Panasonic Lumix G95 weather-sealed camera coming

Lumix G95

While the big camera news this year from Panasonic has been its full frame models, its favoured Micro Four Thirds range continues. The company has just announced that the Panasonic Lumix G95 mirrorless interchangeable lens camera will soon be available in Australia.

The Panasonic Lumix G95 – formally, the DC-Lumix G95 – is the latest addition to the Panasonic G-Series. That’s the range that includes all its interchangeable lens cameras in the Micro Four Thirds format. They use a relatively small sensor – 17.3mm by 13mm, compared to 36mm by 24mm for a full frame camera. Small, but way bigger than the sensors used in most compact cameras.

Lumix G95

The smaller sensor allows smaller camera bodies, although with one exception, Panasonic doesn’t really push for minimum sizes. The Panasonic GX range is the exception. They are very compact, despite their interchangeable lens support. At the top of the G-Series, presently, is the GH5, which sells for $2,599 (body only).

Panasonic Lumix G95 details

The Panasonic Lumix G95 comes somewhere in the middle of the range. It’s priced at $1,499 for the camera body alone. It is also available with a 12-60mm zoom lens (24mm to 120mm in 35mm-equivalent terms) for $1,799, or the newly updated 10x zooming Lumix G Vario 14-140mm F3.5-5.6 II lens for $2,199. (That’s 28mm to 280mm equivalent.) That’s nearly $200 less than buying that lens separately.

Lumix G95

Perhaps the highlight feature of the Panasonic Lumix G95 is its weather sealing. That is, this camera is designed with magnesium diecast front frame for robustness. And it’s sealed against water splashes and dust, including around the joints, dials and buttons. The above two lens packages are also weather-sealed.

Unlike the higher-end G-Series cameras, it looks to have only a single slot for SD cards. But with SDXC support, one’s unlikely to run out of space.

It is an upgrade from G85, offering 20.3 megapixels of resolution (like the GH5), compared to the older model’s 16MP. The body employs 5-axis optical image stabilisation. This further enhances the stabilisation built into many of Panasonic’s lenses and allows up to 5 stops of isolation from camera shake. To put that in practical terms, 5 stops is the difference between an exposure of 1/500th of a second and 1/30th of a second. You can use those longer lenses, hand-held, in lower light levels with optical image stabilisation.

Lumix G95

Other features

Amongst the other features on offer from the camera are:

  • A 2.4MP OLED view finder.
  • A 1.2MP 75mm LCD monitor. This folds out to just about any conceivable angle to assist photographing from unusual angles.
  • Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, allowing the camera to transfer photos wirelessly and be controlled by the Panasonic Image App on smart phones.
  • Depth from Defocus autofocus technology, with speeds of up to 0.07 seconds
  • “4K Photo” function for 8.3MP pre-shooting and sequences.
  • Post Focus function.
  • Focus stacking.
  • RAW image shooting.
  • Panorama shooting.
  • Video up to UltraHD at 24, 25 and 30 frames per second and 100Mbps.
  • Video output via HDMI out for external recorder and playback.
  • Slow motion in FullHD at 1/4, 1/3 and 1/2 speeds.
  • V-Log L video recording (this uses a different grading curve of a kind preferred by professionals, providing up to 12 stops of dynamic range rather than the usual 10). This is included as standard in this camera, but it’s a $149 upgrade for the GH4 and GH5 cameras!
  • In-camera battery charging and file transfer via Micro-B USB.
  • Headphone output, microphone input, microHDMI output with UHD video support.
  • 290 image battery life.
  • Optional battery grip with portrait-friendly shutter release ($399).

In short, the Panasonic Lumix G95 looks like it is very feature rich and should produce high quality photos and video. It lands in June 2019. Panasonic’s site for the Panasonic Lumix G95 is here.