I sold my Nikon ZF this month and that meant I had some cash burning a hole in my pocket. Combined with the yearning for shooting longer than 50mm (I consider the GFX100RF a 28-50mm with it's cropping ability) and it wasn't long until I was itching to buy into an interchangeable lens system again.
I've owned most of the interesting and or relatively compact full frame cameras. One that had eluded my attention for a long time is the Panasonic Lumix S9. For some unknown reason most of the photography community forgets that Panasonic even exists, and so their products tend to fly under the radar to the point that you'll rarely see solid examples of how their lenses compare to other systems. The L-mount is actually very appealing nowadays and has a great selection of glass from multiple manufacturers at reasonable prices and levels; Panasonic, Sigma and Viltrox to name a few.
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| Sumiyoshi Shrine, Ariake Sea |
One thing I had always wanted was to have a big body + little body combo in the same system, with lenses available to suit each setup all at a reasonable price. Lumix is the only full frame system that can offer this. Sony is too expensive for an A7CII + A7IV (or A7V) and the other option though only APSC is Fujifilm, but then none of their small bodies have weather sealing. Unless you choose the X100VI as your small camera, which does incidentally pair nicely with the X-H2 as a combo - I combo which I have had, but the image quality and autofocus was far behind full frame. So that leaves Panasonic with the S9 and S5II, both of which are incredible value and probably the cheapest offerings in their respective classes. They have the best stabilisation and are the best brand for video too.
So I went against my better instincts and picked up an Lumix S9 with the 18-40mm kit lens along with a 40mm F2 to have a play with. This makes a versatile and compact kit, only lacking in a bit of reach - something that the amazingly compact Lumix 28-200 would solve, or even the Lumix 85mm 1.8. My little kit was enough to get started to see if I liked the system, the files, and the autofocus performance. If I did, I planned to promptly add an S5II and a Sigma Art 24-70 to get started.
All photos shown were taken with the Lumix S9.
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| Misumi / Sumiyoshi Shrine / Misumi Ferry building |
The Lumix S9 first impressions
Firstly, the bad. The body feels cheap; it’s like a slab of plasticky plastic. The rear buttons and scroll wheel are honestly shockingly bad and what you would expect on some random Temu Camera.
Then there are the bad specs on paper: Electronic shutter, only 12-bit Raw files, no EVF and no weather sealing. It’s clearly a video camera first and foremost and not a professional one at that, so one cannot really complain about it lacking features that it's target audience don't need. I think it's almost an accident that the S9 has been as popular as it has for photography.
I did find the screen to be nice with great contrast, and decent maximum brightness. Touch worked very well too.
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| Sumiyoshi Shrine |
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| Misumi West Port |
Setup
I hate menu systems that are new to me, I doubt I'm alone. Mainly because different brands have different terminology for features and then those features may work differently to how you expect. This means just doing the setup of a new camera in the menu requires a lot of googling to find out what everything is and what it does. Some brands (Nikon comes to mind) have a help button that you can press whilst viewing any menu option and it will give you a little explanation. Panasonic doesn't have this. As a result I spent 3 days in the menus figuring everything out, researching and testing until I was happy. One setting that is off by default that you must turn on is the 'Constant Preview'. With this turned off you will not see what your exposure looks like when you change your exposure settings. I will note though that when you have long shutter speeds in low light the preview gets really really laggy.
You want your settings dialled in because this camera lacks physical controls. You get a top dial and scroll wheel on the back for exposure - last time I checked there were 3 sides to the exposure triangle so unfortunately you will be stuck using auto ISO, or having to quick-menu dive to change it. The rear scroll wheel, most commonly used for shutter speed is easy to knock which is why I recommend setting up custom modes on your top dial, so that whenever you change it on your mode dial it will always reset to your default.
These Custom modes can be used for any lot of settings, wether they are aimed at photo or video or both. For example, I had one setting for action photography (fast shutter speed, AF-C, burst shooting etc), one for landscape (f/8 aperture, base iso etc) and one for V-log video. You can then use your standard PASM and Video options on the mode dial for ones to be a bit more fluid with.
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| Misumi |
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| Misumi |
Shooting
The Lumix S9 is a fun camera to shoot with. It is a playful camera and clearly not designed for serious shooting. Embrace that and it's all good. I'm just going to rattle off some observations for shooting with it:
- Autofocus is good. It's not Sony / Canon / Nikon good, but it's decent and ahead of Fujifilm. Really no complaints here.
- Stabilisation is outstanding. I've been shooting without Ibis for a while on the GFX100RF and to have the option to drop my shutter speed around 5 stops without hesitation in lower light was very nice to have.
- Video is obviously what this is made for and it doesn't disappoint. I don't really do video, but the video straight-out-of-camera with a suitable LUT applied looked amazing, like a cheat code to 'cinematic'. The onboard mic was surprisingly decent provided there was no wind.
- Electronic shutter. No problem for general shooting whatsoever. Being silent is nice in quiet environments and you want to be stealthy. I saw no issues with artificial lights causing banding either.
- No EVF. This was the hardest thing for me. I can shoot with a screen and I often do. However, there are those moments that you really want an EVF, and it not being there in those crucial times was annoying. For me those times are super bright light, being able to set/check critical focus, and just general stability despite the stabilisation. I also like the tunnel vision that an EVF gives by blocking out distractions in your peripheral.
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| Owner of a Coffee Shop's Suzuki Cappuccino |
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| Sea Donut Aquarium, Matsushima |
Lenses
A quick note on the lenses. The 40mm F2 seemed great, nice and sharp wide open and good autofocus. I thought this would be the main lens I would gravitate to, but it ended up being unused as the excellent 18-40 took me by surprise. For something so small to be as good as it is, wow. 18mm on the wide end is unbelievably useful to have and I used it more than I expected. The aperture is slow particularly on the long end but the excellent stabilisation can help keep shutter speeds down, and I shoot at f/8 outdoors pretty much all the time nowadays anyway. The collapsible nature of it is the only downside, having to pop it open every time to shoot.
I also bought a used 20-60, the much larger kit lens for a bit of extra reach and to see if it was better optically. This lens surprised me too - it wasn't noticeably better than the 18-40, however I preferred the handling (the 18-40 is a collapsible zoom) and I found the 60mm long end more useful than the extra 2mm on the wide end on the 18-40. The 20-60 is a great landscape lens. If I did pickup an S5II as well, it would be in the consideration to be my main zoom and then add primes around it.
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| Sumiyoshi Shine, Ariake Sea |
The Files
I don't shoot Jpeg at all, and if you are a Jpeg shooter you can now easily shoot RAW and edit them too thanks to the Lumix App. I think people underestimate how valuable it is to have a free native Raw converter and editor (though with no lens corrections). To be able to import from your camera to your phone, download and apply LUTs to your photos and do basic exposure and colour adjustments FOR FREE is fantastic, which is probably all that a tonne of people need. Bravo.
The RAW files though, brilliant. I did find the 12 bit files just a tiny bit less forgiving which made some high contrast shots take a bit longer to edit. One shot I just couldn't get right (below) because of it and ended up making it B&W instead. But other than that I don't see any issue with the lower bit rate files. The colours though are fantastic. Best colours I have seen out of a RAW file. Punchy and vibrant with much less colour work needed. I love greens and Lumix greens were good. I actually did a bunch of back to back shooting with the GFX100RF and compared how the files edited and how the final images came out and the S9 had me wondering why I spent so much on the RF... but then I hold them both and remember the S9 feels like a happy meal toy...
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| Sea Donut Aquarium / Misumi / Misumi |
Conclusion
I didn't really expect to want to keep the Lumix S9, though I did enjoy shooting with it. For me the drawbacks are indeed drawbacks for me and I wholly accept that I am not the target audience for this camera, so it is no fault of the S9.
It is simply too lacking for most photography. Casual life and travel snaps are where it lives. I can live without the mechanical shutter on a small camera like this and even the 12 Bit Raw files seem decent enough. The lack of EVF is something that one can probably adapt to for using it as intended but I found the main deal breaker to be the build quality and lack of weather sealing. I like my cameras to feel like quality, they aren't cheap afterall. And for weather sealing, I do get caught in the rain occasionally, but my main concern is that I live in a country where the humidity is high enough that storing gear in dry cabinets is mandatory. Weather sealing gives an added layer of protection from the humidity when you are out and about with your gear.
I was sold on L-mount as a system though and I came really very close to ordering an S5II as it would alleviate all concerns I had with the S9. I didn't, because I know the next thing I'll miss is resolution - going back to 'only' 24 Megapixels after 102 MP is hard... See you next month for the next contender to try and overthrow my Fujifilm GFX100RF.
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