subscribe 0330 333 1113 I http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk I 29 June 2019 41
teams up alongside a powerful
Venus Engine processor that
allows it to shoot a continuous
burst at up to 9fps (AFS) or 6fps
with continuous autofocus (AFC).
This isn’t as quick as the Lumix G9,
which shoots at up to 12fps or
9fps with AFC, but is respectable
for enthusiasts it’s designed for.
Those who’d like to shoot faster
can take advantage of the G90’s
4K Photo modes, which allow
users to extract 8-megapixel stills
from 4K-movie footage captured
at 30fps. Panasonic’s 6K photo
modes that enable 18MP images
to be extracted from 6K-movie
footage at 30fps aren’t available.
Just like the G80, the G90
employs an electromagnetically
driven shutter unit. Shutter
speeds range from 60sec to
1/4000sec using the mechanical
focal-plane shutter, or 1sec to
1/16,000sec using the electronic
shutter. Enable the electronic first
curtain setting and the highest
shutter speed the camera can be
set to 1/2000sec. The perk of
using the electronic shutter is that
the camera operates silently, but
there is the risk of distortion when
shooting fast-moving subjects due
to the rolling shutter phenomenon.
To control handshake, the G90
is equipped with a 5-axis Dual IS II
image stabiliser that offers up to
5 stops of compensation when
shooting stills or movies. The
beauty is that it works with any
lens, including Olympus Micro
Four Thirds lenses, and when an
optically stabilised Panasonic lens
is mounted the two systems work
in harmony for maximum effect.
If you intend to use any legacy
lenses via a mount converter, you’ll
be prompted to enter the focal
length when the camera is
switched on. Like the 6K photomodes, there’s no high-resolution
mode on the G90 – a feature that
remains exclusive to the more
premium models in the G series.
Again, like the G80, the G90
has a small built-in flash. It has a
guide number of 6.4 at ISO 100
and pops-up out of the viewfinder
housing. It can be employed in
TTL or manual modes with first or
second curtain sync, but it can’t
be used for wireless control of
external units. Behind it you’ll find
a hot shoe ready to accept a more
powerful flashgun such as the
DMW-FL360LE (£229).
Newly added options include a
new Live View Composite mode,
which is designed to allow those
who shoot at night to track the
movement of stars against a
pitch-black night sky. As well as
introducing the L.Monochrome D
picture style that creates deeper
blacks and richer gradation toblack & white images, the new
AWBw auto white balance mode
carries across from the Lumix S1/
S1R and is intended to create a
warmer feel to portrait images.
Two other new creative functions
are Auto Marking and Sequence
Composition. The idea of Auto
Marking is that it recognises
motion or faces in a scene and
sets a marker so that you can
quickly skip to what the camera
thinks are the best shots in a
sequence. This is different to
Sequence Composition, which
allows you to combine up to 40
frames from a sequence together
in camera to produce a creative
and dynamic multi-exposure look.
Other features that see the G90
advance on the G80 include its
ability to shoot ultra high-definition
4K video at 30p/25p/24p with a
bit-rate of 100Mbps. There’s
support for 4:2:2 8bit outputThe rich colour in this scene
was captured with the G90’s
picture mode set to Vivid
Lumix G Vario 12-60mm f/3.5-5.6,
1/1250sec at f/5.6, ISO 400