Travelling Light – Photographing Light
Well not for me at least !
As I blogged yesterday I have been very pleased with the G9 over the last 7 months and have no desire to return to a heavy-weight DSLR format, I recognise that there are some shortcomings with the m43 format but for me they really don’t amount to much and where they do I have easily found workarounds that get me where I need to be.
7 months ago I made the decision to give m43 a try, I won’t rehash the reasons for my move from Canon FF & APS-C suffice to say that size and weight had a lot to do with it.
Diffraction is an optical effect which limits the total resolution of a camera — no matter how many megapixels the camera sensor has. It happens because light begins to disperse or “diffract” when passing through the small opening that is the lens aperture. The smaller the aperture the greater the diffraction.
There have been a couple of reports online of a magenta colour cast appearing when G9 raw files are exposure lifted in Adobe Lightroom. I have to date not noticed this myself although I have to say I am not wholly convinced by Lightroom’s raw conversion of the G9 files. It may well be that I have not noticed this reported issue since I tend to ensure that I do not significantly under-expose images and therefore tend not to have lift exposure significantly in post processing.
So a little while ago I wrote a blog post here about the G9s 6K Pre-burst function. My conclusion on this function was that whilst it had its uses its usability, for me, was very much degraded by what I considered to be very poor auto-focus speed. Further investigation of this issue has not, unfortunately, found a solution – the simple fact is that the 6K photo functions are essentially using video technology including the cameras video auto-focus which is hugely inferior to the lightning fast stills auto-focus system. Overall therefore I am afraid that 6K photo is for me a disappointment.
So I was out today doing bit of bird photography and as the Desert Grey Shrikes were being particularly confiding I thought I would give the G9’s 6K photo mode a try. In 6K photo mode the camera is capable of taking images at an incredible 30 frames per second whilst still supposedly continuously auto-focusing and metering.
Today was the start of a week of Fiesta activities in our nearby village and tonight they were kicking things off with a local band (Grupo de Música popular Tababairet) – now this kind of thing is not really my bag as you may have noticed that I rarely if ever photograph people – however I was keen to give the G9s high iso performance a try so off I headed to get a few “snaps”.
My first attempt at a landscape with the G9 and PL 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 here yielded mixed results, all be it in rather tricky lighting. My major concern was the amount of noise apparent in the shadows even at base iso of 200, my conclusion was that in such circumstances it is critical with the G9s relatively small sensor not to underexpose.
So yesterday I decided to do some more long exposure photography and push the boundaries a bit with really long exposures of several minutes, so with my Lee Super Stopper in hand I trotted off to the Faro de El Toston (Lighthouse) which I thought would make a good subject with the clouds skudding overhead.
A very quick and non-scientific test of the Dual2 IS on the G9 with the PL 12-60mm f/2.8-f4.0.
All images taken hand held no other support i.e no leaning on anything. Three images taken at all shutter speeds and best image selected, all images taken in single shot mode at 12mm.
A trip down to Bexhill on Sea today to give the G9 a run out.
The De La Warr Pavilion is an Art Deco grade 1 listed building buit in 1935 – it makes a fine photographic subject.
As a mirrorless camera the G9 has an electronic viewfinder (evf) – in the case of the G9 this is a 3,680k dot OLED panel.
Panasonic have clearly spent a lot of time working on the ergonomics of the G9 and it really shows. They have managed to squeeze into a relatively compact body the best features of both m43 and DSLR formats. In the hand this camera feels superb – it is as good if not better to handle than any other camera that I am aware of and feels exceptionally well built. For me it is neither too big nor too heavy.
There can be no doubt that moving to a m43 system can lead to a very significant reduction in the weight that you will be carrying, particularly if you need a wide range of focal lengths. At longer focal lengths the weight advantage is very significant indeed.
A Good Place to Stand 