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Thursday, 28 September 2023

New Panasonic Lumix G9 Mk2.......MFT revival or too little, too late ?

 

This photo of a sulphur crested cockatoo in flight was made with a Canon EOS R10 with the RF-S 55-210mm budget medium tele zoom lens. This combination is very compact and inexpensive yet performs  well in real world conditions.

I was an early adopter of the Micro Four Thirds (MFT) system with the purchase of a Lumix G1 in 2009. At the time Panasonic’s autofocus was more accurate and reliable than that of the Canon DSLRs which I had been using. Over the next ten years I bought, owned and extensively used numerous MFT cameras and lenses. So I became very familiar with that system.

Eventually Canon developed their excellent dual pixel AF (DPAF) while Panasonic stuck with their DFD version of contrast detect AF which could no longer compete with the phase detect mirrorless systems developed by….well….all the others.

The initial selling point of MFT cameras and lenses was their compact dimensions compared to the Digital SLR systems of the time.

But over the next few years, MFT cameras grew in size and mass. At the same time DSLRs gave way to mirrorless interchangeable lens camera (MILC) systems which could have  smaller bodies and lenses than DSLR systems.

Now we have the curious situation in which we can find many full frame camera bodies which are smaller than current model MFT models. We also see many full frame lenses which are not significantly larger than MFT models of equivalent focal length and aperture.

So I abandoned MFT and went back to Canon MILCs with both full frame and APSC crop sensors with the benefit that both use the same lens mount and can use the same lenses.

Sony and Nikon took the same conceptual path offering crop sensor and full frame bodies and lenses using the same lens mount.

But MFT is stuck with a dedicated lens mount providing no commonality of bodies or lenses with L mount full frame models.

Several years ago I bought a Panasonic G9 and used it for several months with a variety of lenses. Apart from the hair-trigger shutter button which Panasonic never fixed  the main problem I found with the G9 was the autofocus which worked quite well on static subjects but was unreliable with moving subjects.

Now we have the G9 Mark 2 which Panasonic has belatedly equipped with phase detect AF, promising much improved tracking autofocus. 

Is this the hero model of a Lumix MFT revival or is the G9.2 too little, too late ?

Panasonic has some huge hurdles to overcome if it is to convince photographers to buy into the MFT system via the G9.2 flagship for still photos.

The basic, underlying problem for MFT is the one which has been there all along and which defines the system. That is the sensor, the area of which  (225 square mm) is only one quarter of the 24 x 36mm full frame one (864 square mm) and  only 0.6 times the area of APSC (Sony) and 0.67 times the area of APSC (Canon).

This means that for any given pixel count, MFT sensors will have smaller pixels than APSC or full frame models. This  restricts how well MFT sensors can perform in terms of color depth, digital noise and dynamic range.

These things might not be deal breakers for MFT if the format can bring some compelling selling point to the user experience.

What might that be ?

The original and still the main selling point of MFT is compact dimensions. 

The prospect of lower price has also been offered as a possible MFT appeal.

The problem is that MFT cannot offer a convincing advantage on either of these measures and there is no case that MFT delivers better performance than full frame or APSC models.

Let us look at a size comparison between the G9.2 which Panasonic is promoting right now and an approximately equivalent full frame model. I have used the Canon EOS R6.2 as the example here as it has about the same pixel count and similar performance. I could not find an exact match for the lenses as to equivalent focal length and aperture but I think the comparison photos demonstrate the relationship between the MFT and FF cameras well enough.

Panasonic has smaller MFT bodies like the G95, which I have owned and used, but so does Canon FF with the EOS R8, which I currently own and use. The R8 does cost more but it offers better image quality and performance.

When comparing MFT with FF lenses we have to multiply the MFT focal length and f stop number by 2x to get the FF equivalent. Thus an MFT f2.8 lens which looks pretty good on the spec sheet is equivalent to an f5.6 lens on FF which is not so impressive.

 

 

The lenses are not exactly comparable as to zoom range and aperture but we can see that there is no substantial size advantage to the MFT kit





In this case the full frame 28mm prime has a wider effective aperture than the equivalent MFT lens. Having owned both I can say the RF 28mm f2.8 is in a different league optically.

So much for standard primes and zooms.

What about long zooms ?

The main thrust of Panasonic’s marketing for the G9.2 is to extol its virtues as a sport/action/bird/wildlife camera with an updated version of the Leica 100-400mm f4-6.3 lens mounted. This gives a full frame equivalent of 200-800mm f8-12.6.

That looks quite appealing on paper and it might prove to be so in practice. I have so far only seen early reviews by sport/bird photographers of his combination and they are reporting that it is better than the original G9 but not yet as reliable as Canon, Sony or even Nikon body/lens combinations when tracking fast moving subjects. It is still early days for Panasonic phase detect AF so we will have to see if they can upgrade it over time. 

The problem is that even if they get the AF up to established industry standard there is still the size/mass/cost issue.

 


The Canon RF full frame kit on the right does not have the reach of the MFT kit but in the field I find AF performance the most important determinant of results. Time will tell if Panasonic phase detect AF can match that of Canon and Sony

If we compare the G9.2 with Leica 100-400mm lens to the EOS R6.2 with RF100-500mm L lens then the MFT kit is easily more compact and less expensive and has more reach into the bargain.

But Canon also has the excellent, compact and moderately priced RF 100-400mm lens which is compatible with RF 1.4x and 2x extenders.

But wait, there’s more….

Canon also has APSC bodies which use the excellent dual pixel AF and Canon’s DIGIC X processor.

I have an EOS R10 and have been testing it with the RF 100-400mm mounted.

This combination gives us an equivalent 160-640mm f9-13 with very good tracking AF and very good image quality, at a smaller size and lower mass than the MFT kit and about half the price.

  

The Canon RF mount APSC kit on the right is smaller, lighter and about half the price of the MFT kit and it does a prety good job tracking moving subjects.

 

What about OM System, formerly Olympus ? 

Potential buyers may well have concerns about the ongoing viability of OM System as a camera maker. Time will tell.

In the meantime.  OM System’s bodies  and lenses have the same MFT issues as those affecting Panasonic MFT.

For instance the OM-1 is a bit smaller than the G9.2 but the Olympus 100-400mm f5-6.3 is bigger than the Pana-Leica  100-400mm f4-6.3  so the kit ends up about the same size, mass and price.

Summary

Panasonic will very likely upsell some existing Lumix G9 MFT owners to the G9.2.

Fair enough.

 However I see nothing that might persuade a So-Ca-Nik user to switch systems or even to invest in an G9.2 with the Leica 100-400mm lens for sport/action/birds/wildlife.

Might the MFT sensor work in a bridge camera ?

I think it might.  Olympus (now OM system) offers a 12-200mm f3.5-6.3 MFT lens with 16.6 x zoom range which is slightly more than the Panasonic Lumix FZ1000.2 at 16 x. The Olympus lens is quite compact at 100mm in length. This particular lens does not receive favourable reviews regarding optical qualities but it’s existence demonstrates the possibility of making such a compact superzoom lens for the MFT system. Presumably if something similar were to be fully incorporated into the body it could be even smaller.

So, maybe. However we already have some good bridge cameras using the Sony “one inch” (15.9mm diagonal) sensor which delivers very good results and I am not sure there would be a market for a bridge cam using the 21.4mm diagonal MFT sensor.

Time will tell but I wouldn’t bet on the G9.2 setting off  a MFT revival.

 Update 1 October 2023

The Northrups posted a youtube video today comparing tele-zooms from Canon, Nikon, Sony, OM System, Fujifilm and Panasonic.

They gave  the Lumix G9.2 with the Leica 100-400mm MFT lens the lowest score of all the body/lens combinations, mainly because the Panasonic autofocus is not yet able to compete with any of the other brands.  

 

 

 



2 comments:

  1. Very helpful article, thanks!

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  2. There is no such thing as the perfect camera! Your choice is based on what best suits you. MFT for me was originally the only format I could use with my old macro lenses (with adapters) and now the OM-1 is still best for macro (my subjects are mostly in the 1-8mm range). Full frame for these subjects is a waste of sensor space (at 1:1 not much of a full-frame sensor is used, and the higher pixel density of MFT helps). I find the weight of the OM-1 an advantage as the additional inertia over a lighter camera helps keep it steady for macro work.

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