Here is Lumix S9: Panasonic wants creators to abandon the smartphone for Full Frame

Panasonic also takes off the serious clothes of its full frame Lumix cameras and arrives on the market with a new camera with a blatantly “social” tone: light, small, colorful and connected, but not inclined to make discounts on quality. It’s called Lumix S9, the smallest model of the S series, which historically has never made its dimensions and reduced weight its added value (the first S was a mirrorless camera the size of a reflex). A habit that changes drastically with this new model which brings the weight of the body alone to 400 grams, at the lowest on the market, even below the lightweight Sony A7c II and less than half of the micro 4:3 Lumix G9.

We were saying that the S9 winks at the youngest galaxy in the photographic world and it also does so by offering not only the serious black, but three other finishes, red, green and blue with bright colours, albeit in the classic imitation leather finish.

For the sake of compactness, however, the ocular viewfinder is lost – something decidedly uncommon on full frames and a factor that for a traditional amateur photographer is an almost insurmountable limit.

But anyway – as we know – young users tend to take pictures looking at the display with the camera stretched out in front of them. Especially since the screen is tiltable and foldable.

The Lumix S9 has a 24 megapixel CMOS sensor (the same as the S5II) with a hybrid phase-search autofocus that can count on 779 focus points; furthermore, the machine is equipped with an active in-body stabilizer that can also be used to make video recordings more stable.

The S9 – small body – is not a queen in terms of available connections, which are somewhat reduced to a minimum: there is microHDMI output, there is USB-C which also works as a charging port (but does not power the machine indefinitely).

Luckily there is also an input for an external microphone: its absence would have compromised any video vocation of the camera.

The memory slot is in SD card format and there is only one, next to the battery compartment.

A machine ready for any image “look”.

To shorten the social content production pipeline, the S9 also integrates the Real Time LUT function which allows you to see directly on the display how a clip will appear after appropriate grading. But the LUT can also be applied and stored in the file, so as to have clips already ready for editing with the preferred look. This vocation is made even more accessible by the availability of nothing less than a button dedicated to selecting the LUT, a privilege that few machines have and which is even more remarkable given that we are faced with a body that is evidently simplified in order to be small, which leads also to a reduction in the available keys.

Furthermore, thanks to the new Lumix Lab app, it is now possible not only to download the material shot on a smartphone on the fly but also to apply a LUT ex post, thus avoiding the need for a grading step on a PC: the images are already on the smartphone with the final look ready to be shared. Thanks to the Lumix Lab app, it is also possible not only to use the LUTs developed by famous directors of photography and colorists, downloadable from the Internet, but also to edit and create your own LUT, load it onto the camera and then use it to shoot with a distinctive look.

MP4lite also arrives in Open Gate, the best for the social media manager

Again with a view to allowing “on the fly” editing from a smartphone, the Lumix S9 also knows how to encode images in MP4 Lite, which corresponds to a more streamlined format that can also be easily edited on a smartphone; furthermore, the camera can shoot in the so-called Open Gate, therefore full sensor, subsequently allowing reframing of the images in the preferred format. So, with a 24 megapixel 3:2 sensor, it is possible to shoot in Open Gate and then obtain a 9:16 vertical in full 4K resolution. In the end, if you look at the social world, you shoot in one format but inevitably the video will have to be exported and edited in gradually different formats, from very horizontal to very vertical, obviously passing through square formats. Capturing the entire sensor and thinking about it later is certainly the most versatile thing to do.

The price is calibrated to the “smartphone population”

A Full Frame at a list price of 1699 euros is not often seen, on the contrary. This is the convincing price of the S9 in body-only version. An entry threshold that is close to the price of top-of-the-range smartphones and therefore cannot scare the smartphone creator, the real target of this machine. There are also kit versions: combined with the honest 20-60 mm lens, it goes to 1999, without crossing the psychological threshold of 2000. For those who need a super versatile and above all telephoto lens (what a smartphone can’t have) there is also the kit with the 28-200mm, available only in black finish, at 2499 euros. Fair prices, therefore, penalized only by the lack of the eyepiece which for a certain category of users is a disadvantage that cannot be overcome.

First impressions: bomb autofocus. But a few more buttons are missing

The first thing you notice when holding the S9 is that there aren’t many physical controls. For example, a joystick is missing which is so important for some quick operations, just as there is a need for some programmable buttons. This is not a coincidence or an effect of a frantic search for savings; rather – they explain to us – everything stems from the explicit desire to create a full frame suitable for smartphone users, which is not excessively scary. The too many buttons on the pro and semi-pro mirrorless cameras are a real shock for those who are used to only the touch screen and graphic interfaces.

The second thing you notice, starting to point the camera here and there, is the quality of the autofocus: very high, we must say, capable of recognizing subjects at a distance very well and inclined to keep them in focus, even in bursts, for the entire journey, even when advancing diagonally or when they are close to the edges of the sensor. From what we saw in half an hour of shots, one of the best Lumix autofocus.

A note of disappointment arises from the shooting duration (at least declared, we did not have the opportunity to do the tests): the limits are quite stringent, with a maximum of 10 minutes in Open Gate, 15 minutes in 4K and 20 minutes in Full HD. We hope that these are only precautionary theoretical limits, but that in non-challenging climatic conditions, these limits can be largely exceeded.

The new Lumix Lab app, despite being a debut, has proven to be well made and very solid.

Suffice it to say that if you configure the app for the automatic transfer of shots (very convenient if you then have to relaunch something on social media) the process holds even if you put the app not in the foreground or lock the phone. Apps from other manufacturers, under the same conditions, would disconnect the WiFi connection with the machine.

Only one shortcoming in the new app is felt: it is the possibility of remote shooting with preview of the shot, which is missing.

The stabilization works very well, simplifying, among other things, panning shots.

Applying LUTs in the car and on the fly is also a lot of fun and setup times are negligible.

Below are two shots taken a few seconds apart, the first without a neutral LUT, the second with a very distinctive one.

We also tried to create a LUT on the app, modifying (even a little randomly) the calibration parameters of a sample photo. With a tap our test LUT loaded onto the camera and was very easily activated for shooting.

As usual, no problem shooting without an eyepiece, except for the ability to see the microfocus with the naked eye without magnifying the image. Here are other shots taken in our very short preview test, again with the 20-60 lens which is supplied as a kit with some configurations of the S9.