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.

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.

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.

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.