Despite its fairly small size, the recently-released Panasonic Lumix S9 is both stylish and powerful, and worth checking out for the right kind of photographer.
With the Lumix S9, Panasonic has really packed in the features and hardware specs. The brand has also designed a full-frame mirrorless camera that’s particularly useful for social media sharing.
The social media angle applies because it can “shoot to share” (on social networks) in just seconds, much like a phone, but with all the sensor and lens power of a full camera.
Panasonic has long experience in the world of especially compact interchangeable lens cameras with strong specs inside diminutive bodies. Given this history, it’s not a stretch to expect a lot of good stuff from the new Lumix S9.
With what’s being offered, the expectation looks like it’s being fulfilled.
For starters, the Lumix S9 is the first of its kind with a full-frame sensor. Unlike previous compact models from Panasonic, it goes for serious photo resolution.
In this case, what you get is a full-frame CMOS sensor with a 24.2MP resolution and the same pixel density as Panasonic’s Lumix S5II.
Acting as an auxiliary to the 24.2MP sensor is the camera’s phase detection AF, which Panasonic has drastically improved with recent camera releases.
With the phase detection AF in this model, the S9 delivers extremely fast autofocus speed, and subject detection for human faces, eyes and for animals, birds, automobiles and motorbikes among other things.
The above makes the S9 far more responsive than your average (or even very good) photo camera, despite having similarly fast social sharing abilities.
Then there’s the Lumix S9’s 5-axis in-body image stabilization tech with 5 stops. If used with certain compatible lenses, this stabilization actually goes up to 6.5 stops thanks to Dual IS 2.
Together, these mean seriously reduced blur even with handheld shooting or when taking photos in low light.
Basically, with the S9, Panasonic has introduced a camera that can deliver quality, professional photos and videos, while also being great for more casual and easy social media sharing.
All of the above and more come packed into a pretty small camera body that measures just 12.6 x 7.39 x 4.67cm (4.96 x 2.9 x 1.82 inches) and weighs only 4.3 grams or 14 ounces.
Panasonic is also making the Lumix S9 available in multiple stylish colors for those of you who like your cameras looking a bit unique. In the case of this little shooter, you can choose from the standard jet black, or select from among Crimson Red, Dark Olive and Night Blue.
Then there are the LUTs. While this isn’t Panasonic’s first camera with real-time LUTs inside it, it is the first in the brand’s line to come with a dedicated LUT button on the body.
With easy access to a menu of look-up-table (LUT) options, you can quickly and on the fly change the color balance parameters of your shots.
With easy access to LUT options, the S9 lets users create share-pretty photos and videos in seconds and upload them to social media without editing. The camera even lets you apply dual LUTs to individual photos or videos
Sharing itself is easy with Panasonic’s Lumix Lab app for Android or iOS. This app lets users move photos or videos from the camera to their phone and then to social media. It also lets you create further custom LUTs from scratch in-app before loading them to the S9.
To make things even more convenient for sharing content, the Lumix S9 also uses a new video format called MP4 Lite, which lets you create smaller, compressed versions of videos for easier transfer and upload.
These MP4 Lite video versions can be recorded at a very solid level of quality in Open Gate in 4:2:0 10 bit in 30p/25p specs.
Panasonic will start shipping the Lumix S9 by the end of June of this year for a price of $1,499 for the body only.
If you want the camera with its Lumix S 20-60mm kit lens, it’s going to cost a bit more at $1,799.
