Problems are never quite as simple as we think they are. When we look at a problem, we tend to think in terms of cause and effect. Something has changed, which has caused the problem. Find what changed, and we fix the problem.
Except things aren’t like that in the real world.
Real world problems are often a tangle of interrelated effects combining to produce a problem. Sometimes, we don’t even know there is a problem until a minor change makes the problem visible to us.
If you’re wondering why I’m writing about this, it’s because of my long-standing my Panasonic G9 frustrations.
I’ve never been entirely happy with the results from the G9. Often, there were strange colour and tonal shifts in the RAW files that I couldn’t seem to correct. If you search this blog, you will find many more examples where I discuss this.
Because of these problems, I haven’t used the camera for some time, at least not until the other day. That’s when I took it out onto the moors and shot this.
It isn’t a spectacular photo, but I’m sharing it because the camera has nailed the colours. These are exactly as I expect to see them.
If you have a technical interest, you might like to know that I didn’t use any of the Panasonic or Adobe Profiles to convert the RAW file. Instead, it was processed using a Camera Profile I created from a colour calibration chart in DxO PhotoLab. That said, the other Profiles aren’t too far from the colours in this image.
I then decided to look back at some of my earlier Panasonic G9 shots from 2022, where there were issues. Here’s one where the colours never looked quite right to me.
This now appears much better, as do the tones in this next shot.
While this is black and white, the original RAW file never looked right, but now it does. If you’re anything like me, you’re probably asking what changed.
One thing I can probably rule out is the camera and lens firm ware have been updated. This could cause some variation but not to images that have already been captured.
Unfortunately, there are many other things that I probably can’t control and don’t know about. Some examples of changes I can identify are:
- There have been regular updates to the likes of Lightroom.
- I have changed my Mac from a 27-inch Intel system to an M2 Studio. The old Mac was stuck with an operating system from a few years ago.
- I’m also using a new Mac Studio display.
These are just a few of the changes I can identify, but there will be more that I can’t. I will probably never know the true cause of my G9 issues, but for the moment, I like the look of these images.
Have a great weekend.
The Lightweight Photographer 
Hey Robin,
The chance that a sensor or camera really has problems capturing images is small, yes, lenses of course have an influence, but still.
Screens, software & video cards, on the other hand, can quickly go wrong in more than one way.
The fact that you now notice this after changing your Mac, well, then I think the problem has been found.
Recently, I did a screen comparison with my daughter’s Mac Pro M3 and my Dell precision, something like this can sometimes be very enlightening – maybe you know someone with whom you can also do a screen comparison test.
The very best,
Marc.
I would agree that there was a problem with the old Mac somewhere but I don’t think it’s as obvious as it may appear. The entire system was regularly calibrated and the colour match was very good. What’s unusual is that it was my G9 RAW files where I saw the problem. My Fuji, Canon, Nikon etc were fine. I do suspect a software problem but it was something that was camera specific. I’m pleased that it’s fixed though.
Thanks as always for your very informative newsletter – always a mine of interesting information. I too have an old 27 inch Mac and have been eying up switching to using my later model laptop with an Apple Studio display. The plan is to buy the next version of the Studio when it becomes available in about 6 months I think. I scurried over to your blog to see if you had written an article on your purchases and how they were working out for you. I didn’t see anything so thought I’d put a bug in your ear that this could make a really good topic for a post. Not so much all the technical stuff but how it is fitting into your workflow etc with some words of advice for others who might be considering buying. I also signed up for your webinars in March and April for DxO and Datacolor. Only got a confirmation email for April 16 so registered again but still no email to confirm March 26. Fingers crossed that everything works out. Really enjoy your istructional videos on You Tube and am looking forward to seeing what you do re colour management and printing. Thanks again for all your work. Cheers, Janet
>
Hi Janet, thanks for the idea. I like it and will see what I can do. I also bought a NAS drive recently which people might also be interested to hear about. It wasn’t as straight forward as it should have been (in my opinion).
I’m not sure why you didn’t receive a confirmation for the first Weibnar. I will mention it to them at my next meeting in case they have placed a limit on numbers (they said they wouldn’t be doing originally when I asked).
My first question whenever someone complains about color from a particular camera is “What app and profile are you using to process RAW?” Because this usually trumps everything else.
FWIW, I’ve made both single- and dual-illuminant camera profiles with an Xrite ColorChecker Passport, and with some images they work better than DxO’s included profiles, but with others they don’t. Typically, contrast and saturation are better, but skin tones are worse. Of course, with other cameras YMMV.
Thanks. I also suspected profiel problems at first but there were some other stange results that cropped up from time to time that even made me suspect a light leak in the camera. I’m now almost certain that it’s a technical issue on the old Mac. I’m now seeing great results with the G9.