Panasonic G9, giant review 2026

Long ago, back in 2016, I attended an event held by Panasonic in Moscow (yes, those were the good old days), dedicated to the release of their latest camera — the Panasonic Lumix G9. Now it's 2026. The magnificent Panasonic G9 is 10 years old. I've been shooting with it for the past 2.5 years, ever since I switched to Micro Four Thirds. The camera is simply excellent, and so, even after losing all the articles on my website, I'm publishing this review again. Spoiler alert — I consider this camera one of the most cost-effective options in 2026! The review is long, compiled from two of my articles — from 2016 and 2024 — and updated now, in 2026.

Once upon a time, in the early days of my digital photography journey, I used two Panasonic cameras — the FZ-10 and FZ-30 — so I feel a kind of kinship with this brand. When I learned that Panasonic had released a camera specifically tailored for photographers (not videographers), I became very interested.

At the 2016 event, I had a chance to shoot a bit with the then-new G9, explore its menu, autofocus performance, etc. Let's start, of course, with its appearance.

The G9 is quite large for a Micro Four Thirds camera, because instead of focusing on marketing gimmicks, Panasonic this time aimed to make the most photographer-friendly camera possible. For me, this approach was a breath of fresh air after being completely disappointed with Sony's ergonomic choices. The Panasonic G9 sits in the hand perfectly, like a glove. The grip is very comfortable and ergonomic, all fingers fit, and everything is within easy reach. Panasonic didn’t skimp on buttons, designing the camera like a true flagship. I should mention that I also held the GH5, and I can confidently say that the G9 is more comfortable for photographers. The power button is combined with the shutter release (unlike the GH5, by the way), which is the most convenient solution. The shutter button itself is very smooth and easy to press. At first, it felt too light — coming from Nikon, I accidentally pressed it a few times — but I quickly got used to it, so it’s not a drawback. The camera has two control dials. The rear one is a large metal disc — I think that’s the right choice, as it’s more comfortable than classic dials. The front dial sticks out vertically near the shutter button. Not the most familiar design, but easy to get used to — it didn’t bother me much.

The mode dial is on the other side of the camera and is combined with the drive mode control. It has a central button, but unlike Sony’s (press-hold-turn), it’s a switch. If it’s pressed in, the dial won’t turn. If it’s not pressed, it turns freely. This is very convenient — better than having no lock and better than Sony’s implementation. On top, the camera also has a full-fledged status LCD — a nod to photographers, for which I’m grateful. Behind the dial are the WB, ISO, and exposure compensation buttons. Well-placed and easy to find — I located them almost instinctively when needed. There’s no built-in flash. On the back, the camera offers several customizable buttons. I didn’t have time to explore what could be assigned to them. By default, one switches AF modes, another toggles EVF/LCD, and the third changes the info display during shooting. What pleased me was that the Menu button isn’t a separate button like on most cameras, but the center button of the multi-selector. Very logical and convenient — I don’t understand why not all cameras do this, though it didn’t occur to me either, and at first I looked for the menu button elsewhere. On the front panel, there’s a small switch between mechanical and completely silent electronic shutter. Speaking of the shutter — even the mechanical one in the Panasonic G9 is very quiet. It literally “whispers,” unlike Sony’s mirrorless cameras, which still “clap,” and of course it’s much quieter than any DSLR. The minimum shutter speed with the mechanical shutter is 1/8000s — as it should be on a flagship. The electronic shutter can go up to 1/32000s.

For framing, you can choose between an excellent-quality viewfinder or an equally excellent fully articulating touchscreen. The viewfinder looked great in 2016 and still looks great in 2025. The touchscreen is fully functional — not only can you move the focus point, but you can also navigate the menu. It can even be used as a touchpad to move the focus point while using the viewfinder.

The camera also has a joystick for moving the focus point. Great feature, but its placement felt awkward — it’s too far back, and you have to stretch your thumb to reach it. Still, it works well, and your finger doesn’t slip off once you get there.

Well, that covers the ergonomics, which in my opinion are excellent. Now let’s talk about my first impressions of the Panasonic DMC-G9’s autofocus.

The AF zones cover a significant portion of the frame, but not the entire area — leaving large strips on the edges. In this regard, the G9 lags slightly behind Sony’s ever-present AF, but not critically. The AF has five modes — wide, all points, large square zone, large circular zone, single point (shown as a cross), and face/eye detection. I tried the wide modes and realized they’re unsuitable for portrait photography, as you have no control over where the camera focuses — it’s instant, but unpredictable. When I moved to a better-lit model, I realized manually moving the AF point was tedious, so I tried face detection. Back in 2016, this was a novelty. It’s incredibly convenient — a dream for portrait photographers. The camera sees the face, outlines it with a square, and marks the nearest eye with a thin cross. It works flawlessly, almost never losing the subject, and is on par with Sony’s A7III. The camera shoots 20 fps with full AF — which was insane in 2016. Very fast. For sports photographers who can’t afford the Sony A7III, or who value the benefits of a smaller sensor — this camera was a godsend. The automatic white balance on the Panasonic G9 is excellent — even better than on my Nikon, which I once thought was far superior to Sony’s. The G9 handled WB perfectly in horribly mixed lighting — fluorescent lamps, flash modeling lights, and window light. That’s about it for my first impressions of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-G9. Back in 2016, that was the extent of my experience with this excellent camera. But fate had it that in 2024, the G9 became my main camera! And from here on, the review contains more recent information — from 2024 and 2025. Keep in mind that the G9 received a HUGE number of firmware updates that significantly improved it. So…

First, let’s finally look at the specs of our hero. So, what is the Panasonic G9 like, considering all the updates it received over its lifetime?

• Price $1699 (body only, at launch)
• Price $1000–$1200 (body only, new, in 2025 — yes, still available)
• Price $550 (body only, used, in 2025, in excellent condition)
• Sensor resolution 5184 x 3888
• Aspect ratios 1:1, 4:3, 3:2, 16:9
• Megapixels 20
• Actual megapixels 22
• Sensor size Four Thirds (17.3 x 13 mm)
• ISO Auto, 200–25600 (expandable to 100–25600)
• Stabilization Sensor-shift, works with Power OIS in lenses
• Stabilization effectiveness 6.5 stops, 7.5 with some lenses
• Autofocus DFD, Contrast Detect
• Number of focus points 225
• Advanced AF modes People, face, eye, animal detection
• Screen Articulating, 3”, 1.04 million dots
• Touch screen Yes
• EVF Electronic, 100%, 1.66× (0.83× 35mm equiv.), 3.68 million dots
• Max shutter speed 60 sec
• Min shutter speed 1/8000 sec
• Min shutter speed with electronic shutter 1/32000 sec
• Burst speed 20.0 fps
• Pre-burst mode Yes
• Exposure compensation ±5 (at 1/3 EV steps)
• Bracketing Exposure, White Balance, Focus
• In-camera focus stacking Yes
• In-camera timelapse Yes
• In-camera panorama No
• In-camera HDR Yes
• Video: Format MPEG-4, AVCHD, H.264
• 3840 x 2160 @ 60p / 150 Mbps, MP4, H.264, Linear PCM
• 3840 x 2160 @ 30p / 100 Mbps, MP4, H.264, AAC
• 3840 x 2160 @ 23.98p / 100 Mbps, MP4, H.264, AAC
• 1920 x 1080 @ 60p / 28 Mbps, MP4, H.264, AAC
• 1920 x 1080 @ 30p / 20 Mbps, MP4, H.264, AAC
• 1920 x 1080 @ 60p / 28 Mbps, AVCHD, MTS, H.264, Dolby Digital
• 1920 x 1080 @ 60i / 24 Mbps, AVCHD, MTS, H.264, Dolby Digital
• 1920 x 1080 @ 60i / 17 Mbps, AVCHD, MTS, H.264, Dolby Digital
• 1920 x 1080 @ 23.98p / 24 Mbps, AVCHD, MTS, H.264, Dolby Digital
• Storage Dual SD/SDHC/SDXC slots (UHS-II supported)
• USB USB 3.0 (5 GBit/sec), not USB Type-C
• USB charging Yes
• HDMI Yes
• Microphone port Yes
• Headphone port Yes
• Wireless Wi-Fi, BT
• Weather sealing Yes
• Battery DMW-BTC13 lithium-ion battery
• Average battery life 400 shots
• Weight (with battery) 658g

That’s a lot of info. Let’s dig into it. Again — the basics are already covered, and I won’t repeat things like grip feel or first impressions from the 2016 event.

Let’s dive straight into the “sore spot” — autofocus. As you probably know, the AF here is Panasonic’s proprietary DFD — Depth From Defocus. It’s contrast-based, not phase-detect. Let me say right away — yes, it’s not ideal for video, as it can “hunt” back and forth in continuous AF with busy backgrounds (like in a forest). I don’t shoot video, so this doesn’t bother me.

Next, let’s talk about autofocus in photo mode. Let’s start with single AF (AFS). In this mode, the autofocus is very fast and accurate. You won’t notice any difference in speed compared to phase-detect systems. Even large focus jumps — from close to far — happen instantly. The G9 has all the same focus modes as the S1R — single point (slowest for macro lenses), variable-size zone, zone with auto-expansion, spot focusing, and special modes for people and animals. You can also enable people/animal detection in zone modes. People detection works excellently — faces and eyes are detected from far away, and the camera focuses accurately — no complaints whatsoever. Moreover, eye-detection AF works in such dark conditions that it surprised me. I tried focusing on my daughter’s face in a very dark park at night. It was so dark I couldn’t see her face in the viewfinder, but the camera could! It detected the face and the eye, and the shot came out sharp! Interestingly, the S1R seems to switch to wide-area AF much earlier than the G9. I never saw the G9 do this, while the S1R does it quite often, assuming there’s not enough light. The G9 reminded me of Nikon DSLRs — which can focus in near darkness. Animal detection works the same as on the S1R — it detects anything, including fish. Personally, I find this very convenient — much better than overly specialized systems. The AI works great — eyes are always in focus. Sometimes the camera mistakes flowers (like orchids) for animals, but that doesn’t hurt — it actually helps. By the way, animal detection wasn’t in the original firmware — it was added later. I also want to mention the tracking AF mode. In this mode, a half-press of the shutter activates tracking — whatever is under the focus point becomes the tracked subject. This is very useful when shooting with shallow DOF and you don’t want to manually move the focus point. You lock onto the subject, activate tracking, and then recompose freely. It works great on flowers. I’m sure it would work well on planes or cars too, though I haven’t tried it. On flowers and birds (with animal detection off), it worked excellently! I also want to mention two interesting focus features added via firmware — Near Focus Shift and Far Focus Shift. I haven’t seen these in other cameras… maybe I didn’t look hard enough? In any case, you probably know the frustration when the camera focuses on a leaf instead of the bird behind it, or on the background instead of the branch in the foreground. Well, you can assign AF ON Near and AF ON Far to two buttons (I use fn4 and fn5 — the front buttons). When pressed, the camera focuses on the nearest or farthest subject, respectively! This is a very useful feature, and hardly anyone knows about it. It makes shooting animals in foliage much easier — you can force the camera to shift focus closer or farther. Now, about continuous autofocus. When using it, you may notice some focus “hunting” in the viewfinder or on the screen. This is what ruins video, but it doesn’t affect photos. But how good is the tracking quality? I must say, I haven’t used cameras famous for tracking AF like the Sony A1 or Nikon Z9. I’m sure they do it better than the Panasonic G9… However, I can’t call Panasonic’s tracking AF weak. I rarely use it, but when I went to the Bird Park, I used only tracking AF to test its reliability. And I can say — it’s quite reliable. Combined with animal detection, it’s an excellent tool. I’m sure it works just as well with people. And since we’re talking about animal photography, let’s see what the camera offers for that. Using a dedicated switch under the PASM dial, you can change drive modes on the Panasonic G9. There are two burst modes — you can assign their functions in the menu. The burst options are:

• Medium speed with mechanical shutter
• High speed with mechanical shutter
• Super high speed with electronic shutter
• Even faster super high speed with electronic shutter
• Super high speed with electronic shutter and pre-buffer
• Even faster super high speed with electronic shutter with pre-buffer

The actual speeds are roughly:

• Medium – 5 fps
• High – 12 fps
• Super high – 15 fps (not sure)
• Even faster – 20 fps

These modes work with RAW and autofocus. There’s also 4K Photo / 6K Photo mode, which can shoot 60 fps (not sure why you’d need it). It’s essentially video from which you can extract frames later — JPEG only. 4K Photo is 12MP, 6K Photo is 18MP.

I use 12 fps with mechanical shutter as the first mode, and 15 fps with pre-buffer and electronic shutter as the second.

The second mode is very interesting. It’s available on many cameras, but I first used it on the G9. The idea is: when you half-press the shutter, the camera starts shooting frames in a loop — they aren’t saved, just cycled in memory. When you fully press the shutter, a few frames before that moment and the ones after are saved to the card. I used this to capture a pigeon dropping a piece of pumpkin… …and a bird… licking itself, like a cat! Yes, that’s its tongue — it was sitting on a branch and licking itself like a cat after a meal! Very useful mode. Next, in the drive modes, there’s also Post Focus. It only works with 4K and 6K Photo. But 6K Photo is 18MP — almost full resolution — and acceptable. It’s JPEG only, but it allows in-camera focus stacking. Look at this flower — it didn’t fit within the DOF. I switched to Post Focus (icon with flower and mountain), and shot a Post Focus clip. Handheld, not very steady. The camera creates an MP4 clip, with each frame focused on a different zone.

Since there are many zones, you can later choose which part you want in focus and save it as a JPEG. But that’s not all! You can select multiple focus points in-camera, and it will merge them into one frame! Voilà — the entire flower is sharp! Very useful for product photography! Besides this in-camera merging, the G9 can also do regular focus stacking — shooting RAW files with a set number and focus shift. But you’ll have to merge those yourself in software. The camera also has a timelapse drive mode. I haven’t used it yet, so I can’t show it.

Strangely, the G9 lacks in-camera panorama mode. I don’t understand why — even much simpler Panasonic cameras have it. But this is probably the only mode missing.

The G9 can also create in-camera HDR JPEGs and 80MP high-resolution files.

Honestly, I don’t see much need for HDR — the G9’s RAW files have excellent dynamic range. Look at the chart — in terms of DR, the G9 is on par with the G9II, OM-D Mark II, Nikon Z50, and Sony A6700. So you can be confident in the “flexibility” of G9 RAW files. As for the 80MP mode, it only works on a tripod, and despite having 80MP, it doesn’t surpass the detail of the 47MP sensor in the Panasonic S1R. Not a very useful feature. Unfortunately I lost the test files, so I will just say this and move on.

Speaking of detail — the G9’s image detail is stunning. It has no AA filter, and with a good lens (like the Olympus 12-100/4), the images are full of fine detail. In this regard, the G9 clearly surpasses the previous photo flagship — the GX8 — which also had 20MP but with an AA filter. Also worth noting — the G9 has a large burst buffer. I don’t know the exact number, but it’s big. My cards are slow, but I’ve never had issues — even during long bursts, the indicator just kept blinking, with no delays. Now, let’s talk about noise. For Micro Four Thirds, this has always been a sore spot. In my previous short review, I compared noise with Nikon. Since then, my favorite RAW converter — DXO — has improved, especially in noise reduction. With DXO, the G9 allows comfortable use of ISO 6400 without worry. Colors remain vibrant, and there’s some shadow and highlight recovery, so you can safely set Auto ISO up to 6400. The camera has two Auto ISO modes — Auto and iISO. The second analyzes the scene, and if there’s no motion, it uses slower shutter speeds. The first follows the 1/ISO rule, rounded up. You can also manually set a minimum shutter speed — very handy. Like all stabilized Micro Four Thirds cameras, the G9 can achieve unrealistically slow handheld shutter speeds. Shooting handheld at 2 seconds? Totally possible. That lets you blur water in waterfalls or fountains. No other system can do this. Here’s a shot taken handheld at 100mm, 2 seconds — that’s 9.5 stops of stabilization! Well, that’s probably everything I wanted to tell you about the Panasonic G9. This has been a huge review — 10 years in the making — from my first brief encounter in 2016 to 2026, when I finally bought the G9 II. In 2026, the G9 is, in my opinion, one of the best cameras in terms of price/quality/features. For $550, you get a professional tool with excellent image quality and fantastic capabilities. This camera is worth writing about — and worth reading about. And the comparison with the G9 II? Coming soon so stay tuned!