alcelc
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This is not a new model, and was told to have been discontinued in certain region too. Over the years due to some reasons (happy with GX85, not much for me to upgrade to GX9 for extra 4Mp) I thought I would skip GX9 and look for possible upgrade to a GX10 
.
However, by a very unexpected chance, I added it a couple of weeks ago. It was used, look like having been taking good care by its previous owner, at a decent price of US$410 body only with a free 3rd party grip:
After field testing, a few old questions on GX9 had came back. I wish to take this opportunity to give my thoughts/solutions:
1) Inaccurate AF: So far I am never disappointed by the AFS speed and accuracy on every Panny I owned. I use the focus-recompose style, therefore unless I had messed up on the recomposing, 99% of time I could nail the focus almost instantly. On GX9 I'd read it might have front or back focusing issue.
During my first field testing, under good shooting condition I had found many soft outputs, even a few totally failed. I had also found the AF couldn't lock on focus sometimes no matter how hard I tried (on flat, low contrast, mostly pure color: pick or red). Most of them were in portrait orientation.
I eventually found the following setting should be the culprit:
Switching on of the above, the focus box (using a single box in smallest size at the center) in evf will disappear. Suspected it had made AF in portrait shooting position failed. Set it to OFF brings back the excellent AFS.
The failed (AF) shot on 1st field testing:
After the solution, happy again on 2nd field testing:
There was a recent thread on GX9 & 45-150. I hope the above might confirm 45-150 on GX9 should be perfectly alright.
2) Touch AF: On GX7, GX85 and G85 which support Touch PAD AF (use evf) and Touch AF (use LCD), could be disabled independently in the C Menu.
On GX9, while Touch Pad AF can be disabled in C Menu, Touch AF cannot. Some suggestion to disable the entire Touch LCD to avoid moving of focus box by mistake. However, this means losing of 5 soft fn keys and Q.Menu can no longer be operated by Touching. The C mode can't be selected through Touch too.
My solution is to make using the "Operation Lock" feature:
This feature must have to be assigned to a fn key (fn3 for me), and set it to:
A 2nd hit to set Lock = OFF, Touch LCD is enabled again, so the soft fn keys etc would be used (be careful on Touch AF). When soft fn keys are no longer needed, hit the Lock to set it ON again.
IMHO this could be my approach on Touch LCD vs Touch AF on GX9.
3) AFC: I found the AF tracking of GX9 is far more effective than GX85. On a sequence of 10 shots in M Burst on a flying egret, I have 5~6 acceptable shots. It is hopeless on GX85.
4) Exposure behavior: As per Zebra = 105%, I found that under a flat scene I would expect GX9 to do very similar to GX85 on the exposure behavior.
From the histogram of testing shots, at 0ev metering:
When zebra first appeared (+2ev from the above):
+1/3ev after zebra appeared (total +2-1/3ev):
+2/3ev after zebra appeared (total +2-2/3ev), closest to ETTR:
+1ev after zebra appeared (total +3ev), highlight started overblown:
Therefore, it would be safe for me to +1/3~2/3ev to get optimal exposure for the area of zebra first appeared.
5) On IQ, except for the extra 4Mp, the SOOC PJG are very similar between GX85 and GX9. But I had noted that under Vivid mode the contrast of GX9 might be slightly higher. Still need more testing on the noise performance.
Finally, still a mysterious feature that I couldn't find a hint on it: "Extended Gain Setting". If anyone know what is it, please kindly let me know.
Thank you for your reading.
--
Albert
** Please forgive my typo error.
** Please feel free to download my image and edit it as you like **
.However, by a very unexpected chance, I added it a couple of weeks ago.
It was used, look like having been taking good care by its previous owner, at a decent price of US$410 body only with a free 3rd party grip:After field testing, a few old questions on GX9 had came back. I wish to take this opportunity to give my thoughts/solutions:
1) Inaccurate AF: So far I am never disappointed by the AFS speed and accuracy on every Panny I owned. I use the focus-recompose style, therefore unless I had messed up on the recomposing, 99% of time I could nail the focus almost instantly. On GX9 I'd read it might have front or back focusing issue.
During my first field testing, under good shooting condition I had found many soft outputs, even a few totally failed. I had also found the AF couldn't lock on focus sometimes no matter how hard I tried (on flat, low contrast, mostly pure color: pick or red). Most of them were in portrait orientation.
I eventually found the following setting should be the culprit:
Switching on of the above, the focus box (using a single box in smallest size at the center) in evf will disappear. Suspected it had made AF in portrait shooting position failed. Set it to OFF brings back the excellent AFS.
The failed (AF) shot on 1st field testing:
After the solution, happy again on 2nd field testing:
There was a recent thread on GX9 & 45-150. I hope the above might confirm 45-150 on GX9 should be perfectly alright.
2) Touch AF: On GX7, GX85 and G85 which support Touch PAD AF (use evf) and Touch AF (use LCD), could be disabled independently in the C Menu.
On GX9, while Touch Pad AF can be disabled in C Menu, Touch AF cannot. Some suggestion to disable the entire Touch LCD to avoid moving of focus box by mistake. However, this means losing of 5 soft fn keys and Q.Menu can no longer be operated by Touching. The C mode can't be selected through Touch too.
My solution is to make using the "Operation Lock" feature:
This feature must have to be assigned to a fn key (fn3 for me), and set it to:
- Cursor: OFF
- Touch Screen: ON
A 2nd hit to set Lock = OFF, Touch LCD is enabled again, so the soft fn keys etc would be used (be careful on Touch AF). When soft fn keys are no longer needed, hit the Lock to set it ON again.
IMHO this could be my approach on Touch LCD vs Touch AF on GX9.
3) AFC: I found the AF tracking of GX9 is far more effective than GX85. On a sequence of 10 shots in M Burst on a flying egret, I have 5~6 acceptable shots. It is hopeless on GX85.
4) Exposure behavior: As per Zebra = 105%, I found that under a flat scene I would expect GX9 to do very similar to GX85 on the exposure behavior.
From the histogram of testing shots, at 0ev metering:
When zebra first appeared (+2ev from the above):
+1/3ev after zebra appeared (total +2-1/3ev):
+2/3ev after zebra appeared (total +2-2/3ev), closest to ETTR:
+1ev after zebra appeared (total +3ev), highlight started overblown:
Therefore, it would be safe for me to +1/3~2/3ev to get optimal exposure for the area of zebra first appeared.
5) On IQ, except for the extra 4Mp, the SOOC PJG are very similar between GX85 and GX9. But I had noted that under Vivid mode the contrast of GX9 might be slightly higher. Still need more testing on the noise performance.
Finally, still a mysterious feature that I couldn't find a hint on it: "Extended Gain Setting". If anyone know what is it, please kindly let me know.
Thank you for your reading.
--
Albert
** Please forgive my typo error.
** Please feel free to download my image and edit it as you like
**
Last edited:
