Well, it has arrived and I have been playing with the G9II. I am honestly in two minds about it. In fact, I have already requested a returns number from the supplier. I also got back the OM-1, sort-of fixed. I honestly don't think they can fix the joystick. It now sort-of works but to be honest, just using the four-way controller is in some ways easier. If the joystick ever stops working entirely, I will send it back again. The whole process was quicker than I expected so well done to Olympus (It left last Monday and returned today - Saturday).
Bottom line, the G9II feels like a real pro-body in the hand and with the function buttons layout, far more so than OM-1. I also like the colour science of the sensor which I suspect benefits from the Leica partnership. The viewfinder is better than the OM-1 and the focus area and focus points are much clearer than the OM-1. It is one of my biggest frustrations that if I am in single-AF area on the OM-1, or one of the smaller grids, you really have no idea where the focus points are until they start to respond. This is less of problem for wildlife but it is a pain for landscape or architecture.
All in all, the Panasonic is superior in terms of ergonomics compared to the OM-1. BUT... I am not convinced about whether it is equal to let alone better in terms of C-AF and in particular bird in flight AF. Although, I am very surprised at the responsiveness of the bird-id AF. That works very well, imho with the eye detection on the animal being more consistent in my limited experience. I am going out tomorrow morning to try and stress test that with birds in a more open area than just my back garden. In terms of high iso performance. I can't see much of a difference applying Lightroom Denoise to high iso photos versus the OM-1. You can retrieve a lot of detail from high-iso photos, just like with the OM-1.
Recalling the terrible frustrations I had with wildlife photography with the original G9 the G9II is a quantum change - probably because they dumped the stupid DFD tech which just boomeranged all over the place trying to focus. That was a disaster for anything that moved.If I had to put a number on it from 1 to 10, I would say the OM-1 is a 10 for bird-id AF and the G9II is more like an 8 (so far).
Here are a couple of captures from the G9II with the Oly 300f4.
Although not super-super sharp, I know from back in the day that the G9 would have had no hope of capturing this image. It would still be shunting back and forth to an AF solution long after the bird was over the horizon. In fact, the AF does seem to have got onto the eye and - confession time - this was shot through a window as iso12800.
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This may seem like an odd photo to show but I was pleasantly surprised that the AF responded fast enough to capture this Jay in flight angling into our covered bird table. This is the kind of result I would expect from the OM-1.
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Another interesting example, this time of the eye AF. The AF kept its focus point on the eye of the Jay even as the Jackdaw was flying into the bird table.
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As far a bird portraits go, the G9II delivers at the same level as the OM-1, so in that respect the IQ is equally as good.
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I do need a second body. I was very lucky this week that I didn't get a call from my regular client needing some work done, which would have been embarrassing for me if I hadn't a camera (apart from my trust Ricoh GRIII). The question is whether to keep the G9II and dedicate it to non-wildlife work - at which I know it will excel like the former version, or return it and get the OM-1 MkII which is actually over GBP300 more expensive. Decisions, decusions,eh?
