After my month spent shooting with the Panasonic Lumix G9 I felt quite positive about the experience. Now that I’ve spent more time editing some of the RAW files I shot whilst in Cornwall, I’m feeling even more positive.
Previously I’d reported that I didn’t like the colour of the images and couldn’t seem to achieve quite what I wanted. Now I’m finding I like the colours and results. It’s possibly because I’ve grown accustomed to the colour processing rather than my finding a miraculous solution. That said, there are a few where I still find the colours a little off, but they tend to have been shot near to sunset. Where I’ve been shooting during the day or after sunset, I think the results look good.
Here are a couple daytime shots that I want to share, for no other reason than I like them.
This first shot is another of Godrevy in Cornwall with the lighthouse in the distance. I’m very happy with the colours in this one. They feel clean, crisp, and natural. The Leica 12-60 lens that came with the Panasonic G9 has also done a great job of resolving the fine detail in the scene. The exposure was handheld at 1/500” using f/8 and ISO200.
This next shot is taken at Lands End in Cornwall. I spotted a couple of people on top of the cliff and thought they added a sense of scale to the scene. I also like the softness of the distant lighthouse. This is another handheld shot at 1/320” using f/9.0 and ISO200. Again, it’s using the Leica 12-60 lens but this time at 52mm.
I hope you like the images and have a great weekend.
The Lightweight Photographer 
Nice and clean and natural Robin. So is the G9 now replacing the Fuji kit? How is it comparing.
Thanks. No, the G9 won’t replace the Fuji as my main camera. I prefer the quality of the Fuji images over the G9 but the G9 is a great camera when you just want to walk out and take some handheld shots. I just pop it into a shoulder bag with a couple of lenses.
May I ask why you shot the second photo at F9 were you are already deep in diffraction area?
There were a few things that went through my mind and why I decided on F/9.0:
1. Theoretically there may be diffraction at f/9.0 but when you look at the images you don’t see it.
2. The shutter speed was way up at wider apertures which I don’t like. I’ve found the G9 has tended to underexpose my landscapes once above 1/1000″. It’s something I’ve seen on other M43 cameras in the past as well.
3. I wanted to capture enough depth of field so you could see the distant lighthouse was a lighthouse. I found f/9.0 was about the widest aperture I could get away with.
Hello Robin, thank you for your answer. I own a G9 since more than 2 years and I never noticed wrong exposure with fast shutter speeds. But I almost always work with electronic shutter; mech shutter I use only with flash or for long exposures.
The exposure problem is something I’ve seen on three different Panasonic cameras now. It’s always on extremely bright, sunny days and the shutter speed seems to shoot up much faster than expected. I’m expecting a shutter speed of around 1/320 – 1/500 and instead, I get something like 1/2000″. When I see that I suspect a problem and indeed when I check the files later they appear very flat and dull. I think I first saw it on a GX1 but it could have been the GF1. Anyway, it doesn’t happen that often as it’s usually raining where I live.
Hi Robin
I do not own a Fuji, but your exposure problem puzzles me: One could/should run exposure tests with his camera and ascertain e.g. the exposure of 1/1000 really is 1/320 and be done. Since you write „…always on extremely bright, sunny days…“ I would like to know, if you mean ONLY on bright days and not in dull weather?
The reason why I ask is, that occasionally – culling my images – I wondered about an exposure too (Nikon and Hassy). What were you doing – I asked myself – but as I did not have any notes, I didn‘t find out and simply forgot about it. I usually do some bracketing, so nothing was lost.
Perhaps one really should test the shutter under various light conditions, but it would mean a lot of work and to remember it …
Another aspect could be, that the fenomenon (if it is one) might not be only a Fuji-problem?
Take care!
Hi Robert. It’s not a problem with the Fuji, it’s the Panasonic G9 and as I say, it’s been a “feature” with several Panasonic cameras I’ve owned over the years. Yes, it’s always bright and sunny when this happens. I’ve never seen it in dull weather where the shutter speed is high. I don’t know what causes it but I’m alert to it when the conditions are right and the shutter speed seems unusually high. Usually stopping down by a couple of stops corrects things.
Hi Robin. Thank you for your reply. Panasonic of course, sorry for the mess-up. A couple of stops is a lot, strange. But as I understand, you are indirectly saying, that you did not encounter the same with Fuji. OK, so it would be Panasonic only (and on my side my lack of shooting discipline – have to watch my steps).
These are amazing! If I would need to stop using Olympus, Panasonic G9 would be my go-to camera. I’ve heard so much good about it.
It makes me happy to see someone share daytime landscape photos, there is this attitude that landscape can only be shot at golden hour, which has resulted in all (ok, most) landscape photos looking the same. These are fabulous!
Thank you. Although I must admit I shoot most of my work at eitehr end of the day still.