I’ve been using the LUMIX G9 for about two years now, and I’ve been very happy with it. It has worked well in various situations, and it has been a joy when I’ve been walking around in different forests. But during the last 6-7 weeks I’ve discovered one situation where it doesn’t work, and now I need to figure out what to do.

I’m talking about is the lag between pressing the shutter and the actual exposure being made. It’s not a giant delay, in fact, I haven’t noticed it before, but it’s enough for me to missing photos.

What happens is that I’m indoors photographing martial arts, i.e., people move around quickly, and I discovered that I was missing shots because people had moved between me pressing the shutter and the photo being captured. And no, it’s not me!! I used to have a Nikon D4s, and I was able to capture these kinds of photos without any problems. I also tried a Nikon Z7 while using the G9, and I did not have this issue with the Z7.

According to the experts, it’s caused by the G9 using contrast detection for the autofocus, and there isn’t much I can do about it. So now I need to figure out what to do. I could stop photographing martial arts, or I could get an Olympus camera who apparently is faster than the G9, or … start building up a new camera system (you can probably hear my wallet screaming). Well, this is something to think about during the holidays.