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I have sold my Fuji X100VI and replaced it with a Panasonic Lumix S9. These two cameras are both very similar and very different, so I thought I would make a post and kinda compare the two in case you happen to be considering a switch from one to the other or maybe you’re cross-shopping the two of them and can’t decide.
This isn’t really a “VERSUS” or “S9 DESTROYS X100!!!!11” kind of post because I’m not that kind of nerd. I just like cameras. I’m not super loyal to one brand over another and I REALLY don’t like that everything has to be a click-baity, zero-sum competition where one camera “IS KING” and one camera “GOT PWNED”. I’m going to post a bunch of pictures from both cameras just to demonstrate that they both take really good photos.
X100VI pics:
I’m not an amazing photographer, and I’ve gotten really cool shots out of both of these cameras.
Lumix S9 Pics:
I’ll step off my soapbox now and start with how they are similar, like why would you even compare these two cameras?
First off, they’re pretty similar in size.
The fuji is 521 grams and 128 x 75 x 55mm
The S9 is 486 grams and 126 x 74 x 47mm, but that doesn’t really tell the whole story.
The fuji is a fixed lens system, so that size represents the camera in a usable state. That’s actually the size and weight of the camera you would carry around.
The S9 on the other hand is an interchangeable lens system, and the size figures for the body do not include a lens. Depending on which lens you choose to mount to it, it could be very close to the size of the body only, or it could be drastically different, I’ll cover that more in depth later.
They both have some form of color profiles, the x100 has film simulations and the S9 has real time LUTs. These both allow you to take photos or videos with different looks baked right in.
They both have IBIS, allowing you to shoot smooth video and take photos at slow shutter speed with no motion blur, or at least no motion blur from your hands shaking.
They’re fairly similar in price. The Fuji’s MSRP is $1599 (although good luck actually buying one for MSRP) and the Lumix is $1797, but the Lumix is near-perpetually on sale for $1597 with the 18-40 kit lens. In actual practice, the S9 is cheaper because you can actually purchase it, like today, for basically $1600, but either way, they’re close enough in price that the comparison makes sense.
In short, they’re similarly sized cameras that produce good pictures and good video and are small enough that you might consider them for a travel camera, or an Every Day Carry camera, or a Dad-cam (or mom-cam).
So let’s dive into how they differ and why you might choose one over the other.
I guess I’ll start with physical differences. While the S9 BODY is very similar in size to the X100, you can change that drastically with your lens choice. The 18-40 kit lens is pretty small and covers a very usable range for a travel camera, but it’s also pretty slow with a variable aperture between f4.5 and f6.3.
The lens I am currently using most often on my S9 is the Sigma 35mm f2. It’s pretty fast, and takes great photos, but it’s also reasonably big and heavy and makes the camera significantly larger than the X100.
Panasonic has very recently said they’re actively developing smaller primes specifically for the S9, but I would always advise people to purchase the product as it is currently and don’t bank on future software or accessory improvements, because you never really know if those will come to fruition or not. And right now, the small lens selection for the S9 is fairly poor.
I think both of the cameras handle pretty poorly in stock form, if I’m being honest. The S9 with a small rig grip is pretty good. I didn’t super care for any of the grips for the X100, but since it is smaller and lighter in actual use, I found it to be at least decent on a neck strap with no grip.
The X100 uses more “Vintage” style controls with control rings on top, while the S9 controls are more like a modern hybrid camera with a PASM dial. I prefer the look of the vintage controls, but in actual use, I’ve found that I actually prefer the PASM dial. I usually shoot in either Aperture priority or Shutter Priority, and the S9 has five programmable custom modes that I’ve set up to cover most all of my use cases with a flick of one dial, vs having to move a bunch of stuff around to effectively change modes.
The S9 lacks a hot shoe, a flash, and an EVF. That probably either matters a LOT to you or not very much at all.
The hot shoe doesn’t bother me at all, about the only thing I ever mount there is a microphone or a light for video, so the cold shoe on the S9 works fine for me.
The flash also doesn’t bother me. I don’t do a ton of flash photography, and I have an S5ii if I want to do flash photography.
The EVF is something I thought I would really miss, but I honestly really don’t. At least for the kind of camera this is. I use it as my every day carry camera, so it’s mostly just “day in the life” kind of stuff. Pictures of Daisy or Ava when we go out to eat. Travel pictures and videos, seeing cool stuff that I want to photograph in my normal daily life and things like that. I find I don’t super miss the EVF for that kind of photography. I do like shooting vintage manual lenses, and I do very strongly prefer an EVF for THAT, but again, I have an S5ii.
If you’re seeing a developing theme, it’s that the S9 is amazing as a second camera. None of the shortcomings are that big of a deal if you can just switch off to the other body that HAS a hot shoe for flash, and HAS an EVF and HAS a great grip and ergonomics.
Another key difference to consider is sensor size. The X100 has an APS-C sensor, while the S9 has a much larger full frame sensor. Outside, in good light, that doesn’t make a whole lot of difference in my experience. You do, of course, get a blurrier background and shallower depth of field on the full frame S9, but aside from that, both take great pictures in bright light.
At night or indoors though, the larger sensor is very nice to have. Take a look at these pictures.
The first one is the X100 at ISO 6400 in lowish light. If you look at the sky, you can see that the APS-C sensor is already starting to struggle a little and it’s getting a bit noisy. It’s not unusable or anything, but it’s starting to get pretty rough. You can just look at that and know that increasing the ISO further is gonna start to look pretty bad.
This is the S9 at ISO 6400. A few things – first off, it’s less noisy. Second off, I had to stop all the way down to f5.6 to get it to choose ISO 6400 in aperture priority mode, while the X100 was wide open at F2. Even is pretty low light, unless you’re trying to expose for shadows, the larger sensor S9 will try to stick around it’s high dual native ISO of 4000. That’s exactly what’s happening in this picture.
Also worth noting that while the shutter speed on the Fuji was pretty slow at 1/40th, both of the S9 photos were taken at 1/200th of a second.
The X100 also has a higher resolution sensor, at 40mp vs the S9’s 24. You have more freedom to crop in on your pictures, but that also is responsible for some of the penalty in low light performance.
So basically, you probably know how the exposure triangle works if you’re watching this video, so you can pick your benefit. Assuming you are also shooting with an F2.0 lens like the X100, you’re going to get either lower iso and less noise, or faster shutter, or be able to stop down, and still get the same or better low light performance vs the fuji with its smaller sensor. Alternatively, you could use a smaller, slower lens like the Sigma 45mm f2.8 and get performance as good or better than the f2 fuji.
Speaking of lenses, the fact that the S9 is an interchangeable lens camera is another key difference. It’s a little bit of a double edged sword. On one hand, it’s very hard for an interchangeable lens camera to be as small as a fixed lens camera, so you’re going to pay a size and weight penalty.
On the other hand, you do have the option to pick something like the small and light Lumix 18-40 when you’re walking around outside during the day, then switch over to a faster prime at night.
The X100’s lens is small, and will never be bigger, but it will also never be faster, or longer, or wider. You’re trading choice in favor of size.
So why did I switch and which one should you buy?
In short, I got spoiled by having a full frame camera, and wanted a full frame camera that was easier to carry around, so I had a full frame camera all the time. The S9’s design means it fits very well in a bag, and I pretty much am always carrying a bag. The size and weight penalties are real if it’s going to hang from your neck all day, but they’re negligible if you’re carrying a backpack or messenger bag anyway.
Also, I prefer the S9’s real time LUTs to fuji’s film simulations. Some of the film simulations are fantastic, but you are limited to what Fuji gives you. If they come out with a new one that you like, you might get it on your older camera pretty quickly. Or you might get it in a few months. Or you might get it never.
With the Lumix Lab app, you can download any LUT you like. You can find them on the internet and put them on your SD card and load them directly on the camera without using the app, if you so choose.
If you have a particular style already, you can even shoot a photo with the S9, put that photo into your favorite editor, edit it until you get a look that you like, then export those edits as a LUT and load THAT onto your camera and shoot with your very own edits baked right in.
Overall, It’s just much more flexible.
Also, I sold my Nikon Zf and bought a Panasonic S5ii, pretty much solely to converge on one lens mount. So now I LOVE the fact that the S9 is an interchangeable lens camera, and specifically an L mount camera, because while I normally keep the Sigma 35 f2 on the S9, and the Lumix 50 f1.8 on the S5ii, I don’t HAVE to.
I’ve always thought I was a 35mm kinda guy. That’s long been my preferred focal length, and sometimes it still is, like for travel. But I’ve also been having a bit of a love affair with 50mm lately. It’s kinda like the perfect middle ground. It’s not so tight that you can’t use it for street photography and day in the life kind of stuff, but it’s also not so wide that you can’t take good portrait style photos with it. If I still had the X100 and decided I wanted it to have a 50mm lens, uhh, sucks for me I guess?
With the S9, I just put the Lumix 50mm f1.8 on it if I’m in the mood to shoot at 50mm. It’s slightly longer than the Sigma 35 f2, something like 8-10mm longer, but it’s also a little lighter, so it feels pretty much identical in my bag.
Video is also another area in which the S9 is the clear winner. The Fuji shoots decent video, but the S9 has so many more options, like open gate recording, and way, way, WAY better stabilization. It also has an “MP4 Lite” mode that’s basically an open gate setting for social media. It’s full sensor size like normal open gate, but scaled down to 3.8k instead of 6k. It’s perfect for shooting little videos that you might want to post on social media, with the flexibility to punch out both a 9:16 portrait video for social and a 16:9 widescreen video for like, YouTube B roll.
There are some people who will probably like the Fuji more. So here are some ways in which the fuji is better.
It’s better looking, and feels better built. The S9 is kinda plasticicky. It feels like good quality plastic, but it feels like plastic. The X100 is made of metal and it feels like it.
The X100 definitely wins if you prefer the vintage style photo controls. I personally find I like the PASM hybrid camera style controls, but that’s just me. If you like the dials on top, you’ll prefer the X100.
The X100 has a viewfinder. So if having a viewfinder is a make or break kinda thing for you, well there ya go.
The X100 has a hot shoe, as well as built in flash. If you’re make frequent use of a flash, you’re gonna want the X100, because the S9 not only doesn’t have a flash, it doesn’t have a hot shoe so you can’t even put a flash on it.
Finally the size. Panasonic may very well come through on their promise to release some awesome small primes for the Lumix S9 and make this less of an issue, I certainly hope they do, but right now, if you want a more compact camera, the Fuji X100VI is definitely more compact.
But it’s still not THAT compact. It’s not going to fit in a jacket pocket unless your jacket has very large pockets. My logic was basically that if I need to carry a bag to put my camera in, I might as well just have a camera that’s a bit larger with a much larger sensor.
There are not really any wrong choices here, they’re both great cameras and you can take beautiful photos with either one of them. I’m very happy with my choice to go from X100VI to S9, but I’m sure other people have gone the opposite way and been happy with their choice too. If you’re still unsure, maybe check out lensrentals.com. As the name pretty strongly implies, they rent lenses. But they ALSO rent cameras. You can test drive any camera you’re considering, usually for not very much money. That’s my best advice here; if nothing I’ve said has made you super duper sure that you want one or the other, try them both!
