5 frames with a Panasonic GX9 and Olympus 135mm manual lens – Compact gig cam

I haven’t taken a camera with me to a concert before but as I was lucky enough to have a front row seat to see Natalie Umbruglia and The Corrs I thought this was a good opportunity to try out my Panasonic Lumix GX9 with a telephoto lens, in this case the really quite small Olympus OM system E.Zuiko Auto-T f/3.5 manual 135mm. Mine was probably from the early 1980s.

The GX9 has a 20MP Micro Four Thirds sensor, and as the lens is full frame there’s a 2x crop so it effectively makes it a 270mm telephoto on this camera. It required an OM lens to M4/3 adaptor but they’re not that expensive, and the lens itself is usually easily found online and cost me less than £40.

The GX9 is quite a compact and solid feeling rangefinder style interchangeable lens camera. It’s not as small as the tiny Panasonic GM1 (or GM5) with the 16MP sensor which I did once have and enjoyed, but realised I needed the EVF and IBIS featured on the GX9.

For quite low light concert photography it’s good to have a fast lens and sensitive sensor, full frame being ideal. However, larger full frame cameras are often discouraged at concerts and they can be bulky anyway. The advantage with this set up is that the GX9 camera body goes in one jacket pocket, and the lens in the other. Portable and discreet.

The LCD panel can be tipped to face up or down which can be essential if for example you are raising the camera above your head to shoot over crowds. I had nobody in front of me and used the EVF. I set an ISO upper limit of 1600 and I was surprised that the camera chose ISO 200 for many of the shots I took. 

You can set an ISO upper limit (it’ll go from Auto to 25600) and a minimum shutter speed which I set at 1/50. Using a 270mm lens it should normally be set on a faster shutter speed than 1/50 but I took a gamble expecting to have a percentage of blurred shots. I didn’t use flash as it wouldn’t be appropriate.

Part of the challenge is the performers move about on stage into areas of differing light and shade. I like the black and white images you can get from the GX9: Monochrome, L. Monochrome and L. Monochrome D with adjustable grain settings Off, Low, Standard, High. I used L. Monochrome with low grain during the concert.

I wanted to enjoy the music and performances without obsessively taking photos, so took just over 50 shots in total and about half were borderline or less than satisfactory for sharpness. If I hadn’t got IBIS that figure would be worse. But I was being quite casual and opportunistic and with a focal length of 270mm, a maximum available aperture of f/3.5, changing light levels and moving subjects it’s going to be hit and miss. So it was a sort of experimental experience and I would probably try different settings next time I’m in this situation.

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