Game Changer: Panasonic Lumix S9 New Compact Lens & Firmware Updates!

(If you want to watch the video go to The Slanted Lens on YouTube!)

Hey, it’s Jay P. here, two significant upgrades for the S9, things people have been asking for. So let’s take a look at this new firmware update and also a great lens, the 18-40mm. Let’s see how this all fits together to make a great camera combo. Let’s do it. First, let’s talk about the lens. But you’re going to definitely want to hear about the firmware update. That’s coming next!

The lens is an 18-40mm. It’s a f/4.5-6.3 lens. It’s a perfect match for the S9 because you’ve got this really small, compact weight and size that makes it easy to put it in your bag, easy to carry with you. 

So it’s one of the smallest zoom lenses you’re going to find in something like this that still gives you an incredible range, because you’re getting from 18-40mm, that really makes it worthwhile. It’s flexible, it’s lightweight. It’s a lens that you can use and carry with you, if you know, to just catch daily moments as you’re going around. That’s really what that lens is all about. So just to show you how small and lightweight this is, it’s 2.6 inches across, and 1.6 inches deep and 5.4 ounces. When you add that to the S9 you’re at 1.4 pounds. So it’s very small and lightweight. It’s easy to put a small neoprene kind of cover on this. I can carry it with me. We were shooting up in Idaho, the sun was going down, and I’m seeing this beautiful light coming through the sprinklers. The big, kind of lines of sprinklers going through all of the crops there. So I just, I jumped out of my car, grabbed the camera, threw it open, shot some video of that, and it just made it so easy to have a camera. So the best camera is the one you’re going to have with you. And that’s what I love about this, because I’ve got a full frame and I get great video, and I’m going to carry it with me because it’s so light. And this new lens is so small.

So the S9 comes with a hybrid zoom feature that works with this lens. It allows you to get up to 120mm equivalent. So it’s cropping in. So it’s a 1980×1280. So that allows you to extend that range by cropping in as you go out. Now I know you’re saying, “well, it’s just cropping in”, but it gives you the framing and the thought as you look at the image. And I found that very helpful. I set mine at 60mm for a while. I’ve set it at 100mm and it allows me to go in a little tighter. And I just like that range that I’m getting everything from an 18mm, and this is not full frame sensor. I’m on an 18mm to like a 60mm or to 100mm, and it just gives me a sense of how I can crop and how I can use the images.

So the price for the 18-40mm is $499. Or you can get a kit price, which includes the S9 and the 18-40mm for $1,799.

So let’s talk about a couple of the other things of the lens. The lens has all of the elements. It’s like dust and splash and freeze resistant. So it’s going to be good, not just for this camera, but if you want to put on the S5 II or the S5 IIX it’ll be excellent. It’s got a fluorine coating. It just gives you a really good lens. This is made to be a high end L-mount lens.

So the minimum focus distance with this lens is going to be 5.9 inches. That’s from 18-21mm, or 13 inches at 40mm. So that gives you the ability to get in closer on things. That’s not going to be any kind of a macro lens, but it does allow you to get in closer and to make things larger, which really makes it more serviceable for doing a lot of different kind of video applications, as well as stills.

So the lens is made to function at minus 10 degrees centigrade. So that’s 14 degrees Fahrenheit. It has eight elements in seven groups, seven diaphragm blades. It has that 62mm filter size, which I love. A lot of these modern lenses have that 62mm. I’ve got lenses across a couple of platforms that come in at 62mm or 67mm and I just love the fact that you have this smaller size, and I can step all my filters down to that size.

So there’s the 18-40mm f/4.5-6.3 lens. Just a great companion to the S9 because of the small size and weight, as we talked about. So that’s a fun upgrade for me. I think that’s a lens that really makes this camera a lot more useful, makes a lot more compact and ready to go.

So it’s a significant advantage that you have with the Lumix cameras, and that is that they don’t restrict aftermarket lenses. So this is a Sigma. It’s a 50mm f/2. It’s an I-series lens, beautiful little lens, sharp lens, and it’s very compact. It works perfectly on this S9. It’s the perfect kind of companion to this S9. In fact, when we first got this camera, Kenneth is going, “wow, I’ve got to put a Sigma 50mm on there, and because it’s such a beautiful lens. But the nice thing is that Panasonic doesn’t restrict any of the features on this lens. They’re not going to reduce the frames per second, they’re not going to reduce the way it communicates with the autofocus. They’re not going to do anything that will restrict this lens in any way. It’s going to work as well as any of their L series lenses does on this body. I think that’s a great advantage. A lot of camera manufacturers do not do that. Aftermarket lenses get in some ways restricted and they don’t have the same features. So there’s a point to think about. Aftermarket lenses work great with the S9.

What’s in my SKB Case? Well, I travel around the world working with wildlife, so my case is full of all kinds of unusual stuff. So I’ve got digital microscopes with a screen, hex armor gloves, which is basically like chain mail to keep you from getting envenomated when working with snakes. My trusty knife, which is made out of an elk horn, goes everywhere with me. Proximity alarms, these have saved my life more times than you know, because we put these up around camp, and they let you know when a leopard is trying to sneak into camp and bite somebody. I’ve got all kinds of predator decoys like this, which goes on top and twirls around and calls in those very same predators that we sometimes are trying to avoid. Thermal scopes, night vision. My survival pot, which has a fire starter, water purifying tablets, paracord, saw, knife, so on and so forth. Never go anywhere without this. And the most important tool to me, the thing that I could literally travel the Arctic where there are no snakes, and I’d never, never not have it on me, my snake hook. Everywhere I go, I got to have my snake hook. So that’s what’s in my SKB Case.

So now let’s talk about some of the upgrades to the S9 and to the new firmware. I mean, we’ve had at this point black, red, green and blue in colors for the camera skins. But now they have a mint green and a Sakura, which is kind of a pink color. So they’ve added those two colors to the S9 as well. So now let’s talk about the firmware update. One of the first things, it’s an open gate recording. That’s the way it has been since the camera was released. But now, it’s always had markers, you can put in on the camera to show a vertical if you’re going to use a vertical for social media, 16×9 if you want longer and to give you a square, whatever you want to do. But it’s not allowed you to do two things with those markers, and this new firmware update allows you to one, add three. So at the same time, you can see three different markers in the viewfinder, which is nice, because a lot of times I’m shooting for social media, and I’m shooting for 16×9. I want to see both of those. Also, you can touch and move them around on the frame. They don’t have to just be in the middle for, you know, the vertical and in the middle for horizontal, you can choose to move them around. And with your finger, you can make them larger or smaller on the frame on the back of the screen. So now you have the ability to set those markers to do exactly what you want them to do. And that makes it so you can shoot that open gate and make it really apply to what it is you’re working on.

Another great update that is really important and I think super exciting, that is, there’s no more recording limits. Or, I should say, there’s a menu item where you can go in and you can turn off the record limits, and you can still keep it and have a record limit. Or you can go in and just turn that off. That means that the camera is just going to continue to record until it would overheat. My experience with these kinds of cameras is that very rarely would you use a camera like this in a long interview or a long format where you’re going to be 45 minutes or an hour or something that just doesn’t make any sense. But 15 minutes was pretty short. When it came to a limited time you can record. This allows you to open that up, and depending on the situation you’re in, whether it’s hot or cold, you’re going to get much more time to be able to record. I think that’s a really good thing. It allows you to have a little more options when you’re recording.

So the new firmware update has added a couple of things. You’ve got airplanes and train now, so they’ve added that to the enhanced subject detection. They also added different options, so you have target part options when you’re looking at a car or motorcycle, which allows you to either feature the car or to say the helmet of the driver. Same with the motorcycle, either the motorcycle or punch in on the helmet of the person who’s riding the motorcycle. So it’s kind of like human, you can do human, and then you can or you can do, eye. You know, this is like the car, or you can do the driver or the helmet. So it gives you those options, those detection options, depending on what it is you want to have in focus when you’re shooting fast moving vehicles like that.

You can completely control your camera remotely with Wi-Fi while you’re displaying live view on your smartphone. So you can operate all of your basics of the camera. You can control your exposure, your white balance, auto focus, all those kinds of things, but you’re looking at a live view on your phone, which makes it so this camera can become a b, c, or d camera to stick it up into the ceiling or put it somewhere. So you can be looking at the image on your phone. So this can go into a mailbox. It can go into a box. I shoot these things. I talk about this concept all the time with people when I’m teaching, and that is, try to be in the process, not looking at the process all the time. So if you’re going to open a birthday present, you stick the camera in the birthday present and you open up the box and the camera’s looking at the person. And they’re looking going, yeah. So this gives you a small camera that can get into the process rather than always looking at the process. And you can use that Wi-Fi and your phone as your live view screen to be able to see exactly what you’re getting.

So let’s not forget about the LUT options on the S9. Through the Lumix Lab on your smartphone. You have over 100 LUTs that are available there. They’re working to increase that to get more. They’re also going to eventually open that community up so people can donate their LUTs or create LUTs there. You can create your own LUTs that you can add back to your camera very easily. You can hit on that LUT button on the back, scroll through them very fast, find the LUT you want to use. I mean, I shoot a lot in real time with a real time LUT, which means shooting a log and putting a LUT on it so that it just helps us in editing. We can go right to editing, but I have the ability to change the LUT depending on the lighting and the situation that we’re in. So that is a great option that will continue to upgrade as people add to those LUTs. As you add your LUTs to them, it’s just going to make this camera more and more useful and more interesting options as you shoot it.

So there’s a look at the new firmware update, which I think is a great step forward for this camera. It gives us some options that I think are really important with our autofocus. It gives us options that make it easier to use the LUTs, more options. It also gives us some markers we can use. Just some great things going on. And when you pair with that 18-40mm lens, this is becoming more and more a walk around, go to, kind of camera for me. I’m loving some of the features that allow this to become a B or C camera where you can look at the live view on your phone. I love that. I think that’s going to be really useful. The lens and the camera together are really one huge step forward for this whole platform.

And you might say that a lot of these features have been upgraded as well in the firmware update to the S5 II and the S5 IIX. So they’re going to get a lot of these features as well, the ability to use Lumix Lab, to be able to get images straight from your camera quickly onto your phone, to be able to push them out with social media. All those options are coming as well in that firmware update for the S5 II and the S5 IIX which is going to give that larger platform, that larger camera, a little more of that social media applications.

But this camera is really made to be carried with you and to be used as a social media content creator type camera with quick from camera to phone options, and that makes it really worthwhile for me. So there’s my thoughts on the new upgrades for the S9 and the 18-40mm lens. So keep those cameras rolling’ and keep on clickin’!