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Both excellent cameras. Pick the one you just like better and don't worry so much about the geek advice. Lots of great lenses for each, lots of great pixels in on each.

Thanks Robbie :) Appreciate the kind words. I worry I'm not "glossy" enough but this is who I am, so that's what in front of the camera! Good to have you here.

That's very kind of you Albert :) Super glad you found it helpful!

Thanks Martin! The trouble with manuals is they tell you HOW do use a button, and not WHY to us ethe button :) Glad this was useful to you.

There's lots of small primes to choose from. Very light and very fast. 12mm F1.4 for example that's much lighter than any full frame 24mm F2. And the 10-25mm F1.7 has no equal in full frame terms. 24-70mm is not the same.

The Sigma 35mm F2 and 20mm F2 are my favourite. There's also the Lumix S primes (18mm 24mm 35mm 50mm 85mm) all at F1.8. The Sigma 50mm F1.2 is still a good size for the S9, but their 35mm F1.2 starts to look crazy chunky.

Thanks so much Cynthia :)

You're very welcome Dion :)

Thankyou! I hope the S5II brings you a lot of joy :)

How much did you get it for?

Thanks Jim :) Really is an amazing bit of technology and especially for the price.

This lens had made it into my "must have" list. It's just as good beyond macro as it is close up. I'm happy with 1x but totally understand that some folks need more than that. Lots of great manual focus lenses at 2x for more dedicated use :)

Thanks so much! Bokeh is such a lovely part of photography, I feel sorry for folks who can't see the joy in it :)

The Sigma is designed for Astro photography first and foremost. No compromise. Better performance to the edges, less artefacts etc. For most people it's a very silly lens to buy. Probably why I love it so much!

Thankyou!

Thankyou and glad to see a fellow Toneh fan :) I just love those F1.7 lenses. Nothing similar on the full frame side and a major win for the G series.

Thankyou so much!

Glad it wasn't Gollum at least! Thanks :)

Hey John. Most of these shots are on the V2 version. I've bene using the original one up until recently. Can't say I see any difference. The big feature is that V1 can't be used with teleconverters, but the V2 can. I think 800mm is enough for me, and I don't want to push beyond F6.3 if I can avoid it. I think that's pushing the technology a little too far :)

Thanks much for the reply - appreciate it.

I had V1, I now have V2. Optically, they seem to be pretty much the same. The zoom action of the V1 was notoriously stiff. Mine loosened up over the 18 months I had it, but it was still much stiffer than the V2 I purchased last week. I'm very happy with the V2 lens.

Thanks so much!

Thanks Dave :)

Cheers Dave, thanks for the kind words :)

It's an amazing lens and no other macro feels even close to the AF. I'm using mine for travel mostly and I won't leave home without it!

I cannot speak officially for Panasonic myself, but can tell you that they don't make ANY adaptors as the third party market covers it pretty well. So the question really becomes, why doesn't anyone make L>MFT adaptors? EF>MFT exists, but not L-mount. My guess is the same reason there's no Sony to L-mount adaptors and vice-versa... The distance from rear lens to sensor is too similar. I once tested the Sigma 150-600mm Sport (EF mount) on the G9 with an adaptor, and it was dreadful. The native MFT lenses are just way better and sharper. Those older EF lenses were never designed for such tight tolerances which MFT demands. And the Panasonic 100-400mm is sooooo light compared to full-frame. I'll stick with native for MFT :)

Not sure TH-cam is telling ANYBODY about this video :) They seem to want it to be a secret. Love Chiang Mai!

@EwenBell TH-cam sucks 😕

Positively!

Thanks Dave! Good luck with your journey and great to hear you have a matching pair:)

Thanks Julz :) My basic settings for the Milky Way is ISO 6400 for 10sec at F2. It helps to have a very fast lens. I was using the 10-25mm F1.7 for those shots, but I've also shot auroras on the Laowa 7.5mm F2. Can recommend!

Thanks! Really appreciate this! I’m currently running the g92 with the Olympus 12-40mm, I’ll see what I can squeeze out of that. But maybe it’s time to invest in a faster lens?

​@@JulzJanzenYT that F2 laowa lens gives you so much more light, and a lot more sky! It's a gem.

Thankyou!

Yeah we still use the original S5 in the studio. Such a great camera for stills :)

Thanks Tommy!

You're welcome!

I've owned the Canon 50mm F1.2 L for nearly 15 years and have to say it's not even close to matching this new Sigma lens. I have no idea how they made it so small, but it's the best 50mm I own without a doubt.

@@EwenBell I bet it's significantly outmatched by the Sigma with state of the art design and production techniques. I'm seriously thinking about it. It's just hard to image shelling out that much money for anything, let alone a lens as I'm not a pro. It's just the imagery that looks so nice and it seems to be the best option on L-mount.

Trick is to reduce your shutter speed. Depends on the lighting setup, but down at 1/60th or slower you should see less banding from led buzz. Same goes for DSLR.

@@EwenBell Can't shoot ballet (or sports) at 1/60. And it was not banding. I have encountered that ugly phenomenon in the past. 60/50Hz (depending on where you live) banding lines fill the width of the image. This was different. I was getting clear sharp multiple images on fast moving hands. Not motion blur either. It's a shame because we are not allowed to shoot a live performance with audience with mechanical shutter noise. I have had good results in the past with electronic shutter. This particular venue was different for some reason. It is 100 percent LED. Usually incandescent lighting is used for general illumination with LED adding color. Using my S5.

Thankyou! I agree that anyone who's actually used this camera loves it. I'm in Nepal right now and it's not leaving my side.

Thanks Alanna. My goal at F1.7 is to have only some things sharp, and everything else very soft. So it makes the sharp bits look even sharper! Some compositions work well, some do not. I only show people the good ones!

Don't forget when you talk to the birds you need to make sure to use a very Australian accent. Make it broad to the point of annoying!

Thanks so much Sean :)

Hi Dylan, I've never tried to retune the AF settings on the G9. But also I never used to work with AFC on it either. I treated it the way I would my DSLR gear. I think it all depends on what the situation is for birds in flight. Have shot a lot of cranes and brolga on the wing without any drama on the original G9. I use the Area focus, and scale it out large. Just like you say. And yes I would normally be on AFS too. A large bird and reasonable contrast in the scene gives the older AF a decent chance to perform. Smaller birds like a pied kingfisher hovering before a strike, also no problem. Or the pre-shutter to capture take-out, again no problem because you have pre-locked the focus anyway. I think it helps to remember that whatever system you have, the photographer has to learn what works for them and how to get the best from the gear. Digging into the modes and trying them for yourself is so important. I get a lot of comments from people who expect gear to work right out of the box without them having to do anything!

@@EwenBell Thanks so much for the response mate, I really appreciate. Digging into all the AF modes and tweaking every setting is exactly where I'm at in my journey because I honestly feel there has to be something that works better in combination than everything else. Just need a good session with some easy targets to test heavily and see how I go. Thanks for your input. Cheers Dylan

@@dylannewton76 Well said. Gotta find the right birds in your hood to help you out :)

I have four videos on auroras on this channel. All with details on lenses!

That's a really good point Joe about sensor read speeds. And no crop at the 120p for the G9II... it's a good rig. I bought the black magic speed editor (keyboard) years ago and it came with a free studio licence so I didn't realise there were issues with H265 on some computers. Super smooth workflow for me on the MacBook Air.

@@EwenBell Yeah it's really annoying. What I get are weird colour glitches all over my footage that disappear as soon as I transcode to prores. I might have to just buy an SSD holder and actually use prores but then I'll need a cage so I can hold the ssd and a microphone probably ruining the camera handling in the process. No such thing as a free lunch it seems also your main footage is fine on this video lol

@@JoeMaranophotography You on a Mac or PC? Have never had even a hint of issues with colours in H265. Might be something with your hardware, not the files. I did a lot of testing with ProRes and just found the extra storage required wasn't giving me much extra in the footage. Was so rare that we shoot in situations where it matters. I do wish the G9II had the faster CFExpress instead of SD, but I guess that's one advantage of the GH7 :)

@EwenBell I think it's an issue with the free version of resolve more than anything and I'm human so I use a PC haha 😄

You probably dont need to do that. When importing say, 100 fps clips, you can edit their attributes in Davinci. Any clip stating ‘custom’ for fps can be edited to read ‘25’ fps. You can then slow down or speed up the clip as you normally would. I’ve made a few assumptions about your workflow here but the above has been working for me on the free DaVinci. Happy to share more of a step by step if needed.

Thanks for the suggestion! I think the two cameras are a line ball. So many great stills features on the GH7, and so many great video features on the G9II. Both got similar upgrades in the latest firmware release. Active cooling and better dual-ISO features make the GH7 a little sweeter for serious video rigs. Can't realy go wrong with either of them :)

Your video really showcases how capable the G9ii is, I’ve had mine nearly a year now after 5 years with the original G9 and it’s clearly a huge improvement. One thing I would mention is the Phase detect AF is only active when using AFC, not AFS. I love Point Scope, such a useful feature.

@@sue.Hoo123 Hi Sue. Sorry to disagree but your comment of Phase Detect is not accurate. The mix of Phase and DFD is more complicated than that. Phase is in action even when shooting AFS in many of the AF modes. I've had this conversation with Panasonic before, and really wish they would release information to make it more clear to users which mode is in action at what time. Or perhaps an icon on screen to show us. In the absence of clear confirmation from Panasonic about the Phase/DFD setup I prefer to avoid being prescriptive about it.

@@EwenBell that’s really interesting and useful as I was told this by a Panasonic Rep at an in store hands on event when the camera was first released, he advised me to always shoot in AFC for phase detect, It would indeed be good if Panasonic explained in more detail. Thanks 👍

Ahhhhhh you know the little fellas! I often refer to them as the prettiest bird that nobody in Australia has ever heard of :)

@@EwenBell their call is more often heard than sighting them. I love how the male can call for so long until the female responds with her single 'pip'.

@@Nishimachi_Photography Her way of saying "cool it fellas!"

Up to my bees in photos!

ewenbell.com/lumixbirds ^ Sorry I meant to put a link in the description to the custom setup. Here it is!

Yeah it was a genuine moment, and sometimes it's hard to shoot birds in city parks :)

They are just super little guys aint they! Thanks Jono :)

Under rated bird!