I couldn't resist. The pricing on the G9 was too good. I'm sure it will be superseded next week by the G10.... Here's my story.

Of all the cameras I regret selling (and there have only been a few whose absence I really feel) the Panasonic G9 is at the top of the list. Lately, here on the blog, I've been sharing photographs and stories about jobs done back in 2018-2020 with a pair of G9s that I bought new. The cameras and also the lenses were very good but I succumbed to the lure of full frame and the G9s were shuffled off in some misguided trade deal. I figured that with the pandemic and the almost total halt to jobs in 2020-2021 that if I didn't sell the older stuff it would be rendered obsolete over time. Of course, I have been wrong many times before.

Recently I bought a GH5ii and also the newer GH6 and I've used both on two larger event projects as well as some smaller portrait sessions. Both are excellent cameras and they are well packed with features but...I made the mistake of casually handling a used G9 at the local camera store and all the nostalgia and good memories of the jobs and personal work done with that camera came flooding back to me. Why? Because the camera is shaped and designed to be just right in my hands and just right, technically, for most of my uses.

I've gone back and forth over the last two weeks, trying to decide if I really needed to re-invest in one of the new G9s the store had in inventory or if I was letting emotion cloud my fiscal judgement. But you know the story, emotion easily trumped the logical part of my brain and I let my favorite camera "consultant" at my local store know that I was seriously considering restocking the camera --- mostly for old time's sake but also because I am convinced that once they exit the market that design and configuration will disappear as well. And then I'll want one and they'll be gone.

I called earlier in the week to check on pricing. There's a general sale going on across most of the USA dealers that dropped the price from $1299 to $997. I continued to mull over the my state of need, the health of the stock market, my latest property appraisal and the price of unleaded gas. 

Yesterday my "consultant" texted me to let me know that the store was offering an additional $100 "instant rebate" off the already manufacturer rebated price. This would bring the camera price down to $897. I gave up my temporary bout of financial responsibility and sent back a text saying that I'd like to come by and grab one of the G9s while they were still in stock. I hate driving at rush hour so instead of zooming out there yesterday in the late afternoon I asked him to meet me at the store at 10 a.m. this morning and I'd get the camera from him then. 

At the risk of jinxing myself I seem to be having a really good day today. I showed up at 10 a.m. and there was a line of customers wrapped around the side of the Precision Camera building waiting to get in at the opening. Nice for Precision Camera. I got into the line and asked what the deal was. PC was holding a "Photo Expo" and giving out random coupons to the first 50 people in line. Most of the coupons were for small discounts on gear or free lens cleaners or something. But I was told that one lucky coupon out of the 50 was for $100 off anything. No strings attached.

The doors opened, the manager shuffled the coupons, greeted the customers and let each one pick their own coupon. The coupons were face down so no one knew what was on the face until after they selected it. I never win at small things so I presumed I'd get a lens blower or a $5 off coupon. I pulled a card from the stack and turned it over. I had just selected the $100 coupon. Which I could immediately apply to my G9 purchase. That brought the price down to $797 but the fun didn't stop there. 

For this "Photo Expo" there were a number of representatives from the major (and minor) camera manufacturers and accessory makers on hand to show off their lines and to answer questions. The Panasonic guy was there. I went over and after a bit of desultory back and forth I cut to the chase and asked him why "every time I buy a new Panasonic camera there is always a sale on the same product the following week or, more recently, a free battery offer attached? I always seem to miss the sales and I always missed the battery giveaway." 

The rep glanced at my boxed G9 and said, "We're out of G9 batteries. It's too bad you didn't get an S5 because we've got plenty of batteries for that camera." I smiled and said, "I do have an S5, and a GH5ii and a GH6 and I didn't get extra, free batteries for those either." The rep graciously admitted defeat and turned to my "consultant" and asked him to pull a free battery for me out of stock. And yes, the S5 batteries are backwardly compatible with the G9. 

I didn't want to push my luck any further so I took my purchase and my additional battery and headed to my car. Which I drove home very carefully just in case the universe was looking to balance out my good fortune with a bit of friction. 

The final pleasant surprise was that Panasonic had updated the firmware in all the current G9s in inventory so when I pulled it out of the wrapping the camera was already showing the latest firmware. That's a nice touch. 

Back home safely, batteries charging, camera date and time set, memory card inserted and formatted. 

Ah. What a charming camera. 

When evaluating a new lens be sure to zero out all the weird parameters your camera may offer. Test the guts not the trim.

 

There's a lens that's been sitting in a drawer being ignored since the beginning of the year. I ordered it last year and when it came in I stuck it on a Leica SL, went into the camera menu and found an M series lens profile that I thought would match, didn't think another thing about it and then went out to test the lens and see just what my whopping $250 investment bought me. 

It was a silly thing to do. When I pulled a series of color files from the camera there was a decided color shift across the frame and, in general, the files didn't impress me much. I put the camera in the drawer and chalked it up to the result of yet another misguided bout of impulse shopping. 

Subsequently I read a long article on Leica and the way they profile their own past generation lenses (R and M) when they are to be used with the SL cameras. Many lenses have "color drift" when used with digital cameras because of the way lenses which were designed before digital sensors interact with the cover glass, etc. on the sensor bundle. I never gave this much thought but I remember something similar vexing Leica M8 owners to no end. I just figured that most wide angles were more alike than different and presumed that the image stabilization function needed the angle of view inputted in order to work well. 

Today I pulled the TTArtisan 21mm f1.5 ASPH out of the drawer to give it another shot. Now that I  felt responsible for the past test I was duty bound to give the lens another chance. I put the lens on a Leica SL2, turned off the lens profiles entirely, selected .DNG and M.Jpeg, and headed out for an "all manual" photography experience. Manual focus, manual exposure, set ISO, manual transportation (foot powered).

This time around the 21mm lens acquitted itself nicely. As you can see in the color files there is no discernible color drift, the images are very sharp and the tonality is all tasty and good. Shooting with a 21mm can be a lovely experience in some regards. With the exposures locked in and the lens aperture set around f11 one can take full advantage of hyperfocal shooting with reckless abandon. 

If one was to "ding" the lens for any shortcoming it would have to be vignetting. But that's endemic to wide angles as they get more and more wide-angle-y. The lens came in an L mount configuration, is built entirely out of metal and glass, is smooth and easy to focus and is one of the fastest 21mm lenses I know of. For the price it's pretty amazing.

I have one other lens that's a fraction wider. It's the wide end of the Panasonic 20-60mm L mount lens. It's sharp in a different way from the TTArtisan lens but it shares a penchant for darkened corners as well. 

Either lens works for me but I find that manual lenses are better suited to hyperfocal techniques were one roughly calculates the range of distances that will be in focus when the lens is set to a certain distance and aperture. With "focus-by-wire" lenses it becomes way too much guess work. So the 20-60mm is a lens I reach for when AF is more important than "old school street shooting." 

I was very happy with what I was able to do with the TTArtisan lens today. I'm glad I discovered my goof-up and made appropriate restitution. It's a much more capable lens than I originally gave it credit for.

What do we think about G9's, brand new, at $899? I think Panasonic is targeting me....

Vintage Lens Day. Tulips on the Dining Room Table.

 

I thought these tulips looked nice sitting on the dining room table next to the large glass doors to the garden. I was playing around with one of my older, Olympus Pen FT lenses and thought I'd see how it worked on the Panasonic GH5ii. The lens was set at f2.0 and I used the camera's aperture priority setting. The file might have been more flexible if I'd shot in raw but in this instance Jpeg was the recipe of the day. 

I like to have flowers around the house. There's always something to photograph...

The lens was the Pen FT 40mm f1.4 for the original half frame cameras. I think it's a very nice lens. Especially for portraits. 

A variation: 

A "grab shot" prior to a rehearsal at KMFA's studios. I was there to shoot some video. Good thing I brought a third camera along for fun.

 

I had two video cameras set up and I was just marking time before the start of a concert. There would be a rehearsal prior. This was the first of four musicians to show up and to pass the time I grabbed the camera I wasn't using for video and snapped a few pix. I think the Leica SL2 and the Leica 24-90mm do work together to create a nice sense of depth and structure to an image. Or maybe it's just the placebo effect of spending too much money on gear.

Available Light Only.

So...at one point I really was smitten by small sensor, long lens, compact cameras. I think I still am.

 

I was looking for an older photograph that I wanted to send to an art director who works in an ad agency in San Antonio. We'd been e-mailing back and forth about a project and I remembered an image of a woman working in an office that more or less encapsulated the look and feel that I was trying to steer him towards in a contemporary project. I found the image but I also stumbled across this image from about a decade ago. If you compare it with images from a similar viewpoint today you'd find that this image is missing three or four (or more) tall buildings. 

It was taken with a Sony RX10-2. A camera with a one inch sensor and a lens that went from 24-200mm. Just right, I think. The f-stop for this photo was 6 and the focal length for the shot was 8.8mm. The shutter speed was 1/125th of a second. 

It's not a particularly clever shot but it does show off what smaller sensor cameras can do well. The can include huge swaths of a scene in sharp focus. The depth of field is different from current tastes. 

I walk through this area frequently and seeing this image from a long time ago brings me back to how fresh this particular retail development (a re-use of a retired electric generating plant) looked and felt at the time. And how much fun it was to document progress in the downtown Austin area. 

I haven't seen any announcements or rumors that would lead me to believe that Sony is on the cusp of introducing a new model in the RX10 series and I think that's too bad. The final one, as of now, is the RX10-IV and it's pretty darn good. It's got an enormous range of angles of view, fast AF, great color, good 4K video and also good image stabilization. 

The retail price is still around $1600 for the camera and to my mind you are getting an amazingly good lens; it may be the selling point of the whole package. If the camera used a bigger battery it would be close to perfect for those photographers and videographers who really aren't smitten by super thin slivers of sharp focus. This camera trades "bokeh" for information. 

I'll be a bit sad when the RX10-4 is finally discontinued. For some people it's the perfect imaging solution. 

Just a quick walk down memory lane. 

Deceleration.

SL2 + 50mm. 

Regression to the mean. Secondary derivatives. Life goes on.

I've been keeping an eye on the stock market lately. I would guess that you have too. I spent some time with an economist several weeks ago and we traded perspectives about the market. He was interested in both the rate of change and rate of the rate of change but in the end I think what we're seeing play out, in the markets and in cultural life, is the long arch of a regression to the mean. The stock market tends to go up, on  average, about seven to ten percent per year. In 2021 the S&P Index zoomed up by about 30%. Most of that, I think, was driven by pent up demand from the first year of the pandemic. Some was driven by the underlying euphoria of dodging (just barely) the burdensome yoke of authoritarianism. And a good deal of the general froth in the markets was a secondary effect of federal money pouring into the general consumer market in terms of stimulus checks. All combined to distort the normal trajectory of the markets. Add to this the psychology of considering every fiscal upside as the new normal. 

Now my friends, who saw their net worth leap skyward last year (factoring in the elevating values of their real estate) are dismayed and tormented by this quarter's stock market correction. While I'd love to see my simple investments return 30% every single year I think that's irrational and that what we are seeing right now is more just a regression to the mean. A return. A somewhat painful return. To bringing the market back in line with statistical averages. 

I also see a corollary with the hobby of photography. The newness of digital drove the market for cameras like a runaway freight from 2001 to 2013. Sales nearly doubled every year. The components of the basket of camera goods constantly changed and rebalanced but the acceleration of overall growth was impossible to argue against. But since 2013 cameras sales have dropped in almost an exact expression of "Kirk's Laws of Market Parabola." This states that the rise of a market or a company's value rises to a high point and then because of market pressures, new competition, maturing tech or some other reason the value or the market then descend. The rate of acceleration before the high point generally equals the rate of deceleration after the high point. The trajectory of the curve up and then down is more or less the same on either side of the midpoint. In an artillery analogy a bullet shot into the air completes an arc at the end of it's flight (if unimpeded) that is equivalent on both sides of the apex of the bullet's flight. 

I think the camera market is a perfect example of R to M. We're heading back to a time when only advanced amateurs and people bent on making money with their passion carried around cameras and shot lots of images of things other than selfies and food shots. We're heading back to the late 90s when you either did photos for love or money but you didn't switch stuff every few years. The market reflects this now. At some point the decline in sales will stop and camera makers will adjust back to a sane parametric. 

I more or less believe in the regression to the mean in both culture and finance. The markets may dip this year but over an X year period I'm betting we'll continue to see a seven to ten percent rate of return per year. Painful in the short run but comforting over the long haul. 

I believe that what we're seeing in our cultural landscape is an attempt by conservatives to force a regression to the mean on social issues. My only curiosity is just how big a curve are they trying to address. Will we go all the way back to biblical times and pass laws allowing us to stone adulterers and to also make slaves of peoples that we conquer in war? Or will we just be asked to give back more recent achievements of kindness and civilization? It will be interesting to see where the mean lies in the whole social equation and whether those pushing for regression really understand the math and how it will inevitably affect themselves.

Here are some building shots I took this morning. I like them. They came from the Leica SL camera and the Panasonic 50mm f1.8 lens.