91%

Overall score

Jump to conclusion

The Sony a9 III is the company's latest high-speed pro sports camera. It features a Stacked CMOS sensor capable of shooting at 120 fps and able to capture all its pixels' data simultaneously: the long hoped-for 'global' shutter.

Key features

• 24MP global shutter Stacked CMOS sensor
• High speed shooting up to 120 fps
• Pre-burst capture of up to 1 sec before the shutter is fully pressed
• Shutter speeds up to 1/80,000 with flash sync across the full range
• 9.44M dot (2048 x 1536px) OLED viewfinder with 0.9x magnification
• 2.0M dot rear LCD with tilting cradle on a fully articulated hinge

The a9 III is available now at a recommended price of $6000. This is a $1500 increase over the previous iteration from 2019. A matching VG-C5 battery grip that provides space for two batteries is available for an additional $398.

Index:

• What's new
• How it compares
• Body & handling
• Image quality
• Autofocus and action photography
• Video
• Conclusion
• Sample galleries
• Specifications

What's new

Global shutter sensor

The big news with the a9 III is the move to a sensor that offers a global electronic shutter: ending the exposure for all its pixels simultaneously so that there's no lag or rolling shutter effect. Such sensors have existed before (some CCD chips, for instance), but this is the first one to use a full-frame sensor in a modern mirrorless camera to deliver the full potential benefits.

The sensor delivers the camera's two main selling points: the global shutter, which extends what the camera can offer in three specific areas, and sheer speed. As well as having no motion distortion from its capture, the a9 III is able to shoot at up to 120 frames per second.

Its fast readout also allows incredibly high speed capture, with shutter speeds that extend to 1/80,000 sec. The global readout also means it can sync with flashes all the way up to its maximum shutter speed (though the power of the flash will be reduced at the very shortest exposures and may require the timing of the flash trigger signal to be fine-tuned so that the exposure syncs with the brightest point of the flash output).

There are downsides to the sensor, though: the global shutter design works by using what is effectively a second photodiode within each pixel to act as a buffer: holding the charge generated by the exposure so it can all be read out later. This reduces the effective size of the photodiode used to capture the image, reducing the amount of charge each pixel can hold before it becomes full.

This reduced capacity for charge means the pixel becomes saturated sooner, so it can tolerate less light before clipping. In turn, this means it needs to be given less exposure, which is reflected in the base ISO of 250, 1.3EV higher than typical. Giving a sensor less light instantly reduces the image quality, because light itself is noisy, and this noise is more visible, the less light you capture.

120fps shooting

The new C5 button on the front of the camera is set, by default, to activate the speed boost function for temporary access to 120 fps shooting.

The super-fast sensor readout allows the a9 III to deliver a faster shooting rate than we've ever seen from a sensor this large. Whereas the previous generation of Stacked CMOS sensors with progressive readout would shoot at up to 30 frames per second, the a9 III quadruples this to 120. Sony has published a list of its lenses that can operate at this full speed.

It's a reasonable question to consider how often even the most demanding sports photographers will need to shoot at 120 frames per second, and how much more sorting and selecting work will be created by generating so many additional files.

You can lower the burst rate to whatever makes the most sense for your specific subject, but there's also an option to temporarily jump back to a faster rate when you hold a button down, meaning you could shoot at, say, 30 fps in the buildup to what you expect to be the critical moment, then press a custom button to give a faster, more concentrated burst around the moment of interest itself.

Like the other recent high-end Sonys, the a9 III has a pair of CFexpress Type A and UHS-II SD card slots set one within the other, providing compatibility with both the widely available SD format or the faster CFexpress format. Both are still significantly slower than the CFe Type B cards adopted by most other manufacturers.

Interestingly, the a9 III continues to use Sony's preferred CFexpress Type A cards, which have half the read/write channels of the larger Type B format. This means the a9 III has to depend that bit more heavily on its internal buffer. It has the capacity to shoot 196 uncompressed 14-bit Raw files in a burst, allowing 1.6 seconds of capture at its fastest rate. This is nearly 10GB of data, which gives some idea of the size of the camera's buffer but also of how quickly you'd fill up your cards if you shot at full tilt in Raw.

Pre-capture

The a9 III becomes the first Sony to have a pre-capture feature: starting to buffer images when you half-press the shutter button or hold the AF-On button, then retaining up to one second's worth of images when you fully press the shutter. You can reduce the time period to as little as 1/200 sec if you're really confident in your ability to anticipate the crucial moment, but the pre-buffer time isn't affected by your choice of shooting rate.

Dedicated 'AI' processor

The a9 III gains the 'AI' processor that Sony first introduced in the a7R V. This does not add any 'intelligence' or learning in and of itself, but is designed to process the complex subject algorithms created by machine learning for functions such as subject recognition. This should boost the camera's subject recognition performance compared to previous generations of cameras, such as the a1, making the tracking more responsive and more robust.

8EV image stabilization

The a9 III gets the flexible tilt-and-hinge cradle we previously saw on the a7R V. It can be manipulated into all sorts of positions, for wherever you're shooting from.

The a9 III also gains the latest image stabilization processing algorithms, helping it deliver performance that's rated at up to 8.0EV of correction, using the CIPA standard methodology. This is an appreciable increase over the 5.5EV offered by previous generations of cameras. Unlike Canon's system, this doesn't depend on synchronized use of in-body and in-lens IS mechanisms, so users should see an increase in correction performance over a wide range of lenses, though the peak correction may not be quite so well maintained at extremely long and short focal lengths.

C2PA authentication

Although not present at launch, Sony says it plans to add C2PA authentication to the a9 III. This is a cryptographic metadata standard developed by a range of software makers, camera makers and large media organizations that will provide a secure record of the file's provenance and edit history, allowing media organizations to know that the images they are receiving can be traced back to a specific camera and haven't been inappropriately manipulated.

How it compares

With its high shooting speed and pro-friendly features, the a9 III's closest competitors are the pro sports bodies from Canon and Nikon, as well as Sony's own a1. This is an exclusive group, not only in the sense of commanding a significant price but also in that they have professional support networks established to ensure working pros have the most possible 'up' time. While other cameras promise fast shooting and capable autofocus, these are the models that the most demanding professionals rely on.

The a9 III stands out, even from the other manufacturer's pro-grade cameras, in offering 120 fps shooting as a standard mode, with full AF and Raw capture, whereas Canon's R3 locks AF and AE at the first exposure (rarely ideal for the kinds of action shooting that require high speed bursts) and the Nikon outputs significantly reduced resolution JPEGs.

Like the EOS R3, the a9 III opts for speed over resolution, meaning it can't deliver the 8K footage that the a1 and Z9 can. Also, any users hoping for Raw video will need to buy an external recorder, rather than being able to capture this in-camera, as you can on the Canon and Nikon.

The biggest apparent shortcoming is the relatively low battery life of the a9 III, as it's a single grip camera and hence lacks the space for the larger batteries included in the Canon and Nikon. Adding the BG-C5 battery grip adds space for a second battery, as well as providing duplicate portrait orientation controls.

Body and handling

Although the company's a7, a9 and a1 models all look similar, each generation has seen the control layout reworked and details such as the handgrip tweaked. The a9 III sees a larger than typical re-working of Sony's ergonomics.

The grip is a little deeper, with a more prominent dent for the middle finger to rest in, but more significantly, the shutter button is placed on a surface that angles forward rather than sitting in the same plane as the camera's top plate. This means you don't have to rotate your hand or stretch your finger quite so far to reach the shutter. In turn, the custom buttons on the camera's top plate have been extended upwards so that they're still accessible from this less stretched position.

It's a relatively small adjustment but enough that you'll notice it after several hours of shooting. Given the a9 III's target audience, it's hard not to make assumptions that this change has been made in response to Sony's tie-up with the Associated Press, giving the company more feedback from a large pool of working pros.

Beyond this, the body is pretty familiar from the previous generation of cameras, with most of the control points and custom buttons existing in the same places. The main exception to this is that the a9 III gains a fifth custom button, on its front panel. By default, this is used for the 'speed boost' function, but this can be modified.

The a9 III has the same 9.44M dot (2048 x 1536px) OLED viewfinder that first appeared in the Sony a1. The optics in front of the panel give an impressive 0.9x magnification, meaning it's very large to look at, and the fast sensor means its full resolution is used even when refreshing at 120fps. There's a 240fps mode if you need an even more frequent update of what's going on in the scene, but this runs at a reduced resolution. The viewfinder shows no blackout at all when shooting images.

The rear screen is a 2M dot panel that's arranged on a tilting cradle that is itself hinged at the side, providing a wide range of movement and adjustment.

The a9 III uses the same NP-FZ100 battery as all the most recent full-frame cameras have. It's a well-sized 16.4Wh unit that powers the camera to a rating of 530 shots per charge, using the rear LCD according to CIPA standard tests. This drops to 400 shots per charge if you use the viewfinder. These are strong numbers compared to most cameras but some way behind those of its pro sports peers, which typically have a twin-grip body with space for a much larger battery.

Battery life can be increased significantly through the addition of the optional VG-C5 vertical grip. This adds the space for a second FZ100 and more than doubles the battery life, as Sony has developed a system for treating the two batteries as a single large power source.

It's also worth noting that the CIPA standard tests are even less reflective of the behavior of pro sports cameras than they are elsewhere. Bursts of images use much less power than the individual shoot-and-review process that standard testing assumes. As such, a rating of 400 shots per charge for a camera that shoots at 120 frames per second should not be taken to mean that the battery will only last for 3.3 seconds of holding the shutter down. This is nowhere close to being true.

Image quality

Our test scene is designed to simulate a variety of textures, colors and detail types you'll encounter in the real world. It also has two illumination modes to see the effect of different lighting conditions.

We've looked at the a9 III's image quality and have found that its performance is up to a stop behind those of contemporary full-frame cameras. Essentially the halving of the photodiode size halves the amount of light the sensor can tolerate. This raises the base ISO, limiting the maximum image quality the camera can deliver (ie: comparing base ISO to base ISO).

The added complexity of the sensor's design also means that it isn't able to offer a second low-noise readout path as has become common in dual conversion gain sensors that dominate the market. This sees up to a stop noise penalty, relative to its full-frame peers.

All of that said, a lot of sports shooting doesn't necessarily happen at ISO 100, so being limited to ISO 250 or higher needn't be a major issue (the a9 III isn't at any disadvantage, compared to its peers when shooting at moderate ISOs). Likewise, even something approaching a one-stop increase in noise at high ISO isn't likely to be a deal-breaking difference, especially if the a9 III's global shutter and incredibly rapid burst rates mean that it can get a shot that its rivals simply miss.

So, while the a9 III's sensor tech may not make as much sense in other cameras, for the high-speed users it's designed for, these aren't necessarily a significant drawback.

Exposure Latitude | ISO Invariance

Autofocus and action photography

By Carey Rose

The a9 III proves capable of sticking to subjects despite rapid changes in speed and direction. ISO 2500 | 1/640 sec | F2.8 | Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM II | Processed and cropped from Raw Photo by Carey Rose

Being Sony's most sports-focused flagship, it should come as no surprise that the a9 Mark III comes with outstanding autofocus performance across almost any situation you might think to put it in. Of course, no camera can fully substitute for a photographer's given experience and skill, but the a9 III gives you a high chance of success for your action-photography endeavors. It certainly netted this photographer plenty of keepers, under varieties of bright, dim, natural and artificial light.

If you've used any of Sony's recent camera bodies, the a9 III's autofocus interface will be familiar. You get a standard array of autofocus areas, as well as 'Tracking' equivalents of most of them. While you can certainly choose a static AF area and manually follow your subjects yourself with a very high hit-rate, much of the technology in the a9 III is designed to support its own tracking and subject recognition algorithms, so that's principally what we put to the test.

Autofocus setup

For general reportage and lifestyle shooting, I tended to keep the a9 III in one of its 'Flexible Spot: Tracking' modes, which works impressively well. In essence, you can choose your starting AF area size (small, medium or large), and then place that area over your intended subject and initiate tracking with the shutter or AF-On button.

Shooting rugby with the a9 III turned out to be an impromptu weather-sealing test as well. (The camera survived just fine.) ISO 4000 | 1/320 sec | F2.8 | Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM II | Processed from Raw Photo by Carey Rose

This tracking sticks to your subject tenaciously even if it's not necessarily identifying it as a subject such as a bird or a plane. The a9 III will follow anything around the frame, like a flower, or a portion of someone's clothing, allowing you to experiment with composition while the camera keeps your chosen subject in focus. If you happen to initiate tracking over a person's face, the camera will automatically track their eyes if you have face and eye priority enabled. Use this technique for casual shooting and you'll basically never get an image out of focus (a hallmark of Sony cameras for a couple of generations now).

I found, however, that this wasn't my preferred method of photographing sports and action.

When I tried to work this way with team sports, the camera would often latch onto a player's arm, or portion of their uniform, or really whatever bit of them I could catch in the viewfinder and initiate focus on. And often, their face would be just noticeably outside the plane of focus.

For less active subjects, you don't need to do too much tweaking with the a9 III's autofocus. And it does, of course, pick up cats in its 'Animal' subject detection mode. ISO 2000 | 1/250 sec | F2.8 | Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM II | Processed and cropped from Raw Photo by Carey Rose

So off I went to the camera's 'Custom' tracking AF areas, and dialed-in a tall, narrow rectangle that I could then move around the frame as I saw fit. I also programmed the camera to alter my AF area when I switched to portrait shooting orientation, so the rectangle would remain vertically oriented regardless of how I was holding the camera. In essence, I made my AF area the rough size and area of a human player or torso in the frame. Finally, I also instructed the camera to prioritize the tracking of human faces and eyes, if it could find them.

What this gave me was the ability to quickly identify which player I wanted the camera to track, after which the camera would reliably and quickly identify the player's eyes or face, and I could focus on following the action.

The custom AF area option, combined with my subject recognition settings, meant that the camera was able to reliably follow a player's face or eyes and I didn't have to worry about perfectly initiating tracking on their face at 250mm of zoom. ISO 16000 | 1/400 sec | F6.3 | Sony FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G | Processed / cropped from Raw Photo by Carey Rose

Another setting I ended up experimenting with that netted me further keepers was slowing the camera's default response to other subjects passing between me and the player I was following. I found it would too quickly jump off to other subjects in its default setting, for the sports I was shooting. I reduced this sensitivity, referred to in the camera as "AF Lvl for Crossing", by one notch and found that to be a sweet spot.

Slowing the camera's default tendency to jump off to other subjects was especially helpful in shooting Ultimate Frisbee, where other players are frequently coming between you and your subject. ISO 250 | 1/500 sec | F6.3 | Sony FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G | Processed from Raw Photo by Carey Rose

But as stated at the outset, sophisticated tracking algorithms aren't a panacea. The camera did an impressive job in spite of my less-than-perfect technique, but there were situations where I would be acquiring focus as two players overlapped, and the camera might track the unintended player.

Or I'd smash the shutter, attempting to drive focus to the correct point as well as start firing off a burst of shots, just as I spotted a crucial moment happening. The camera would often, amazingly, find correct focus, but I would occasionally get short bursts of out-of-focus images in these rushed scenarios. The blame for this result in these types of edge cases can hardly be laid at the camera's feet, though. You simply need to be realistic with your expectations and consider your own technique and reaction time accordingly. Even with a pricey sports flagship.

Other action photography considerations

Another of the headline features on the a9 III is its 120fps burst shooting mode. While I was reticent to use this swiftest shooting speed that often due to the sheer amount of data it produces, I appreciated the option for a custom button to enable this burst speed only when held.

It works very well in practice and is eminently useful when set up this way; I've found that 10-20fps is my sweet spot for most sports, but for certain moments, I boosted the camera to 120fps and enjoyed having the extra options to choose from.

ISO 8000 | 1/500 sec | F2.8 | Sony 70-200mm F2.8 GM II | Processed / cropped from Raw Photo by Carey Rose

Take the above image, for example. The 120fps burst option allowed me to have a large degree of control in the final image over where the ball is in the air in relation to the player. It's a level of nit-pickiness that I can understand and respect, but I also think 20-30fps is realistically the maximum most people need most of the time.

In terms of displays, I appreciate the array of options relating to viewfinder speed and size, but I have to admit that I tended to keep the viewfinder out of its fastest setting, even for the most demanding sports. The resolution just drops too dramatically, to the point where it was difficult to tell if focus on a distant player was even accurate.

If you crave the most speed on the market and want some of the most reliable autofocus around, the a9 III is a slam dunk. Or at least a stylish layup. ISO 3200 | 1/640 sec | F2.8 | Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM II | Processed from Raw Photo by Carey Rose

I also found that battery life was on the short side of my expectations, and while I never ran out, I found myself feeling motivated to turn the camera off and on again more often than I'd like during a given event. That said, I fully expect (and would recommend) that anyone looking at the a9 III should be budgeting for the battery grip. Not only do you get double the battery life, but I find it a necessity for shooting vertical, telephoto images handheld.

Autofocus summary

The a9 III is unquestionably a capable, high-performance autofocusing machine. Its subject tracking is seriously impressive, locking onto my intended subjects immediately and tracking them steadfastly. Put simply, if you find that you can't get the shot with the a9 III, I wouldn't necessarily look to blaming the camera first.

This is one of the situations where I swung the camera around, smashed the shutter with the camera still in motion, and captured an acceptably in-focus (though perhaps slightly motion-blurred) burst of images. It's hard to ask for a better result under those circumstances. ISO 500 | 1/1250 sec | F5.6 | Processed and cropped from Raw Photo by Carey Rose

As capable as the camera is, it's also highly customizable, and you will absolutely benefit from some experimentation and dialing in preferred settings for the way you work and the subjects you shoot. This isn't a knock against the camera, just a fact of life for all sports camera flagships to varying degrees. And though I do expect AI-trained automatic modes will continue to improve, there must always be some method of your intentions about subject matter reaching the camera's processor, and so some customization will likely remain necessary for the foreseeable future.

As it stands, if you're after some of the best autofocus performance money can buy and also want the fastest burst shooting we've seen in a full-frame camera to date, the a9 III is a compelling option and worthy of your consideration.

Video

Putting the a9 III's fully articulating screen out on a tilting cradle means that it can be extended and rotated completely clear of the mic, headphone and HDMI sockets on the camera's left flank.

The a9 III's global shutter has major implications for video shooters as well as stills photographers. Being able to end the entire frame's capture simultaneously means it doesn't exhibit any rolling shutter artefacts at all. So there's no risk of warped verticals with moving subjects and no risk of banding when shooting under uncontrolled artificial lighting.

It's worth noting that while the a9 III's sensor can end its exposure instantaneously, this doesn't mean it can read-out its sensor as immediately. It's still quick enough to allow 4K/120 footage to be created from 6K full-width capture, though, making it one of the fastest hybrid cameras on the market.

Its video feature set is consistent with recent Alpha models, meaning it can shoot 10-bit video in H.264 (long GOP or All-I) or H.265 codecs. It can also shoot small proxy versions of its video in parallel with the main clips, for quicker editing and can output raw data over its HDMI socket if you have an external recorder to capture it.

The a9 III offers the Auto Framing option that uses subject recognition to crop-in and follow a subject within the frame, allowing a single presenter/operator to capture more dynamic video. There's also breathing compensation, which works with Sony's own-brand lenses, cropping in to the tightest angle of view that the lens offers and then adjusting the crop to remove the change of framing that would otherwise happen as the lens changes focus distance.

On top of this, the a9 III delivers some of the most dependable video autofocus we've seen. As with most cameras you can adjust the speed at which the focus is driven, depending on whether you're trying to tightly maintain focus on a constantly moving subject or smoothly drift between different focus distances. Taken together these features make it relatively easy to shoot good-looking footage with the a9 III even if your background isn't in video.

What the a9 III lacks is many of the videographer-focused features present in Sony's video line. So there's no option to set exposure in terms of shutter angle, rather than shutter speed (something that would be really valuable on a camera that can shoot 4K/120 as readily as it can 4K/24). There are no waveform displays or vectorscopes and no option to use the EI exposure system, rather than ISO.

You do get the attractive, low contrast S-Cinetone color profile, though, and when shooting in Log, you can upload up to 16 LUTs which you can use to give you a corrected preview, with the option to embed the LUT alongside the footage, or directly apply it to your footage in-camera.

Overall it's a flexible, capable video camera but one that seems careful not to tread on the toes of models aimed more pointedly at videographers.

Conclusion

Only time in the hands of a large number of pro photographers will test how much value 120 fps capture with no risk of banding is, but historically faster has proven to be better, even when the current level of performance has let people get results.

The a9 III is an undeniably ground-breaking camera. The global shutter sensor, which lets it start and end exposure for all its pixels simultaneously, means electronic shutter with no concern about strobing advertising boards, zero rolling shutter in video and the ability to sync flash at incredibly high speeds with no blackout of the viewfinder. Then there's the ability to shoot at up to 120 frames per second: not something a lot of people will need to do all the time, but a capability that will undoubtedly expand photographers' options.

All of this is allied to what's probably the most capable autofocus systems we've yet encountered, with highly reliable tracking being at least as relevant as the en vogue subject recognition modes it gains. Top-level sports shooting will require a degree of behavior tuning, as different sports and shooting styles require different responses, but we were hugely impressed by the hit rates we got from the a9 III.

The provision of a LAN socket and full-sized HDMI port show that Sony wants the camera to fit readily into professional workflows, and the camera will ultimately succeed or fail on that basis.

It's not an unalloyed success, though. We found the fastest, most sports-friendly viewfinder mode gave up too much resolution to be confident in the camera's focus. And Sony's decision to use a single grip design for its sports and photojournalism cameras is being challenged by the greater power consumption of its newer models: we expect and would recommend the a9 III will be used with a battery grip in many circumstances.

We have fewer concerns when it comes to image quality. The a9 III's relatively high base ISO means it can't match the IQ of its direct rivals at their peak performance, but as soon as your shot requires ISO 250 or higher, the a9 III's added speed gives it the edge. Likewise, whereas it falls a little behind in side-by-side comparisons at higher ISOs, there are likely to be situations in which the a9 III captures a fractionally noisier version of a photo that another camera might simply miss.

Ultimately the a9 III sets a new standard for what we can expect from a pro sports camera, and Sony appears to be adding the workflow features that the most demanding pros are requesting. There are some trade-offs being made to deliver the a9 III's super-fast capabilities but taken as a whole they allow it to pull ahead of the field.

Scoring

Scoring is relative only to the other cameras in the same category. Click here to learn about what these numbers mean.

Sample galleries

Please do not reproduce any of these images on a website or any newsletter/magazine without prior permission (see our copyright page). We make the originals available for private users to download to their own machines for personal examination or printing (in conjunction with this review); we do so in good faith, so please don't abuse it.

All gallery images are uncropped out-of-camera JPEGs with accompanying lossless-compressed Raw files.

Pre-production sample gallery

91%

Overall score

Jump to conclusion

The Sony a9 III is the company's latest high-speed pro sports camera. It features a Stacked CMOS sensor capable of shooting at 120 fps and able to capture all its pixels' data simultaneously: the long hoped-for 'global' shutter.

Key features

• 24MP global shutter Stacked CMOS sensor
• High speed shooting up to 120 fps
• Pre-burst capture of up to 1 sec before the shutter is fully pressed
• Shutter speeds up to 1/80,000 with flash sync across the full range
• 9.44M dot (2048 x 1536px) OLED viewfinder with 0.9x magnification
• 2.0M dot rear LCD with tilting cradle on a fully articulated hinge

The a9 III is available now at a recommended price of $6000. This is a $1500 increase over the previous iteration from 2019. A matching VG-C5 battery grip that provides space for two batteries is available for an additional $398.

Index:

• What's new
• How it compares
• Body & handling
• Image quality
• Autofocus and action photography
• Video
• Conclusion
• Sample galleries
• Specifications

What's new

Global shutter sensor

The big news with the a9 III is the move to a sensor that offers a global electronic shutter: ending the exposure for all its pixels simultaneously so that there's no lag or rolling shutter effect. Such sensors have existed before (some CCD chips, for instance), but this is the first one to use a full-frame sensor in a modern mirrorless camera to deliver the full potential benefits.

The sensor delivers the camera's two main selling points: the global shutter, which extends what the camera can offer in three specific areas, and sheer speed. As well as having no motion distortion from its capture, the a9 III is able to shoot at up to 120 frames per second.

Its fast readout also allows incredibly high speed capture, with shutter speeds that extend to 1/80,000 sec. The global readout also means it can sync with flashes all the way up to its maximum shutter speed (though the power of the flash will be reduced at the very shortest exposures and may require the timing of the flash trigger signal to be fine-tuned so that the exposure syncs with the brightest point of the flash output).

There are downsides to the sensor, though: the global shutter design works by using what is effectively a second photodiode within each pixel to act as a buffer: holding the charge generated by the exposure so it can all be read out later. This reduces the effective size of the photodiode used to capture the image, reducing the amount of charge each pixel can hold before it becomes full.

This reduced capacity for charge means the pixel becomes saturated sooner, so it can tolerate less light before clipping. In turn, this means it needs to be given less exposure, which is reflected in the base ISO of 250, 1.3EV higher than typical. Giving a sensor less light instantly reduces the image quality, because light itself is noisy, and this noise is more visible, the less light you capture.

120fps shooting

The new C5 button on the front of the camera is set, by default, to activate the speed boost function for temporary access to 120 fps shooting.

The super-fast sensor readout allows the a9 III to deliver a faster shooting rate than we've ever seen from a sensor this large. Whereas the previous generation of Stacked CMOS sensors with progressive readout would shoot at up to 30 frames per second, the a9 III quadruples this to 120. Sony has published a list of its lenses that can operate at this full speed.

It's a reasonable question to consider how often even the most demanding sports photographers will need to shoot at 120 frames per second, and how much more sorting and selecting work will be created by generating so many additional files.

You can lower the burst rate to whatever makes the most sense for your specific subject, but there's also an option to temporarily jump back to a faster rate when you hold a button down, meaning you could shoot at, say, 30 fps in the buildup to what you expect to be the critical moment, then press a custom button to give a faster, more concentrated burst around the moment of interest itself.

Like the other recent high-end Sonys, the a9 III has a pair of CFexpress Type A and UHS-II SD card slots set one within the other, providing compatibility with both the widely available SD format or the faster CFexpress format. Both are still significantly slower than the CFe Type B cards adopted by most other manufacturers.

Interestingly, the a9 III continues to use Sony's preferred CFexpress Type A cards, which have half the read/write channels of the larger Type B format. This means the a9 III has to depend that bit more heavily on its internal buffer. It has the capacity to shoot 196 uncompressed 14-bit Raw files in a burst, allowing 1.6 seconds of capture at its fastest rate. This is nearly 10GB of data, which gives some idea of the size of the camera's buffer but also of how quickly you'd fill up your cards if you shot at full tilt in Raw.

Pre-capture

The a9 III becomes the first Sony to have a pre-capture feature: starting to buffer images when you half-press the shutter button or hold the AF-On button, then retaining up to one second's worth of images when you fully press the shutter. You can reduce the time period to as little as 1/200 sec if you're really confident in your ability to anticipate the crucial moment, but the pre-buffer time isn't affected by your choice of shooting rate.

Dedicated 'AI' processor

The a9 III gains the 'AI' processor that Sony first introduced in the a7R V. This does not add any 'intelligence' or learning in and of itself, but is designed to process the complex subject algorithms created by machine learning for functions such as subject recognition. This should boost the camera's subject recognition performance compared to previous generations of cameras, such as the a1, making the tracking more responsive and more robust.

8EV image stabilization

The a9 III gets the flexible tilt-and-hinge cradle we previously saw on the a7R V. It can be manipulated into all sorts of positions, for wherever you're shooting from.

The a9 III also gains the latest image stabilization processing algorithms, helping it deliver performance that's rated at up to 8.0EV of correction, using the CIPA standard methodology. This is an appreciable increase over the 5.5EV offered by previous generations of cameras. Unlike Canon's system, this doesn't depend on synchronized use of in-body and in-lens IS mechanisms, so users should see an increase in correction performance over a wide range of lenses, though the peak correction may not be quite so well maintained at extremely long and short focal lengths.

C2PA authentication

Although not present at launch, Sony says it plans to add C2PA authentication to the a9 III. This is a cryptographic metadata standard developed by a range of software makers, camera makers and large media organizations that will provide a secure record of the file's provenance and edit history, allowing media organizations to know that the images they are receiving can be traced back to a specific camera and haven't been inappropriately manipulated.

How it compares

With its high shooting speed and pro-friendly features, the a9 III's closest competitors are the pro sports bodies from Canon and Nikon, as well as Sony's own a1. This is an exclusive group, not only in the sense of commanding a significant price but also in that they have professional support networks established to ensure working pros have the most possible 'up' time. While other cameras promise fast shooting and capable autofocus, these are the models that the most demanding professionals rely on.

The a9 III stands out, even from the other manufacturer's pro-grade cameras, in offering 120 fps shooting as a standard mode, with full AF and Raw capture, whereas Canon's R3 locks AF and AE at the first exposure (rarely ideal for the kinds of action shooting that require high speed bursts) and the Nikon outputs significantly reduced resolution JPEGs.

Like the EOS R3, the a9 III opts for speed over resolution, meaning it can't deliver the 8K footage that the a1 and Z9 can. Also, any users hoping for Raw video will need to buy an external recorder, rather than being able to capture this in-camera, as you can on the Canon and Nikon.

The biggest apparent shortcoming is the relatively low battery life of the a9 III, as it's a single grip camera and hence lacks the space for the larger batteries included in the Canon and Nikon. Adding the BG-C5 battery grip adds space for a second battery, as well as providing duplicate portrait orientation controls.

Body and handling

Although the company's a7, a9 and a1 models all look similar, each generation has seen the control layout reworked and details such as the handgrip tweaked. The a9 III sees a larger than typical re-working of Sony's ergonomics.

The grip is a little deeper, with a more prominent dent for the middle finger to rest in, but more significantly, the shutter button is placed on a surface that angles forward rather than sitting in the same plane as the camera's top plate. This means you don't have to rotate your hand or stretch your finger quite so far to reach the shutter. In turn, the custom buttons on the camera's top plate have been extended upwards so that they're still accessible from this less stretched position.

It's a relatively small adjustment but enough that you'll notice it after several hours of shooting. Given the a9 III's target audience, it's hard not to make assumptions that this change has been made in response to Sony's tie-up with the Associated Press, giving the company more feedback from a large pool of working pros.

Beyond this, the body is pretty familiar from the previous generation of cameras, with most of the control points and custom buttons existing in the same places. The main exception to this is that the a9 III gains a fifth custom button, on its front panel. By default, this is used for the 'speed boost' function, but this can be modified.

The a9 III has the same 9.44M dot (2048 x 1536px) OLED viewfinder that first appeared in the Sony a1. The optics in front of the panel give an impressive 0.9x magnification, meaning it's very large to look at, and the fast sensor means its full resolution is used even when refreshing at 120fps. There's a 240fps mode if you need an even more frequent update of what's going on in the scene, but this runs at a reduced resolution. The viewfinder shows no blackout at all when shooting images.

The rear screen is a 2M dot panel that's arranged on a tilting cradle that is itself hinged at the side, providing a wide range of movement and adjustment.

The a9 III uses the same NP-FZ100 battery as all the most recent full-frame cameras have. It's a well-sized 16.4Wh unit that powers the camera to a rating of 530 shots per charge, using the rear LCD according to CIPA standard tests. This drops to 400 shots per charge if you use the viewfinder. These are strong numbers compared to most cameras but some way behind those of its pro sports peers, which typically have a twin-grip body with space for a much larger battery.

Battery life can be increased significantly through the addition of the optional VG-C5 vertical grip. This adds the space for a second FZ100 and more than doubles the battery life, as Sony has developed a system for treating the two batteries as a single large power source.

It's also worth noting that the CIPA standard tests are even less reflective of the behavior of pro sports cameras than they are elsewhere. Bursts of images use much less power than the individual shoot-and-review process that standard testing assumes. As such, a rating of 400 shots per charge for a camera that shoots at 120 frames per second should not be taken to mean that the battery will only last for 3.3 seconds of holding the shutter down. This is nowhere close to being true.

Image quality

Our test scene is designed to simulate a variety of textures, colors and detail types you'll encounter in the real world. It also has two illumination modes to see the effect of different lighting conditions.

We've looked at the a9 III's image quality and have found that its performance is up to a stop behind those of contemporary full-frame cameras. Essentially the halving of the photodiode size halves the amount of light the sensor can tolerate. This raises the base ISO, limiting the maximum image quality the camera can deliver (ie: comparing base ISO to base ISO).

The added complexity of the sensor's design also means that it isn't able to offer a second low-noise readout path as has become common in dual conversion gain sensors that dominate the market. This sees up to a stop noise penalty, relative to its full-frame peers.

All of that said, a lot of sports shooting doesn't necessarily happen at ISO 100, so being limited to ISO 250 or higher needn't be a major issue (the a9 III isn't at any disadvantage, compared to its peers when shooting at moderate ISOs). Likewise, even something approaching a one-stop increase in noise at high ISO isn't likely to be a deal-breaking difference, especially if the a9 III's global shutter and incredibly rapid burst rates mean that it can get a shot that its rivals simply miss.

So, while the a9 III's sensor tech may not make as much sense in other cameras, for the high-speed users it's designed for, these aren't necessarily a significant drawback.

Exposure Latitude | ISO Invariance

Autofocus and action photography

By Carey Rose

The a9 III proves capable of sticking to subjects despite rapid changes in speed and direction. ISO 2500 | 1/640 sec | F2.8 | Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM II | Processed and cropped from Raw Photo by Carey Rose

Being Sony's most sports-focused flagship, it should come as no surprise that the a9 Mark III comes with outstanding autofocus performance across almost any situation you might think to put it in. Of course, no camera can fully substitute for a photographer's given experience and skill, but the a9 III gives you a high chance of success for your action-photography endeavors. It certainly netted this photographer plenty of keepers, under varieties of bright, dim, natural and artificial light.

If you've used any of Sony's recent camera bodies, the a9 III's autofocus interface will be familiar. You get a standard array of autofocus areas, as well as 'Tracking' equivalents of most of them. While you can certainly choose a static AF area and manually follow your subjects yourself with a very high hit-rate, much of the technology in the a9 III is designed to support its own tracking and subject recognition algorithms, so that's principally what we put to the test.

Autofocus setup

For general reportage and lifestyle shooting, I tended to keep the a9 III in one of its 'Flexible Spot: Tracking' modes, which works impressively well. In essence, you can choose your starting AF area size (small, medium or large), and then place that area over your intended subject and initiate tracking with the shutter or AF-On button.

Shooting rugby with the a9 III turned out to be an impromptu weather-sealing test as well. (The camera survived just fine.) ISO 4000 | 1/320 sec | F2.8 | Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM II | Processed from Raw Photo by Carey Rose

This tracking sticks to your subject tenaciously even if it's not necessarily identifying it as a subject such as a bird or a plane. The a9 III will follow anything around the frame, like a flower, or a portion of someone's clothing, allowing you to experiment with composition while the camera keeps your chosen subject in focus. If you happen to initiate tracking over a person's face, the camera will automatically track their eyes if you have face and eye priority enabled. Use this technique for casual shooting and you'll basically never get an image out of focus (a hallmark of Sony cameras for a couple of generations now).

I found, however, that this wasn't my preferred method of photographing sports and action.

When I tried to work this way with team sports, the camera would often latch onto a player's arm, or portion of their uniform, or really whatever bit of them I could catch in the viewfinder and initiate focus on. And often, their face would be just noticeably outside the plane of focus.

For less active subjects, you don't need to do too much tweaking with the a9 III's autofocus. And it does, of course, pick up cats in its 'Animal' subject detection mode. ISO 2000 | 1/250 sec | F2.8 | Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM II | Processed and cropped from Raw Photo by Carey Rose

So off I went to the camera's 'Custom' tracking AF areas, and dialed-in a tall, narrow rectangle that I could then move around the frame as I saw fit. I also programmed the camera to alter my AF area when I switched to portrait shooting orientation, so the rectangle would remain vertically oriented regardless of how I was holding the camera. In essence, I made my AF area the rough size and area of a human player or torso in the frame. Finally, I also instructed the camera to prioritize the tracking of human faces and eyes, if it could find them.

What this gave me was the ability to quickly identify which player I wanted the camera to track, after which the camera would reliably and quickly identify the player's eyes or face, and I could focus on following the action.

The custom AF area option, combined with my subject recognition settings, meant that the camera was able to reliably follow a player's face or eyes and I didn't have to worry about perfectly initiating tracking on their face at 250mm of zoom. ISO 16000 | 1/400 sec | F6.3 | Sony FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G | Processed / cropped from Raw Photo by Carey Rose

Another setting I ended up experimenting with that netted me further keepers was slowing the camera's default response to other subjects passing between me and the player I was following. I found it would too quickly jump off to other subjects in its default setting, for the sports I was shooting. I reduced this sensitivity, referred to in the camera as "AF Lvl for Crossing", by one notch and found that to be a sweet spot.

Slowing the camera's default tendency to jump off to other subjects was especially helpful in shooting Ultimate Frisbee, where other players are frequently coming between you and your subject. ISO 250 | 1/500 sec | F6.3 | Sony FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G | Processed from Raw Photo by Carey Rose

But as stated at the outset, sophisticated tracking algorithms aren't a panacea. The camera did an impressive job in spite of my less-than-perfect technique, but there were situations where I would be acquiring focus as two players overlapped, and the camera might track the unintended player.

Or I'd smash the shutter, attempting to drive focus to the correct point as well as start firing off a burst of shots, just as I spotted a crucial moment happening. The camera would often, amazingly, find correct focus, but I would occasionally get short bursts of out-of-focus images in these rushed scenarios. The blame for this result in these types of edge cases can hardly be laid at the camera's feet, though. You simply need to be realistic with your expectations and consider your own technique and reaction time accordingly. Even with a pricey sports flagship.

Other action photography considerations

Another of the headline features on the a9 III is its 120fps burst shooting mode. While I was reticent to use this swiftest shooting speed that often due to the sheer amount of data it produces, I appreciated the option for a custom button to enable this burst speed only when held.

It works very well in practice and is eminently useful when set up this way; I've found that 10-20fps is my sweet spot for most sports, but for certain moments, I boosted the camera to 120fps and enjoyed having the extra options to choose from.

ISO 8000 | 1/500 sec | F2.8 | Sony 70-200mm F2.8 GM II | Processed / cropped from Raw Photo by Carey Rose

Take the above image, for example. The 120fps burst option allowed me to have a large degree of control in the final image over where the ball is in the air in relation to the player. It's a level of nit-pickiness that I can understand and respect, but I also think 20-30fps is realistically the maximum most people need most of the time.

In terms of displays, I appreciate the array of options relating to viewfinder speed and size, but I have to admit that I tended to keep the viewfinder out of its fastest setting, even for the most demanding sports. The resolution just drops too dramatically, to the point where it was difficult to tell if focus on a distant player was even accurate.

If you crave the most speed on the market and want some of the most reliable autofocus around, the a9 III is a slam dunk. Or at least a stylish layup. ISO 3200 | 1/640 sec | F2.8 | Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM II | Processed from Raw Photo by Carey Rose

I also found that battery life was on the short side of my expectations, and while I never ran out, I found myself feeling motivated to turn the camera off and on again more often than I'd like during a given event. That said, I fully expect (and would recommend) that anyone looking at the a9 III should be budgeting for the battery grip. Not only do you get double the battery life, but I find it a necessity for shooting vertical, telephoto images handheld.

Autofocus summary

The a9 III is unquestionably a capable, high-performance autofocusing machine. Its subject tracking is seriously impressive, locking onto my intended subjects immediately and tracking them steadfastly. Put simply, if you find that you can't get the shot with the a9 III, I wouldn't necessarily look to blaming the camera first.

This is one of the situations where I swung the camera around, smashed the shutter with the camera still in motion, and captured an acceptably in-focus (though perhaps slightly motion-blurred) burst of images. It's hard to ask for a better result under those circumstances. ISO 500 | 1/1250 sec | F5.6 | Processed and cropped from Raw Photo by Carey Rose

As capable as the camera is, it's also highly customizable, and you will absolutely benefit from some experimentation and dialing in preferred settings for the way you work and the subjects you shoot. This isn't a knock against the camera, just a fact of life for all sports camera flagships to varying degrees. And though I do expect AI-trained automatic modes will continue to improve, there must always be some method of your intentions about subject matter reaching the camera's processor, and so some customization will likely remain necessary for the foreseeable future.

As it stands, if you're after some of the best autofocus performance money can buy and also want the fastest burst shooting we've seen in a full-frame camera to date, the a9 III is a compelling option and worthy of your consideration.

Video

Putting the a9 III's fully articulating screen out on a tilting cradle means that it can be extended and rotated completely clear of the mic, headphone and HDMI sockets on the camera's left flank.

The a9 III's global shutter has major implications for video shooters as well as stills photographers. Being able to end the entire frame's capture simultaneously means it doesn't exhibit any rolling shutter artefacts at all. So there's no risk of warped verticals with moving subjects and no risk of banding when shooting under uncontrolled artificial lighting.

It's worth noting that while the a9 III's sensor can end its exposure instantaneously, this doesn't mean it can read-out its sensor as immediately. It's still quick enough to allow 4K/120 footage to be created from 6K full-width capture, though, making it one of the fastest hybrid cameras on the market.

Its video feature set is consistent with recent Alpha models, meaning it can shoot 10-bit video in H.264 (long GOP or All-I) or H.265 codecs. It can also shoot small proxy versions of its video in parallel with the main clips, for quicker editing and can output raw data over its HDMI socket if you have an external recorder to capture it.

The a9 III offers the Auto Framing option that uses subject recognition to crop-in and follow a subject within the frame, allowing a single presenter/operator to capture more dynamic video. There's also breathing compensation, which works with Sony's own-brand lenses, cropping in to the tightest angle of view that the lens offers and then adjusting the crop to remove the change of framing that would otherwise happen as the lens changes focus distance.

On top of this, the a9 III delivers some of the most dependable video autofocus we've seen. As with most cameras you can adjust the speed at which the focus is driven, depending on whether you're trying to tightly maintain focus on a constantly moving subject or smoothly drift between different focus distances. Taken together these features make it relatively easy to shoot good-looking footage with the a9 III even if your background isn't in video.

What the a9 III lacks is many of the videographer-focused features present in Sony's video line. So there's no option to set exposure in terms of shutter angle, rather than shutter speed (something that would be really valuable on a camera that can shoot 4K/120 as readily as it can 4K/24). There are no waveform displays or vectorscopes and no option to use the EI exposure system, rather than ISO.

You do get the attractive, low contrast S-Cinetone color profile, though, and when shooting in Log, you can upload up to 16 LUTs which you can use to give you a corrected preview, with the option to embed the LUT alongside the footage, or directly apply it to your footage in-camera.

Overall it's a flexible, capable video camera but one that seems careful not to tread on the toes of models aimed more pointedly at videographers.

Conclusion

Only time in the hands of a large number of pro photographers will test how much value 120 fps capture with no risk of banding is, but historically faster has proven to be better, even when the current level of performance has let people get results.

The a9 III is an undeniably ground-breaking camera. The global shutter sensor, which lets it start and end exposure for all its pixels simultaneously, means electronic shutter with no concern about strobing advertising boards, zero rolling shutter in video and the ability to sync flash at incredibly high speeds with no blackout of the viewfinder. Then there's the ability to shoot at up to 120 frames per second: not something a lot of people will need to do all the time, but a capability that will undoubtedly expand photographers' options.

All of this is allied to what's probably the most capable autofocus systems we've yet encountered, with highly reliable tracking being at least as relevant as the en vogue subject recognition modes it gains. Top-level sports shooting will require a degree of behavior tuning, as different sports and shooting styles require different responses, but we were hugely impressed by the hit rates we got from the a9 III.

The provision of a LAN socket and full-sized HDMI port show that Sony wants the camera to fit readily into professional workflows, and the camera will ultimately succeed or fail on that basis.

It's not an unalloyed success, though. We found the fastest, most sports-friendly viewfinder mode gave up too much resolution to be confident in the camera's focus. And Sony's decision to use a single grip design for its sports and photojournalism cameras is being challenged by the greater power consumption of its newer models: we expect and would recommend the a9 III will be used with a battery grip in many circumstances.

We have fewer concerns when it comes to image quality. The a9 III's relatively high base ISO means it can't match the IQ of its direct rivals at their peak performance, but as soon as your shot requires ISO 250 or higher, the a9 III's added speed gives it the edge. Likewise, whereas it falls a little behind in side-by-side comparisons at higher ISOs, there are likely to be situations in which the a9 III captures a fractionally noisier version of a photo that another camera might simply miss.

Ultimately the a9 III sets a new standard for what we can expect from a pro sports camera, and Sony appears to be adding the workflow features that the most demanding pros are requesting. There are some trade-offs being made to deliver the a9 III's super-fast capabilities but taken as a whole they allow it to pull ahead of the field.

Scoring

Scoring is relative only to the other cameras in the same category. Click here to learn about what these numbers mean.

Sample galleries

Please do not reproduce any of these images on a website or any newsletter/magazine without prior permission (see our copyright page). We make the originals available for private users to download to their own machines for personal examination or printing (in conjunction with this review); we do so in good faith, so please don't abuse it.

All gallery images are uncropped out-of-camera JPEGs with accompanying lossless-compressed Raw files.

Pre-production sample gallery

DPReview Editors' Challenge results

Last week, we issued a challenge to the DPReview community to show us what you got. We wanted to see your best images from the North American total solar eclipse, and over 150 of you submitted!

We saw heaps of creativity and technical know-how on display. It was also interesting to see all the solar flares that matched among photos taken hundreds of miles apart. Before we dive in, a heartfelt thanks to everyone who submitted. We couldn't call out every image we liked and tried to restrain ourselves as best as possible (otherwise this article would be four times as long). We should also note that images are presented in no particular order other than to provide an engaging visual flow (so we don't end up with similar back-to-back photos). If you don't see your work here today, we encourage you to submit for our next challenge. We love seeing your work!

Also, a quick reminder to keep comments constructive and civil. To be blunt, it's one thing for editors to receive harsh comments, but it's another threshold to be rude to people not on our staff who want to make some images and share their work. Rule #1: Be nice. That's it, there is no rule #2.

Plane over eclipse with sunspots seen in Toronto at 02:35 PM EST, by philmar

It's not only one of the more descriptive titles we saw, but it's also a great image.

"Shot with a 10 Stop ND filter," philmar writes, "A plane fortuitously passed through the frame. I did notice plane until I reviewed my shots in Lightroom. Toronto experienced 99.95% of the eclipse but was under thick cloud except for about 20 minutes."

Created on Canon EOS R7 at 400mm with adjustments to color temperature, exposure, texture, clarity, vibrance and sharpening.

Untitled, by Morris0

Totality photographed through light clouds in Del Rio, Texas. Morris0 used a Fujifilm X-H2s with a Fujifilm XF 150-600mm lens. They said they previously used this lens to photograph the 2017 eclipse and "knew that the corona fits nicely at 600mm." The photo was also handheld, as Morris0 had left their tripod at home while racing to catch a flight to see the eclipse from a hotel in Del Rio, Texas.

"Experiencing totality is very special as it’s a stunning sight and you feel it get cold, the birds fly to their nests and everyone around expresses emotional outbursts. I was thrilled that we got to see the eclipse and felt that the clouds added to the look and experience."

"Photography is a passion as are nature and wildlife and blending them drives me. I’ve been a member of the DPReview community since about 2000 and have made many friends here. It has been a pleasure sharing my photos and knowledge with the community."

And then the frogs began to sing, by protapic

Captured at the Holden Arboretum in Kirtland, Ohio, given the title, one imagines the false night tricked some amphibians that day. Captured on a Panasonic Lumix DMC-GM1 with Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 8-25mm F4 Pro.

Cloudy Eclipse, by Sam Eileen

Taken in Oneonta, NY, using a Canon EOS Rebel T6 (EOS 1300D) with a Canon EF 75-300mm F4.0-5.6 III lens.

"Edited solely in Photoshop 2023. Brightness & Contrast + 15 Slight curves Vibrance & Sat. +35 Smart sharpened w/ 30% noise reduction."

A truly once in a lifetime photo, by cwatson1982

To hear cwatson1982 tell it, this photo was cobbled together through grit and luck.

"We didn't seriously prepare ... I was shooting through an old adapted Nikon 70-210 F4 and a 1.4x teleconverter at 210mm (on a Panasonic Lumix GH6) and using an ND1000 filter," they wrote.

"To be completely honest, I was just shooting bracketed sets on a tripod at regular intervals hoping like most people to get some decent shots of the eclipse. I did not see the birds until after the capture; it was just a very happy accident. I exclaimed 'what are the odds of that?' ... I kind of feel like I used up all my luck for the year!"

We hope that's not true cwatson1982. We're only four months into the year! Wishing you more luck for the year ahead.

Darkness Above, Sunrise all Around, by JMLobert

It's a thing of beauty when you see a fisheye lens used well.

JMLobert paired a Nikon Z6 with a Sigma 8mm F3.5 EX DG Circular Fisheye and pulled this eclipse image among the trees.

"Venus visible to the right of the sun and Jupiter to the left. While dark above, there is sunrise and sunset all around the viewer, 60 miles out. It's an eerie and wonderful experience when it suddenly gets dark, temperature drops and the wind stops."

The final image is a composite image made from multiple exposures.

"To accommodate the changing brightness, I bracketed 9 stops every 30 seconds and changed that bracket by 5 stops up, shortly before totality (then back shortly after). Totality is about 12 stops darker than the sunlit day, just a bit short of the 16 stop light loss going from day to night."

solarEclipse-3, by Wakawaka Studios

This scene with backlight clouds was taken just after totality, as the moon moves past the sun. It was taken in Frisco, Texas, with a Canon 5D Mark III and Canon EF 70-200mm F2.8 IS II USM lens.

Several adjustments were made in Lightroom: contrast -3, highlights -41, shadows +100, clarity +80 and sharpened.

eclipse 2024 Ohio, by deoreo

Taking a more environmental approach to the eclipse, deoreo opted for a wide angle Sigma 14-24mm F2.8 DG DN zoom to pair with a Sony a7R IIIa, outside their home in Akron, Ohio.

The best-laid plans, however, presented some challenges. "I completely underestimated how dark totality would be! I managed to get five photos but had to change ISO, f-stop, and shutter on the fly to get this image. The final image was processed with Photoshop
to lighten up the shadows."

Challenges aside, we asked them how they felt about the result. "I'm glad I was able to include my family in the photo. It will be fun to look back on it in the future to remember the moment, and where we were!"

Sanger Eclipse, by Facyn6

It seems this DPReview shutterbug figured who needs lens filters when you can just slap your eclipse-viewing glasses in front of the lens. It feels risky, but the result is rather nice and stands out amid fellow entries.

"I took this photo in the backyard of my home with eclipse glasses in front of the lens," Facyn6 wrote. "Only cropped for better composition. No any other edit."

Eclispe 2024, by Jason333

This was one of the few smartphone entries that caught our eye. It was created at Niagra Falls in Ontario, Canada, and was taken with a Samsung Note 20 Ultra 5G camera.

DLittle, by Phodougrapher

A partial solar eclipse, as seen from cloudy Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The image was made with a Nikon 1 V1 with an FT-1 adaptor, Nikon 70-200 and Nikon TC -14E II, for an effective focal length of 756mm. The image has been cropped and resized for sharpness in Adobe RAW.

NJ Eclipse 2024, by Holger Drallmeyer

We've seen a strong contingent of submissions from New Jersey in this photo challenge (does DPReview need to make a road trip out?). This submission comes to us from The Garden State, a 1-second exposure of clouds whipsing past the solar show.

Captured with a Canon EOS 6D and Sigma 150 - 500mm F5-6.3 DG OS HSM lens with a 16.5 stop ND Filter. Lightroom adjustments to exposure, highlights and shadows.

Untitled, by scottyinfrisco

Taken with a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ2500 using an eclipse filter. "I knew [I] needed the most reach, and this, with digital zoom, was the longest lens I had available."

"The image is SOOC JPEG on Standard Highest quality," wrote scottyinfrisco. "Image is completely unedited."

"I know gear drives this hobby, but never underestimate your own skill in making images."

Great advice and execution, scottyinfrisco; we couldn't agree more.

Untitled, by Kfsumo

Without a doubt, the most creative submission to the challenge. Kfsumo captured this image with a Ricoh GR III in macro mode pointed at a sheet of colored paper. The shadows on the paper were created holes in a metal umbrella above the paper.

The concept is the centuries-old camera obscure, and the execution is great. Well done!

Untitled, by BaronGreenback

Niagara Falls was under overcast conditions, but BaronGreenback still got a shot of the sun just before or after totality.

Taken on a Nikon D850 with Nikon AF-S Nikkor 200-500mm F5.6E ED VR lens.

Eclipse Stages, by NickMammone

A composite image created from 13 images captures the multiple stages of the eclipse.

NickMammone writes: "While the moment of totality is a spectacular moment, there is a lot more to this event than just those 2 minutes. I wanted to capture that in one picture. This is a combination of multiple photos from different stages of the Eclipse. All shot on the same camera, same lens, same location."

Lightroom edits were made to exposure, contrast, whites, blacks, highlights and color temperature. Level adjustments were also made to each picture to blend the edges into the black background.

Breaking Out from Totality, by dan7901

Solar flares are seen as the moon moves past the sun. Captured in Norwalk, Ohio, along the center of the path for totality, with almost four minutes of darkness.

dan7901 used a Nikon D500 with a Sigma 150-600mmlRig Fluid head AD-01 tripod, all equipment they use as self-described amateur wildlife photographers lens and a Smal. The timing was the biggest challenge they faced.

"In order to catch the solar prominences, I needed to remove the filter before the totality and keep the lens unfiltered for a very short time period after totality."

To help with this, they turned to an app that had countdowns for when the sun would enter and leave totality.

"Since I used the timing app, I really rested myself from taking photos during most of the totality period to enjoin the experience, and after the shots right after leaving the totality, I checked some of the shots, and felt satisfied and released!"

2024 solar eclipse from NJ, by kssharma

Cloud cover is always a concern for eclipse viewing, but kssharma took on the challenge by getting creative. A four-second exposure on their OM System OM-1 yielded this dramatic sky scene over Edison, New Jersey.

"The challenge was how to get an interesting eclipse pics as almost everyone would be taking similar pics," they wrote. "Since I love taking long exposure and my OM-1 allows it handheld I thought to give it a try to make the clouds dramatic instead of using high shutter speed to freeze it." From there, they edited the file to give some definition to the clouds, raise shadows and adjust the tonal curve in Photolab 7.

"Photography is my way to meditate. I love exploring small world around us which we can't see with our naked eyes. To the DPR I just want to say a huge THANK YOU! DPR itself and the members of the community have been a source of inspiration for me."

Thank you

Thank you to everyone who participated. Seriously, how amazing is it to see our fellow DPReview reader's work? To see all the entries for yourself and vote for your favorites, head over to the challenge now. The complete shooting specs and gear used for each photo in the challenge platform can also be found in the challenges gallery.

If you couldn't participate in this editors' challenge, keep an eye out for our next one. We'll be doing more during the year as we celebrate 25 years of DPReview. Speaking of which, do you have a suggestion for an Editors' challenge? In the comments, let us know what to do for our next one.

Editor's note: This review is based on Panasonic's April 2024 firmware update for the S5II (v3.0) and S5IIX (v2.0), which was provided to DPReview ahead of its public release.

90%

Overall score

Jump to conclusion

The Panasonic Lumix DC-S5II is the company's latest version of its mid-range full-frame stills and video mirrorless camera. It adds phase detection autofocus to its 24MP CMOS sensor and uses the L mount shared with Leica and Sigma.

A separate camera variant, the Lumix DC-S5IIX, is also available and includes a more extensive video feature set.

Key specifications

• 24MP BSI CMOS sensor with on-sensor phase detection
• Up to 30fps e-shutter shooting with C-AF and Raw capture
• 96MP multi-shot high-resolution mode
• 6K 3:2 open-gate video capture up to 30p (4:2:0 10-bit)
• 6K or DCI/UHD 4K from full sensor width up to 30p
• DCI/UHD 4K up to 60p (S35), unlimited record times and proxy option
• Dual conversion gain sensor with explicit 'Dual Native ISO' gain selection
• Pre-burst shooting mode (up to 1.5 seconds before the shutter is pressed)
• Cooling fan
• Twin UHS-II card slots
• Camera-to-Cloud integration with Frame.io
• Optional paid upgrade for Raw video output

Additional features on the S5IIX

• Raw video output
• Video recording to SSD over USB
• All-I compression modes
• Internal/SSD ProRes capture
• Wired/wireless IP streaming

The S5II has a recommended price of $1999 (€2199). The S5IIX commands a $200 (or €300) premium over the less video-centric version, with a suggested retail price of $2199 (€2499).

An optional paid upgrade for the S5II that adds Raw video output is available for $200/€200.

Index:

• What's new?
• How it compares
• Body and controls
• Image quality
• Video
• Sample video
• Autofocus
• Conclusion
• Sample gallery
• Specifications
• Press release

What's new?

Phase detection AF

The biggest news is the inclusion of on-sensor phase detection, a technology Panasonic has not previously used. Phase detection works by generating two views of the scene from slightly different perspectives (typically by forming separate images that 'look' through the left and right sides of the lens) and comparing them. Just as with human vision, which uses two eyes set apart from one another, this enables the camera to establish an understanding of distance and depth in the scene.

Comparing the two images lets the camera calculate how far it needs to drive focus to bring the two perspectives into alignment, at which point the aligned subject is in focus. This is especially valuable in video mode, as it allows the camera to refocus to a different distance without overshooting. It also, critically, means the camera can check that it's still in focus without having to move the lens. This means phase detection can be decisive in situations where it must hold focus, as it can confidently stay there.

Previous Panasonic models relied on the company’s Depth-from-Defocus (DFD) system, which used the out-of-focus characteristics of a lens to interpret depth and drive the AF system. DFD's main shortcoming was reliably predicting movement and driving the AF system to match. In principle, phase detect autofocus should provide more reliable performance, particularly in low light levels and backlit conditions and when dealing with multiple subjects (staying locked on your chosen subject better because it knows which one in the scene it is).

Subject recognition AF

The S5II’s subject recognition and tracking modes were significantly upgraded as part of the camera’s April 2024 firmware update. Combined with its newfound depth awareness, the S5II effectively gains the capabilities found on the more recent G9 II, including improved tracking performance and additional types of subjects that can be identified and tracked.

The camera is trained to recognize humans, animals, cars and motorcycles. Human detection can identify eyes, face and body (prioritized in that order) or just eyes and face; similarly, animal detection can identify eyes and body, or just bodies.

In each mode, the camera will start searching from your selected AF point and the area immediately around it, meaning It will focus on the specified subject type if it's found under your AF point. This system makes it possible to use the AF point to select an individual subject in a group. Note that when using wide-area AF, Face/Eye mode will choose to focus on someone facing the camera, not simply the nearest human it can detect.

Updated in-body image stabilization

Panasonic has also improved its image stabilization system, promising performance twice as effective as that of the S5. For its revised system it's adopted the branding 'Active IS,' though it hasn't been very specific about how these improvements have been achieved.

What the company has said is that its algorithms have been reworked and that the camera assesses camera motion more precisely. The Boost IS mode, which tries to cancel all movement for a tripod-like video look, is particularly impressive.

The April '24 firmware update added a new 'High' setting to the camera's electronic image stabilization system, intended to correct extreme levels of camera movement. It applies a 1.4x crop factor to video.

The stabilization system also underpins the eight-shot 96MP Handheld High Resolution mode. It includes an optional motion correction function that prevents artifacts from moving subjects in the scene.

New processor

At the heart of the S5II is a new processing engine, the first product of Panasonic's L² co-development project with Leica. The two companies shared know-how and resources to develop the new processor, which we'd expect to see in future Leica models, too.

While Panasonic says the sensor in the S5II is also new, from what we've seen, its performance appears to be similar to its non-phase-detect predecessor, which suggests that its newfound ability to shoot at up to 30fps in e-shutter mode is more about having a processor able to cope with this speed.

Built-in fan

The S5II includes a fan mechanism to allow video shooting for extended periods. The fan is at the top of the camera, with vents under the leading edge and along the sides of the viewfinder hump, drawing the heat up and out of the camera. As usual, the fan sits outside the body's sealed area, so the vents aren't a weak point for its dust and splash-resistant design.

The fan means the S5II can record for unlimited periods in most of its video modes, as tested by Panasonic at temperatures of 40°C (104°F). Panasonic points out that most of its rivals only quote figures for 22–25°C (72–77°F), which is significantly less demanding and less representative of average temperatures across much of the US.

Pre-burst shooting

The April 2024 firmware update adds a new shooting mode that captures a series of images in the buffer before the shutter button is pressed. Labeled 'SH PRE', the feature pre-captures 0.5, 1.0, or 1.5 seconds of images at 30 frames per second using the electronic shutter. It's considered to be a burst shooting mode, with settings located in the Burst Shot Setting menu.

Video

The S5II builds on the video capabilities of the S5 despite using a sensor with similar ~21ms readout times for its 16:9 footage.

The most obvious addition to the camera's capabilities is the ability to shoot full sensor height 3:2 'open gate' video. This is available at up to 30p and provides the scope to crop into various aspect ratios or to pan around the frame in post. Alternatively, there are 6K options, either in UHD-style 16:9 aspect ratio or the DCI-like 1.89:1 format.

Beyond this are the full-width 4K modes (both DCI and UHD), which are taken from 6K capture. These are offered at up to 30p and up to 10-bit 4:2:2 encoding.

Panasonic's rivals have increasingly added 10-bit capture capability in this class, but the S5II goes beyond these with a range of support tools and features that aren't as commonplace amongst the competition so far.

Panasonic is still somewhat unique in this part of the market in providing the S5II with a waveform display and vectorscopes (though some recent Nikon models have also started to include waveforms). These are standard video-industry ways of understanding the tone and color distribution in the image, and they can be hugely valuable when setting exposure and white balance. Likewise, the S5II can express its exposure time in terms of shutter angle, which makes it easier to maintain a sensible exposure when switching between capture frame rates.

You may not notice them at first, but the finned vents of the fan on either side of the viewfinder show that the S5II is serious about video.

Syncro scan (the fine-tuning of exposure time to better sync with flickering light sources) is becoming more common, as are the option of four-channel audio capture and more video-focused settings display screens. The S5II's distinctly Arri-like screen, borrowed from Panasonic's Varicam line, is particularly clean and clear. Likewise, the ability to capture 4-channel audio (with an optional XLR adapter) is becoming more common, but the S5II includes options such as line-level input and dual input gain settings on its mic inputs that its rivals lack.

The S5II gains a couple of additional functions, including 'Full-range HLG' shooting. This ignores the upper and lower brightness limits imposed by the HLG standard, meaning you retain a little more flexibility in the edit. This is handy both if you have HLG as your final intended output or if you're using it as a Log-like intermediate step.

Anamorphic support

Tying in with the S5II's ability to capture open-gate and 4:3 APS-C footage is a good selection of tools to support shooting with anamorphic lenses. As on previous Panasonic models, the S5II can stretch the footage horizontally to give a real-time 'desqueezed' preview for a wide variety of squeeze factors. The camera can then plot safe-zone markers for various output aspect ratios over the top of this view, so you know you're capturing the action in a part of the frame that will be used in your final footage.

Telling the camera the squeeze ratio of your lens also allows the S5II to adjust its image stabilization system to accommodate the differing effective focal lengths of your vertical and horizontal capture, improving the stabilization performance.

LUT-applied shooting

The S5II gains the ability to import LUTs in the industry-standard .cube format (in addition to Panasonic's own .VLT type). It can store up to 10 LUTs and adds the ability to apply the LUT to the footage as you shoot. Doing so means you lose post-processing flexibility, putting greater emphasis on getting exposure and white balance right in-camera, but it lets you achieve the look you want straight out of the camera.

S5IIX features

The cameras' twin UHS-II SD card slots aren't sufficiently quick for recording the 4K ProRes modes offered by the S5IIX, so it can record directly to an external solid-state drive (SSD) over its USB port.

All the differences between the S5II and S5IIX relate to the latter's video capabilities. The X's body has a stealthy all-mono design with blacked-out 'Lumix' branding and no red accents on the control dials, but the two look the same in almost every other regard.

Under the hood, the S5IIX brings enhanced video modes that are better suited to post-production work.

• Raw video output
• Internal ProRes capture (422 and 422 HQ)
• All-I codecs
• USB-SSD output
• Direct wired and wireless streaming (per GH5 II)

S5II owners can buy an upgrade to add Raw video output for their camera, but it won't come with the other enhancements of the S5IIX. In the US, at least, the paid upgrade costs the same as the difference in cost between the two models, so if you think there's a chance you'll want these additional features, you're probably best off stretching your budget upfront to buy the S5IIX.

How it compares

Like the S5 before it, the S5II is clearly aimed at the same $2000-2500 mid-range full-frame audience. It's perhaps the most competitive segment of the market, packed with capable cameras that are adept at both stills and video shooting. This makes it difficult to stand out and means that real-world AF performance and usability become the difference between an impressive spec list and a great camera.

All four cameras are well specced, with only a few features helping set the models apart. Canon and Panasonic both offer rapid burst shooting rates, with the EOS R6 II achieving the faster rate with less rolling shutter and a pre-burst mode. The Canon and the Nikon lead the pack in terms of image stabilization rating, but this doesn't mean they offer the smoothest stabilization in video.

Image quality is broadly comparable, with the Sony offering slightly better detail capture at low ISO but slipping slightly behind in low light conditions. The Sony offers the most impressive battery life but also the weakest rolling shutter performance in video, making it more difficult than ever to choose between the four cameras.

The S5IIX offers a broader range of video capabilities than any of the other current models, at a lower introductory price than the Canon, and equal to the Sony.

Body and handling

The styling of the S5II is very much in keeping with that of the original model: it's a mid-sized, fairly squared-off design with a very distinct SLR-like shape (compared, say, to Nikon's Z-series cameras). Despite being the smaller model in the company's L-mount lineup, it has extensive external control points, including details such as a dedicated AF mode switch, that are unusual at this level.

Despite the familiar appearance, a lot has been redesigned or reworked. The most significant change is the addition of the fan to the camera's viewfinder hump. This is central to the camera's promises of video endurance, but is designed not to undermine the body's weather sealing.

Beyond this, the S5II gains a higher-resolution 3.68M-dot OLED viewfinder, an eight-way AF joystick (rather than the four-directional one on the original S5), and a full-sized HDMI port.

The S5II also sees its second card slot upgraded to the UHS-II standard, allowing the use of faster SD cards in both slots. Notably, even with the fastest V90-rated cards, UHS-II isn't fast enough to record all the S5IIX's video modes, with the most demanding of its All-I capture modes and all its 4K and 5.8K ProRes modes requiring the use of an external SSD. Panasonic says it has worked with third-party accessory makers to provide useful ways to attach popular SSDs to the camera.

There is enough commonality between the S5 and the Mark II that the new camera can still use the existing DMW-BGS5 battery grip, providing space for a second battery.

Battery

There's no separate charger with the S5II, but the Type 3.2 Gen 2 USB port can be used to charge, power or power and charge the camera.

The S5II continues to use the DMW-BLK22 battery from the previous version, which means it's also fully compatible with the same AC adaptor, DC coupler and dedicated battery chargers as the Mark I.

The S5II does not come with a charger. Instead, it uses the USB-PD standard to allow in-camera charging, operation or operation and charging when connected to high-current power sources.

The camera's battery life rating is somewhat disappointing, with 370 shots per charge, per CIPA standard testing methods. As always, these numbers tend to significantly underestimate how many shots you can typically expect (unless your shooting style is very energy-intensive). A 370 shot-per-charge rating will normally give you plenty of charge for a day's shooting, but you'll want to keep extra batteries or a USB power source at hand for intensive shoots. A power-saving mode gives a rating of 1,250 shots per charge for viewfinder shooting.

Image quality

Our test scene is designed to simulate a variety of textures, colors and detail types you'll encounter in the real world. It also has two illumination modes to see the effect of different lighting conditions.

The Panasonic S5II uses a 24MP BSI CMOS sensor, similar to many enthusiast-level full-frame cameras, so it's no surprise that its Raw resolution is on par with other cameras in this 24MP cohort, nor that the a7 IV pulls ahead by a small margin thanks to its slightly higher resolution. At moderately high ISOs, noise levels are roughly comparable to its 24MP peers, and at very high ISOs it edges out the R6 II by a hair. Notably, all the 24MP cameras outperform the a7 IV with respect to noise performance.

JPEG colors appear good, with punchy pinks and less saturated yellows (though there's perhaps a hint of green in there). Overall, the colors are pleasing, which is consistent with the images in our S5II and S5IIX sample galleries. The camera’s sharpening is a bit more aggressive than the Canon, resulting in some halos around the text, but similar to the Zf; the extra sharpening results in more apparent detail in some areas, like the foliage.

Noise reduction is well balanced at middle ISOs, smoothing away much of the visible noise but leaving enough to retain (and give the impression of) more detail than the Nikon or the Canon, as seen on the spools of thread or the paint brushes. The tradeoff is fractionally more noise in areas of solid color, though you have to look close to see it. The same holds at high ISOs, but in exchange, the camera doesn’t smooth away as much information in areas of fine detail, such as the fine threading on the Beatles patch. This remains the case even at very high ISOs.

The S5II and S5IIX produce pleasing colors and don't go overboard with noise reduction. Panasonic S 28-200mm F4-7.1 | F4.0 | 1/200 sec | ISO 12,800 Photo: Dale Baskin

Dynamic range

The S5II uses a very familiar sensor and its dynamic range is predictably excellent. You can pull a lot of detail out of the shadows at base ISO without noise becoming too intrusive, but its dual conversion gain design means that it's worth bumping things up to at least ISO 640 in low light. There are diminishing returns beyond that, so ISO 640 is a good place to stop if you're trying to retain highlights such as neon lights in low-light scenes.

Exposure latitude | ISO Invariance

Autofocus

The S5II is the first Panasonic mirrorless camera to benefit from phase-detect autofocus, so expectations are high. Fortunately, those expectations have mostly been met, but equally important to the shooting experience are the camera's improved subject recognition and tracking capabilities.

AF modes and controls are basically unchanged from previous Panasonic models; the camera includes single area, zone, wide area and tracking modes, along with pinpoint AF for precise focusing. The focus point can be set using the 8-way joystick, tap-to-focus, or using touchpad AF with the viewfinder to your eye.

Panasonic S 28-200mm F4-7.1 | F7.1 | 1/320 sec | ISO 800 Photo: Dale Baskin

Phase detection essentially solves the shortcomings associated with Panasonic's previous Depth from Defocus (DFD) system, real and perceived. Autofocus movements on the S5II are decisive: in most cases the system effectively predicts movement toward or away from the camera in both photo and video modes, and the user experience is more refined. Overall, it instills a higher level of confidence, bringing the S5II’s AF performance much closer to being on par with competing Sony, Canon and Nikon models.

While the AF system performs well, it's not infallible. During our tests, the camera sometimes failed to acquire focus or experienced a lag in acquiring focus on some subjects, throwing up a red box in the center of the viewfinder. This happened most frequently when a reasonably significant shift was required to bring the image into focus or in low-light situations that didn't challenge other cameras to the same degree.

Subject recognition

With subject recognition enabled, the camera will automatically highlight a recognizable subject as soon as your designated focus area comes within close proximity of it. This makes it easy to lock onto your subject quickly.

However, this presents one challenge: if you want to focus on something exceptionally close to a recognizable subject, you may need to turn off subject recognition to prevent the camera from jumping to the nearby subject, which can be done very quickly via the touchscreen. However, Panasonic's algorithm generally strikes a very good balance of sensitivity that will work correctly in most situations.

The S5II's updated subject detection menu (Firmware 3.0)

When using wide-area AF, the camera will highlight all the subjects it can identify within the frame, and a tap of the joystick will toggle between subjects. While this sounds good on paper, it's often less practical in practice: the time required to tap back and forth to your preferred subject is often longer than it would take to place your AF point over your desired subject in the first place to begin tracking.

The April ’24 firmware update promised improved subject recognition and our experience is consistent with that claim. Subject recognition was solid before the update, but the system is now faster at identifying and locking onto subjects and more tenacious at sticking with them. It’s still not quite at the level of class-leading subject tracking systems from Canon and Sony, but it’s very close.

Currently, subject recognition must be set to one category (humans, pets, cars, or motorcycles). There’s no catch-all setting that will attempt to identify both humans and animals, for example.

The S5II’s subject recognition and primary AF modes extend to video shooting and provide a similar level of performance.

Video

The S5II’s sensor has been around in various incarnations for a while, so its video performance is fairly predictable. However, it's Panasonic’s implementation of video modes and useful video tools that make the camera particularly interesting to video shooters.

The camera captures 6K video (including ‘open gate’ 6K that utilizes the entire 3:2 area of the sensor) and 4K video downsampled from 6K, using the full width of its sensor, and does so in10-bit color at frame rates up to 30p. It can also capture 4K/60p using an APS-C crop of its sensor. These are strong but no longer stand-out specs.

But equally as important, the S5II offers a robust feature set to support video capture, including Panasonic’s V-Log gamma profile, the ability to load custom LUTs into the camera, waveform and vectorscope tools for judging exposure and color, proxy recording, and a Camera-to-Cloud option.

The S5II can capture very detailed 4K video, downsampled from 6K, using the full width of its sensor. As we would expect, it produces results that are broadly similar to its 24MP peers. However, like other cameras based on the same sensor, the S5II must switch to an APS-C crop to capture 4K/60p footage. There's a small penalty in overall quality for doing so, but it's close enough that most viewers probably won't notice the difference in practice. However, this means the effective field of view of your lenses will change when shooting 60p – particularly challenging at the wide end – and that you'll encounter issues with noise more quickly in low light. This also puts the S5II at a disadvantage relative to the Canon R6 II, which can shoot 4K/60p using the full width of its sensor.

If you need more detail, you have the option to shoot 6K video (up to 30p), providing additional flexibility for post-processing even if you plan to deliver in 4K. Of course, the S5II also has the ultimate party trick of capturing ‘open gate’ footage that utilizes the entire 3:2 sensor for video capture, letting you crop and pan around the footage in post.

The S5II’s rolling shutter measures approximately 22ms: a solid number, but not stellar by today’s standards. As a result, there’s a risk that fast movement across the frame or reasonably quick pans with the camera will result in some horizontal skewing of vertical lines in the frame.

Panasonic S 85mm F1.8 | F1.8 | 1/640 sec | ISO 400 Photo: Chris Niccolls

Image stabilization

Panasonic’s new Active IS algorithm is impressive, stabilizing most hand-held shooting. Although we don’t have a quantitative way to check Panasonic’s claim that the system is twice as effective as the S5, performance has definitely improved. If needed, the S5II also includes electronic image stabilization (EIS), which results in a 1.1x crop. It’s noticeably more effective at eliminating unwanted motion, such as when walking, and does so without a noticeable impact on image quality.

The new ‘High’ setting in EIS mode, part of the April 2024 firmware update, can compensate for even more dramatic movement, such as running with the camera. It’s remarkably effective – almost gimbal-like – when moving in a straight line, though quick turns or pans can result in some vertical jitter. The tradeoff? The high setting results in a 1.4x crop factor, which is necessary to provide enough latitude to compensate for such extreme motion.

Other video features

The April '24 firmware update brought two additional features to the S5II: proxy recording and Camera-to-Cloud capability.

Proxy recording

Proxy recording generates a lower resolution, lower bit rate version of each video clip for quick sharing or to make editing easier on your computer and can be useful for fast-turnaround deliverables. On the S5II, they are available when shooting resolutions up to DCI 4K: open gate, 6K, 5.9K and 3.3K anamorphic modes aren't supported.

The S5II can record proxy files at three quality levels, high, medium and low, at bit rates ranging from 4 Mbps to 16 Mbps.

Proxy files can be created when recording .MOV files (including ProRes on the S5IIX). The proxies are recorded to card slot 2, with the primary footage captured to slot 1 or to an external SSD on the S5IIX. You can choose three file sizes, which output 1080 or 720 clips. All clips are 16:9 and letterboxed if your primary footage is in the wider DCI 4K aspect ratio. Applying an in-camera LUT to proxy files is possible, even if not applying one to the original video.

Camera-to-cloud

Camera-to-cloud is a means of integrating with Adobe's Frame.io service, making it easy to upload video clips and photos as they are captured and enabling collaboration. For example, a wedding photographer shooting a ceremony and uploading video clips to Frame.io in real-time could employ a remote editor to quickly cut together a video of the ceremony, allowing it to be shown to guests at a reception just a few minutes later.

Connecting to Frame.io is remarkably simple, and it took us less than five minutes to connect the camera to a local Wi-Fi network and link it to a Frame.io project. Clips can be uploaded automatically as they are captured or selectively uploaded at a later time.

Note that the camera will not upload original video files to Frame.io, so you'll need to enable proxy recording to use this feature. Raw and JPEG images can also be uploaded to Frame.io.

One addition we'd like to see is the ability to assign Frame.io settings to a custom button. As of this writing, one must navigate the camera's menus to access it.

Sample video

This video, captured along Seattle's Lake Washington Ship Canal, includes clips recorded at a variety of resolutions up to 6K, at both 24p and 60p frame rates. It was shot mostly handheld with autofocus. Due to the wide dynamic range, most daytime shots were captured using Panasonic's V-Log gamma profile (with the V-Log LUT applied in post-processing), and most evening shots were captured with the Like709 profile. One pair of clips shows an example of walking with the camera with EIS turned on and off.

Conclusion

By Dale Baskin

The S5II finally delivered the one feature many Panasonic users had requested for years: phase detection autofocus. While the headline feature is worthy of attention, it would be a mistake to overlook the many other upgrades that make it a compelling camera, including improved image stabilization, subject recognition, and an integrated fan for better thermal management.

While phase detect AF makes the S5II a more attractive camera than its predecessor, particularly for video shooters, it’s not a panacea. It does provide a more refined and reliable autofocus experience that delivers on many of its promises, but the implementation still feels less polished than on more mature systems. However, it’s good, and when paired with the subject recognition updates included in the April 2024 firmware update, it becomes a very solid performer.

Panasonic has long been known for making cameras that are great for video, and the S5II (and S5IIX) continue that tradition, offering video-centric features ranging from a waveform monitor to the ability to set shutter angle in video – things that typically don’t even appear on the spec sheet of other cameras in its class. The only thing holding it back from being an even better video camera is its sensor, a design that’s been around for a while and can, under the right conditions, reveal rolling shutter artifacts, and requires an APS-C crop to capture 4K/60. However, don't mistake the S5II for a video-first camera. It's a very competent stills camera that's also great for video.

Panasonic S 28-200mm F4-7.1 | F7.0 | 1/125 sec | ISO 1600 Photo: Dale Baskin

The camera’s lines are not as graceful and elegant as some of its competitors, nor does it embrace the retro styling that’s been making a comeback. In contrast, the S5II is a pragmatic everyman’s camera, designed to get the job done. That’s not a knock against it or even a suggestion that the camera isn’t aesthetically pleasing, but rather a recognition that the S5II is an excellent example of form following function, for the right reasons.

The S5II is one of those cameras that isn’t necessarily the best in class at a lot of things. Instead, it makes its case by being the best at some things and very good at many things. The result is one heck of an all-around camera that will satisfy the needs of enthusiasts who shoot photos, videos, or both, and the cherry on top is that it’s also a delightful camera to use. And for that, the S5II receives our Silver Award.

Scoring

Scoring is relative only to the other cameras in the same category. Click here to learn about what these numbers mean.

Compared to its peers

The Canon R6 II remains our top performer in this class. It features outstanding ergonomics, a more dependable AF system, and a more usable electronic shutter thanks to the camera's faster sensor. That sensor also allows the R6 II to capture high-quality 4K/60p using the entire frame width. However, the camera doesn't include the myriad video tools found on the Panasonic. It's also one of the most expensive cameras in its class and is effectively limited to using Canon's own range of mirrorless lenses, so it's a good idea to make sure Canon has the lenses you want at a price you're comfortable with.

The Sony a7 IV is another camera worth considering. Its 33MP sensor delivers a bit more detail, but where the Sony really shines is its autofocus system, which is exceptionally dependable and features outstanding subject tracking. However, it's a more photo-oriented camera, with higher rolling shutter making it less attractive to someone looking to shoot both stills and videos. Where it competes well is lens selection. With multiple manufacturers making lenses for E-mount, including Sigma, users are spoilt for choice and frequently have options at various price points for a given focal length.

The Sony a7C II is worth a look if size is a factor. It's essentially a Sony a7 IV squeezed into a more compact body and a simplified shutter, meaning it has almost the same pros and cons as that model, though with better image stabilization.

Finally, there's the Nikon Zf, a camera whose design is inspired by Nikon's classic film SLRs. In some respects, it's a great alternative to the S5II; it uses the same basic sensor and delivers similar image quality. However, its design makes the comparison more complex. The decision to buy a camera like the Zf will likely be driven, in part, by a desire for a specific type of shooting experience, and one that's very different than the S5II. Also, similar to the Canon, you'll mostly be limited to Nikon's own mirrorless lenses (though recent history suggests that Nikon is beginning to open the mount to allow some third-party options). If you prefer a more modern design, you could also consider the Nikon Z6 II, though that model is a bit long in the tooth compared to the other options here.

Sample galleries

Please do not reproduce any of these images on a website or any newsletter/magazine without prior permission (see our copyright page). We make the originals available for private users to download to their own machines for personal examination or printing (in conjunction with this review); we do so in good faith, so please don't abuse it.

Panasonic Lumix DC-S5IIX in Japan

87%

Overall score

Jump to conclusion

Almost six years after the announcement of the Lumix DC-G9, Panasonic rolled out its successor, the Lumix DC-G9 II. This is the company's high-end model aimed at stills shooters, and it is the first-ever Lumix Micro Four Thirds camera to include phase detection autofocus. Despite its target demographic, the G9 II comes with a surprisingly long list of video features as well. A thorough redesign, the G9 II is based on the chassis of the full-frame Lumix S5 II and S5 IIX, giving it room for plentiful controls and ports.

Key specifications

• 25MP CMOS sensor with dual output gain
• 5-axis in-body image stabilization (CIPA-rated to 8 stops)
• On-sensor phase detection (779 points)
• 3", 1.84M-dot fully articulating touchscreen
• 3.86M-dot OLED electronic viewfinder with 0.8x magnification
• 60 fps burst shooting with AF-C and electronic shutter (10 fps mechanical)
• 100MP handheld high-res mode
• Up to 5.8K Open Gate 4:2:0, C4K 4:2:2 10-bit, with V-Log and HLG
• ProRes 422 and 422 HQ recording to SSD
• Raw output to Atomos and Blackmagic external recorders
• 390 shots per charge battery life (using LCD)
• USB-C power delivery
• Dual UHS-II card slots

The G9 II is priced at $1899 body-only: a $200 increase from its predecessor.

Buy now:

What's new

The Lumix G9 II is a departure from the original G9 design in a few key ways.

Rather than a refresh of the original DSLR-like Lumix G9 concept, the G9 II goes in a more modern direction. Not only does it take technological advancements from the full-frame Lumix S lineup, it has the same external design as the S5 II announced earlier in the year. It's taller, more squared off, and has more controls than its predecessor. It isn't just a similar design – it's literally the same outer shell, but without fan vents and with a different lens mount and sensor inside.

Hybrid autofocus and DR Boost improvements

The G9 II is based around a sensor related to the one in the GH6, but that Panasonic says has been revised at both the hardware and software levels. The most obvious difference is that the version in the G9 II has phase-detection elements that make it the first Micro Four Thirds Lumix model to offer inherently depth-aware autofocus.

The other change that will make a big difference is the way the dual output gain system works. Panasonic describes it as having two parallel readout paths that are subjected to differing levels of gain, which are then combined. This way, you get the highlight capture benefits of low gain and the cleaner shadow performance of high gain paths, combined as a 16-bit Raw file to ensure room to encode this widened dynamic range.

The sensor in the G9 II is derived from the one in the GH6 but with some key improvements, both in hardware and software.

For the G9 II, Panasonic appears to have reduced the lowest step offered by the high-gain path. Whereas on the GH6, the high gain (shadow) path was only used at ISO settings three stops above base (ie, ISO 800 in standard color modes, ISO 2000 in V-Log mode), on the G9 II, Panasonic says it's available from base ISO upwards, suggesting the high gain step can be dropped further, to make it available at these lower ISOs.

However, it's worth noting that the GH6's base ISOs were 100 for standard color modes and 250 for V-Log, but for the G9 II, they're 100 and 500, respectively. The one-stop jump in base ISO in V-Log mode seems to suggest a high-gain path applying one stop more gain than the low path in its base state (rather than the 3-stop difference required for DR Boost on the GH6). This doesn't explain how Panasonic can offer a mode that includes a high-gain component while maintaining the same ISO 100 rating for standard gamma, and it's interesing to note that when you exceed 60fps (where the Dual Output mode can't operate) that the minimum ISO in V-Log drops to 250, suggesting this might still be the true 'base' state.

More video than you'd expect

Unlike the G9, which gained a lot of video features after launch, the G9 II throws in everything but the kitchen sink right from Day 1. Panasonic swears this is a camera for still shooters, but the number of video resolutions and features accounted for – including V-Log, open gate 5.8K, and ProRes support – sure make it feel almost as hybrid as the GH6 or S5 IIX. It retains the full-size HDMI port of the S5 II series and can even record directly to a USB-C SSD.

Although not marketed as a hybrid model, the G9 II has a ton of features that make it interesting for hybrid shooters and those curious about video.

With its improved autofocus, why would anyone buy a GH6 over the G9 II? Rest assured that CFexpress card support and the built-in fan let the GH6 retain its hybrid crown for now. Panasonic says that G9 II shooters should think of this camera more as a B-cam than a primary run-and-gun setup and that the lack of a fan might become an issue when shooting high-res video in hot environments.

Improved IBIS

The smaller Four Thirds-type sensor is cushioned from jostles by an aggressive 8-stop CIPA-rated in-body image stabilization system. Panasonic says that the SyncIS system, where the sensor and lens stabilization systems work together, is only rated for 7.5 stops and that they're reaching the physical limits of the lens-based optical stabilization systems at this point. There is a benefit though: the synchronization between the body and lens' IS systems allows the camera to maintain 7.5 stops of correction at longer focal lengths where the in-body system alone could not.

High-resolution mode

The improved IBIS also enables the G9 II's 100MP handheld high-res mode. Although the higher resolution of this mode means it's a little slower to stitch its photos together, the more sophisticated algorithm Panasonic uses does a good job of reducing subject motion.

There are two motion blur processing modes; mode 1 doesn't attempt it at all, and mode 2 does.

Handheld 100MP | ISO 100 | 1/250 sec | F5.6 | Leica DG 12-60mm F2.8-4 @ 38mm equiv. Photo: Jeff Keller

The scene above is bustling, and you can see how well the G9 handled motion in this 100 Megapixel photo. A few people have extra feet, but otherwise, motion is handled very well.

While we're on the subject of high resolution, here's a real-world example of tripod mode. You'll find an additional example in our studio scene further down the page.

Subject detection improvements

Panasonic's older depth-from-defocus AF system lagged behind the competition somewhat, but the G9 II looks to address that. With the addition of distance-aware phase-detection, the G9 II also brings some new subject detection and tracking algorithms.

There are a number of subject types in the AF menu, including one for animals (mainly pets, but it also can track birds), one for cars (targeting motorsports photography), and another for motorcycles (which they say may work for bicycles, depending on the angle of the subject). Like the G9 II's improved human detection, the animal mode has eye detection as an additional option.

Cropped to taste. Shot in full area AF mode with animal tracking and continuous focus. ISO 125 | 1/400 sec | F4 | Leica DG 50-200mm @ 384mm equiv. Photo: Jeff Keller

Live Composite

Once a feature exclusive to Olympus cameras, Live Composite made its way to Panasonic's mirrorless lineup in 2020. This is essentially a multi-exposure mode where objects that do not change brightness are left alone during each shot. All you need to do is set the exposure time you want and the delay before shooting starts, then press the shutter release. The camera will silently take photos until you press the button again.

Converted from Raw using ACR. Exposure slightly brightened. Shot in Live Composite mode. ISO 400 | 8 sec per exposure | F3.5 | Leica DG 8-18mm F2.8-4 @ 20mm equiv. Photo: Jeff Keller

How the Panasonic Lumix DC-G9 II compares to its peers

The new Panasonic Lumix G9 II comes in at a high price, befitting a flagship model (at least, as Panasonic's G-series flagship for stills). Unfortunately, there's a lot of competition in the ∼$2K high-performance camera category. While the newcomer significantly out-specs its predecessor, its stills rival in the Micro Four Thirds world: the OM System OM-1 Mark II, is lighter, has better battery life, and a higher-res EVF. It's also quite a bit more expensive.

That's not to mention the slew of fantastic APS-C cameras out there, and we've included the Fujifilm X-T5 and Sony a6700 as two of the best, both of which are cheaper than the Lumix.

On the whole, the G9 II is fairly competitive in the Micro Four Thirds system. But looking at the APS-C options out there (like the Sony A6700 and Fujifilm X-T5), the G9 II doesn't appear to bring anything spectacular to the table, even if it is a noteworthy move forward for Panasonic's G-series. That said, it's alone here in being able to output video to an external SSD, if video is your thing.

Body and handling

Looking at it from the back, the Lumix G9 II offers up a new 8-way joystick and an improved autofocus selector.

While the original G9 was far from compact, it certainly had a different design philosophy than its successor. Seemingly aimed at DSLR photographers, it was a wide camera with a big backlit top plate LCD. That camera also only had a single exposure mode dial (on the side opposite the grip), front and rear command dials, and a power switch that surrounded the shutter button.

The new G9 II, by comparison, feels more modern. Since it's basically the same design as the Lumix DC-S5 II, this camera throws a ton of controls at the user. Make no mistake: this is a clean-sheet redesign, and if you were a big fan of the original, you might be disappointed that nothing has remained the same. That said, for everything you lose (like the top LCD, front Fn lever, and flash sync port), you gain a whole lot more (more ergonomic twin dials, a more prominent AF selector switch, a dedicated dial for continuous shooting, and an upgraded 8-way joystick).

The Lumix G9 II, unlike the very similar S5 II, lacks fan vents at the bottom of the EVF hump.

And although the G9 II is taller and the grip a bit shallower, it still manages to feel plenty comfortable to hold, despite some of the rear controls being a bit clustered together. Overall, though, even though the weight is the same as the old model, this Micro Four Thirds body seems quite large for what it is.

Something that some found irritating on the original G9 was the overly sensitive shutter release button. Panasonic has addressed that on the G9 II with a firmer, less trigger-happy design.

What hasn't improved a whole lot is the EVF, which is a 3680k dot (1280 x 960px) panel with a slight decrease in magnification at 0.8x. In use, it's totally passable, and the magnification definitely makes up for the lack of sheer resolution. The rear articulating LCD, on the other hand, is a much higher resolution now at 1840k dots, making for a detailed, bright shooting experience even in direct sunlight.

The addition of a USB-C port and support for USB PD charging is a big step up from the original G9's USB 3.0 Micro B socket.

Like its cousin, the Lumix S5 II, the G9 II packs the ports we'd expect for a flagship camera in 2023. You get a full-size HDMI, fast USB-C PD charging (with 10Gbps transfer speeds and the ability to record stills and video to an external SSD), as well as mic and headphone sockets, the former of which is positioned out of the way of the screen hinge.

On the opposite side are two UHS-II speed SD card slots, which can be programmed to work in sequence or in parallel, backing up files on both for redundancy or filling the next card after the first one's full. One benefit that's worth mentioning is that since this is physically just about identical to the S5 II, many accessories will be compatible between the two models, including first-party accessories like the new DMW-BG1 battery grip and third-party add-ons like cages for video rigging.

Battery

The 2200mAh battery lets the G9 II shoot around 390 shots on a single charge.

Inside the G9 II is the same DMW-BLK22 16Wh battery as we've seen in other big Lumix models. On the G9 II, however, you're still only getting around 390 shots on a charge according to the CIPA method with either the LCD or EVF. That's lower than other cameras in its class and certainly in its price range, trailing the OM System OM-1 Mark II by 130 shots and the Fujifilm X-T5 by 190.

This is despite Panasonic putting the camera in a deep sleep mode when it's switched off, from which the camera takes 2-3 second to wake. Once awake, subsequent attempts to turn on the camera are quicker, but it's worth being aware that you can't just grab it from your bag and shoot.

Image quality

Our test scene is designed to simulate a variety of textures, colors and detail types you'll encounter in the real world. It also has two illumination modes to see the effect of different lighting conditions.

The G9 II captures a decent amount of detail in its Raw files at base ISO, though the OM System OM-1 and Sony a6700 grab a smidge more. Moiré is well-controlled and competitive with most of its peers, save for the Sony a6700. At mid-ISOs the G9 II looks a lot like its peers, but from ISO 6400 upwards it falls increasingly behind.

Looking at JPEGs, the G9 II appears to use a bit more noise reduction than the other cameras in this comparison, which you can see in these brushes. Color in JPEGs are vibrant without being oversaturated. There's very little noise at ISO 1600 thanks to Panasonic's noise reduction system. At ISO 6400, the G9 II is more-or-less the same as its peers.

In situations where you can use the tripod-based pixel shift mode, the G9 II is able to offer resolution capture far beyond its peers. Our test shots are somewhat hampered by what we suspect is vibration in our testing studio, leaveing cross-hatched artifacts in places. This won't always be the case, though it does give an insight into how steady your tripod and subject need to be to capture the very highest resolution.

Real-world photo quality makes one forget that the G9 II uses a smaller sensor than most of its peers. Whether it's engraving in 19th-century buildings or the plumage on a short-ear owl, you'll see plenty of detail in its JPEGs. As usual, shooting Raw and running it through Adobe Camera Raw or DxO PureRAW will give you the ability to fine-tune sharpening. You can also create a custom Photo Style was stronger sharpening.

Out-of-camera JPEG	Shadows/highlights adjusted in ACR

The G9 II's sensor allows you to boost shadows with a minimal increase in noise, as shown above, and in a few photos in the sample gallery.

Our DR tests bear this out, and highlight the improvement compared with the GH6. However Panasonic has been able to implement dual parallel gain at ISO 100, it works, with much cleaner shadows than its (even) more video-focused sibling. This means both the Raw files and the camera as a whole, are more flexible.

ISO Invariance | Exposure Latitude

Autofocus

Operating and adjusting autofocus isn't much different than on the 7-year-old DC-G9 (or any Panasonic camera released since then). A switch lets you quickly switch between single, continuous and manual focus. Pressing the button in the center of the switch opens up the AF area menu, which offers the following options:

• Tracking
• Full area
• Zone (Horizontal/Vertical)
• Zone
• 1-area+
• 1-area
• Pinpoint

With the exception of pinpoint (which is well-suited for macro photography), all of the AF options let you turn subject detection on or off.

Adjusting the focus point can be done in a few ways. You can use the joystick, tap on the screen, or by using "Touchpad AF." The latter is available when shooting through the viewfinder; to adjust the focus point, you move your finger on the LCD to adjust the focus point. There are a number of options for what area of the display is used for AF point movement. To switch between detected subjects, you can tap on the screen or use the joystick.

Cropped to taste. Shot in full area mode with animal tracking and continuous AF. Leica DG 50-200 @ 400mm equiv. | ISO 100 | 1/640 sec | F4 Photo: Jeff Keller

Panasonic offers four options for subject detection: humans, animals, cars and motorcycles. For the first two options, you can select what you want the camera to lock onto: eye/face/body for humans and eye/body for animals.

The G9 II's animal mode can detect people, birds, canines (domestic and wild) and felines (big and small). We tested it with all of them, and the camera detected them without issue. It was impressive when tracking owls and harriers in the Skagit Flats conservation area in the full area mode, even when they were flying away.

Customizing AF behavior

One of the four menus for customizing how the camera reacts to moving subjects in AF-C

There are four sets of customizable parameters for continuous autofocus. Here, you can adjust AF sensitivity, AF Area switching sensitivity, and moving subject prediction. Set 1 is for general use, while the other three are for more specific situations. We found that choosing the most fitting option was the most effective.

For our test of continuous autofocus and its ability to judge distanct, we used Set 2, which is defined as "[when] the subject moves at a constant speed in one direction." Face detection was disabled.

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16

The G9 II's AF system did a nice job in this example. It took a few shots to lock on and then kept the cyclist in focus for the rest of the run, correctly anticipating subject distance and driving the lens accordingly.

Then we tested the camera's ability to track a subject moving around the scene and approaching the camera at a less predictable speed. Here we switched to set 4 ("for situations where the speed of the subject changes significantly"). We then performed the test both with and without face detection.

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16

As we often see with cameras in this test, the G9 II struggled to keep the cyclist in focus during the turns, where the rate of approach suddenly changes. This was the case both with and without face detection engaged.

When we used face detection, when it started to lose focus, the camera was briefly tricked by the statues of firefighters in the background. Thankfully the G9 II quickly figured it out and locked back onto the correct subject.The G9 II can shoot at 60 fps with continuous AF (75 fps is only for single AF) and performed about the same as at slower speeds, complete with the brief distraction of the statues. These tests don't represent all circumstances, of course, but suggest the G9 II's AF, even when tuned to match the expected subject movement, is not as dependable as the best of its peers.

Video

For what Panasonic bills primarily as a stills camera, the G9 II has a surprisingly complete set of video features. And, as it often does, Panasonic has added more video features to the G9 II since it was announced via a firmware update.

The G9 II can capture "open gate" 5.8K video using the entire Four Thirds sensor using either HEVC. This gives 5760 x 4320 pixel 10-bit 4:2:0 footage at either 30 or 24 frames per second, giving flexibility to crop-in in post, or to take vertical and landscape crops from the same footage. At 5.7K the aspect ratio ships from 4:3 to 17:9 and the maximum frame rate jumps to 60p. At lower resolutions you can shoot 4:2:2 footage, and high-speed 120p capture also becomes available.

The list of video recording options is overwhelming, though you can narrow it down via filters and save your favorites to a custom menu.

If you're using Apple ProRes you get 4:2:2, 17:9 video up to 30p, or 16:9 Cinema 4K at 60p. If it's Raw video output you're after, the G9 II can send it over HDMI to select Atomos and Blackmagic external recorders.

The G9 II supports V-Log capture or the moderately flat Cinelike D2 photo styles if you intend to color grade during the editing process. It also supports HLG capture in most of its modes for direct use on HDR TVs.

The bit rates of the highest quality settings are so high (approaching 2Gbps in some of the ProRes 422 modes) that an SD card just can't keep up, so you'll have to use an SSD connected via USB-C.

Scrolling through that list is overwhelming, but you can use Rec Quality (My List) feature. When you've found the resolution, frame rate, and bite rates that you lie, just press the Q button to get it to My List. You can then assign a button to access the list you've created, ensuring you only use one of your pre-selected modes.

Speaking of the Q button, there are separate Q Menus for both stills and video. By default, some settings are shared between still and video. Those include exposure, white balance, Photo Style, and metering and AF modes. You can break the link via the CreativeVideo Combined Set. option, found in the gear > image quality 2 section of the menu, to control which parameters do and don't carry over.

Image stabilization

There are two "enhanced IS" electronic image stabilization modes that work on top of the camera's sensor-shift IS system. This takes a small-to-medium crop of the frame and uses the surrounding area to compensate for camera movement. "Standard" enhanced IS adds a small 1.1x crop, while "High" adds a more substantial crop in exchange for its strong shake reduction.

Also worth being aware of is the "Boosts IS" function. This tells the camera that you're try to keep your shot entirely still, and will fight against any movement you then make, rather than trying to anticipate which of your movements are intentional. We found it highly effective at maintaining an almost tripod-like stability.

Some other useful capture tools include waveforms and vectorscopes, shutter angle, V-Log/HLG view assist, anamorphic de-squeeze, preset distances for automatic rack focusing, and numerous audio controls.

At 4K (UHD), the G9 II looks nearly the same as the Sony a6700, which samples video from a 6K area of the frame. The a6700 is just a bit sharper, though you're unlikely to notice in the real world. The same is true at both DCI 4K and 4K/120p settings. The results are similar looking at the high res 5.7K setting versus Panasonic's GH6, with the smallest of difference in sharpness.

Sample video

Conclusion

By Jeff Keller

The Panasonic Lumix G9 II isn't the camera one would've expected Panasonic to release based on its predecessor. The original G9 was a very good stills-focused camera with some video features thrown in for good measure. The G9 II builds on those features, puts them in the body of the full-frame S5, and adds video tools that get it pretty close to the GH6.

Converted from Raw using ACR. White balance adjusted. ISO 3200 | 1/60 sec | F3.8 | Leica DG 12-60mm F2.8-4 @ 68mm equiv. Photo: Jeff Keller

The G9 was already a fairly large camera, especially for Micro Four Thirds, and the same is true with its successor. As one would expect, the body is weather-sealed, though Panasonic doesn't provide an IP rating. Our G9 II did have a close encounter with a muddy photographer and kept on going after some cleanup.

If you've just picked up the G9 II, you might find the sheer number of dials and buttons to be imposing. The menu system is overloaded with options, so putting your favorites into the "My Menu" is a smart idea.

Another thing to be aware of is that the G9 II's battery life is below that of its peers. If you use Bluetooth to geotag or auto-transfer your photos, it'll drain even faster. Carrying around a spare battery or a power brick (with USB PD support) is a smart idea if you're planning on a full day of shooting.

Cropped to taste. ISO 100 | 1/320 sec | F4 | Leica DG 50-200mm F2.8-4 @ 400mm equiv. Photo: Jeff Keller

The G9 II's autofocus is generally pretty good and a significant step up from the G9, or any Panasonic camera that uses its Depth-from-Defocus system, for that matter. When attempting some bird photography, I was surprised by how reliably it detected them, locking onto and tracking them even when they were flying away from me. In that situation and some others we tested, the AF system may lose its subject, but it usually got it back.

The G9 II's 25 Megapixel sensor has further closed the gap between Four Thirds and APS-C. Noise levels are somewhat higher than on the likes of the Sony a6700 and Fujifilm X-T5 and trail a little behind the OM-1. While it was difficult to push the shadows on the old G9 without a noticeable increase in noise, you can get away with it on the G9 II.

When the G9 II was released, Panasonic called it a "launching point for video." The fact is that the G9 II is very close to Panasonic's "official" Micro Four Thirds video camera, the GH6. The G9 II can do almost everything the GH6 can, bar the longer recording times and 5.7K/60p capture that the GH6's fan-assisted design delivers.

ISO 100 | 1/125 sec | F3.2 | Leica DG 12-35mm F2.8 @ 52mm equiv. Photo: Jeff Keller

One video feature that really impressed me was Boost IS, which is designed for stationary shooting. It does that amazingly well, even eliminating the slight tremor in my hands. For more action-oriented footage, the more traditional electronic stabilization modes performed well, with a small-to-moderate crop depending on the intensity.

In conclusion, as someone who has shot with the original G9 for years, Panasonic's G9 II is a significant upgrade in so many ways, from sensor to subject recognition to burst speeds. And it's nice being able to carry a camera and lenses in a range of focal lengths in a relatively small bag. It's not perfect: battery life is not great, the menus can be overwhelming, and it can be frustratingly slow to start up at times. This and AF tracking that's only good, rather than great, are the only things that stop it gaining our Gold award. Overall the G9 II has proven to be a reliable stills camera with strong image quality and some useful computational modes, and can get you well on your way to being a videographer.

Scoring

Scoring is relative only to the other cameras in the same category. Click here to learn about what these numbers mean.

Compared to its peers

The OM System OM-1 Mark II is an excellent camera conceptually very similar to the G9 II. While both cameras have weather-sealed bodies, the OM-1 II is rated to the IP53 standard and we'd have no qualms about using it in the rain. The larger and higher-res EVF on the OM-1 II is nice, and its battery life is significantly better. The G9 II has more to offer serious videographers in terms of support tools, resolution, frame rates and codecs. And while the OM-1 can recognize more subjects, we think the G9 II's AF tracking performance has a slight edge. Its price is also $500 below that of the Olympus, money that could be spent on lenses.

The Sony a6700's rangefinder-style design is 180° from the G9 II. It's smaller, with fewer, more cramped controls and an underwhelming EVF. Unlike the G9 II it has a single memory card slot and no AF joystick. It has many of the still and video specs of the Panasonic though it's not to the extent of capturing uncropped 4K/120p or open gate footage. That said, the a6700's autofocus tracking performance is probably the best on the market. Sony also has the magic touch when it comes to battery life, which is twice that of the G9 II.

Like the G9 II, the Fujifilm X-T5 appears to be stills-orientated, but with high res video capabilities. The truth is very different, with rolling shutter and significant cropping holding back the Fujifilm. The X-T5's control logic is much more traditional than the G9 II's, which some people will love, and it's a similar story with the two-axis LCD. The X-T5 also has a high-res mode but it requires more shots, has no motion correction and needs to be combined off-camera. The AF systems are similar with good subject recognition sometimes held back by failure to predict distance correctly, leading to significantly missed shots.

Buy now:

Sample gallery

Please do not reproduce any of these images on a website or any newsletter/magazine without prior permission (see our copyright page). We make the originals available for private users to download to their own machines for personal examination or printing (in conjunction with this review); we do so in good faith, so please don't abuse it.

Production gallery

Pre-production gallery

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Star Flyer – the 2013 eclipse as seen from the deck of a four-masted sailing ship racing across the Atlantic. Totality was 42 seconds long and I was on a quickly moving (and rocking) surface. Photo and caption by Tyler Nordgren

Editor's note: We originally ran this story in conjunction with the solar eclipse of August 21, 2017. We've updated and republished it ahead of the solar eclipse of April 8, 2024.

Essentially, it's the ultimate photo challenge. On April 8th, photographers across the continental United States – and especially photographers within the band of totality stretching from Texas to Maine – will have no more than a few minutes to get the shot of a lifetime when the moon passes in front of the sun, and a large swath of North America will be treated to a total eclipse.

And if you ask anybody who knows anything about astronomy, it is a huge deal. Dr. Tyler Nordgren is such a man. He's a professor of physics and astronomy, an award-winning photographer and a self-described Night Sky Ambassador. Here's what he had to say about the solar eclipse of August 21, 2017:

"Half the people that are alive right now weren’t even alive the last time something like this was visible from the continental US. Secondly, there are 12 million people just living in the path of totality that are going to get the chance to see it, so it will be the most-viewed total solar eclipse probably in history. The most seen, most photographed, most shared, most tweeted – potentially the most people in total are going to be able to experience this in one form or another."

"See your first eclipse, photograph your second."

But unless you're a seasoned landscape photographer or astrophotographer, Dr. Nordgren thinks you might be better off not photographing it at all and just enjoying the view. He quotes Warren De la Rue, a pioneer of astrophotography, and the first person to photograph a total eclipse. "He wrote in his journal afterwards, that if he ever got the chance to see another one, he hoped to be able to see it without any equipment at all."

In short, "See your first eclipse, photograph your second." But if you're unconvinced, Dr. Nordgren does have some advice.

Hungary – My first eclipse photo that I took in 1999 superimposed on the stamp I bought there comemorating the eclipse by showing its path across the country. Photo and caption by Tyler Nordgren

How to prepare to photograph the eclipse

Preparation is key. Time is of the essence. Of course, you'll want a tripod and a cable release to lock everything down and minimize shake.

"If you really must photograph this, you’re going to want to practice a whole bunch of techniques in the weeks leading up so it’s as second nature as absolutely possible during those precious seconds."

Don't forget to take off the filter during totality!

Protecting your eyesight and your gear is equally important. It's only safe to point your eyes or your camera sensor directly at the sun during totality. Just seconds before or after and you're risking serious damage. He suggests a pair of solar eclipse glasses and a filter for your lens. Per NASA, your glasses should meet the ISO 12312-2 international standard.

Be sure to use both during partial phases of the eclipse – you risk damaging your eyesight, not to mention your camera, with just a pair of glasses and an unfiltered lens. Crucially, don't forget to take off the filter during totality. You'll be extremely disappointed with the results if you don't.

For nitty gritty details, Lensrentals posted a useful article detailing some specific settings to dial in if you plan on using a longer lens.

What lens to use to photograph the eclipse

What kind of lens should you use? Well, not surprisingly, it all depends on what you're going for. If you want the sun as your main subject, you'll obviously want a longer lens. "To really capture big detail in the corona and the object itself, you'll want a lens with a focal length of around 500mm; between 400 and 600mm at least."

But don't forget that a total eclipse also presents a unique landscape photo opportunity. If you'd rather capture the eerie effect on the scene, a wider lens will produce excellent results too. It's all a matter of personal preference.

No matter what kind of shot you're going for, you can size things up ahead of time by photographing a full moon.

"Something to keep in mind is that during totality the sun turns black, and is surrounded by this ghostly corona, so the spectacle of the object itself is this black disk with this white glow around it. That black disk is the size of the full moon, so take whatever your camera equipment is, take whatever your lens is and go out and photograph the next full moon. See if whatever size dot that appears. If that’s interesting to you, then great – that’s the lens to use."

Should you go to the path of the totality?

In a word: yes.

If you're set on photographing the eclipse and have the safety and gear requirements nailed down, all that's left to do is get yourself into the path of totality for the big moment. Easy enough, right? Well, unless you're lucky enough to live there, or you started planning your eclipse vacation years ago, chances are only getting slimmer that you'll be able to find accommodations. Your best bet is to find what you can within a reasonable driving distance and set out as early as possible.

Ideally, you also want to aim for somewhere that's less likely to have cloud cover. Dr. Nordgren knows all too well what a cloudy eclipse view looks like.

"If you’re going to do the close-up photograph, you could be almost anywhere provided you’ve got clear skies. But I’ve also seen some really spectacular photos of totality through wispy clouds that give this dramatic view as well... just as long as you’re within that path of totality and the cloud cover is not so total that you’re utterly blacked out. And I’ve had that happen."

This is the partial phase just a minute or two before totality in the Faroe Islands. Those clouds totally socked us all in 30 seconds before totality so we saw nothing. Photo and caption by Tyler Nordgren

If you're hoping to get a wider shot, then great news: this eclipse will cross much of the continental US. Provided you can get there, you can pretty much take your pick of landscapes. "What do you find compelling?"

Whether or not you can get to the path of totality, and whether or not you choose to photograph the event, you'll still be treated to an amazing array of photos and videos from photographers across the US. And unless you're dead set on photographing it, consider leaving the camera at home.

"If you haven’t seen a total solar eclipse, I encourage you, don’t waste your time photographing it."

"If you haven’t seen a total solar eclipse, I encourage you, don’t waste your time photographing it. Chances are, somebody else will get a better photo. But if you are that kind of expert photographer, practice so that you can set your camera up and let it do its thing with as little input as possible." In the very best case scenario, you'll get a couple of minutes.

"That is not a lot of time to see what I think is the most awe-inspiring, unnatural, natural experience in nature."

Photo: Richard Butler

We're almost a third of the way through the year already! Here's a recap of the reviews and testing we've done this year so far, with more (and more and more) to come as the year goes on!

April

Panasonic S5II: Review

Photo: Richard Butler

The Panasonic S5II had the unfortunate luck of landing in our office right about the time we found out that our parent company planned to close DPReview in 2023, so it never went through our regular review process. We've been looking for an opportunity to review it ever since we joined forces with Gear Patrol last summer and finally found the time.

The timing turned out to be good: Panasonic was able to provide us with an early version of the camera's new firmware (v3.0), so we were able to test it with the latest features. Read our review to find out why we think this camera is such a great all-around performer for enthusiasts and pros alike.

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Sony FE 16-25mm F2.8 G: Sample gallery

Photo: Shaminder Dulai

The Sony FE 16-25mm F2.8 G is a relatively compact wide-angle zoom lens aimed at street and travel photographers.

We were able to get our hands on the lens for a day and figured most readers would be curious to see some examples of street and architectural photography, so we hit the streets of downtown Seattle and ducked into the Seattle Public library when the weather turned ugly.

See the sample gallery

March

Sony FE 24-50mm F2.8 G: Sample gallery

Photo: Eric Limer

Sony's FE 24-50mm F2.8 G is a fast, compact walk-around lens for its full-frame E-mount cameras. We took it out in snow and sun in New Jersey to put it through its paces.

In practice, we found that it makes for a light and portable package with convenient and satisfying hands-on controls and quick and quiet focus.

See the sample gallery

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Leica SL3: Initial review

Photo: Richard Butler

The Leica SL3 is a 60MP DSLR-shaped mirrorless camera built around Leica's L-mount. It brings a lot of technology from the Leica M11 models but also features a radically redesigned interface. In March we published our initial review.

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Panasonic Lumix S 28-200mm F4-7.1 Macro OIS: Sample gallery

Photo: Dale Baskin

Panasonic's newest zoom lens, the Lumix S 28-200mm F4-7.1 Macro OIS, is so small that it just begs to be used for travel, so we took it on a trip to Japan to see if it lives up to its promise. It proved to be an outstanding choice, allowing us to cover a wide range of focal lengths without ever feeling like we were dragging around too much gear. We were pretty pleased with the optical performance, too.

See the sample gallery

Panasonic Lumix DC-G9 II: Studio scene

Photo: Brendan Nystedt

As we enter the final phase of our Panasonic Lumix DC-G9 II review, we've added the test scene images to our image comparison tool.

See the studio scene

Sony a9 III: Sample gallery updated

Photo: Carey Rose

We updated our Sony a9 III sample gallery to include more sports and to get a feel for how effective its global shutter sensor is when combined with subject-detection autofocus in a variety of scenarios. And just to be safe, we also included some low ISO landscape images for those who want to evaluate image quality for other types of photography.

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The Panasonic S5IIX goes to Japan: Sample gallery

Photo: Dale Baskin

We were working on our review of the Panasonic S5II when it came time for our annual trek to Yokohama, Japan, for the camera industry's annual CP+ trade show, so we took along the S5IIX for some additional testing. It was a joy to shoot and it did a great job of capturing the color and texture of Japan, from the streets of Tokyo to snow monkeys near Nagano. It also proved that its weather sealing was up to the task, operating for hours in pouring rain without missing a beat.

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Panasonic Lumix G9 II: Review

Photo: Brendan Nystedt

The Panasonic G9 II is the first Panasonic Micro Four Thirds camera to include phase detect autofocus and is based on the same body as the full-frame S5 II. It also comes with a surprisingly long list of video features. Read our full review to find out what we liked and what we didn't.

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Sigma 50mm F1.2 DG DN Art: Sample gallery

Photo: Jeff Carlson

The Sigma 50mm F1.2 DG DN Art is a comparatively lightweight prime lens aimed at travel, portrait and street photographers. Contributing editor Jeff Carlson immediately jumped on the opportunity to shoot a sample gallery with this lens, capturing spring cherry blossoms, portraits and some low-light photos for good measure.

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Nikon 28-400m F4-8: Pre-production sample gallery

Photo: Dale Baskin

We had an opportunity to try a pre-production version of Nikon's new 28-400mm F4-8 superzoom lens shortly before it was announced. Let's just say this lens really intrigues us, and we can't wait to get our hands on a production copy for more testing.

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February

Hasselblad 907X / CFV 100C: Sample gallery

Hasselblad's CFV 100C medium format digital back brings most of the features of the X2D 100C to smaller form factor that's compatible with a wide range of cameras from the company's history. We paired it with a 907X camera / lens adaptor and XCD 28mm F4.0 and XCD 90mm F2.5 lenses to shoot a sample gallery.

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Megadap ETZ21 Pro Sony-to-Nikon mirrorless lens adapter: Review

Photo: Dan Bracaglia

After getting our hands on it, we can say that, as far as what’s currently available for Sony shooters wishing to dabble in the Nikon realm, there is no better option on the market than the Megadap ETZ21 Sony E-mount to Nikon Z-mount lens adapter.

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Nikon Zf: Video reel update

Photo: Richard Butler

Nikon's Zf is a full-frame mirrorless camera with classic styling, built around a 24MP BSI CMOS sensor. It's designed to mimic the look of the company's FM2 SLR from the early 1980s, meaning it effectively becomes a full-frame counterpart to the company's Z fc APS-C camera. In February, we updated our review with a video reel and impressions.

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Panasonic Lumix DC-S5 II: Studio scene

Photo: Richard Butler

As we complete our Panasonic Lumix DC-S5 II review, we've run the camera through our recently revitalized studio test scene to see how it performs against the competition.

See the results

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Fujifilm X100VI: Initial review

Photo: Richard Butler

February finally brought us the X100VI, a photographers' fixed-lens camera that combines a stabilized 40MP APS-C sensor with a 35mm equivalent F2 lens. We had it day one, and have published our initial review along with a sample gallery. Unfortunately, those won't help you actually find one to buy.

Read the review

See the sample gallery

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OM System OM-1 II: Sample gallery

Photo: Shaminder Dulai

The OM System OM-1 Mark II is a high-speed Micro Four Thirds camera based around a 20MP Stacked CMOS sensor. As the name implies, it's an updated version of the flagship OM-1, with a series of hardware and firmware improvements. In February we published a sample gallery to update our initial review.

See the sample gallery

Read the initial review

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January

Sony a9 III: Initial review

Photo: Richard Butler

The Sony a9 III is the company's latest high-speed pro sports camera. It features a Stacked CMOS sensor capable of shooting at 120 fps and able to read all its pixels out simultaneously: the long hoped-for 'global' shutter. Our studio scene analysis shows that it comes at a cost.

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Lumix S 100mm F2.8 Macro: Sample gallery

Photo: Shaminder Dulai

Panasonic's Lumix S 100mm F2.8 Macro is a full-frame L-mount lens that's designed to be compact and lightweight, coming in at 82mm (3.2") long and 74mm (2.9") in diameter and tipping the scales at 298g (10.5 oz). Hands-on, we can confirm it is very tidy and light.

See the sample gallery

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Sony FE 16-35mm F2.8 GM II: Sample gallery

Photo: Dan Bracaglia

Sony's 16-35mm F2.8 GM II lens is smaller, lighter and more capable than its predecessor. Optical improvements come in the form of better corner-to-corner sharpness and a new close-focus distance of just 22 cm.

See the sample gallery

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iPhone 15 Pro Max: Sample gallery

Photo: Jeff L Carlson

When we published our iPhone 15 Pro Sample Gallery, we didn’t yet have an iPhone 15 Pro Max model in hand. In addition to boasting a larger 6.7-inch screen, the Max differentiates itself by having a 5x (120mm equivalent) telephoto camera with a clever tetraprism design. The iPhone 15 Pro’s telephoto camera, meanwhile, shares the same 3x (77mm equivalent) field of view as the iPhone 14 Pro. Is the extra reach worth the bigger physical size and higher cost?

See the sample gallery

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Canon EOS R100: Review

Photo: Shaminder Dulai

The Canon EOS R100 is an ultra-compact 24 Megapixel APS-C mirrorless camera with an RF mount. It is the cheapest way to enter Canon's mirrorless ecosystem, offering more flexibility than a smartphone.

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Fujifilm XF23mm F2 R WR: Review

Photo: Mike Tomkins

The Fujifilm XF 23mm F2 R WR is a very compact, portable, wide-angle prime lens for Fujifilm X-mount cameras. It makes a great walkaround lens and is well-suited for uses like travel and street photography, as well as things such as moderately wide landscapes and environmental portraiture.

Read the review

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$449 at Amazon

$449 at B&H

$449 at Adorama

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Sony ZV-1 Mark II: Review

Photo: Shaminder Dulai

The Sony ZV-1 Mark II is a vlogging-focused compact camera built around a 20MP Type 1 (13.2 x 8.8mm) Stacked CMOS sensor and an 18-50mm equivalent F1.8-4.0 lens. Besides the new focal length range, much of this camera remains the same as its predecessor, which was itself a competent pocket-sized video camera.

Read the review

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$898 at Amazon

$898 at B&H

$898 at Adorama

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Tenba Axis V2 18L backpack: Review

Photo: Tim Barribeau

The Tenba Axis V2 18L ($200) is a well-made, quietly competent but otherwise uninteresting backpack. Tenba has been in this industry long enough to know the basics of building a functional bag, but this simple black rectangle struggles to stand out against a field packed with more interesting, stylish, or specialized options like Peak Design's exceedingly versatile Everyday Bag or LowePro's hiking bag that happens to hold cameras well too.

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