Today’s Post by Joe Farace
I love driving cool cars, but there is nothing like driving a pickup truck. ― Dwayne Johnson
Be Careful What You Wish For
When the 20.3-megapixel Panasonic Lumix G9 was introduced in 2018, I know I wanted to own one and ordered a camera from Glazer’s Camera in Seattle when they had a sale,. I loved the image quality it produced but found the ergonomics to de dreadful for my aging paws. Panasonic evidently figured that out too; The Lumix G9 Mark II has a much smaller and more ergonomic design. I was tempted to buy a Mark II until I saw that the MPB price for a used camera was just $158 less than a brand new one! But back to my post…. For it’s first outing I took the Lumix G9 to the Vehicle Vault’s Cars & Coffee.
At The Car Show
Around the time I bought the camera, I also purchased a third party battery grip to use with the camera, mainly for model shoots, but it did nothing but exacerbate the G9’s faulty (and bulky) design. While the G9’s shutter release is light to the touch—(maybe too much so— the grip’s shutter release is slightly heavier. maybe too much so. Initially the Lumix G9 was pleasant—I think I was trying to talk myself into it— to shoot under the semi-crowded conditions you typically find at Cars & Coffee events. We’ve all had these strangely ambivalent feelings about cameras and cars too. My Mercedes Benz CLA 250 comes to mind.
How I made this photograph: I photographed this 1949 Chevrolet Fleetline “Bomb Style” using a Lumix G Vario 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6 at 23mm. The Program mode exposure was 1/500 sec at f/10 and ISO 320. Love those tidy whities.
Even though I waited patiently, to photograph the cars without someone walking into the frame, It was characteristically difficult as you can see in these shots. I’ve often said that you don’t go to Cars & Coffee to make great photos of cars. You go to see cars and meet people. I don’t think that’s what the event is about. I prefer to look at C&C is a local celebration of automobile style and it’s why I enjoy talking with the car’s owners, like the original owner of a 1967 Cougar XR7 with 130,000 mile on the odometer that was daily driven for 20 years. It’s also why Cloff Lawson and I decided to make Cars & Coffee video that have interviews with these car’s owner. You can see them at my YouTube channel, which includes several Cars & Coffee videos. Cliff and I talked recently about restarting this series in January 2026—weather depending.
How I made this photograph: I captured this Chevrolet pickup truck that looks a lot like Mater’s cousin (from Disney’s Cars) with a Lumix G Vario 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6 at 19mm. The. Program mode exposure was 1/500 sec at f/10 and ISO 320.
To make the shot of this pickup truck, I used the Lumix G9’s flippy screen to get a low angle on the truck and while that kind of Reverse Hail Mary shot will typically minimize background clutter, it didn’t stop people from walking into the shot. The G9’s fully articulated three-inch, 1,040,000 dot screen looks good and features the smoothest articulation of any screen I’ve used on a DSLR or mirrorless camera.
The image quality from the G9’s 20.3 megapixel sensor was impressive and the photographs looked noticeably better than ones that were created with my previous go-to Panasonic Micro Four-thirds camera, the Lumix GH4. But, as they say, I didn’t like using it, and now it’s gone.
If you enjoyed today’s blog post and I maybe talked you out of buying a Lumix G9—unless you have big hands—and would like to buy Joe a cup of Earl Grey tea ($3.50) click here.