’s razor sharp and color rendition is accurate and pleasing. Dynamic range is on the high end of cameras I’ve tested at close to 14 stops when shooting with Panasonic’s V-log, allowing excellent shadow and highlight recovery, especially in DRE mode. It’s still very good without DRE though, particularly if you’re not shooting in bright and sunny conditions.

Frame grab from Panasonic S1R II 8K video

Video AF is also strong, keeping even quick-moving subjects in focus. Face, eye, animal and vehicle detection work well, though again, the system isn’t quite as reliable as what I saw on Sony and Canon’s 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 don’t buy the S1R II, but it shouldn’t be an issue for most users, particularly at this price.

Wrap-up

The S1R II is Panasonic’s best hybrid mirrorless camera to date, offering a great balance of photography and video powers. It’s also the cheapest new camera in the high-resolution hybrid full-frame category, undercutting rivals like Canon’s R5 II and the Nikon Z8.

The main downside is rolling shutter that primarily affects video. As I mentioned, though, it won’t 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, Sony’s 61MP A7R V offers slightly better image quality. And if rolling shutter is really an issue then I’d recommend Canon’s 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 Panasonic’s S5 II or S5 IIx are solid picks. For other hybrid shooters, though, Panasonic’s 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 

This year marks the 125th anniversary of the New York International Auto Show (NYIAS), and despite concerns over tariffs, there are still a lot of manufacturers here showing off new models including a handful of US and global debuts. So without further ado, here are some of the coolest cars on display at the 2025 NYIAS. 

The 2026 Subaru Trailseeker

First up on the docket is Subaru, which is here today with a first look at its second-ever EV: the Trailseeker. Now I admit that the followup to the Solterra might not be the most exciting announcement, as this model will once again be based the e-TNGA platform, which is shared with Toyota’s bZ4x. That said, while the Trailseeker doesn’t have the most impressive range (around 260 miles), its updated styling, larger body and improved off-roading capabilities feels more suited to an outdoor lifestyle. 

The 2026 Kia EV4

Kia has been on a roll when it comes to EVs thanks to existing cars like the EV6 and EV9. And at the 2025 NYIAS, the company is looking to keep that momentum rolling with the US debut of the EV4, which incorporates many of the headline features from its previous battery-powered offerings, but with an even more affordable expected price of between $35,000 and $40,000. It also features Kia’s improved i-PEDAL 3.0 regenrative braking tech which now works in reverse. 

This story is in progress so stay tuned for more updates throughout the day.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/the-coolest-cars-at-the-2025-new-york-international-auto-show-144832805.html?src=rss 

Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is a labor of love. You can see it in every pixel, animation and cutscene of the new 2D action game. It might be a surprise then that it’s not the work of Team Ninja, the studio most closely associated with the series, but rather franchise newcomer The Game Kitchen. The Spanish studio is best known for its work on Blasphemous, a series of Souls-like Metroidvanias influenced by Spain’s own Andalusian culture and history with Roman Catholicism.

“I’m an ’80s kid,” says David Jaumandreu, game director and producer on Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound. “I still have my copy of the first Ninja Gaiden in the basement.” The way Jaumandreu tells it, Ragebound is a dream project for him and his coworkers. The Game Kitchen began working on the game about halfway through the production of Blasphemous 2. French publisher Dotemu, best known for releasing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, approached the studio after seeing its work on Blasphemous.

There’s some superficial visual overlap between Ragebound and Blasphemous 2, but when it comes to tone and gameplay, they could not be more dissimilar. Where Blasphemous 2 is dark and solemn, Ragebound leans into the franchise’s origin as a product of the ’80s. It’s loud and frequently cheesy, but in an endearing way. It’s also a lot faster paced, with levels that grade on how quickly you can complete them, often while taking as little damage as possible.

Early on in the project, one of the things the team knew they wanted was to include two protagonists, with one of them hailing from the Black Spider Clan. For the uninitiated, the Black Spider Clan has usually served as the antagonists of the Ninja Gaiden series. Ragebound is set during the events of the 1988 NES game. After series protagonist Ryu Hayabusa leaves for the US to avenge his father’s death, demons descend on peaceful Hayabusa Village and it’s up to newcomer Kenji Mozu to save his clan.

“We thought if we’re taking the series back to its roots, wouldn’t it be cool to control one of the Black Spider Clan?” says Jaumandreu. “It’s like when you get to make a Star Wars game, and you fantasize about controlling an Empire character.” 

To the surprise of everyone at The Game Kitchen, both Dotemu and Koei Tecmo — Ninja Gaiden’s original license holder — liked the idea. In the demo I played, I didn’t see the exact circumstances of how Kenji and the Black Spider Clan’s Kumori end up working together, but the gist of it is that they’re forced to merge souls to survive a deadly encounter.

From what I can tell, outside of one mission that serves as an introduction to Kumori’s skillset, you’ll spend most of your time playing as Kenji in Ragebound. However, once the two of them join forces, Kenji’s ability to engage enemies at range is greatly increased since he has access to Kumori’s kunai.

Moreover, some of the platforming sections I ran into during the demo required that I play as Kumori to progress through the level. The tricky thing about these segments is that Kumori can only manifest for a short time, a gauge above her head indicating how much time I had left with her before I was back to Kenji and had to try the section again. It’s possible to extend her gauge by taking out enemies along the way. At least in the demo, Kumori’s segments weren’t too difficult, but I could also see how the structure could really test players — maybe not to the level of Hollow Knight’s Path of Pain, say, but something close.

One of the things that stood out about both characters was how nimble they felt. Kenji can pogo off enemies and projectiles to gain additional height over his foes. During her platforming segments, Kumori can use her kunai to teleport across gaps and complete jumps Kenji can’t. Most levels also include ceilings the two can climb along, and I frequently had to fight my way through multiple enemies to get to the other end. Speaking of combat, it’s frenetic in a way that has mostly gone out of style in modern gaming. Outside of bosses, most enemies will fall after one or two slashes from Kenji’s katana.

Even in early combat scenarios, I often had to fight two or three enemies simultaneously, while dodging and deflecting ranged attacks along the way to my next target. Once the combat system started to click for me, it felt incredibly satisfying to bounce between enemies and use Kenji and Kumori’s abilities in unison.

I left my hands-on with Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound excited to play the final product. Of course, the ultimate test of the game will be how fans receive it. “We really put a lot of effort into creating a Ninja Gaiden game,” says Jaumandreu. “We didn’t want it to be a Blasphemous game with ninjas. We really hope when players get the controller, they feel at home with the series.”

Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound arrives this summer on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation and Xbox.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/ninja-gaiden-ragebound-is-a-love-letter-to-the-series-nes-roots-150050773.html?src=rss 

NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 5060 Ti aims at a very niche group of gamers. Starting at $379 with 8GB of VRAM, or $429 with 16GB, the 5060 Ti is for people who want something a bit more powerful than the base $299 RTX 5060, but aren’t willing to shell out for the midrange $549 RTX 5070. (And it’s worth noting that card is already selling for well beyond that price). 

In terms of raw rendering power, it’s a minor upgrade over the previous RTX 4060 Ti. But thanks to the power of DLSS 4 AI upscaling, as well as 4X frame generation (the ability to create three interpolated frames for every one that’s rendered), the RTX 5060 Ti can reach surprisingly high fps scores in 1080p and even 1440p.

During my testing of PNY’s RTX 5060 Ti 16GB card, I found it to be a solid performer overall, especially for games that can tap into 4X frame generation. But of course, it’s unclear if you’ll actually be able to buy it for $429, given the already volatile nature of the GPU industry and the additional headache of the Trump administration’s unwieldy tariff plans. Would it be worth spending over $500 or even $600 on the RTX 5060 Ti? That’s much harder to tell.

Hardware

Now if you’re wondering why NVIDIA chose to offer 16GB of RAM in the RTX 5060 Ti, while it saddled the RTX 5070 with just 12GB, I don’t really have any answers for you. It’s a confusing move, and it’s another sign that the RTX 5070 was simply a bit too mid. Even more curious, the 5060 Ti also has higher clock speeds than the 5070, reaching between 2.4GHz and 2.57GHz. The 5070 is rated between 2.16GHz and 2.51Ghz.

Otherwise, the 5060 Ti sits right below the 5070: It has 4,608 Blackwell CUDA cores that can reach 24 TFLOPs, 759 AI TOPS and 72 TFLOPS of 4th-gen ray tracing cores. The 5070, meanwhile, has 6,144 CUDA cores for 31 TFLOPS of Blackwell shader power, 988 AI TOPS and 94 ray tracing TLFOPs.

The PNY 5060 Ti I tested seemed like a typical budget GPU. It’s relatively small, features just two fans and has one PSU connection. You won’t be mistaking it for a slick NVIDIA Founder’s Edition card, that’s for sure.

None

3DMark TimeSpy Extreme

Geekbench 6 GPU

Cyberpunk (4K RT Overdrive DLSS)

Blender

NVIDIA RTX 5060 Ti (16GB)

8,100

139,756

90 fps (4X frame gen)

4,220

NVIDIA RTX 5070

10,343

178,795

115 fps (4x frame gen)

6,015

NVIDIA RTX 5070 Ti

12,675

238,417

153 fps (4X frame gen)

7,365

NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti

6,599

N/A

50 fps (1X frame gen)

4,435

What’s good about the RTX 5060 Ti (16GB)?

For the most part, the RTX 5060 Ti delivered everything I’d want in a sub-$500 video card. And in some cases, it even exceeded my expectations.

It offers excellent 1080p performance, especially with the help of DLSS 4. It hit 186 fps in Cyberpunk 2077 in ray tracing overdrive mode with 4X frame generation. But it also performed decently without DLSS, hitting 122 fps with Ultra graphics settings and no ray tracing. Just don’t try to add ray tracing without upscaling, as the 5060 Ti reached a mere 30 fps in RT Overdrive mode and 56 fps in RT Ultra.

In Halo Infinite, which doesn’t offer DLSS upscaling at all, it reached 156 fps in 1080p with maxed out graphics settings and ray tracing.

1440p speeds were solid as well: It reached 136 fps in Cyberpunk’s ray tracing overdrive mode with 4X frame generation, and an even higher 189 fps in the slightly less impressive RT ultra mode.

In 4K, the 5060 Ti hit 90 fps in Cyberpunk with 4X frame generation. It’s not a card you’d be buying for consistent 4K gameplay, but it’s still interesting to see it hit beyond 60 fps at such a high resolution.

Having 16GB of VRAM future-proofs the card a bit, since it will be able to tackle higher resolution textures for newer games. That hefty amount of memory is likely why the 5060 Ti can handle 4K in a pinch.

The 5060 Ti was 25 percent faster than the 4060 Ti in the 3DMark Speedway benchmark, as well as the Port Royal ray tracing test.

Since it’s running just two fans, the 5060 Ti doesn’t make much noise under load. And it doesn’t really generate much heat either, reaching just 70C under load (and around 32C while idling).

What’s bad about the RTX 5060 Ti (16GB)?

At the end of the day, the 5060 Ti is still a slightly souped-up budget card, so there are bound to be compromises. 

I wish I could really trust its $429 price. While some lucky shoppers may be able to find launch models at that figure, it won’t be long before retailers start jacking up the price. And that’s not even counting where things may end up in a post-Trump tariff world.

Strangely enough, the 5060 Ti scored a few hundred points lower than the 4060 Ti in the Blender benchmark. That could be due to immature drivers, but it was still surprising to see. Given that other benchmark results showed a decent amount of improvement, I wouldn’t count the 5060 Ti out for all 3D rendering software. But if you were in that field, you’d probably be investing in something much more powerful anyway.

Should you buy the RTX 5060 Ti (16GB)?

If you’re still using an RTX 3060 or an older GPU, you’ll see some huge speed boosts from the RTX 5060 Ti. But think twice before spending well over $500. If the GPU market stabilizes in the future, you may be able to snag an AMD Radeon RX 9070 or an NVIDIA RTX 5070 for $549. The Radeon is likely the better alternative, since it scored higher than the 5070 in most of our tests.

Wrap-up

On paper, NVIDIA has done a lot right with the 16GB GeForce RTX 5060 Ti. It’ll be more than enough for demanding games in 1080p and 1440p, even if you let loose a bit with ray tracing. But it’s also relying on DLSS 4 upscaling for much of that performance, which may make some wary about the 5060 Ti’s actual power.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/nvidia-rtx-5060-ti-16gb-review-a-solid-semi-budget-gpu-for-429-but-good-luck-scoring-that-price-130058124.html?src=rss