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(00:00):
I'm PhotoJoseph, a LUMIX ambassador. It's March 25th, 2025, and there are minor firmware updates for three LUMIX cameras. The Micro Four Thirds LUMIX G100D, and the full frame LUMIX S1H and LUMIX S9 bodies. All three models gain improved operational stability, which basically means minor bug fixes. The G100D and S9 update provides certain security enhancements that enforce the use of passwords and encryption when connecting to wireless networks. The S1H gains a pop-up message when using the collapsible LUMIX S 18-40mm lens, which simply tells you to expand the lens to use it. And last but not least, the LUMIX S9 update claims to improve the startup time. Now, I do seem to recall that the startup time in the S9 was sometimes a bit slow, but in setting up to record this video startup time was always very fast.

(00:52):
So I'm going to measure the pre-update startup time, show you how to update the LUMIX S9, which is going to be the same procedure on the S1H and G100D, and then measure the startup time again to see if we can see a difference. To download the update file, either Google Search “LUMIX firmware update download”, and that should take you to this page or type in the URL PhotoJoseph.com/firmware, and that'll redirect you to this page on the Panasonic support website. Find your camera model under either the Full Frame System or Micro Four Third System tabs and click through to your model to download the update. Extract the .zip file to its .bin final format, and yes, on a Mac, you will likely still see this error that macOS is unable to expand the .bin file. One day,

(01:36):
Apple might fix that, but you can ignore that message as the .bin file is what you need. Place the .bin file on the root level – that means the top level, not inside of a folder – of a freshly formatted SD card. Finally, put that card back in your camera and you're ready to update. Before we do though, if you've customized your camera, tweaking every little button to your liking, and if you'd be pretty upset if your camera was reset to factory default, it's not a bad idea to back up the camera settings before running a firmware update. While I've never had an update reset the camera, why take the risk if you don't have to? So here's how to back it up. First, I'll insert the SD card. Go to the menus, go to the wWrench menu, that's the Setup menu, and then over to Settings, and then to Save/Restore Camera Settings. From here, you can save it by clicking the Save button, choosing a new file, and you can rename the file if you want to, or leave it at the default name. Click OK, and that saves the file to the SD card. To restore the setting later, go into the same menu and choose Load and choose that camera setup. You'll notice there's also an option that says “Keep Settings While Format”. This means that even if you reformat your SD card, it'll keep the settings saved by the camera. Cool. Now that we've saved that, I'm ready for the firmware update. Navigate to the same menu and then Others, and then go to Firmware Version. You'll see at the top it says Firmware Update, and if that menu available, if it's grayed out, that means that the update file cannot be found. So either you loaded the .zip file or perhaps you put the .bin file in the wrong location. Again, it needs to go on the root level, the top level of the card, not inside of a folder. So now we're ready to update, but I do want to test the startup time first. So I'm going to power off the camera, make sure it's all powered down, and then turn it back on.

(03:23):
You can see that startup time was really, really fast, so I'm going to measure it by counting frames and then compare it to after-the-update. Let's get on with our update here, back into Firmware Version, Firmware Update. It confirms the version number and asks to start it and select Yes. At this point, just let the camera be – no touchy! – let it finish. The update is complete. To verify that it's taken, you can go back into the firmware version menu, and you can see on this page that it's at version 1.3. Right, now let's check the startup time! We're going to go ahead and turn the camera off and then turn it back on.

(03:56):
The startup times as measured by counting frames in this recording are on your screen now. Perhaps this update will provide better startup times in other situations? If you find that your S9 is booting up faster than usual in certain situations, let us know in the comments. I'd love to hear what that is. So these are all pretty minor updates, but it's a good reminder that Panasonic is constantly improving its cameras, even the S1H, which is from 2019. That's pretty cool. If you're still watching this video, then you must be a LUMIX user. So do be sure you're subscribed to this channel and consider joining the channel as well, not only to financially support us, but also to gain access to the private PhotoJoseph Discord server, which is a great place to discuss anything LUMIX, live streaming, or other topics related to the channel. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next video.