A day in the field testing the Panasonic G9
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- Опубликовано: 5 авг 2024
- In my last video
• Why I'm SWITCHING from...
I talked about why I am moving away from Pentax full frame to Panasonic micro four thirds. It's been 2 weeks since then and the reaction has been overwhelming (mostly positive and constructive - thanks to those who contributed to the discussion).
Yesterday, I travelled to the Murray Valley in north central Victoria to shoot some wildlife, landscape and, on the way home, Milky Way astrophotography to further test out the Panasonic G9 and the three lenses I initially purchased. No in the field video this time but I talk through some of the images live in Lightroom.
I hope you enjoy.
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Follow me at:
www.iansmissenphotography.com
/ iansmissen
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Photography, video and editing
Ian Smissen
Music
On My Way Home (Sting) by The 126ers
Not Without the Rest by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
Artist: www.twinmusicom.org/
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Gear I use:
Cameras
- Panasonic Lumix G9 Camera amzn.to/39bpNNs
- Panasonic Lumix GX8 Camera
- Apple iPhone Xs
- GoPro Hero 4 Silver
Lenses
- Panasonic Lumix 12-35mm f/2.8 Lens amzn.to/3bnvsl4
- Panasonic Lumix 35-100mm f/2.8 Lens amzn.to/3a9bXMG
- Panasonic Leica 100-400mm f/4-6.3 Lens amzn.to/2QEIR09
- Panasonic Leica 8-18mm f/2.8-4 Lens amzn.to/3bleWly
- Panasonic Leica 12mm f/1.4 Lens amzn.to/2vIylO5
- Olympus M.Zuiko 60mm f/2.8 Macro Lens amzn.to/2xXgNhO
- Panasonic Lumix 25mm f/1.7 Lens amzn.to/3blBXEU
Filters
- Nisi V5 100mm Kit (now superseded) V6 Starter Kit: amzn.to/39cELmf
- K&F Concept ND2-ND32 Variable ND Filter amzn.to/2J9QWG0
Tripods
- Jobu Design Algonquin Tripod
- Jobu Design BWG-HD3 Gimbal Tripod Head
- Really Right Stuff BH-55 LR Tripod Ball Head amzn.to/39a0Dyr
- Sirui N3203X tripod + Sirui K-30X ballhead
- Davis & Sanford TR553-P228 Traverse Super Compact Tripod + Ballhead amzn.to/33E3nDe
Gimbal
- DJI Osmo Mobile 3 for Smartphone (Combo) amzn.to/2UzyXOe
Drone
- DJI Mavic Air (Combo) amzn.to/33LhN4v
Audio
- Audio-Technica AT2020USB+ Microphone amzn.to/3bgWnij
- Rode SMARTLAVPRode Microphone for Smartphones amzn.to/2UyIZ2p
- Rode VMGHORode VideoMic On-Camera Shotgun Microphone amzn.to/2Usiify
- Zoom H1N Handy Recorder - amzn.to/2UdqUI2
- Apple iPhone 5
Camera Bags
- Mindshift Gear Backlight 26L amzn.to/2xhbk59
- Tarion RS-01 Canvas Photography Bag amzn.to/2UzBdFc
- LowePro Sling amzn.to/2WBvUYA
Very helpful to see the unprocessed raw images. Thanks!
I really enjoyed your video and photographs, especially the one of the bird. This has sparked my passion to get back into photography.
Here's to a speedy recovery. Thank you for showing unprocessed files. It's the best way to show the cameras real quality. Some of the bigger channels like to only show processed photos, completely negating any test, in my opinion.
Thanks Mike - appreciate your comments :-)
Great shots. Thank you for sharing it with us.
Great review Ian. I’m now the happy owner of the G9 (5days). thank to you and many RUclips reviews. Shot 1st 200 frames on a 9 hour cruise down the Eastside of Wilson’s Prom. An excellent camera 👍🏼🍷❤️🇦🇺
I love that cruise (and the camera) ❤️
Pulled great detail out on the kookaburra in the shade. Really liked the tree reflections. Painterly is an expression that comes to mind.
Thanks for the videos!
So glad to have found your channel (last week). Good to see some-one putting the G9 through its paces, your astro-shot looked great - I agree with another poster, how you processed that would be interesting. Look forward to seeing more in the future. Health-wise, hope all goes well for you also
Thanks Neil - looks like the astro 'how to' video is climbing the to do list ;-)
Greetings from the UK. Really enjoy your video Ian, I have subscribed. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks Smiff, Glad you enjoyed.
I'm sorry to hear about the troubles you've been having, Ian! I hope you make a full and fast recovery from all that. I'm glad to see you enjoying that G9 and putting it to excellent use. Great work!
Thanks John. Nothing too serious - just signs of old age ;-)
@@IanSmissenPhotography haha, glad to hear that for ya. I've had my share of fun in that dept. myself. That's a great thing with photography, it's something you can do even when you're not feeling in top shape.
Wonderful video Ian. Very interesting to hear how you managed the different images. Look forward to more from you.
Rodger Scott Thanks Mate 😀
Lovely shots, great processing, possible because of technically well exposed shooting with your vision in mind. 📸👏
I have a two week trip planned in late September to Carmel Highlands by Point Lobos State Reserve. This was a favorite of Weston's. I have photographed here with different cameras over the years. This time I'll have my G9. Birds-in-flight and roosting birds, sea scapes, and the beach at Spanish Landing, 17-Mile Drive, Big Sur, McWay Falls, and then the Inn at Moro Bay.
I have other cameras, but for hiking, the G9 is all I can carry these days. The Panasonic-Leica 100-400mm is a real gem. Backyard birds are plentiful in San Diego - Del Mar area with feeders and bird baths. Torrey Pines State Reserve is three miles from my home.
William Bibb Good luck with your trip. I love Carmel - not just Weston but Ansel Adams also famous for living and photographing there. Was last there 20 years ago but would live to go back 😀
@@IanSmissenPhotography I am over 70 now. It is harder to carry heavy equipment. My brother has a Nikon D800 with all the lenses. But he has to drag all that stuff out. I get more spontaneous shots. My G7 is even smaller than the G9. Nothing is more obnoxious than having a huge camera and lenses pointed at you. A tripod is another problem. It's a hobby for me.
Beautiful photos. Nature is amazing, and photos like this bring this to life even on a mobile device on the other side of the world. You've also shown what the G9 and micro four thirds is capable of in skilled hands. Pretty amazing. Best wishes with your back and skin cancer treatments.
Thanks Mark - nothing too serious - just signs of old age :-(
Great to see those stunning results across the range of images. Interested to see more of you bird work with the new system. Hope you heal well and quickly.
Thanks Tim. Will enjoy chasing the birds again ;-) Haven't been doing much recently but new kit = new enthusiasm. Might even get up north to chase some whales :-)
@@IanSmissenPhotography How far north? Like Dwarf Minke north or humpbacks north? :)
Tim Trim Haha...Humpback north 😀. I try and get to one of the usual spots on NSW or Qld coast each year.
Quick healing Ian. Thoroughly enjoy the imagery you are producing from the new kit.
George Judkins Thanks George. Nothing serious, just signs of old age 😜 I am loving the new kit - just need more time to shoot!
George Judkins Thanks George. Nothing serious, just signs of old age 😜 I am loving the new kit - just need more time to shoot!
Well done, Ian. I was looking forward to seeing your follow-up video. There are plenty of good videos on RUclips that show Panasonic's video capabilities but not so much stills... yours is now one among the best to show what it can do - the G9 (not unlike the Olympus OMD-D series) is a breakthrough in the 4/3 world for both enthusiast, semi-pro and even pro photographers who want to carry light but not sacrifice IQ. You gave it a good workout with very good results. Noise will always be a bit of a battle in higher ISO's but the "grain" I find is rather organic looking and not at all annoying. I use DXO Photolab software which does a remarkable job removing it without killing sharpness. I have always liked the Olympus colour science best, however, the latest processors coming from Panasonic are stellar. Regardless of ones tool of choice, you just have to know your equipment well enough to get the best out of it -- and have a good eye. Thanks for sharing these great images.
Alex Zafer thanks for watching and contributing to the discussion. Much appreciated 😀
I took my G9 to Carmel, Big Sur, Morro Bay and San Diego. I have the Panasonic-Leica 8-18mm, Panasonic-Leica 100-400mm, and Panasonic 14-140mm.
I've traveled in Central Mexico taking street scenes, landscape architecture, wildlife......
I would like to buy another camera with full frame but nobody faults my photographs. Used a variable polarizing filter.
I own several other cameras but the portability factor is important.
G'day Ian, new subscriber here, I've been looking around youtube for reviews on Lumix Cameras when I came across your channel...so glad I did, great to see some great Aussie content on you tube...it's very refreshing after all the American and Brit stuff, whilst their content and info is good, but their landscape is nothing I can relate to. I've yet to buy myself a decent camera and haven't used a SLR since the days of Minolta 7000 so am a bit out of touch with it all but have lately taken a new found interest in photography and am doing my research on the kit i'll eventually buy.
I had my eye on the Canon80D which had just about all I needed to advance my skills from learner to intermediate but have since been recommended the Panasonic LumixG85. I don't think I could justify almost $2K just for a camera body for the G9 at this stage but I could manage the G85 which has 2 lenses thrown in for under $1.1K Have you used the G85? if so what is your opinion on it? A much richer mate of mine suggested the Sony A7 but from what I've read, they are very heavy on a battery and their lenses cost wise are over the top....but he can afford it lol
David Johnston Thanks fir watching. Glad you enjoyed. The G9 is the only Panasonic camera I have used. I suggest going to a reputable camera store, bring your own SD card and take a range of test shots then check them at home on computer. That way you get the feel if the camera and get to see the results yourself. BTW, my son has a Canon 80D and is very happy with it. Cheers Ian
some beautiful wildlife out there
Noealz Photo Thanks and yes there is 😀
Thanks for your video. I’m going through a similar gear downsizing experience. I love my Canon gear but I can’t carry it all anymore. Looking at both LUMIX G9 and Olympus OMD EM1. Loved your sunset shots! 😍
Hi Richard, thanks for watching and taking the time to comment. Glad you enjoyed the video and I hope it was helpful. Cheers, Ian
Really loved the abstract, I love to do those too. The astro shot was awesome. The G9 is a very impressive camera if you get the pro lenses.
Janet Robinson Thanks for watching and your kind comments. The more I use the camera, the more impressed I am with sharpness and colour rendition of the lenses.
Nice video and images. The G9 seems to be coming down in price now. It will be one to consider when I upgrade my G85.
You now own the best camera value in the industry. If the G9 drops a couple hundred more, then it might be the best value. I went out to buy the G85, but a sale on the G9 caused me to make the move. Don't regret buying the G9, but still think the G85 is a huge value for the money.
Hope you are enjoying your new system, watch your sun exposure too.
Hi BR loving it so far!
A good one again. Hubert
Hu Ko Thanks Hubert 😀
Glad you're happy with your choice mate. Seems these days a lot of photographers can't just be satisfied with their gear unless they're hating on another brand as though that somehow validates their purchase bias. So refereshing to see your considered approach to the subject of changing gear. You should check out the RUclips channel of Craig Roberts. He's an English photographer that shoots the Olympus system. Has a fantastic eye for composition.
Steve McKenzie Thanks for watching and your comments. I agree re Craig Roberts - he has a great channel. In fact, I have one of his recent videos as my pick of the week in my closing screen
4:20 stunning!
Thanks Brian :-)
Best thing you did I listened to the media and moved to full frame which I totally regret as now because of the size I leave it in the cupboard. So eventually I’ll go back to mft. 👍
David Harrison Thanks. I haven’t regretted it yet 😀
0:50 prophetic! What a good time to get a new lighter camera system. I've just been testing out the Sigma 56mm f 1.4 in style for MFT. I'm in love, it bears the pants of the Lumix and the leica 42.5mm lenses. It's quite similar to the Olympus 75 as I recall.
Haha, Yes! Will be a while before I start looking at primes but the Sigma Art Series are beautiful lenses so expect this one will be v. good too. Happy hunting. Cheers, Ian
Mate - the Leica 1.2's pants being beaten by the Sigma 1.4? You're kidding? The Leica 42.5 is about as perfect as primes get. I can say this as I own the Leica designed lens and I've also owned the Canon 85mm 1.2 and while not better than the Canon, it's the equal with a fraction of the weight and cost.
First of all, I do hope the back improves and you see the last of the skin cancer.
Maybe you could go through a few of the processes, like how you put together the astroshot? Seeing how you put a shot like that together would be awesome (from shooting through the processing to the finished article). I know that is a big project, but it would be of great interest to many photographers who are considering doing some astroshots for the first time this year.
Hi veganbodybuilding Thanks for watching and your comments. I'll put a start to finish astrophotography shoot on my list of videos. You're right, it's a big project but I'm happy to do it...last time I said I'd do an astro shoot though we had cloudy skies for weeks :-(
@@IanSmissenPhotography looking forward to it :-)
good that you are taking care of your skin. been there. and though my cremes burned like heck, they have gotten the job done. (too much beach/surf time for me!) as for the g9, did you use the g9 to shoot the video at the beginning and end of your posting? if so, which lens did you use? your stills are lovely. i often forget just how much information resides in the g9 files even though it is "only" m43. thumbs up.
smalltalk.productions Thanks for watching and your comments. Yes, paying for growing up in the 50s-70s - sun, sport and surf with no protection. And yes, the talk to camera was shot with G9 and 12-35 f/2.8 lens. Cheers Ian
Really engrossed mate, and some top images. No regrets on dropping Pentax so far? 😊👍🏻
Hi David, no regrets! Still finding little gems of functionality. A few things I miss from the K1 but never expected everything to be perfect. However, shooting at 800mm FF equivalent, handheld in a car with the engine running - gotta love that 😀 Loving your work too. Cheers Ian
The image around/after 9:00 looks/sounds like more "classic" exposure blending and luminosity masking - might give a more natural look (even though the sensor held up quite well). Now that ich look closer, I saw the preview image of this "series" much earlier on the right side of my screen, but it was the last video of yours that caught my attention. I might follow (at least for a while), even though bird photography (seems to be your main subject) is not my primary interest. Who knows, we do have them here in Germany too, and they might become interesting at some point ;-)
Hi Christian, thanks for watching and your comments. While I do a lot of bird photography, not much of it appears here on my RUclips Channel - mostly because it's hard to talk while in the field shooting birds. Most of this channel is and will probably continue to be landscape. Cheers, Ian
Very helpful. What’s the highest ISO you think is good to use?
David Enzel Thanks for watching and your question. 1600 is fine. I haven’t pushed past this other than for the stacked astro shot at 3200 which worked out OK
I hope your back is feeling better and they got all the skin cancer. Certainly not always fun aging (I myself am 63, yikes)! Good work with the G9. Will be great to see what you do with it as you further explore it. One RUclips channel (The Art of Photography) rated the G9 as the most underrated camera in 2018. As a G9 owner I can attest to that. Thanks for your followup and keep 'em going. I am now a subscriber.
Steven Harte thanks fir watching and taking the time to comment and the sub! Cheers Ian
I'm just recently getting my feet wet processing raw images (using a Nikon D7100--sorry no M4/3 camera yet, it's on my wish list). Would you mind describing what you did to pull the detail out of the photo with the sheep while still not overexposing the setting sun? (I'm using Affinity Photo, but I imagine the process would be similar with Photoshop.)
Also if you would mention the shutter speed, aperture and ISO you used for the 15 shots of the Milky Way that you later stacked I'd be grateful. The result is a fantastic picture.
I'm enjoying your channel, as much for the pictures of Australia as the camera advice.
Hi David
Thanks for watching and your interest in my channel. Re your two questions:
1. Pulling sheep from the shadows.
For this shot, I bracketed 7 shots from -3 to +3 stops from the camera metered scene. This gives me the option of using some or all of the shots to blend using HDR software (I use Adobe Lightroom) but, in this case, the sheep were moving so merging in software won't work. The other option with bracketed shots is to choose the 'best' exposure to work on. The best exposure is the one with the highlights bright but not too blown out (see 8:27 in video) - even though on the histogram in Lightroom it looks like the highlights/whites are slightly blown out (i.e., they are pure white), in fact in most raw files you can recover this if not too blown out (but I also don't mind the sun being bright white). In this case it was the +1 stop exposure. I then just used the Shadow recovery slider in Lightroom to bring out the detail in the shadows/dark and the Highlights recovery slider to pull the brightest areas back. A little bit of clarity and Vibrance (and a few more secret sauce tweaks) and it was done.
2. The stacked astro shots.
I shot the sky shots at ISO 3200 for 20 seconds at f/2.8 and the foreground shots at ISO3200 for 2o seconds at f/8 (I didn't change focus but the narrower aperture enabled the rocks to come into focus, where at f/2.8, they are not) and I light painted for a few seconds with my headlamp on low. These were then blended in Starry Landscape Stacker (only available on Mac but I believe Sequator is a freeware app for PC that does a similar job) then processed in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. I've had a few requests to do a video dedicated to the full Milky Way workflow from setting up the camera to post processing so will try and do this as soon as I get a clear sky and can get away from home to a darker sky)
Hope that helps. Happy shooting.
Cheers, Ian
@@IanSmissenPhotography Thank you so much, it's very generous of you to explain so fully what you did! I would like to add my voice to the requests for a video on how you photograph and process the night sky. I know I would benefit.
I like the G 9 any idear why the camera settings could not be saved all setting changes vanish when I shut the camera down
Steffen Rosmus Sorry I haven’t seen that. May need to contact Panasonic Support
Ian Smissen hey your last part of your video is probably one of the most important switching. So your AstroTracer on your pentax is it a game changer ? Do you miss it compared to the G9 ? Is there a lot more post processing with the g9 versus the K1 or KP you have with the auto tracking of stars ? I was thinking about astro photography but do now know how much the astrotracer actually helps ? I like to reduce my post processing as much as possible. I am one of the few guys who shoot JPEG over Raw. If you do not miss your ASTRO stuff at all then wow it truly is a seamless conversion.
Stafford Fuhs I so miss the astro tracer but to be honest I didn’t use it much.
@@IanSmissenPhotography Sorry to hit you up with the question again. Did you find the Astro Tracker way easier to use ? I see you mentioned you had to blend like 20 photos to get the g9 shot. Do you still see that much work to do a K1-Astro shot ?
Stafford Fuhs No worries re answering qs. I didn’t use astrotracer much as it was fiddly to set up. I’m also one of those weird people who enjoy post processing 😀
Why didn't you consider Fujifilm as a replacement?In their line they have 100-400mm for wildlife and also 50-140 f2.8
Adam Drvenica Thanks for watching and your comment. I looked at Fuji and have several friends who swear by Fuji cameras but, for me, I just didn’t like the ergonomics. The feel in the hand was not as good as the Panasonic.
Sorry to hear of your skin woes. On the bright side its probably got you a face lift
Jeremy Spencer Thanks Mate 😀 If only. No surgery so far just 3 weeks of treatment with a cream to kill off early stage skin cancers (or at least that’s the theory) - will see how it goes when it heals.
Have you ever heard of shooting to the right to get the best raw images?
Greg Wallace Yes, I do it and teach it.
poor language