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A few birds (Pana G9 + Oly 100-400)

Started Jun 28, 2021 | Discussions
Robiro Veteran Member • Posts: 6,813
A few birds (Pana G9 + Oly 100-400)
5

So I bit the bullet and bought myself a used Panasonic G9 in excellent condition to complement my Olympus 100-400 lens.

Updated to 2.4 firmware immediately.

That new dual-pixel autofocus kind of works. The camera does recognize animal eyes and does attempt to focus on the pupil, even with crows and swans that have totally black eyes and it is not easy to nail the focus.

Oly is definitely sharper than Leica. But look at that busy background. Leica's background is quite less busy, more full-frame like (if there is such a thing). It is a trade off. I am beginning to like that combo, albeit I find it too heavy for a m43 setup.

 Robiro's gear list:Robiro's gear list
Panasonic Lumix DC-G9 Panasonic 12-35mm F2.8 Olympus 40-150mm F2.8 Pro Sigma 30mm F1.4 for Micro Four Thirds Olympus 100-400mm F5.0-6.3 IS
Olympus 100-400mm F5.0-6.3 IS Panasonic Lumix DC-G9
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pannumon Veteran Member • Posts: 4,130
Re: A few birds (Pana G9 + Oly 100-400)
2

Robiro wrote:

So I bit the bullet and bought myself a used Panasonic G9 in excellent condition to complement my Olympus 100-400 lens.

Updated to 2.4 firmware immediately.

That new dual-pixel autofocus kind of works. The camera does recognize animal eyes and does attempt to focus on the pupil, even with crows and swans that have totally black eyes and it is not easy to nail the focus.

Great to hear the new focus algorithms works, I have not tried them myself yet.

G9 does not have dual-pixel autofocus.

 pannumon's gear list:pannumon's gear list
Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1 Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH2 Panasonic Lumix DMC-GM1 Panasonic Lumix DMC-GM5 Panasonic Lumix DMC-G7 +21 more
OP Robiro Veteran Member • Posts: 6,813
Re: A few birds (Pana G9 + Oly 100-400)

pannumon wrote:

G9 does not have dual-pixel autofocus.

There are people who claim it does have it. Some kind of Panasonic reverse-engineered version... Introduced with this latest firmware.

 Robiro's gear list:Robiro's gear list
Panasonic Lumix DC-G9 Panasonic 12-35mm F2.8 Olympus 40-150mm F2.8 Pro Sigma 30mm F1.4 for Micro Four Thirds Olympus 100-400mm F5.0-6.3 IS
pannumon Veteran Member • Posts: 4,130
Re: A few birds (Pana G9 + Oly 100-400)

Robiro wrote:

pannumon wrote:

G9 does not have dual-pixel autofocus.

There are people who claim it does have it. Some kind of Panasonic reverse-engineered version... Introduced with this latest firmware.

I thought it was traditional PDAF. 

 pannumon's gear list:pannumon's gear list
Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1 Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH2 Panasonic Lumix DMC-GM1 Panasonic Lumix DMC-GM5 Panasonic Lumix DMC-G7 +21 more
OP Robiro Veteran Member • Posts: 6,813
Re: A few birds (Pana G9 + Oly 100-400)

pannumon wrote:

I thought it was traditional PDAF.

G9's focus while recording video is now VERY good. Comparable to Canon or Sony.

This too suggest Panasonic has been cooking under the hood.

 Robiro's gear list:Robiro's gear list
Panasonic Lumix DC-G9 Panasonic 12-35mm F2.8 Olympus 40-150mm F2.8 Pro Sigma 30mm F1.4 for Micro Four Thirds Olympus 100-400mm F5.0-6.3 IS
evetsf Senior Member • Posts: 1,707
Re: A few birds (Pana G9 + Oly 100-400)

Robiro wrote:

pannumon wrote:

I thought it was traditional PDAF.

G9's focus while recording video is now VERY good. Comparable to Canon or Sony.

This too suggest Panasonic has been cooking under the hood.

The G9 even with firmware 2.4 is still DFD. It's just fortunate enough to have sufficient on board processing power to get the latest AF tweaks that Panasonic launched with the most recent firmware update on the full-frame S5. Check out the articles & videos on that update here on this site.

Being primarily interested in stills, I have noticed an improvement in face/eye/animal detect, as well as when using the Tracking mode.

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Steve
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 evetsf's gear list:evetsf's gear list
Panasonic Lumix DC-G9 Panasonic Lumix DC-GX9 Panasonic Lumix G Vario 7-14mm F4 ASPH Panasonic Lumix G 20mm F1.7 ASPH Panasonic 12-60mm F3.5-5.6 OIS +3 more
jalywol
jalywol Forum Pro • Posts: 12,301
Re: A few birds (Pana G9 + Oly 100-400)

Robiro wrote:

So I bit the bullet and bought myself a used Panasonic G9 in excellent condition to complement my Olympus 100-400 lens.

Updated to 2.4 firmware immediately.

That new dual-pixel autofocus kind of works. The camera does recognize animal eyes and does attempt to focus on the pupil, even with crows and swans that have totally black eyes and it is not easy to nail the focus.

Oly is definitely sharper than Leica. But look at that busy background. Leica's background is quite less busy, more full-frame like (if there is such a thing). It is a trade off. I am beginning to like that combo, albeit I find it too heavy for a m43 setup.

I was using a PL 50-200mm with TC for my long work last year.  Love that lens, but I found I missed the rather nice, smooth transition backgrounds that the PL 100-400mm always gave me (as well as the faster maximum aperture at 400mm vs the 200mm with 2.0 TC).  So I re-bought one.  I am very happy with it, again.

Oh, and when used with the GX9, the combo is just small enough to be not too big, where with any larger bodies it begins to be a drag, at least for me.

-J

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