Great video Joe. I have just bought a used OM1 and my enthusiastic for it is similar to yours! I am probably going to sell my R5 R6 and R10 and go M43. The image quality is amazing considering the sensor size
@mondujar279 I agree. Years ago when I was looking into what cameras to buy I decided that M43 was that point where image quality is so good that I don't really care to have any more because it just costs more all round. I'm also unlikely to be shooting any dark weddings anytime soon so 35mm just seemed a waste of time and money!
@@JoeMaranophotographyYes, and what surprises me is how many UA-cam channels are comparing these M43 cameras and lenses to Sony A1 or Nikon Z9 etc at 2 or 3 times the price. It says something about the ability of M43 these days
@mondujar279 I actually think in a way that M43 is in a worse place nowadays because Lumix and OM didn't take advantage when they had the chance - 5 years or so ago they could have crushed Canon and Nikon if they had only made more sensible choices. I feel like in 2024 they are relying on features that these companies are now catching up and adopting themselves but of course we still have the advantage of size and weight and more importantly cost! :)
@@JoeMaranophotography Yes but also the huge advantage of reach. I hired a Canon 200-800 recently and didn’t bother trying it because it was obvious it was too big for me to handle.
@@JoeMaranophotography Ahh mate have been busy, just been going through a redundancy process at work which has been a bit up and down. All past that now and I can concentrate on things getting back to normal at least, if there is such a thing haha. Have just managed to get a quick video out yesterday. Thanks for noticing though mate, means a lot :)
Great video Joe, shot at one of my favourite places! The Lumix is so much better, a world apart from DSLR's. I part ex'd a Canon 90D with Sigma 150-600, 10-20, 105 macro, 24-105L, I replaced everything with the G9ii, Leica 12-60 and 100-400 ii. The 90D is a beast, the last of the DSLR's for Canon, but it's really unforgiving and with the Sigma it's really, really heavy. The G9ii and 100-400 is literally half the weight, has slightly more reach, feels higher quality and is weather proof. My only grumble so far has been battery life. Earlier this year I managed 1100 shots using continuous AF and 5 mins of video on the 90D with battery charge left to play with, I've not fully run a battery down yet, but it looks to be around 350-400 shots, which is respectable.. The G9ii is so much better, a world apart from DSLR's, I actually look forward to taking the camera out with me now and will dabble a bit in video.
@@jimwalker760 That sums it up for me too. Sadly the example I had is back with Lumix but I know as soon as it's in my hands again I will have the confidence to get any shot I so desire. It's so confidence inspiring like you say! I do feel however I need some faster glass for it for when the winter comes.
Hello Joe! A real "real-life" review with great examples. Not this kind of payed influencer stuff, although it was not your camera. Thanks for that. I just got my Mk2 and it changes everything! 13:07 is it really true, that the original USB-C cable from Lumix is better than any other cable?greetings from Germany, Uwe
@TripleU-E In fairness I do a lot of research into products before I review them so it's unlikely I'll ever review something "bad" I also try to talk about it from my point of view so it's always going to be honest as well :) I don't know this for sure. It could just be that the pocket UsB C just wasn't designed for other items as it charges my phone slowly too!
I love my G9m2 and my GH6 is gathering dust on the shelf all lonely. As for powering the camera, I'm happy with connecting it to a USB powerbank or using a Dummy Battery. For Astro or Time-lapses I use a Dummy Battery and a USB Solid State Drive, plugged into the USB Port as the best combo. Recently I upgraded my computer with new NVME drives and repurposed the old 2Tb NVME drives. I put them into caddies and started getting into the habit of recording straight onto them rather than using a shed load of expensive SD cards. As for Resolve, you can use the free version for years and probably not need to upgrade. I used the free version for a few years before buying the Studio version and I never, for one second, regretted that purchase. Noise Reduction alone was worth the price tag. I know that a field monitor is an expensive bit of kit, however getting a Atomos Ninja V was a game changer and gave me so much enjoyment filming. I don't use it every time I go out to play however when I do, that screen 'real estate' is perfect for composing your shot and for checking if stuff is in focus. You don't have to get a Ninja. You could get a budget field monitor or even find a way to use a mobile phone. The Ninja V allows you to do 10bit 4:2:2 recording to H.265 to save file sizes. I used to record Pro Res HQ 4:2:2 as I thought this was the best quality for my amateur skills. The file sizes are stoopidly massive. A 1Tb drive will give you a couple of hours footage. While shooting H.265 will give me days worth of footage from the same 1Tb drive. And the best bit, H.265 is as good as Pro Res that I would not even notice the difference in image quality. The down side is that you need a powerful computer to work with H.265 and not have your computer slow to a crawl using it while editing in Resolve.
@frankinblackpool When I buy the camera for myself I'll have to investigate video more! I've just come back from Cornwall and had to transcode all my G9ii files to prores to even get free resolve to see them - annoying!!! I'm on an i5 13500 with 32GB DDR5 5600 and a 4070ti so I'm hoping that's good enough?
@@JoeMaranophotography Ahhh, I forgot that the free version of Resolve does not allow you to use H265 10bit footage. I ran into this problem when I upgraded my Panasonic GH4 camera to a GH5 camera and started using H265 codecs. At the time I transcoded to H264. Back then I did not know about ProRes or what it was so I transcoded to H264. It was a proverbial pain in the posterior but had to be done if I did not want to shell out for the Studio version of Resolve. I think its more a Licensing issue to use or watch H265 footage on a Windows computer rather than solely a Resolve issue wanting you to splash the cash. Even with Windows computers you have to buy/install a codec that will allow you to watch H265 footage, its not included out-of-the-box. As for your computer playing nicely with the Studio version of Resolve, the only part that may or may not be an issue is your Graphic Card. When I moved from Resolve 16 (Free version) to Resolve 17 Studio, I upgraded my Graphic Card to an Nvidia 3070. At the time it cost me a fortune because it was the start of the Data Mining boom and cards were costing a fortune. I could not afford the more expensive RTX 3090 and I thought that the 3070 would have enough grunt. I was wrong. Resolve is a GPU intensive application and my RTX 3070 did not have enough internal RAM to feed the beast that is Resolve. Rendering out simple projects was not a problem, however once I started adding stuff like Noise Reductio or even simple Transitions then Resolve would fail to render the projects with a warning that I did not have enough Virtual Memory to complete the Render. At the time my computer had 64Gb of RAM and this still did not help. So, I bit the bullet and bought a RTX 3090 Graphic Card with 24Gb of RAM. To this day I have never had a single problem rendering a project no matter how many extras I throw at the project like Noise reduction, Transitions, Fusion Transitions or Colour Grading extras at it. My RTX 3070 only had 8Gb of RAM while your RTX 4070Ti has 12Gb of RAM. There is only one way to find out and that is to give it a try. Or you could get the RTX 4090. I know somebody who has that and it works flawlessly, or you could get a Second Hand RTX 3090 knowing that it will work flawlessly.
Great video, Joe! I've been on the fence for ages about the G9 II. I have plenty of glass for the M4/3, but I jumped over to Canon with the R6 and haven't used my G9 for a long time. My passion is dog photography, and I think the G9 II would be suitable. What do you think?
@@PhilSledge I think it would be ideal for that as 60fps will give you a lot of choice with poses but without mental file sizes (raws are 40MB) m43 will be easier to work with as well for low angle shooting/laying down that kind of thing? Animal eye AF works well also.
Joe, I am interested to know whether you would consider OM-1 Mark ll with 100-400mm as it would be a cheaper alternative than the G9? The keeper rate with each of the cameras is far better than anyone can ever expect. While you are in summer I am in winter and enjoying the night skies as it is the clearest time of the year for astrophotography. Have you ever tried this?
@eugecoscarelli9745 I have taken a few night photos but nothing serious as I don't own any fast and wide lenses. I would consider the OM1 but for my hybrid needs I think the G9ii suits me better and of course I'm more used to the Lumix system. I am trying to get hold of an OM1 though to try with no luck as yet!
@SteveHedgesPhotography I guess we shall see! I'm off to Paris and Texas and would have loved to have it for those trips but I managed for 5 years with the old camera so I guess I'll make it work again lol
@ammadoux No I haven't used that lens I'm afraid and doesn't look like I'll get to either as I've tried to get in touch with OM systems but allegedly they don't supply any trial kit in the UK
@@JoeMaranophotographyi used it with gx9 and was impressed by both iq and os. but was wondering how it eill be with more advanced features in g9 mark ii.
@ammadoux I imagine it would work well although not as well as on a newer OM body because of IS and maybe AF. That said the lens was designed with phase detect in mind I would imagine so it's probably not too hard to work with the G9ii. That said that aspect is probably quite technical and not something I could really answer.
I'm trying to decide whether to get the OM1 mark II or this. I already own the OM1. The G9ii is actually cheaper than the OM1ii and I'd like to try something different. I've used Lumix cameras before (GH2 and GM1) so the system isn't too unfamiliar. The OM1 is really fast with focus but still sometimes misses and refuses to lock focus even with subject detection on. It causes me to miss shots but not too bad. If you do get the chance, try compare it with the OM1 mark II.
@sarawaklens2964 I have tried getting in touch with OM but so far I am hitting a brick wall. I think Emily from Micro Four Nerds mentioned that she thought that the OM1ii slightly edges ahead with the AF but of course the G9ii hasn't had any substantial firmware updates yet so I expect that to swing back to Lumix favour. That said I really didn't have any complaints with regards to the AF. It could be that I'm very tolerant coming from the original G9 or it could just be awesome lol I really rate the ergonomics and menu's of the G9ii as well as the IBIS . The extra 5 megapixels are really nice too and I've gotten very usable images at ISO 20,000 after being denoised with Topaz.
@OlivierFablu-c9m The G9ii has only had one update since it's release and none of them involved autofocus unlike the Om1(i) Yes the 150-600 should work better on OM due to the extra stabilisation like you said (you'll only have a choice of lens OR body on G9ii)
@OlivierFablu-c9m I agree it's really annoying that they don't work together and have their lenses work as good on the other brand although they both do it so I wonder who is really to blame. I know that the sensor stabilisation measurement in stops goes down as the focal length increases (I can't remember the stats off hand) so thay would suggest lens stabilisation should be better although with the latest cameras we have even greater sensor stabilisation so that difference may be smaller nowadays
I currently have the Lumix G9 (mostly using the basic Lumix 12-60mm F3.5-5.6 lens of late) and mostly love the camera...except for that "depth from defocus" contrast-detect auto focus. It misses focus or completely fails to focus entirely sometimes and that's frustrating. The speed of it is fine, don't get me wrong, but the accuracy is not perfect. I would hope the G9 II is a huge improvement.
@stvkrenim I know what you mean I'm back to using that exact setup for Paris soon and i'm not exactly thrilled about it! G9ii when I'm out doing wildlife photography felt like anything was possible within reason and gave me so much time to focus on settings and composition and so on. With the G9 quite often by the time I have faffed about getting the right type of focus mode and moved the AF point to where I want it the subject has cleared off!
@@JoeMaranophotography Yes, I feel your frustration!! I do think the G9 is a great camera, overall, but those moments when its AF is behaving badly are really frustrating.
What do you think of the Lumix G9ii and who's enjoying actual summer now?!
Great video Joe. I have just bought a used OM1 and my enthusiastic for it is similar to yours! I am probably going to sell my R5 R6 and R10 and go M43. The image quality is amazing considering the sensor size
@mondujar279 I agree. Years ago when I was looking into what cameras to buy I decided that M43 was that point where image quality is so good that I don't really care to have any more because it just costs more all round. I'm also unlikely to be shooting any dark weddings anytime soon so 35mm just seemed a waste of time and money!
@@JoeMaranophotographyYes, and what surprises me is how many UA-cam channels are comparing these M43 cameras and lenses to Sony A1 or Nikon Z9 etc at 2 or 3 times the price. It says something about the ability of M43 these days
@mondujar279 I actually think in a way that M43 is in a worse place nowadays because Lumix and OM didn't take advantage when they had the chance - 5 years or so ago they could have crushed Canon and Nikon if they had only made more sensible choices. I feel like in 2024 they are relying on features that these companies are now catching up and adopting themselves but of course we still have the advantage of size and weight and more importantly cost! :)
@@JoeMaranophotography Yes but also the huge advantage of reach. I hired a Canon 200-800 recently and didn’t bother trying it because it was obvious it was too big for me to handle.
@mondujar279 Absolutely! I've been meaning to make a video about the topic for a while but never got round to it!
Great video mate, it's great seeing you have so much fun !!
@Ryanswildlifephotography Thanks mate. I'm guessing you are busy at the moment as well with the kids holidays as haven't seen your posts in a while?
@@JoeMaranophotography Ahh mate have been busy, just been going through a redundancy process at work which has been a bit up and down. All past that now and I can concentrate on things getting back to normal at least, if there is such a thing haha. Have just managed to get a quick video out yesterday. Thanks for noticing though mate, means a lot :)
Great video Joe, shot at one of my favourite places!
The Lumix is so much better, a world apart from DSLR's. I part ex'd a Canon 90D with Sigma 150-600, 10-20, 105 macro, 24-105L, I replaced everything with the G9ii, Leica 12-60 and 100-400 ii. The 90D is a beast, the last of the DSLR's for Canon, but it's really unforgiving and with the Sigma it's really, really heavy. The G9ii and 100-400 is literally half the weight, has slightly more reach, feels higher quality and is weather proof.
My only grumble so far has been battery life. Earlier this year I managed 1100 shots using continuous AF and 5 mins of video on the 90D with battery charge left to play with, I've not fully run a battery down yet, but it looks to be around 350-400 shots, which is respectable..
The G9ii is so much better, a world apart from DSLR's, I actually look forward to taking the camera out with me now and will dabble a bit in video.
@@jimwalker760 That sums it up for me too. Sadly the example I had is back with Lumix but I know as soon as it's in my hands again I will have the confidence to get any shot I so desire. It's so confidence inspiring like you say! I do feel however I need some faster glass for it for when the winter comes.
Hello Joe! A real "real-life" review with great examples. Not this kind of payed influencer stuff, although it was not your camera. Thanks for that. I just got my Mk2 and it changes everything!
13:07 is it really true, that the original USB-C cable from Lumix is better than any other cable?greetings from Germany, Uwe
@TripleU-E In fairness I do a lot of research into products before I review them so it's unlikely I'll ever review something "bad" I also try to talk about it from my point of view so it's always going to be honest as well :)
I don't know this for sure. It could just be that the pocket UsB C just wasn't designed for other items as it charges my phone slowly too!
I love my G9m2 and my GH6 is gathering dust on the shelf all lonely. As for powering the camera, I'm happy with connecting it to a USB powerbank or using a Dummy Battery.
For Astro or Time-lapses I use a Dummy Battery and a USB Solid State Drive, plugged into the USB Port as the best combo. Recently I upgraded my computer with new NVME drives and repurposed the old 2Tb NVME drives. I put them into caddies and started getting into the habit of recording straight onto them rather than using a shed load of expensive SD cards.
As for Resolve, you can use the free version for years and probably not need to upgrade. I used the free version for a few years before buying the Studio version and I never, for one second, regretted that purchase. Noise Reduction alone was worth the price tag.
I know that a field monitor is an expensive bit of kit, however getting a Atomos Ninja V was a game changer and gave me so much enjoyment filming. I don't use it every time I go out to play however when I do, that screen 'real estate' is perfect for composing your shot and for checking if stuff is in focus. You don't have to get a Ninja. You could get a budget field monitor or even find a way to use a mobile phone.
The Ninja V allows you to do 10bit 4:2:2 recording to H.265 to save file sizes. I used to record Pro Res HQ 4:2:2 as I thought this was the best quality for my amateur skills. The file sizes are stoopidly massive. A 1Tb drive will give you a couple of hours footage. While shooting H.265 will give me days worth of footage from the same 1Tb drive. And the best bit, H.265 is as good as Pro Res that I would not even notice the difference in image quality. The down side is that you need a powerful computer to work with H.265 and not have your computer slow to a crawl using it while editing in Resolve.
@frankinblackpool When I buy the camera for myself I'll have to investigate video more! I've just come back from Cornwall and had to transcode all my G9ii files to prores to even get free resolve to see them - annoying!!! I'm on an i5 13500 with 32GB DDR5 5600 and a 4070ti so I'm hoping that's good enough?
@@JoeMaranophotography Ahhh, I forgot that the free version of Resolve does not allow you to use H265 10bit footage. I ran into this problem when I upgraded my Panasonic GH4 camera to a GH5 camera and started using H265 codecs. At the time I transcoded to H264. Back then I did not know about ProRes or what it was so I transcoded to H264. It was a proverbial pain in the posterior but had to be done if I did not want to shell out for the Studio version of Resolve.
I think its more a Licensing issue to use or watch H265 footage on a Windows computer rather than solely a Resolve issue wanting you to splash the cash. Even with Windows computers you have to buy/install a codec that will allow you to watch H265 footage, its not included out-of-the-box.
As for your computer playing nicely with the Studio version of Resolve, the only part that may or may not be an issue is your Graphic Card. When I moved from Resolve 16 (Free version) to Resolve 17 Studio, I upgraded my Graphic Card to an Nvidia 3070. At the time it cost me a fortune because it was the start of the Data Mining boom and cards were costing a fortune. I could not afford the more expensive RTX 3090 and I thought that the 3070 would have enough grunt. I was wrong.
Resolve is a GPU intensive application and my RTX 3070 did not have enough internal RAM to feed the beast that is Resolve. Rendering out simple projects was not a problem, however once I started adding stuff like Noise Reductio or even simple Transitions then Resolve would fail to render the projects with a warning that I did not have enough Virtual Memory to complete the Render. At the time my computer had 64Gb of RAM and this still did not help.
So, I bit the bullet and bought a RTX 3090 Graphic Card with 24Gb of RAM. To this day I have never had a single problem rendering a project no matter how many extras I throw at the project like Noise reduction, Transitions, Fusion Transitions or Colour Grading extras at it.
My RTX 3070 only had 8Gb of RAM while your RTX 4070Ti has 12Gb of RAM. There is only one way to find out and that is to give it a try. Or you could get the RTX 4090. I know somebody who has that and it works flawlessly, or you could get a Second Hand RTX 3090 knowing that it will work flawlessly.
@frankinblackpool Maybe when it's time to upgrade my sons 3060ti he can have my 4070ti and I'll get whatever is good in the 50 series perhaps
Great video, Joe! I've been on the fence for ages about the G9 II. I have plenty of glass for the M4/3, but I jumped over to Canon with the R6 and haven't used my G9 for a long time. My passion is dog photography, and I think the G9 II would be suitable. What do you think?
@@PhilSledge I think it would be ideal for that as 60fps will give you a lot of choice with poses but without mental file sizes (raws are 40MB) m43 will be easier to work with as well for low angle shooting/laying down that kind of thing? Animal eye AF works well also.
Joe, I am interested to know whether you would consider OM-1 Mark ll with 100-400mm as it would be a cheaper alternative than the G9? The keeper rate with each of the cameras is far better than anyone can ever expect. While you are in summer I am in winter and enjoying the night skies as it is the clearest time of the year for astrophotography. Have you ever tried this?
@eugecoscarelli9745 I have taken a few night photos but nothing serious as I don't own any fast and wide lenses. I would consider the OM1 but for my hybrid needs I think the G9ii suits me better and of course I'm more used to the Lumix system. I am trying to get hold of an OM1 though to try with no luck as yet!
What a great improvement Joe, when are you getting one?
@SteveHedgesPhotography Not soon enough Steve! It sadly coincides with a very expensive time of year for me :(
@@JoeMaranophotography Ah well I hope it's not too long of a wait Joe.
@SteveHedgesPhotography I guess we shall see! I'm off to Paris and Texas and would have loved to have it for those trips but I managed for 5 years with the old camera so I guess I'll make it work again lol
@@JoeMaranophotography Absolutely mate, enjoy your trips. Very exciting.
@SteveHedgesPhotography I might be very annoyed if I end up with many out of focus pictures from Texas though! 😆
thanks for the video and great shots, did you try it with the Zuiko 300 mm f4?
@ammadoux No I haven't used that lens I'm afraid and doesn't look like I'll get to either as I've tried to get in touch with OM systems but allegedly they don't supply any trial kit in the UK
@@JoeMaranophotographyi used it with gx9 and was impressed by both iq and os. but was wondering how it eill be with more advanced features in g9 mark ii.
@ammadoux I imagine it would work well although not as well as on a newer OM body because of IS and maybe AF. That said the lens was designed with phase detect in mind I would imagine so it's probably not too hard to work with the G9ii. That said that aspect is probably quite technical and not something I could really answer.
I'm trying to decide whether to get the OM1 mark II or this. I already own the OM1. The G9ii is actually cheaper than the OM1ii and I'd like to try something different. I've used Lumix cameras before (GH2 and GM1) so the system isn't too unfamiliar. The OM1 is really fast with focus but still sometimes misses and refuses to lock focus even with subject detection on. It causes me to miss shots but not too bad. If you do get the chance, try compare it with the OM1 mark II.
@sarawaklens2964 I have tried getting in touch with OM but so far I am hitting a brick wall. I think Emily from Micro Four Nerds mentioned that she thought that the OM1ii slightly edges ahead with the AF but of course the G9ii hasn't had any substantial firmware updates yet so I expect that to swing back to Lumix favour. That said I really didn't have any complaints with regards to the AF. It could be that I'm very tolerant coming from the original G9 or it could just be awesome lol
I really rate the ergonomics and menu's of the G9ii as well as the IBIS . The extra 5 megapixels are really nice too and I've gotten very usable images at ISO 20,000 after being denoised with Topaz.
@OlivierFablu-c9m The G9ii has only had one update since it's release and none of them involved autofocus unlike the Om1(i)
Yes the 150-600 should work better on OM due to the extra stabilisation like you said (you'll only have a choice of lens OR body on G9ii)
@OlivierFablu-c9m I agree it's really annoying that they don't work together and have their lenses work as good on the other brand although they both do it so I wonder who is really to blame. I know that the sensor stabilisation measurement in stops goes down as the focal length increases (I can't remember the stats off hand) so thay would suggest lens stabilisation should be better although with the latest cameras we have even greater sensor stabilisation so that difference may be smaller nowadays
I currently have the Lumix G9 (mostly using the basic Lumix 12-60mm F3.5-5.6 lens of late) and mostly love the camera...except for that "depth from defocus" contrast-detect auto focus. It misses focus or completely fails to focus entirely sometimes and that's frustrating. The speed of it is fine, don't get me wrong, but the accuracy is not perfect. I would hope the G9 II is a huge improvement.
@stvkrenim I know what you mean I'm back to using that exact setup for Paris soon and i'm not exactly thrilled about it! G9ii when I'm out doing wildlife photography felt like anything was possible within reason and gave me so much time to focus on settings and composition and so on. With the G9 quite often by the time I have faffed about getting the right type of focus mode and moved the AF point to where I want it the subject has cleared off!
@@JoeMaranophotography Yes, I feel your frustration!! I do think the G9 is a great camera, overall, but those moments when its AF is behaving badly are really frustrating.
Cats really good for wildlife, not! Seems the G9II is pretty good!
@antonoat I'm in Paris right now and what I would give to have the G9ii for it's hand held high res and more!