Another month has passed without my posting very much on my blog, but this time there is a very special reason. I was busy playing with a new toy! A box arrived on my door step at the beginning of August that contained a pre-production version of the new Lumix G9II and the new Leica 100-400 lens. I had a month to play with this kit to see what I could do with it and play I did, I just couldn’t tell you about it until now.
I am not going to go into all the technical details of this camera, you can find them all here on the Panasonic website. I am instead going to tell you about my personal experience playing with this amazing camera. Some of the things that I noticed right away was the incredible fast burst modes and tracking features. The camera locked onto either the birds eye, or the entire body very easily making focusing so much easier in low light situations like the bushes that I frequent. This was a big improvement on the G9 autofocusing system. The new Hybrid PDAF is a feature that has me loving this camera on its own.
Also in areas where the light was too bright, the birds dark in colour and I felt I was only getting silhouettes of the birds, I was able to pull out all this colour (image above) out of the shadows. Images that I might have tossed in the bin in the past have now become viable images.
For me one of the best features is the way the camera now buffers images while shooting. Gone are the days where I would shoot one burst then have to wait until the buffer cleared or it finished writing before continuing. Many a shot was missed because of this. Oh so I may be a little heavy on the shutter button but I get the images I want because of this. Now the camera continues buffering and writing and I could still keep shooting at the same time! Fast cards are important here, but it is time I replaced all my old cards anyway – they do have a limited lifespan.
The screen on the back of the camera displays the most amazing colours making it very easy for me to see if my settings are correct and I am achieving the image I wanted. Viewing the images already on the card was a breeze. I travelled about with the G9II hoping to find all sorts of different opportunities to use it, but the August wet weather really slowed me down. So I played with some light painting inside and I spent a lot of time photographing the Silvereyes through the dining room window.
It was really hard giving this camera back last week, but I will definitely be adding the G9II to my kit as soon as they are available. This is one fantastic upgrade I do not want to miss.
