Apologies to everyone that my A-roll footage was so trashy for this video! Was rushing to get this out the door before 2 months on the road, and kinda made a hash of the setup. Oh well, hoping the next few videos will be better :)
I've been using a GH6 with 100-400 for about 18 months. The autofocus on birds was a challenge. I just ordered the g9ii and the 200mm f2.8. I appreciate this video and it will help me get up and running with the g9 that much faster. Thanks for the great video
Yeah the GH6 still had the older AF system and it wasn't great for birding. The G9II is just a whole new level. Make sure to shoot on AFC (continuous focus) instead of AFS (single focus), as this locks in the phase detect. The subject detect and tracking works great too, when in AFC.
Hands-down the best explanation of how to maximize the G9II for this. I hadn't considered using pre-roll capture until watching your video. Pretty amazing that a sub-$2000 camera can shoot 120fps 4k footage with subject-recognized autofocus.
@@EwenBell their call is more often heard than sighting them. I love how the male can call for so long until the female responds with her single 'pip'.
hello, I really liked your video and your photos, beautiful. Have you tried the 150-600mm Om system on the G9ii? Amazing. I tried it myself with the Gh7.
@joesjourney9986 The OM System M.Zuiko 150-600mm with the GH7 works perfectly, the stabilization is also 100%. What is incredible is to have 1200mm of focal length. For small birds it is wonderful. On the other hand it is heavy, it is unusable for a long period without a mono pod or tripod. So it takes away all the advantage of the MFT, small, cheap and light.
Hey Oliver. That's the one made by Sigma for OM right? Have seen a few on a recent trip to Antarctica. It's a bit chunky for me but glad it's giving you great results :)
I am shooting this exactly the combo I am playing with at the moment and my results definitely aren't as good as yours but I am definitely enjoying learning this area of photography and enjoying the challenges it offers.
Thanks for the very detailed practical guidance on using this camera and lens for bird photography. Have just purchased the G9 Mark II. So much lighter than the Lumix S1 with the Sigma 150-600 mm Sport lens! Very tempted by the Panasonic Leica 100-400 lens for micro four thirds. Currently trying to set up the Custom Modes. Can you post a link to where we can download onto an SD card and then transfer into the G9 Il.
This is a great video - well done and now a subscriber. Look forward to learning more. Quick question - was the 100-400 lens V1 or V2? Any thoughts on the difference/usefulness of V2 vs V1 other than teleconverter accessibility? Also - do you ever use TC's for birds? Maybe they are just too dark.......thanks for sharing your gifts with us.
Hey John. Most of these shots are on the V2 version. I've bene using the original one up until recently. Can't say I see any difference. The big feature is that V1 can't be used with teleconverters, but the V2 can. I think 800mm is enough for me, and I don't want to push beyond F6.3 if I can avoid it. I think that's pushing the technology a little too far :)
I had V1, I now have V2. Optically, they seem to be pretty much the same. The zoom action of the V1 was notoriously stiff. Mine loosened up over the 18 months I had it, but it was still much stiffer than the V2 I purchased last week. I'm very happy with the V2 lens.
Great video! I’m curious on your workflow here. Specifically you have the video footage of the feeding birds in slow mo but then also have stills from that moment. Are you pulling stills from the video or are you doing video/photo separately? I’d think you’d miss out on those unique moments in the mode you’re not currently in?
The swallows were doing a lot of feeding runs, not just one. So I had a few chances to shoot RAW stills in continuous burst, then switch to 4K 120fps as a bonus :)
@ that’s pretty cool and thanks for clearing that up! Now if only the birds I come across would do the same thing twice to make my life easier lol cheers mate
Hi Ewen could you do a round up comparison between the G9II and the GH7 after the new firmware updates recently announced? Primarily for photography assignments across diverse genres/subjects (food, people documentary etc.) with a side of video or headroom for doing video more in future. Thank you!
Thanks for the suggestion! I think the two cameras are a line ball. So many great stills features on the GH7, and so many great video features on the G9II. Both got similar upgrades in the latest firmware release. Active cooling and better dual-ISO features make the GH7 a little sweeter for serious video rigs. Can't realy go wrong with either of them :)
Your video really showcases how capable the G9ii is, I’ve had mine nearly a year now after 5 years with the original G9 and it’s clearly a huge improvement. One thing I would mention is the Phase detect AF is only active when using AFC, not AFS. I love Point Scope, such a useful feature.
@@sue.Hoo123 Hi Sue. Sorry to disagree but your comment of Phase Detect is not accurate. The mix of Phase and DFD is more complicated than that. Phase is in action even when shooting AFS in many of the AF modes. I've had this conversation with Panasonic before, and really wish they would release information to make it more clear to users which mode is in action at what time. Or perhaps an icon on screen to show us. In the absence of clear confirmation from Panasonic about the Phase/DFD setup I prefer to avoid being prescriptive about it.
@@EwenBell that’s really interesting and useful as I was told this by a Panasonic Rep at an in store hands on event when the camera was first released, he advised me to always shoot in AFC for phase detect, It would indeed be good if Panasonic explained in more detail. Thanks 👍
Great video Ewan. Quick question, as a user for the G91 I'm interested on your experience with Birds in flight and the setiings which have always been a well know limitation of the mark 1. I always get sharper images in AFS and full area mode, and a higher frame rate which seems counter-intuitive to having AFC, but understanble knowing the focus takes memory and speed away. My question relates to the AFC autofocus mode settings (1,2,3,4) and whether youve nailed down a good one for birds eg locked on vs responsive or you just stick with one of the options given? I guess failing that, its off to an OM1 😂 Cheers Dylan
Hi Dylan, I've never tried to retune the AF settings on the G9. But also I never used to work with AFC on it either. I treated it the way I would my DSLR gear. I think it all depends on what the situation is for birds in flight. Have shot a lot of cranes and brolga on the wing without any drama on the original G9. I use the Area focus, and scale it out large. Just like you say. And yes I would normally be on AFS too. A large bird and reasonable contrast in the scene gives the older AF a decent chance to perform. Smaller birds like a pied kingfisher hovering before a strike, also no problem. Or the pre-shutter to capture take-out, again no problem because you have pre-locked the focus anyway. I think it helps to remember that whatever system you have, the photographer has to learn what works for them and how to get the best from the gear. Digging into the modes and trying them for yourself is so important. I get a lot of comments from people who expect gear to work right out of the box without them having to do anything!
@@EwenBell Thanks so much for the response mate, I really appreciate. Digging into all the AF modes and tweaking every setting is exactly where I'm at in my journey because I honestly feel there has to be something that works better in combination than everything else. Just need a good session with some easy targets to test heavily and see how I go. Thanks for your input. Cheers Dylan
People who own an OM1 will tell you their camera is better. People who own the G9II will tell you theirs is better :) What I see on my workshops is that very few people are getting the best out of their AF system, regardless what camera they have. Learn how your AF responds in different situations, and what you can do to get the best from it.
I'm curious about your comment re auto-focus being better on FF. I don't understand what technical reason there could be for this The higher processing speed of the G9ii should yield better auto-focus results with similarly equipped lenses. Can you elaborate?
You have more light to work with on a larger sensor. It's just physics. The smaller sensors have to do their job with less. Keep in mind there's many other factors in play, such as lenses and how you tune the AF to suit the task.
@ I’m sorry to contentious but I don’t think think that’s true. I don’t know of any evidence suggesting sensor size affects AF performance and lenses determine the amount of light gathered not the sensor but even if that were true, it still doesn’t affect AF once exposure is equalised. Indeed I don’t think there any reports of the S5ii having better AF than the G9ii or the GH7.
I love the G9ii video features but it gets annoying real quick using them with the free version of resolve. I pretty much have to transcode everything which slows my work down a lot! I guess the fix would be to buy studio lol One other thing to note about the S5ii vs G9ii is the G9ii has faster burst speeds and less rolling shutter which can be quite useful :)
That's a really good point Joe about sensor read speeds. And no crop at the 120p for the G9II... it's a good rig. I bought the black magic speed editor (keyboard) years ago and it came with a free studio licence so I didn't realise there were issues with H265 on some computers. Super smooth workflow for me on the MacBook Air.
@@EwenBell Yeah it's really annoying. What I get are weird colour glitches all over my footage that disappear as soon as I transcode to prores. I might have to just buy an SSD holder and actually use prores but then I'll need a cage so I can hold the ssd and a microphone probably ruining the camera handling in the process. No such thing as a free lunch it seems also your main footage is fine on this video lol
@@JoeMaranophotography You on a Mac or PC? Have never had even a hint of issues with colours in H265. Might be something with your hardware, not the files. I did a lot of testing with ProRes and just found the extra storage required wasn't giving me much extra in the footage. Was so rare that we shoot in situations where it matters. I do wish the G9II had the faster CFExpress instead of SD, but I guess that's one advantage of the GH7 :)
You probably dont need to do that. When importing say, 100 fps clips, you can edit their attributes in Davinci. Any clip stating ‘custom’ for fps can be edited to read ‘25’ fps. You can then slow down or speed up the clip as you normally would. I’ve made a few assumptions about your workflow here but the above has been working for me on the free DaVinci. Happy to share more of a step by step if needed.
Apologies to everyone that my A-roll footage was so trashy for this video! Was rushing to get this out the door before 2 months on the road, and kinda made a hash of the setup. Oh well, hoping the next few videos will be better :)
I've been using a GH6 with 100-400 for about 18 months. The autofocus on birds was a challenge. I just ordered the g9ii and the 200mm f2.8. I appreciate this video and it will help me get up and running with the g9 that much faster. Thanks for the great video
Yeah the GH6 still had the older AF system and it wasn't great for birding. The G9II is just a whole new level. Make sure to shoot on AFC (continuous focus) instead of AFS (single focus), as this locks in the phase detect. The subject detect and tracking works great too, when in AFC.
Hands-down the best explanation of how to maximize the G9II for this. I hadn't considered using pre-roll capture until watching your video. Pretty amazing that a sub-$2000 camera can shoot 120fps 4k footage with subject-recognized autofocus.
Thanks Jim :) Really is an amazing bit of technology and especially for the price.
What a great G9ii story and overview!
Thankyou :)
I am a new birder and bought the G9ii with the 12-60mm lense then added the 100-400mm. It is amazing!
Seriously great lens!
Fantastic pedagogical video Ewan ! Thank you ( Hav ejust invested i a G9 mkII and am looking forward to learning all these tricks that this gem holds!
Thanks Patrick. Hope it brings you a lot of joy :)
That was one of the most informative videos on the G9 + wildlife that I’ve seen. Good stuff!
Thanks so much Sean :)
Thanks for this, Ewen. I really enjoyed seeing you at work, out and about with those cute little fairy wrens.
They are just super little guys aint they! Thanks Jono :)
Thank you so much for this video!
You're welcome :)
Great video!
Thanks!
Love the Willy Wagtails!
Under rated bird!
Ohhh, opening with one of my favourites, the Spotted Pardalote ❤
Ahhhhhh you know the little fellas! I often refer to them as the prettiest bird that nobody in Australia has ever heard of :)
@@EwenBell their call is more often heard than sighting them. I love how the male can call for so long until the female responds with her single 'pip'.
@@Nishimachi_Photography Her way of saying "cool it fellas!"
hello, I really liked your video and your photos, beautiful. Have you tried the 150-600mm Om system on the G9ii? Amazing. I tried it myself with the Gh7.
What did you think of that combo? I'm not sure I would like the lack of dual stabilization
@joesjourney9986 The OM System M.Zuiko 150-600mm with the GH7 works perfectly, the stabilization is also 100%. What is incredible is to have 1200mm of focal length. For small birds it is wonderful. On the other hand it is heavy, it is unusable for a long period without a mono pod or tripod. So it takes away all the advantage of the MFT, small, cheap and light.
Hey Oliver. That's the one made by Sigma for OM right? Have seen a few on a recent trip to Antarctica. It's a bit chunky for me but glad it's giving you great results :)
I am shooting this exactly the combo I am playing with at the moment and my results definitely aren't as good as yours but I am definitely enjoying learning this area of photography and enjoying the challenges it offers.
Don't forget when you talk to the birds you need to make sure to use a very Australian accent. Make it broad to the point of annoying!
Awesome video! For some reason I always think of Samwise Gamgee from Lord of The Rings everytime I see your face hahaha. It's a compliment!
Glad it wasn't Gollum at least! Thanks :)
Have you filming all with the g9ii?
Thanks for the very detailed practical guidance on using this camera and lens for bird photography.
Have just purchased the G9 Mark II. So much lighter than the Lumix S1 with the Sigma 150-600 mm Sport lens!
Very tempted by the Panasonic Leica 100-400 lens for micro four thirds.
Currently trying to set up the Custom Modes.
Can you post a link to where we can download onto an SD card and then transfer into the G9 Il.
ewenbell.com/lumixbirds
^
Sorry I meant to put a link in the description to the custom setup. Here it is!
This is a great video - well done and now a subscriber. Look forward to learning more. Quick question - was the 100-400 lens V1 or V2? Any thoughts on the difference/usefulness of V2 vs V1 other than teleconverter accessibility? Also - do you ever use TC's for birds? Maybe they are just too dark.......thanks for sharing your gifts with us.
Hey John. Most of these shots are on the V2 version. I've bene using the original one up until recently. Can't say I see any difference. The big feature is that V1 can't be used with teleconverters, but the V2 can. I think 800mm is enough for me, and I don't want to push beyond F6.3 if I can avoid it. I think that's pushing the technology a little too far :)
Thanks much for the reply - appreciate it.
I had V1, I now have V2. Optically, they seem to be pretty much the same. The zoom action of the V1 was notoriously stiff. Mine loosened up over the 18 months I had it, but it was still much stiffer than the V2 I purchased last week. I'm very happy with the V2 lens.
Great video! I’m curious on your workflow here. Specifically you have the video footage of the feeding birds in slow mo but then also have stills from that moment. Are you pulling stills from the video or are you doing video/photo separately? I’d think you’d miss out on those unique moments in the mode you’re not currently in?
The swallows were doing a lot of feeding runs, not just one. So I had a few chances to shoot RAW stills in continuous burst, then switch to 4K 120fps as a bonus :)
@ that’s pretty cool and thanks for clearing that up! Now if only the birds I come across would do the same thing twice to make my life easier lol cheers mate
Hi Ewen could you do a round up comparison between the G9II and the GH7 after the new firmware updates recently announced? Primarily for photography assignments across diverse genres/subjects (food, people documentary etc.) with a side of video or headroom for doing video more in future.
Thank you!
Thanks for the suggestion! I think the two cameras are a line ball. So many great stills features on the GH7, and so many great video features on the G9II. Both got similar upgrades in the latest firmware release. Active cooling and better dual-ISO features make the GH7 a little sweeter for serious video rigs. Can't realy go wrong with either of them :)
Your video really showcases how capable the G9ii is, I’ve had mine nearly a year now after 5 years with the original G9 and it’s clearly a huge improvement. One thing I would mention is the Phase detect AF is only active when using AFC, not AFS.
I love Point Scope, such a useful feature.
@@sue.Hoo123 Hi Sue. Sorry to disagree but your comment of Phase Detect is not accurate. The mix of Phase and DFD is more complicated than that. Phase is in action even when shooting AFS in many of the AF modes. I've had this conversation with Panasonic before, and really wish they would release information to make it more clear to users which mode is in action at what time. Or perhaps an icon on screen to show us. In the absence of clear confirmation from Panasonic about the Phase/DFD setup I prefer to avoid being prescriptive about it.
@@EwenBell that’s really interesting and useful as I was told this by a Panasonic Rep at an in store hands on event when the camera was first released, he advised me to always shoot in AFC for phase detect, It would indeed be good if Panasonic explained in more detail. Thanks 👍
Great video Ewan.
Quick question, as a user for the G91 I'm interested on your experience with Birds in flight and the setiings which have always been a well know limitation of the mark 1.
I always get sharper images in AFS and full area mode, and a higher frame rate which seems counter-intuitive to having AFC, but understanble knowing the focus takes memory and speed away.
My question relates to the AFC autofocus mode settings (1,2,3,4) and whether youve nailed down a good one for birds eg locked on vs responsive or you just stick with one of the options given?
I guess failing that, its off to an OM1 😂
Cheers
Dylan
Hi Dylan, I've never tried to retune the AF settings on the G9. But also I never used to work with AFC on it either. I treated it the way I would my DSLR gear.
I think it all depends on what the situation is for birds in flight. Have shot a lot of cranes and brolga on the wing without any drama on the original G9. I use the Area focus, and scale it out large. Just like you say. And yes I would normally be on AFS too.
A large bird and reasonable contrast in the scene gives the older AF a decent chance to perform. Smaller birds like a pied kingfisher hovering before a strike, also no problem. Or the pre-shutter to capture take-out, again no problem because you have pre-locked the focus anyway.
I think it helps to remember that whatever system you have, the photographer has to learn what works for them and how to get the best from the gear. Digging into the modes and trying them for yourself is so important. I get a lot of comments from people who expect gear to work right out of the box without them having to do anything!
@@EwenBell Thanks so much for the response mate, I really appreciate. Digging into all the AF modes and tweaking every setting is exactly where I'm at in my journey because I honestly feel there has to be something that works better in combination than everything else. Just need a good session with some easy targets to test heavily and see how I go. Thanks for your input.
Cheers
Dylan
@@dylannewton76 Well said. Gotta find the right birds in your hood to help you out :)
anyone know? when compare to OM1. which one give better focus for bird in flight?
People who own an OM1 will tell you their camera is better. People who own the G9II will tell you theirs is better :) What I see on my workshops is that very few people are getting the best out of their AF system, regardless what camera they have. Learn how your AF responds in different situations, and what you can do to get the best from it.
I'm curious about your comment re auto-focus being better on FF. I don't understand what technical reason there could be for this The higher processing speed of the G9ii should yield better auto-focus results with similarly equipped lenses. Can you elaborate?
You have more light to work with on a larger sensor. It's just physics. The smaller sensors have to do their job with less. Keep in mind there's many other factors in play, such as lenses and how you tune the AF to suit the task.
@ I’m sorry to contentious but I don’t think think that’s true. I don’t know of any evidence suggesting sensor size affects AF performance and lenses determine the amount of light gathered not the sensor but even if that were true, it still doesn’t affect AF once exposure is equalised. Indeed I don’t think there any reports of the S5ii having better AF than the G9ii or the GH7.
@@endah08 I've spent a lot of time with both cameras, so I can tell you there is a difference. You don't have to believe me of course.
@@EwenBell fair enough, I'll take your word for it. Nice video all the same, lovely shots.
I love the G9ii video features but it gets annoying real quick using them with the free version of resolve. I pretty much have to transcode everything which slows my work down a lot! I guess the fix would be to buy studio lol
One other thing to note about the S5ii vs G9ii is the G9ii has faster burst speeds and less rolling shutter which can be quite useful :)
That's a really good point Joe about sensor read speeds. And no crop at the 120p for the G9II... it's a good rig. I bought the black magic speed editor (keyboard) years ago and it came with a free studio licence so I didn't realise there were issues with H265 on some computers. Super smooth workflow for me on the MacBook Air.
@@EwenBell Yeah it's really annoying. What I get are weird colour glitches all over my footage that disappear as soon as I transcode to prores. I might have to just buy an SSD holder and actually use prores but then I'll need a cage so I can hold the ssd and a microphone probably ruining the camera handling in the process. No such thing as a free lunch it seems also your main footage is fine on this video lol
@@JoeMaranophotography You on a Mac or PC? Have never had even a hint of issues with colours in H265. Might be something with your hardware, not the files.
I did a lot of testing with ProRes and just found the extra storage required wasn't giving me much extra in the footage. Was so rare that we shoot in situations where it matters. I do wish the G9II had the faster CFExpress instead of SD, but I guess that's one advantage of the GH7 :)
@EwenBell I think it's an issue with the free version of resolve more than anything and I'm human so I use a PC haha 😄
You probably dont need to do that. When importing say, 100 fps clips, you can edit their attributes in Davinci. Any clip stating ‘custom’ for fps can be edited to read ‘25’ fps. You can then slow down or speed up the clip as you normally would.
I’ve made a few assumptions about your workflow here but the above has been working for me on the free DaVinci.
Happy to share more of a step by step if needed.
Shame the zoom ring is the worst I’ve ever had. I fight through it but it’s very disappointing.