While the majority of pro-shooters use full frame cameras, the 4:3 sensor is lauded by many adventure, nature & sports photographers. And for good reason. The camera's sensor may be half the size, but so too are the lenses. In fact, many of 4:3 lenses are 1/3rd of the weight of a similar full frame focal length lens.
Canon R5 (738g) + Canon RF24-70mm/F2.8 (980g) = 1.72kg
Admittedly, I use a full frame camera for work and the idea of lugging the bulky and heavy 'holy trinity' set of zoom lenses (collectively weighing almost 4kg) around for a casual afternoon walk is not my idea of fun. So test driving the Panasonic LUMIX G9II camera with 3 lightweight lenses on a few 5km walks over the past few weeks has been a very enjoyable, un-backbreaking experience.
Size and weight aside, the new LUMIX G9II is a very capable 25.2MP camera with a mature control and menu system that makes the camera easy, if not fun, to use. The button layout is excellent. All buttons, dials and the focus point joystick have a good tactile feel to them and are easy to reach and manipulate. On top of this, the camera feels very robust and has a high degree of weather sealing.
The camera's predecessor, the LUMIX G9, was fairly well received 5 years ago, but it lacked the autofocus abilities that we have now come to expect. Plaudits to Panasonic for listening to user feedback and ironing out a few issues – including the autofocus. The new phase detection autofocus is very intuitive to use, fast and accurate and allows you to automatically track people, animals, cars and motorcycles.
The new processor and sensor allows not only better noise control, but also adds a couple of new tricks such as 60fps burst shooting in AF-C mode and 'pre-burst' shooting mode – which means the camera starts shooting up to 1.5 seconds before you actually depress the shutter button (good for birding).
Coming from full frame, one of the first things you have to get your head around is that all focal lengths are DOUBLED. So a 12mm-60mm lens is the '35mm equivalent' of 24-120mm. One great lens is the Leica DG Vario-Elmar 100-400mm f/4-6.3 which only weighs 985g and costs $1,950. This small '200-800mm' lens is brilliant for wildlife and birding. You can also use the 2X adapter to extend the lenses reach out to 1600mm.
Image Quality
The images you see here are straight out from the camera as JPGs. At time of writing, Adobe hasn't updated Camera RAW to include images from the G9II, so we'll update this when this is available. Non-the-less, the JPG images are great with highlight and shadow detail, noise and colour all looking excellent.
Video
This camera is no slouch in the video department with V-log and 5.8K 4:2:0 video, though the camera will be invariably compared to the more video focussed Panasonic GH6 camera. You can also record in ProRes 422 HQ and ProRes 422 codec videos.
Who is this for?
If you enjoy shooting while travelling or hiking or want to do casual family or social photography, this could be for you as it is so portable, but it gives you all the pro-features of the larger cameras. It's also good for street photography as the camera is quite discreet.
Photography students may also consider this camera even though the body retails at $3,299 – the lenses are fairly inexpensive compared to full frame lenses.
If you are into bird, travel and nature photography – or even action / sport, this could be a great camera for you.
Key specs
- 25MP CMOS sensor
- 5-axis in-body image stabilisation
- On-sensor phase detection (779 points)
- 3", 1.84M-dot fully articulating touchscreen
- 3.86M-dot OLED electronic viewfinder
- 60 fps burst shooting with AF-C
- 100MP handheld high-res mode
- Up to 5.8K Open Gate 4:2:0 video
- ProRes 422 and 422 HQ recording to SSD
- 390 shots per charge battery life, using LCD
- USB-C power delivery, external SSD support
- Dual UHS-II card slot
- Wi-Fi + Bluetooth
You can find out more about the camera on the Panasonic website.
