I had a boys hockey match on my calendar today, but the weather was truly awefull so the team shot was postponed. I went anyway to try out a combination I had high hopes for.
The G9 and Olympus 40-150 Pro.
Odd night.
I experienced for the first time the “rippling” effect non DfD lenses can exhibit on a DfD camera. Sometimes it was like heat haze, sometimes more like an oncoming migraine.
I was convinced that most of my images were out of focus, which was a shame because the image quality was good, great even. ISO 6400 without any ON1 applied, was very useable.
Shot under barely adequate lights, the images were clean and bright looking and white balance was easily adjusted.
Turns out my keeper rate was actually close to 70-80%. The camera had a frustrating post shot lag that I overcame with a higher frame rate. Oddly, I generally do not use any type of drive for sports. I prefer to fire single shots, sometimes in sequence, but not bursts. Addictive as they are, bursts seem to me to lack control. Each image is a choice, an expression of skill and even t high frame rates, it is easy to miss-time a critical moment, miss focus errors or to see the action shifting. The EM1’s are reactive enough that I do not need to use continuous drives, but struggling to get the G9 to behave, I tried this and seemed to settle that aspect anyway.
AF was a handful. I settled on a custom setting of a 5 square cross, that annoyingly cannot be moved around the screen (?). Anything else proved too twitchy or just grabbed anything. I think the full screen option is ideal if there is nothing else in the way, but on a busy field, it just grabs shouders etc in the foreground. I did use several custom settings but settled on 2 I think.
Some sequences were spot on, others missed and refused to find focus, but frustratingly, some lost aquired focus for no logical reason, and refused to re-find it.
Groups were no issue.
Clean, close action was quite reliable……..
So, question is, could I use this if I had to?
It produced, over a half of hockey, enough files to be workable (30+ for one team, 40+ for the other), but it was not a reassuring or overly pleasant experience. Compared to the EM1x (with this lens), I felt detached from the process, sometimes shooting blind and expecting less than I actually got.
….even surprising sometimes.
This leaves me unsure. the Leica 50-200 would empower the G9’s to possibly match the EM1’s, but I doubt it would beat the EM1x, so I may get another top-end Oly (EM1x, EM1.3 or OM1) or stick to the “filler” plan of a 35-100 Pana so I can get some use of the Pana’s for indoor sport especially and take some of the load off the Oly cameras and lenses.
I have read that te G9’s, when properly supported by harmonious glass are actually better at some things anyway, like approaching subjects and busy groups.