Panasonic Lumix G97 upgrades bring the G95 kicking and screaming into 2025

Panasonic has announced its newest mirrorless camera. Targeted towards vloggers and advanced enthusiasts, the Panasonic G97 ($847.99) expands on 2019’s Panasonic G95 in a number of significant ways. It’s not a huge upgrade from the G95, but it does drag it into 2025.

It features the same sensor, video specifications, autofocus system, IBIS and continuous shooting speed. But it brings USB-C capabilities, a higher resolution display, Bluetooth 5.0 LE, Live View Compositing, better weather sealing and more.

Panasonic G97 – What’s new?

The Panasonic is largely like the Panasonic G95, sharing many of its traits. They share the same 20.9-megapixel sensor and 5-axis IBIS system. They both offer up to 9fps continuous shooting for stills and 4K30p video (8-bit 4:2:0 internal, 4:2:2 through HDMI) and have the same 2.36m-dot OLED EVF.

The bad news is that the G97 also shares the G95’s autofocus system. It’s a 49-area Depth-from-Defocus (DFD) autofocus system and not the shiny new phase detection autofocus system Panasonic’s been shoving into its highest-end professional bodies.

Now let’s talk about the upgrades. The G95 was already a weather-sealed body, but the G97 improves on this. It features better sealing at the joints, dials and buttons to keep dust and water outside of your camera. While the electronic viewfinder has remained the same, the display on the back of the camera has also been improved. The G97 boasts a 3.0″ 1,840k-dot touchscreen OLED display, vs the 1,240k-dot screen of its predecessor.

We now have new power options, thanks to the G97’s newfound USB-C capabilities. Both cameras feature a USB-C port, but the G97 now allows you to both power your camera and charge its internal battery simultaneously. This is great for creators on the go who want to film without the risk of batteries dying mid-shot.

The G97 sees the addition of Live View Compositing. This is a special long-exposure mode that combines the bright parts of multiple photographs into a single well-exposed image. It lets you see the changes in real-time as they’re applied. This is a great feature for things like astrophotography, light painting, fireworks, cityscapes, traffic trails, and a hundred other topics you could think of.

The G95 was already a very popular camera, as was the G85 before it – I still have, and regularly use, three of them – so this will no doubt be a hit, too. That being said, while the new updates are significant, they are also somewhat incremental and won’t convince all (or even most) G95 users to upgrade. But for anyone who was thinking about getting a G95 before, the G97 seems the obvious choice.

Price and Availability

The Panasonic G97 is available to pre-order now for $847.99 and comes supplied with the Panasonic 12-60mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens. There doesn’t appear to be a body-only kit available as of yet. We’ll update this page if we spot one.