Panasonic is announcing a new camera next week! Here's what it could be

Panasonic has posted a teaser video for a new Lumix camera announcement taking place next week, on Friday October 17.

Curiously, in the time since I started writing this article, the company has promptly made the video private – suggesting that it wasn't quite ready for the internet to see it. But as we all know, you can't hide anything from the internet – especially when it's expected that the announcement could be for a successor to one of the best Panasonic cameras.

So what do we know, officially and otherwise?

Officially

Panasonic posted a video to YouTube Live titled "Lumix Online Stream Oct 17 2025". As the title suggests, this was to act as a holding page for a timed live stream from the brand – which is something that only happens under very specific circumstances.

Of the ten previous live streams on the Lumix YouTube page, eight of them were for new camera launches – most recently the Panasonic Lumix S1RII in February, followed by the Lumix S1II and S1IIE in May. So it's a pretty sure thing that, whatever the online stream is about, it's about a new camera.

Again, the video has now been made private (as you can see below) but it was scheduled to go live on Friday October 17 at 10:00JST (Japan Standard Time) – which, confusingly, would be 21:00EDT on Thursday or 02:00BST on Friday. Perhaps the timezone kerfuffle is the reason for the postponement?

Unofficially

So, what is this camera likely to be? If you've been paying attention to the camera rumors, there are two prime candidates.

The first feels far more likely: the Panasonic Lumix S1HII. This is the lone member of the original S Series family announced in 2018 (its stablemates being the OG S1 and S1R) that has yet to receive an update.

Where the S1 line is the jack-of-all-trades hybrid, and the S1R is the resolution-focused powerhouse line, the S1H is the company's video-centric machine. Of course, with Panasonic's niche in the industry being video capability, every Lumix camera is essentially a video-centric machine. So making a coherent, distinct successor to the S1H has understandably been a tricky thing to achieve.

The latest chatter is that the S1HII will take the form, literally and figuratively, of a cinema-bodied rival to the Sony FX3 – and, by proxy, the Canon EOS C50 and Nikon ZR.

A set of outlandish S1HII specs surfaced at the end of September, which feel a bit too good to be true with promised of 4K 240p! Open gate 5.1K 120p, but otherwise there haven't been many leaks about what the new camera might have under the hood.

Seemingly less likely is an addition to Panasonic's underloved range of Micro Four Thirds (MFT) cameras.

While I would personally love to see a new member of the G Series family, the brand has shifted the vast majority of its resource and focus to its full-frame L-Mount output – so smart money is on an S camera, but Panasonic may yet surprise us.

The most obvious candidate that isn't completely leftfield is an update to the Lumix G100. While this popular little vlogging camera received a minor update, in the form of the Lumix G100D, it has been rumored for a while that a full-on successor could be on the way.

Expected upgrades would include the higher-resolution 25.1MP sensor with phase detect autofocus, seen in the Lumix G9II, along with in-body image stabilization and 10-bit 4K 60p video.

A wildcard – which I will keep suggesting until Panasonic finally makes it! – is a sequel to the Lumix GM1, the smallest Micro Four Thirds camera ever made. With the rampant resurgence of compact cameras, and even a brand new MFT camera from Esquisse that's smaller than a deck of cards, it would be a great time for Panasonic to bring back this beloeved classic.

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