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 p.198 #8 · Micro Four-Thirds Image Thread | |
ruthenium wrote:
I have been recently using G9II for landscapes, environmental portraits, and similar. My feelings about this experience are mixed. On the one hand, this is not a camera that I have enjoyed using. I don't hate it either, but compared to OM-1 II, I don't like the G9 II as much. The AF and IBIS of the latter are ordinary and inferior to those of OM-1 II. The G9II is bulkier and heavier. I find it uninspiring (sorry if this should offend some other users).
Having said the above, I believe that the G9II might be called the best micro-four-thirds camera for landscapes/cityscapes (and possibly for portraits), somewhat slightly better that the OM-1II. The G9II has the best-in-class dynamic range (the PDR is 10.17 at ISO100 vs. 9.69 at ISO200 for OM-1 II; the numbers are from Photons to Photos). The 25MP vs 20MP difference is marginal, yet it is in favor of the G9II. The hand-held high-resolution mode works well on the G9II to give 100MP raw files. The hand-held mode of the OM-1 II, in my experience, works only in the JPG mode; the raw files come out soft to the point of being not very useful.
When looking at your numbers, I am not sure why you may want to use an aperture smaller than f/11 that already gives the equivalent DOF of a FF f/22 lens and is affected by diffraction. For the "blue hour shot with 1.6sec exposure" (NICE!) do you mean 1.6s per shot and total 8 x 1.6 = 12.8 s exposure (if this is a high-res image)?
Note that the hand-held high-res mode of G9II collects 16 shots. Thus, even when the SS is 1/1.3s, the combined exposure is 12 s. The hand-held mode can be used with the camera set on a tripod, with the IBIS ON or OFF. I don't see this as a problem. The high-resolution mode of the G9II designated for tripod use collects only 8 shots. I don't know the reason, but in my hands the hand-held mode works satisfactorily. The three landscape photos that I posted above were all taken using the hand-held high-res mode on my G9II. The objective was to gain 2 stops of the dynamic range in those very contrasty scenes, to have more room for shadow recovery; I didn't really need 100MP....Show more →
Thanks for your feedback and experience! I've enjoyed reading your previous posts and comparisons on the various hi-res modes. Didn't realize that the G9IIhandheld mode on that still puts out the 100MP raw files. I've been doing tripod hi-res on the EM1 Mk2 for a little over 5 years now. The raw files feel much more flexible compared to the standard output, I like making huge prints on occasion, and being on a tripod with the processing delay forces me to slow down and take more time composing the shot.
As far as the numbers, I like bumping the aperture down in situations where I've got the lens down very low to the ground and want to get the depth of field as large as possible. If I crank it to f16 or so, the DOF large enough that I don't need to take multiple shots and focus stack. F8 used to be the minimum, but after a firmware update a few years ago, I've found being able to go smaller to be very useful for that scenario.
For that blue hour shot, it is a hi-res base, so yeah, 1.6 sec x 8. I have in the past also had shots that went even higher for the base exposure time. Example here, this one was 8 sec x 8, at f8:
The only time I've had to go back to normal shooting mode and not hi-res, landscape-wise, is full dark nights with little to no moon.
I realize that these are both edge cases, and that the G9II would be solid for most of the pictures I take, I just hate giving up that extra leeway. Same reason I've stuck to the 12-40 Pro and 7-14 Pro lens combo, despite the 8-25 covering most of what I do. (Don't get me wrong here, I realize my reasoning is extremely niche here, like the camera equivalent of a guy really into pinky toes.)
Have you seen any noticeable difference between the tripod hi-res mode on the EM1 Mk2 and the OM1 Mk2, in terms of clarity, dynamic range or flexibility of the raw files? That seems like the most straight path upgrade, but if it's super marginal, I may as well stick with what I have for now.
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