Been on and off the forums for quite some time now, exploring my new Panasonic G9 and being busy with other stuff.
Starting to get used to the G9 after having used Olympus for almost 7 years. THe G9 was however, much faster to get used to, it feels much more ergonomic and well thought out as far as buttons, dials and menu systems go.
So a quick shot, it could use some more editing but wanted to share my experience with the G9 and tracking. Will upload some more shots from this instance with better editing.
Shooting my father and his collegues in a Swedish search and rescue boat in the southern parts of Sweden. They are doing around 25-30 knots coming straight at me and then turning hard to port. I had the camera set up at 9fps mechanical shutter and C-AF with Tracking which means once I box a target, the box is supposed to stay at the target and track it. This means I should be more free in my composition (or lack there of since I am not very good at tracking yet) rather then having to stay with any sort of chosen focus points in order to track.
This is a feature that has never worked well with Olympus cameras. Even though some have good experience with pure C-AF in Olympus I haven't heard anyone who has used the tracking box with success (E-M1X and planes, trains and cars seems to work great though).
What surprised me the the G9 is that it works, not only OK but really very well. I I have one slightly out of focus shot from around 100 shots here. The camera not only kept the boat in the box but changed the box all over the frame depending on my lack of keeping the boat in the same position. When they moved away it kept tracking and getting the boat in focus despite the fact they had changed from going towards me, to going from side to side and then away from me.
The only place I feel the G9 is "worse" than the E-M1 Mk II is buffer size and write speed as well as mechanical shutter black out time which is some what suprising. The buffer size is one thing but the write speed feels slower even though the camera uses dual UHS-II slots. My only conclusion here is that while the G9 can write fast to two slots, the E-M1 Mk II can write faster two one thanks to all the bandwith going to just one slot (I am only shooting to one slot btw). The buffer of the E-M1 Mk II just clears faster. The mechanical black out of the E-M1 Mk II is silly fast and while the G9 is still very fast there is a difference here. It's not a big deal but it made tracking in mechanical slightly more difficult. On the other hand all my shots are in focus.
Going to the silent shutter and 20fps with a completely black out free viewfinder fixes the issue with ease bu one has to be carefull with the buffer at 20fps.
Enough talking, just one shot so far but will add more this weekend. Will see if I can add a longer sequence if anyone is interested.
