Category: Panasonic

first light – panasonic lumix g9

whbeebe

I received a new-for-me camera today, a Panasonic Lumix G9. The G9 was released November 2017, for the rather lofty sum (for me) of US$1,700. Of course, that’s $300 less than the the eye-watering (again, for me) initial MSRP of the Olympus E-M1 Mark 2. For me, the enticement to purchase the G9 came in December when the body price was marked down $500 to about US$1,200. This violated my unspoken rule to never pay more than $1,000 for a body, but I broke that rule this time and purchased a copy of my own.

It’s only been a few hours so I obviously haven’t had much time to work with the camera. I already have one Lumix in this line, the GH4, which I purchased when it was dropped to $900. I already had a pair of batteries for the GH4 (which are the same as used by the G9) and I’d already gotten used to working with the general Lumix controls and menus. Yes I’m aware that the G9 is not a GH4 (or GH5 for that matter) when it comes to controls. They are different, in some places rather radically so, due to the G9 having an LCD panel on the camera top, on the same side as the grip. But it was surprisingly easy for me to put in a charged battery into the G9 and dive right into the menus and set it up very similar to the GH4 in very short order.

For a quick test I mounted the Panasonic Lumix 30mm/2.8 macro on the camera and ran a number of photos of my white bougainvillea through the camera. What I found while photographing the flowers is that the G9’s five axis IBIS is superb. I know that the 30mm macro also has ILIS (it has the older Mega O.I.S.), but I don’t know if IBIS works with Mega O.I.S. the same way it does with the newer Power O.I.S. Regardless, the platform is remarkably stable. With the G9’s joystick on the back and the ability to pick a single focus point, I was able to quickly and effortlessly move the single focus point over the white floret and then take the photo. This is a far cry from focus and recompose methods of the past. I was able to composed in a general way, then move the focus over the specific part of the composition I wanted in focus.

Focus, as well as exposure, was accurate each and every time.

I don’t know yet all the ways I’ll use the G9, but for macro flower photography it as almost instantly become my go-to body of choice.

I’ll have more to write about as I continue to use the G9.

acl digest – 16 september 2018

whbeebe

Dreamboat Annie – Because she’s a Labradoodle she’s completely covered in a riot of curls, all in of a mix of many colors and shades. She was mostly black with the heart-shaped mark on her brisket when she was a pup (hence the name, Heart’s Dreamboat Annie), but after three years her coloring has become heavily tinged with white, silver and ginger. To be honest I like this coloration because it gives considerable definition to her overall shape. This is her sphinx position she likes to take while on guard and watching everything and everybody.

White Bougainvillea – One of a number of potted plants inside the screened in area around the pool. This year quite a few of my potted plants have done much better, if not the best, they’ve every done over the last 10 years. I’m charmed by this white bougainvillea because of the off-white color of the petals tinged with an occasional light pink on the tips. I have a solid pink sitting next to it, which is not yet blooming. This is the second time this year the white has bloomed.

Camera Work Flow – These images were taken with the Panasonic GH4 and the Panasonic Lumix 30mm f/2.8 macro with the older MEGA O.I.S. in-lens image stabilization. The GH4 doesn’t have any sensor image stabilization. I’m using my iPhone with Panasonic’s app to transfer images off the GH4 onto the phone. From there I do a little post processing with Snapseed (some cropping, very little exposure tweaking and only if needed). I then push those results to Instagram and to my WordPress media collection via the WordPress app. When I write on WordPress using the media, I still prefer to do it on Chrome using the WP-Admin editor.

This might sound a bit complicated, but trust me, it beats pulling the SDXC card out of the camera body and inserting it into the Macbook Pro’s SDXC adapter, then using Lightroom to pull the files from the card. Then, from there, using Lightroom and my various plugins to work the RAW file. Now, if I want to move files off the camera that way, I only do it to essentially backup my images. I might, on very rare occasions, still use Lightroom, but even that is getting less and less. I’m looking at other possible applications on macOS to do what I’ve done with Lightroom. I just can’t get involved with Adobe any more. I’m working out my own work flows that suite me, and it appears to be centered more and more around my iPhone. It really is a lot easier and a lot faster, and I have enough storage on my iPhone these days to keep quite a bit of still and video work. And if I don’t, where, there’s the growing possibility of paying Apple $9.99/month for 2TB of cloud storage that will then allow me to work with all my stills and videos across all my devices.