Panasonic G9 mk2

[Beritar]

3 hours ago, John Matthews said:

That was an interesting comparison but also rather limited being at some show. The conclusion for him was to say the FX30 was the best because, even though it lacks good IBIS, the "photos are amazing" and costs a little less. I'm finding that rather curious because FX30 lacks an actual shutter, meaning it can't even do flash photography, a basic feature for almost any "photo" camera... maybe it can, but I couldn't find any info on it. Also, he talks about M43 not doing well in low-light, which is not accurate due to their amazing IBIS (maybe he meant "high ISO"?). That was a very confusing review for me.

As far as "detail rendering", I never had any problem with the GH6; nor did I notice anything. Maybe if you A-B with another camera, it's different. If anything, I'd say the trouble with GH6 is the implementation of DR Boost. The rolling shutter on the GH6 was definitely NOT an issue either, especially with IBIS enabled.

The difference of the details rendering is really apparent only when cropping.
And yes the rolling shutter on the GH6 is good, I'm curious to see if the G9II is worse. I can't find any number/measure on the net.

[kye]

14 minutes ago, Beritar said:

The difference of the details rendering is really apparent only when cropping.
And yes the rolling shutter on the GH6 is good, I'm curious to see if the G9II is worse. I can't find any number/measure on the net.

I couldn't find any DR results either.  Let's hope that the people who give thorough technical reviews are still working on them, rather than it just being passed over for deeper technical investigation.

[Beritar]

7 hours ago, John Matthews said:

The one thing that bugs me about the S5 ii is possible moiré. I've never seen it on the GH6 and I bet the G9 ii will be the same. The GH6 has been a little too quirky for me in that DR Boost needed to be set on or off. I don't like that.

I have the GH6, S5 and S5II. I don't see more moiré on the S5II compared to the S5. What I see on the S5II is more edge sharpening and worse fine details. Again, if you don't crop I don't think you can see a big difference.

The GH6 on the other hand is less prone to moiré, but since the S5, Panasonic uses some processing to minimize moiré :

"Intelligent detail processing eliminates the need for a low-pass filter and smooths fine details like hair and wires to minimize moiré patterns". 

On the GH6 the result is pretty good but maybe a bit too strong compared to their other cameras, the moiré is most of the time eliminated, but this is the same for some fine details. When I compare my video from my G9, GH5 and GH6, depending of the scene, the GH6 has often less fine details when looking them at 100%, especially in low light. At first I thought it was noise reduction, but the noise structure is very nice and seems unaltered. 
This is a sort of digital OLPF.

There is no miracle, in order to have the best picture (similar to a picture raw file), the less processing is always better, but moiré is certainly an issue for most people. It is why the Panasonic S1H has probably the nicest video quality from a camera below 4000$, details are less processed than the GH6 or the S5II, and the OLPF eleminates the moiré without looking unnatural. 

 

[John Matthews]

16 minutes ago, kye said:

In terms of waiting vs buying, I adopt a risk management strategy.  If an option in front of you is worth buying even if there were no new products, and you couldn't wait (you need the features now) then I say buy.  If you can wait, then wait until you can't make do with what you have and then buy then.  Worst cases are that: 1) you bought and then a better option was released - but if you needed the tool for the job then it was an investment and also you can just trade-up with the interim projects helping to justify the loss, or 2) you can wait and so you do wait and no better option is released - but that's fine too because either you never buy because you never needed to upgrade or you eventually do need to upgrade and you buy then when the product is cheaper.  

Yes, to buy or not. For Apple devices, I'd always go to the MacRumors.com buyer's guide. They'd say "buy now, caution, or don't buy". Given the G9ii is about to be released, I'm sure the "Buy now" would be warranted. However, do I NEED it? No. I just sold a whole bunch of gear that I wasn't using enough, I now I have the funds to pull the trigger on something I WANT. Sure, it would suck to see a GH7 coming out with a variable ND (in ALL MODES) and PDAF in a smaller body for much cheaper, but I don't think it'll happen.

There's also the notion of camera paralysis, not know which one to take because they're all great- I had this. Camera upgrade paralysis is another thing- thinking there's something better soon. In terms of "bigger hybrid camera" for M43, I have my doubts about anything coming soon other than a GH7; even then, it won't be until January to March IMO. I trust Panasonic to not screw their customers too much by obsoleting just after release. Given it took 5 years to have a meaningful release of a G9ii, I think it'll be fine.

On another note, I did see a video by Geeky Nerdy Techy. He said there was moiré in one of his videos:

Again, most cameras will have frequency where it hits. I'm not exactly sure if it's better than or worse than the GH6 in that regard, but it would be interesting to know.

[John Matthews]

9 minutes ago, Beritar said:

There is no miracle, in order to have the best picture (similar to a picture raw file), the less processing is always better, but moiré is certainly an issue for most people. It is why the Panasonic S1H has probably the nicest video quality from a camera below 4000$, details are less processed than the GH6 or the S5II, and the OLPF eleminates the moiré without looking unnatural. 

Yeah, I've seen moiré on that too. In fact, I don't know too many cameras that, with 100% certainty, don't have moiré. I'll bet even an ALEXA might have some frequency where it happens. Awhile back, I purchased some Ikea "lace" curtains and I notice a moiré effect with my naked eye, something that I thought was only possible on digital sensors, but I guess not. Oddly enough, none of my digital sensors would pick up the moiré patterns that I could see. It's 2023 and we've AI upresing and all other sorts of quality improvements, but no software AI has figured out moiré.

[John Matthews]

I learned a couple of things after watching a Lumix live stream. DFD is still used for S-AF because it's faster than PDAF. I've also heard that when working in low-light and small apertures (f11), only contrast is used due to PDAF not being efficient- this is true amongst all brands.

[ac6000cw]

Re. S5 ii moire and aliasing tests, the test-chart videos here are pretty comprehensive - https://www.optyczne.pl/70.4-Inne_testy-Panasonic_Lumix_S5_II_-_test_trybu_filmowego_Jakość_obrazu.html

For comparison, these are the GH6 tests - https://www.optyczne.pl/62.4-Inne_testy-Panasonic_Lumix_GH6_-_test_trybu_filmowego_Jakość_obrazu.html - and this is for the OM-1 - https://www.optyczne.pl/59.4-Inne_testy-OM_System_OM-1_-_test_trybu_filmowego_Jakość_obrazu.html

Unfortunately they haven't tested the G9 ii yet...

11 minutes ago, John Matthews said:

I learned a couple of things after watching a Lumix live stream. DFD is still used for S-AF because it's faster than PDAF. I've also heard that when working in low-light and small apertures (f11), only contrast is used due to PDAF not being efficient- this is true amongst all brands.

Yes - as far as I know, all mirrorless cameras with PDAF use some form of contrast detection to 'fine tune' focus after PDAF has got it close (and more so in low-light and with small apertures - I guess diffraction affects PDAF in that situation). Also I remember Olympus saying that C-AF in video (on their cameras with PDAF) uses a mixture of PDAF and CDAF.

But in reality, I think with modern cameras the main C-AF issue is how they decide what to focus on (and then track it) - the 'Ai' part - rather than how they do the focusing.

[TomTheDP]

19 hours ago, John Matthews said:

Here's the rub as of today in France:

Option 1: G9 ii body for 1899 Euros (I have the lenses)

Option 2: S5 ii body + 20-60 + 50mm prime for only 2099 euros

What would you do?

The G9 makes sense as you have the glass. I'd wait until it drops in price though. The GH6 is so cheap now used and is practically the same camera. It is the same with the S5 ii though, the original S5 goes for under $1000 now used. Essentially paying a grand for auto focus and prores on the S5X. 

 

7 hours ago, Beritar said:

I've found this interesting video comparing the G9II to some Nikon, Fuji and Sony cameras.
IBIS looks fantastic on the G9II, colors look as great as the GH6 and focus is very fast with the 12-60mm PL.

However, exactly like my GH6 in low light (and my S5II with most PP), I really don't like the details rendering of the G9II.
On the video, the woman has freckles and it's perfect to see the rendering of fine details. What I see is a a mix of smoothing and sharpening resulting in a very bad image (especially when cropping) in my opinion.
The Nikon cameras are even worse. Fine details are totally destroyed, exactly like on my good old Samsung NX1.
I'm glad I never bought Nikon cameras for video.
Sony is Sony, as always, the rolling shutter is bad, the IBIS is average, but the details rendering is much closer than what we had on the first gen S1 and S5, much closer to a raw picture without artifice.

It's always nice to see the IBIS, rolling shutter AF etc compared, but for me one of the most important thing is the pure image quality, including colors and details.
I understand some people like very soft image in video, but to my eyes the G9II (and the Z9/Z8) just doesn't look good, of course YMMV.
 

Do they have sharpening and NR turned off tho? Panasonic usually has some pretty bad processing issues that are fixed in firmware a few months later. That was the case with the S1 and S1H. Both had really bad internal sharpening that couldn't be dialed all the way off. They fixed it a few months later. 

[TomTheDP]

accidental repost 

[John Matthews]

1 hour ago, TomTheDP said:

The G9 makes sense as you have the glass. I'd wait until it drops in price though. The GH6 is so cheap now used and is practically the same camera. It is the same with the S5 ii though, the original S5 goes for under $1000 now used. Essentially paying a grand for auto focus and prores on the S5X. 

Yes. the GH6 is cheap now. It's an amazing deal. I just sold mine and I didn't lose too much, but I bought it at a deep discount on Black Friday. My feeling is that Panasonic isn't going to do the same deals for Black Friday this year. Anyway, I lost a couple hundred, not bad for owning it for a year. I also made it up in other gear I purchased and sold it at a profit. It sounds crazy to pay so much for AF, but fortunately, it's not just that as there are many other features too. For me, I just want something significantly better than my E-M1 ii and I think the G9 ii hits the mark, especially on the video side; with photos, only a little.

[kye]

13 hours ago, John Matthews said:

Yes, to buy or not. For Apple devices, I'd always go to the MacRumors.com buyer's guide. They'd say "buy now, caution, or don't buy". Given the G9ii is about to be released, I'm sure the "Buy now" would be warranted. However, do I NEED it? No. I just sold a whole bunch of gear that I wasn't using enough, I now I have the funds to pull the trigger on something I WANT. Sure, it would suck to see a GH7 coming out with a variable ND (in ALL MODES) and PDAF in a smaller body for much cheaper, but I don't think it'll happen.

There's also the notion of camera paralysis, not know which one to take because they're all great- I had this. Camera upgrade paralysis is another thing- thinking there's something better soon. In terms of "bigger hybrid camera" for M43, I have my doubts about anything coming soon other than a GH7; even then, it won't be until January to March IMO. I trust Panasonic to not screw their customers too much by obsoleting just after release. Given it took 5 years to have a meaningful release of a G9ii, I think it'll be fine.

On another note, I did see a video by Geeky Nerdy Techy. He said there was moiré in one of his videos:

Again, most cameras will have frequency where it hits. I'm not exactly sure if it's better than or worse than the GH6 in that regard, but it would be interesting to know.

I suspect that there will be a GH7, and that it will be out sooner than their usual release schedule (as the GH6 wasn't well received) but I also wouldn't wait for it, it could be a couple of years and still be "ahead of schedule".

In terms of moire, the only guaranteed solutions are an OLPF or to have pixels that have 100% coverage (ie, no gaps between the pixels).  If you don't have either of those, there is always the possibility that a repeating pattern will fall into the gaps between the pixels and therefore be completely invisible to the sensor at that location where the pattern and pixels are identically spaced.

AI can't deal with moire because it happens before the image is digital.  The only way AI could deal with it would be for the AI to re-interpret the whole image and replace sections of the image because it "knows better" than what the camera captured.  Getting a good result in video is a long way off I suspect.

Your eye will have moire because the interference comes from the actual objects exhibiting this behaviour, not the capture mechanism.  The "lines" shown in the below images are formed because the objects physically line-up when viewed from this particular vantage point, and the areas that don't have "lines" are because the objects didn't line-up from that vantage point.

 

11 hours ago, ac6000cw said:

But in reality, I think with modern cameras the main C-AF issue is how they decide what to focus on (and then track it) - the 'Ai' part - rather than how they do the focusing.

I've been saying this for years now.  In the conversation that follows, people resume talking about PDAF and CDAF like my comment never existed.  It's nice to hear someone else say it, but don't expect to raise the level of discussion!

[John Matthews]

2 hours ago, kye said:

In terms of moire, the only guaranteed solutions are an OLPF or to have pixels that have 100% coverage (ie, no gaps between the pixels).  If you don't have either of those, there is always the possibility that a repeating pattern will fall into the gaps between the pixels and therefore be completely invisible to the sensor at that location where the pattern and pixels are identically spaced.

Yes. If only the Foveon sensor took off, moiré would be out of everything. We should start a new thread on moiré only. I bet if we pool our resources, we might be able to diminish the effect in post or planning. If you look on YouTube, there isn't really that much on the subject; maybe that's why there isn't more energy put into it.

[kye]

22 minutes ago, John Matthews said:

Yes. If only the Foveon sensor took off, moiré would be out of everything. We should start a new thread on moiré only. I bet if we pool our resources, we might be able to diminish the effect in post or planning. If you look on YouTube, there isn't really that much on the subject; maybe that's why there isn't more energy put into it.

Yes and no. 

The Foveon sensor would mean that demosiacing wouldn't be required but it might still have dead spots between the photosites, which is what I was talking about.

Here's an image showing what I mean...  the yellow areas indicate the light from the scene that would be captured by each photo site, and the blue areas indicate the light from the scene that would not be detected by any photo site on the sensor:

If the micro lenses were configured to make sure all light made its way onto a photo site then it would eliminate this issue, like the below shows on the right with the gapless micro lenses:

It's worth mentioning that not all lenses project the scene onto the sensor from directly in front either - some lenses have the light hitting the sensor at quite an angle, which can interfere with how well the micro lenses are able to direct all the light to a photo site.   

These lenses are typically from older cameras which were designed to project onto film, which didn't care about the angle it got exposed from.  This is why different lenses often vignette differently on different cameras, especially vintage wide angle lenses that might be projecting the image circle from the middle to the edges at quite a steep angle.

[John Matthews]

2 minutes ago, kye said:

Yes and no. 

The Foveon sensor would mean that demosiacing wouldn't be required but it might still have dead spots between the photosites, which is what I was talking about.

Here's an image showing what I mean...  the yellow areas indicate the light from the scene that would be captured by each photo site, and the blue areas indicate the light from the scene that would not be detected by any photo site on the sensor:

If the micro lenses were configured to make sure all light made its way onto a photo site then it would eliminate this issue, like the below shows on the right with the gapless micro lenses:

It's worth mentioning that not all lenses project the scene onto the sensor from directly in front either - some lenses have the light hitting the sensor at quite an angle, which can interfere with how well the micro lenses are able to direct all the light to a photo site.   

These lenses are typically from older cameras which were designed to project onto film, which didn't care about the angle it got exposed from.  This is why different lenses often vignette differently on different cameras, especially vintage wide angle lenses that might be projecting the image circle from the middle to the edges at quite a steep angle.

So what I was saying earlier about a correlation between pixel density and moiré is true. The less space there is between pixels, the less chance of moiré. In this case, 12k capture is better than 4k when it comes to moiré.

On the G100, it really sucked for 1080p moiré at precisely the distance one would vlog at. Go back 50 cm and moiré would be gone due to the frequency of the patterns. I imagine the GX80/85 has a similar problem in 1080p.

[MrSMW]

The solution re. moiré is to go back in time and eradicate The French as they invented it.

You can tell by the é.

[MrSMW]

Being serious, it was quite a big issue with the S5 for me, especially with stills because if the camera captured it, then it was game over.

I had one wedding where the groom and all his men, their jackets…all day long… 🙈

Not really tested it with the S5ii as I moved the S1H into the photo role and now with the Nikon Zf, that very rare thing these days, an OLPF as standard. Yay.

[kye]

3 hours ago, John Matthews said:

So what I was saying earlier about a correlation between pixel density and moiré is true. The less space there is between pixels, the less chance of moiré. In this case, 12k capture is better than 4k when it comes to moiré.

On the G100, it really sucked for 1080p moiré at precisely the distance one would vlog at. Go back 50 cm and moiré would be gone due to the frequency of the patterns. I imagine the GX80/85 has a similar problem in 1080p.

I don't think it works that way though.  A 12K sensor would be sensitive to moire if there were repeating patterns that happened to align with the gaps between the pixels, just like a 4K sensor.  

It might be that common causes of moire are around a certain size and therefore impact one combination of sensor resolution / sensor size / and focal length more than other combinations.  Also, lower resolution sensors might be more prone to moire as they're typically older and there were larger gaps between the pixels than there are now.

Lower resolutions are likely to have issues on cheaper cameras too, due to the camera line skipping and therefore effectively creating very large gaps between the active pixels.  

Sadly, there's lots of different ways to create moire, and many of them tend to come from strategies to make the product more affordable!

[BTM_Pix]

BM acknowledging that adding OLPF to your 12K camera reduces the issue and gets you Netflix approved.

The issue that they were primarily addressing was for LED screens in VP rather than a gang of wedding guests in herringbone suits though.

 

[John Matthews]

1 hour ago, MrSMW said:

Being serious, it was quite a big issue with the S5 for me, especially with stills because if the camera captured it, then it was game over.

I had one wedding where the groom and all his men, their jackets…all day long… 🙈

Not really tested it with the S5ii as I moved the S1H into the photo role and now with the Nikon Zf, that very rare thing these days, an OLPF as standard. Yay.

So, how did you deal with that? That seems like a nightmare!

[MrSMW]

53 minutes ago, John Matthews said:

So, how did you deal with that? That seems like a nightmare!

It’s less obvious in B&W otherwise immediately began contemplating an alternative camera.

It is quite rare to be fair but this particularly shiny weave of fabric was just uber-prone to it.

I do prefer cameras with an OLPF if only for those scenarios but also use a 1/8th mist, partly to reduce the sharpness and the digital look, but also because it might help with any moiré in the first place?

I’ve never seen moiré on any S5ii footage using a 1/8th so coincidence or because of?