On the Quickness of the G9

Our friend Carl Weese was discussing the Panasonic G9 (now $1,199) with an online group of photographer friends when the topic of the quickness of the G9 came up. The G9 is almost eerily responsive, in a variety of ways. But one of its most distinctive features is the hair-trigger shutter release—it's incredibly light and easy to trip, which has been difficult to get used to for me. But Carl, who is a trained marksman, had a tip:

"I just figured out another thing this afternoon on a two-hour photo walkabout. I’ve been getting occasional double releases from the G9’s hair-trigger shutter release. What I just figured out was that I was making a perceptual mistake about the problem and making it worse instead of better. I more or less 'assumed' unconsciously that the camera was making the mistake and firing twice, when there was no reason to think so. What I’d been doing was trying to press/release the shutter quickly and gently, as though it were in burst mode and I only wanted one shot (think firing accurately with a fully automatic weapon). Wrong! The camera is in single shot mode, but trying to jigger the release that way was resulting in double touches. All I had to do was deliberately press and briefly hold and it does not spontaneously make a second shot. Having that figured out may make me pretty much completely comfortable with the hair-trigger release."

Eureka! Several months in, that was my problem with the G9 too—I've been trying to to touch the shutter lightly, as if pressing too hard would set it fluttering in rapid-fire Continuous mode. But he's exactly right—one easy but firm full press and the camera takes only one shot. (The light shutter is supposedly to help defeat "shutter jab" syndrome, to aid the IBIS—or at least that's what Fuji says about the similarly light and hair-trigger release on the X-H1.)

It's rather amazing that this isn't obvious, and it may have been to some users. But it isn't to everybody—Carl and I have a long human lifespan's worth of experience with cameras between us, and it wasn't obvious to either of us. So there must be others out there.

If you have a G9, you don't have to admit it if you'd been making this "perceptual mistake" too.  :-)  But if you were, I'm sure you'll be as happy as I was with Carl's tip.

Mike
(Thanks to Carl)

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(Not) everything must fade away

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Kurt Kramer: "Thanks for this useful post. I thought something was wrong with my camera and it was annoying."

Maggie Osterberg: "I'll be! My Pen-F has the same 'problem.'"

Frank: "I have a G9, from the first moment it seemed a little difficult, but after 10 minutes, I became comfortable with the shutter. It feels very good. I never had your problem with it. I've made photos for 48 years now. I think it's no problem for most, and you both are the exceptions."

Dale: "It's not obvious. The initial review in PDN also flagged this as a problem. Now we have a solution. Good work Carl!"

Comments

[Mike Peters]

Why the reluctance to make multiple exposures? Electrons are free!

I always shoot a burst, especially with multiple people in the frame since they blink.

Also, when I'm shooting something still at a slowish shutter speed, sometimes the second or third exposure is the sharpest as I've settled down.

When I shot film, I was incredibly disciplined about one frame at a time. Especially when I was shooting 120 color negative film a few years ago, with the cost of the film and processing, it was a dollar a frame. I waited for the moment, but I had to. The wind on to the next frame took time.

Now I have choices. Sometimes the extra frames are better than the first, and often enough not. But still I'd rather have a few to choose from than not.

[John Krill]

I'm going slightly Off Subject and talk about a problem I was having with my mirrorless cameras. Both the XPro-1 and Xpro-2. Whenever I was trying to take a picture of a moving subject the subject would always be to early in the image. I finally figured it out.

With SLRs, film or digital, you have to take in to account the the mirror delay. So you would always fire the trigger early. After many years I got pretty good at this technique. When I started using mirrorless cameras I just kept using this technique. WRONG. There is no mirror so there is hardly any delay, if any. Once I started firing the shutter when the moving subject was where I wanted it. Almost perfect.

[Dave Wilson]

Can't speak to the G9, but the "hair trigger" on the Fujifilm X-H1 is one of that camera's finest points. Yes, it took time to adjust from other cameras, but, once accustomed to it, it just feels so ... normal. It really does help minimise shutter shock too, not that the X-H1 suffers from that very much. In fact, it has one of the quietest, smoothest sounding mechanical shutters of the digital era. Fond of Panasonic cameras so kudos to them for adopting a similar solution for the G9.

[c.d.embrey]

Albert Einstein said Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

But engineers, being engineers, ignored Einstein's aphorism. They felt compelled to cure a problem that didn't exist—by creating a new problem. ;-)

[hugh crawford]

I thought Pontiac didn’t get any farther than the G8.
Oh, never mind -sneaky unexpected photo content.

[Carl]

Mike (Peters)—I understand the examples you give for using burst mode intentionally. The problem here was getting an unintentional two-shot burst—that means something ain't working right. It's true that with 'free film' the extra exposures aren't a real problem, but the fact that things aren't working correctly is a problem I'm glad to have figured out. From personal preference I almost never use burst mode, though I'm sure if I were still doing professional assignment work I'd use it much more frequently.

[Carl]

Dave, yes it seems we quickly adapt. The G9 is so much bigger than my GX7 cameras that when I recently went to a gallery opening, I chose to take a GX7 with the pancake 20mm just in case I might see something. When I did, for a long moment I couldn't get the thing to respond to either the focus half-press or shutter release. Felt stiff as a board after just a week or so of using the G9. It would be very difficult to use both cameras, say with different prime lenses, for a shoot.

[Tom R. Halfhill]

If these cameras have a hair-trigger shutter release, how do you press the release halfway to lock focus on a subject? (My preferred autofocus technique for most situations is to use only the central focus point, lock onto the subject, then recompose and shoot.)

[John Krumm]

I rented it a few weeks ago and took many double or triple shots. Never figured out this trick before sending it back. Enjoyed many things about it, and at iso 100 I think it has an edge in M43 image quality. Ended up getting a used EM1 II instead, mostly because it focuses the old Oly 4/3 lenses I still love and own.

[hugh crawford]

Re: adjusting to shutter delay or the lack of it

The iPhone’s default behavior is th take the picture just before you touch the shutter release (the trick being that there is no actual shutter) I think Nikon had that feature on the Nikon 1 series as well, and as soon as global shutters on cmos sensors become common I think that will be the default behavior. When you think about it makes more sense, but as a geezer feature for us geezers , a setting to pick some amount of delay that we are used to would be a very fine thing.

While I’m on the topic, why is it that on a camera that can take 5 or 20 frames a second is it impossible to take 2 or 3 frames per second? Pushing the shutter 3 times a second doesn’t seem to work on any camera I have tried.

[hugh crawford]

I left out that I was specifically talking about Sony cameras in the why can’t I take 3 frames per second , obviously Panasonic has fixed that from how I read this post.

[Steve Rosenblum]

What online forum was this discussion taking place on?

[It was a private discussion by group email. --Mike]

[Nige Buddy]

Surely you know if the camera is in single shot mode or continuous? Serious question.

[psu]

What's wrong with getting double frames? Think of it as instant backup.

I generally leave my Olympus in the "low speed burst" mode (5fps or something) and shoot volleys. You never know.

I know there is a weird exceptionalist dogma about the mystical magic of the one best frame. But life is too short for that, especially these days.

[james wilson]

The 'hair trigger' is especially useful with hand held HDR which I often do. I can just lay my finger across the release and rip off 3 frames with minimal camera movement. The G9 shoots so fast it seems like a single frame at 125th. The downside is that I get accidental shots just by picking up the camera or swinging against my body on the sling strap. Frames are cheap now so it is not really a problem. The light touch is unusual a first but once acclimated it is a great feature.

[Jerry Hall]

Back button focus does the trick on my G9. The shutter release should do one thing only, release the shutter!