Lumix G9ii, part 2

 

Continuing with the second half of the year (2024) in photos (with the new camera) I was really happy with this photo (above) of a male eider duck. The black and white design makes them a really difficult subject as a lesser camera tends to overexpose the white or lose details in the black. Both seem near perfectly exposed here and the whole thing is pin sharp and the colours exquisite. I came across the duck snoozing in Leith basin and the smooth water helps with the lovely reflection. Before he roused himself and moved away from my attentions I got a few photos and it was only later I realised I had one of the best shots of the year. It makes me want to get the paints out and copy this cracking image (if I say so myself.) Nice to get a vibrant shot of the female eider (below) nearby, same day.

This moorhen was sitting by the river and allowed me to get such a close up.
I like the feather details, red eyes and almost plastic beak.

lively colourscheme behind this admiral

Pentlands wheatear

stonechat (m)

Also near the Pentlands was this great spotted woodpecker (m).
Haven't seen enough of these fab birds this last year.

newt at Saltoun

four-spotted chaser

Broad-bodied chaser (male immature)

Broad-bodied female

Being a little later in the season that the Spring butterflies the dragonflies didn't seem to suffer the same way. Great to see broad-bodied dragonflies again, rgith up there as one of my favourites. Fewer decent photos this year of mature males which are blue coloured.

The nearly annual trip down to the Berwickshire coastal paths (20th May) went well this year. Getting close to the tiny small blue butterflies is the main target although I always stop for decent walls and many of the small birds.

good quality Wall

reed bunting (f)

well ploughed landscape near to Blaikie Heugh

a day of several stonechats

the UK's smallest butterfly the small blue

To get the last 2 shots I had to lie on the grass and slither up like a snake to get close enough without scaring off the tiny butterfly. As this was with the 60mm macro I'd've had to be really close - within an inch or 2 of the butterfly. I tried many times and mostly they'd fly off or grass would get in the way. 

starling

reed bunting near North Berwick

stonechat (m)

large skipper

I was really stoked to find large skippers (as above) are moving into Midlothian. A lovely buttefly when fresh, one used to have to travel to the Easterly corners of East Lothian to bump into them and I confess I never bothered. However I found them at Levenhall after Bob flagged up they were there. Not many and not always easy to find, but great to have them within a short cycle ride away. While looking I also came across a black-tailed skimmer, a dragonfly I'd never seen before in the Lothians and a potentially new site for them. I looked later in the year (there were so few decent sunny days this "Summer") but couldn't find any.

some sort of soldier beetle with great heart-shaped marking
on thorax. Cantharis rustica perhaps.

azure damselflies

pheasant

sepsid fly

plume moth

one of the best small coppers all year
although they were one of the species hit hard this year locally

silver-ground carpet moth
shot with 90mm macro

The Summer seemed to continue the theme of terrible weather (for butterflies and photographers) so I consoled myself by buying another macro lens in early June. There is nothing wrong with the 60mm and it is a very fine lens (and relatively inexpensive for such quality.) However I'd been reading great reviews of the 90mm OM System M.Zuiko, which, being 90mm (equivalent 180mm full frame) is even better and gives you more room to operate. That is, you don't have to get so close to the subject as with the 60mm. Which would be better for butterflies and insects that tend to fly off if you approach too quickly or get right up close. It also promised greater magnification. I held off for a while as I could not really justify the three times cost of the 60mm, but then thought what the hell, you only live once and bought it. Eventually after I realised I no longer required the 60mm I sold that on to a friend who is making great use of it.

Psocoptera, booklouse

red admiral

I went up to Tentsmuir early June looking for fritillaries. Unfortunately the forecast (and butterflies) never materialised but another dull day was saved, taking photos at Morton Lochs hides of the jay and woodpecker who performed admirably.

Phaonia?

More examples taken with the new macro lens. Some just sit happily to have their picture taken, most don't and you have to approach slowly and carefully to get close enough to get photos. It requires the patience of a saint which it turns out I don't have. Well, maybe up to a point. There is often very un-saintly language as you crouch in a patch of nettles to get the right angle and the subject flies off just before you push the shutter. Good way to spend a day in the zone when there are no butterflies about.

Pegomya bicolor?

Helophilus pendulus

This bee was conked out and motionless on a gravestone. (Actually vertical although it looks horizontal.) I took a handheld stacked image: which is to say I rested myself and the camera against the gravestone and it shot off 25 shots in quick succession changing the focus a tiny bit each shot. Holding it steady is paramount. A couple of days later I bought Helicon (or rather I rented it for a year) which blends all the sharpest bits of each photo together into a decent photo. This overcomes the shallow depth of field you often get when shooting macro. M43rds cameras suffer less than full frame and are often better for macro work, making it possible to handhold stacked shots and not require a tripod.

36 stack image of a centipede

I found this dead centipede outside my front door and thought oh that'll come in handy for macro practise and took it inside. Wondering if these were more like the habits of a serial killer. Anyway it made a very decent stacked image with very few artifacts and duff bits due to holding the camera steady against my desk. I lit it with an LED angle poise and the flash and diffuser. The only trouble is finding subjects that hold still for several seconds while the flash goes off in their face 36 times. 

A thing I realised from experimentation rather than watching an online tutorial is using the focus bracketing in conjunction with the burst mode dial on the left of the camera body top. I have the first burst mode set to take continuous photos until I lift my finger off the shutter release button. So I set the focus bracketing (stacking) to whatever I think suitable for the subject, currently about 36 quite closely focussed shots.

The problem is the subject (if live) can leave the frame halfway through those 36 shots and the camera continues to take another 17 photos of background or blur as you struggle to find the stop button on the back of the camera. Worse if you have set the stack number higher. So I found if shooting anything alive that you can put the left hand dial to burst mode one and if the subject leaves the frame after 15 shots you just lift your finger off the shutter release and the camera stops shooting. Very handy. Sometimes you only need half a dozen shots for stacking, to complete the necessary focal depth but it is fiddly to go into the bracketing menu and change the set up for each image.

rock rose - Helianthemum

pipit

juv stonechat

common blue

large white at Aberlady memorial garden

female stonechat

Mary and I had a really successful trip to Musselburgh lagoons where we'd heard there were ruby-tailed wasps on the new hide entrance gates. Which we considered of more interest than the hides or the birds. These fascinating and colourful tiny wasps move very quickly and I don't see them very often. They tend to only appear in sunny weather. I thought it might help to use a spot of honey as a lure and one stopped for long enough at this honey trap to get a stacked image. I hope to see more this coming Summer and continue the chase. Fantastic beasties if a little too small and fast to easily photo. Even with the 90mm lens they were very tricky.

large skipper

common blue

large skipper at Levenhall

ringlet on a rainy day

plume moth

dark green fritillary

The DGFs had a reasonable year as far as I can remember. I did not get much in the way of photos of them and the rubbish weather didn't help. I spent a while hunting them in East Lothian with common blues which fly around the same time. My lasting memory is of feeling frustration rather than success. Holyrood Park was well down on the usual numbers of blues (and NBAs) and I saw no DGFs there this year - several fewer than the last few years.

On a trip to Saltoun Big Wood I came across this wolf spider, a female carrying an egg sac. It was sitting on an old zinc boiler that has been tossed into the scrub. Often insects like to sunbathe there which maybe attracts spiders. She sat fairly still while I snuggled in beside her (sprawling on the dusty ground) and eventually after a few trial shots got the camera held steady against the metal. I then took a stacked image. She ran off after the first 17 flashes. But that was enough for this stacked image above. I saw her (or one of her sisters) a bit later when the spiderlings had hatched but were still riding piggyback similar to the eggsac. 

a month later (so probably not the same team) on the same metal

This unusual fly is a Coremacera marginata or Sieve-winged snailkiller. (It kills snails by planting eggs which feed as larvae on the snails.) This one posed very obligingly in Holyrood Park showing off its lovely wings and eyes. I came across another one that wasn't as highly coloured or handsome, a while later.

common darter

common darter close up

I enjoyed trying to photo the swallows and swifts near Holyrood Palace
as they swoop and zip across the playing fields there.

small skipper, Holyrood

chimney sweeper moth, Holyrood

common blue, Aberlady

common blue female, Aberlady

pair of dark green fritillaries (female higher & darker)
Gullane

6 spot burnet moths mating

emerald damselfly

Sicus ferrugineus, bee-grabber

marmalade hoverfly

comma butterfly at Warriston

large white

obliging small white

There was a windless day when lots of common soldier beetles Rhagonycha fulva were flying from  leaves. I noticed this and using the anticipatory pre-burst mode managed to get the moment they opened their wings and jumped like wingsuite base jumpers into the oblivion. It was a lot of fun and some of the best action photos of the year.

one of the few small torts of the year

large white

This was an early season Migrant hawker I didn't recognise since it is quite a different hue from the later season males which look a lot like common hawkers but smaller. Nice to find a new venue for them near Aberlady. There were also common darters and a comma at the same spot.

wall

One of the few (UK) painted ladies all year. Numbers were way down (nearly zero) and I was delighted to see this one as a result, on the buddleia at the gatehouse for Archerfields. It remained high up but standing back with the long lens I got a few decent shots.

this zebra jumping spider appeared on my new windows
so I got the macro kit out - very small and fast but very pretty

common hawker

These photos of dragonflies in flight mark the difference between my G9 and previous cameras. Finally I was able to get decent in-flight shots. It is a long way from easy but with patience and practice it is possible in a way it wasn't before. You have to set a high shutter speed and then hope one hovers just in front of you, which they almost never do. 

On the G9 it is possible to re-programme certain buttons to do what you require. For instance I have reprogrammed the back focus button to jump to bracketing mode. Because I don't use backbutton focussing and I do use focus bracketing. It saves me hunting through multiple menus and means I can change from single shot mode to stacking without taking my eye from the viewfinder.

Similarly there are 2 buttons on the front of the camera next to the lens that I can operate with middle and ring finger keeping my index finger on the shutter release. If I can get a hovering dragonfly in the frame but the auto focus is on the water behind I push the top button and it pulls the focus towards the nearest thing to the camera which is the dragonfly. Similarly if I am trying to get a bird in a tree behind branches and the camera is focussed on the branches I push the lower button with ring finger and the focus goes behind to the next furthest away thing. The animal detection will often catch on at this point and find the bird. It is pretty quick at finding dragonflies (if they aren't moving out the frame) and so you have a second or 2 to shoot off a burst mode spray of machine gun fire hoping the dragonfly doesn't fly off. It also helps to have a larger photo you can crop down more drastically in post.

This year was the first of getting in flight dragonflies, mostly common hawkers and southern hawkers although I tried experimentting with black darters and common darters with some successes. Most of the following are from Saltoun Big Wood.

common hawker

black darter

Leptura quadrifasciata, four-banded longhorn beetle

comma

southern hawker

migrant hawker
(note mature colouring from early season version)

two migrant hawkers

comma

southern

southern

southern

common hawker

comma

peacock

comma

comma and hoverfly

black darter

These three pics are of a steppe grey shrike who spent a week or more at Dunbar near the golf course. He was exceptionally obliging and almost seemed to enjoy the attention of the paparazzi who turned up by the dozen to photograph this rare migrant. He caught voles and dispatched them in front of the cameras. 

shrike and bass rock background

Towards the end of the summer I enjoyed photographing hoverflies and bees with the macro lens making an effort to catch them in mid-air while they hovered in front of phacelia in the Botanics.

A Pied Hoverfly Scaeva pyrastri. 

no flies here,
just a close up of a Japanese anemone in Warriston in exquisite light

a rare characterful street photo shot

a kestrel high in an Autumnal tree in Warriston

essence of Autumn

speckled woods have been the most prolific and longest lasting
of the butterflies in Warriston

Hydrophoria linogrisea?

eyed ladybird

macro spanish chestnut

I was hoping for a late butterfly at Cammo
but instead had to settle for hoverflies on these asters

the camera (possibly animal detection kicking in) seemed 
to know I wanted to focus on the insects, not the flowers

animal detection also recognising a heron behind the vegetation

a flock of lapwings at Cramond

last dragonfly photo-ed of the season
a good condition migrant hawker on an exceptionally mild 14th October

final comma on 19th Oct
there were 2 on the scabious japonica in the Botanics

harlequin ladybird unfolding wings to take off
(my finger, which means operating the camera one-handed.)

Autumnal Corstorphine hill

dipper

moorhen

last butterfly of the year; 26th Oct.
an admiral on the nerines in the Botanics

Inverleith pond: hybrid mallard / domestic mix perhaps

far too pretty to be called a manky mallard

11th November and a great ramble round Cammo

dunnock

blue tit

the usual nuthatches

a pair of jays

such fantastic colours and nearly human eyes

wren

I spent a while taking photos of the magpies
and their plumage at Warriston

pigeons at Inverleith pond

tufted duck (m)

a nuthatch in the golden hour
Inverleith Park - an unlikely sighting

Mr and Mrs R at Warriston near the tunnel
I'm quite glad they haven't become regulars where I feed the birds.
But they are handsome!

emperor dragonfly (f) in Tenerife on cactus
turned 90°r to fit landscape format

I snuck that last photo in to end on a high note. I'd had the camera for just over a year when we returned to Tenerife for an amazing 3 weeks in December. But I'll stop here as that marks a full year of photos with the new camera. It has been a long process to get to know the camera and there are still many things I am just beginning to explore. Slow motion videos for one. I keep forgetting that function until after the bird or butterfly has flown. Also there is a facility for mounting an SSD drive atop the hotshoe and recording at a far higher quality and filling my computer hard drive totally in minutes.

Also I shoot mainly in jpeg but am looking into buying new editing software with AI denoising so that I can shoot at higher ISO and shutterspeeds in lower lighting. I have a feeling I will have to shoot in raw rather than jpeg even though so far I have not felt the need (or had enough hard drive) for raw. All these things have one thing in common; they all cost money. It can be an expensive hobby.

As I said right at the start of this review I really love my new camera. The animal detection and auto focus are nothing short of amazing and make taking (more complex) photos far more possible than with other cameras I've owned. The results are sharper and bigger and better. Like other modern tech it is far too complicated. I have exactly the same problem with my new gps watch. It does way more than I ever require but the size of the manual makes it forboding to learn up just the areas I want to master. However some things - like stacking - were surprisingly straightforward and very promising so far. Although more suited to stationary objects than exuberant wildlife.

I have also been spending a lot of cash on extra stuff: sd cards, cleaning stuff, new lenses, camera case, back pack to contain camera case, speedlight (flashgun) battery chargers and a harness. I had several months of back issues during 2024 I've never had before and sciatica problems that may or may not have been as a result of carrying a larger, heavier camera on one side. I reluctantly bought a harness (over £100!) which looks like a flak jacket and makes you sweat the shape of a waistcoat when wearing it in Tenerife. It carries the camera and long lens on my front while distributing the weight onto my shoulders rather than lopsidedly on one arm. After a while I noticed improvements but I was trying other stuff as well (including returning to running) and I don't think it was entirely just the harness that sorted the health issues. It possibly helped and I still wear it on long days out with the long lens.

My camera usage has changed dramatically. Not what I point it at although the microscopic is now much more on the menu with the excellent 90mm macro lens, but the way I use it. I am in Aperture Mode virtually all the time now as it gives me fuller control over shutterspeed, aperture and ISO and I can change any of those 3 readily. On my previous camera I was in iA mode (idiots automatic) for 95% of the time and only thought about depth of field as a last resort, or at least after I had framed the subject as well as possible. In macro you are obliged to be aware of aperture all the time as depth of field can be critical if the aperture is really low. I ruined some ruby-tailed wasp shots (and they come around far too seldom) by having a really low aperture. I was kicking myself afterwards.

All this suggests I am using a camera more intelligently. It may not be that obvious but it is slowly creeping in to my working process and becoming instinctive, and when I think back to how I was using the bridge camera it does seem primitive (albeit effective) by comparison. The reason I invested in more expensive equipment was to get better quality photos. I feel the first year has been a great success when I see all my most compelling images one after the other. There are lots of things (animals, birds, butterflies) I want to photograph, either for the first time or more successfully than previously. And other things I still need to do more of - like print stuff out. I can't remember the last time I printed anything. And make more wildlife videos with my own music as a soundtrack. Its just as well I have quit working to concentrate on having fun this type of work. I have no idea what this year will bring photographically but am looking forward to it greatly.