
"If I was casually shooting sports, with the intent on getting a few good keepers, I’d bring the G9 along. If a publication hired me to document a basketball game, I’d reach for a camera with phase detect AF."
Panasonic Lumix DC-G9 Shooting Experience
https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonic-lumix-dc-g9/2
Seems that the panasonic focusing system is still struggling a bit with moving subjects/hit rate
It seems both Olympus and Panasonic’s latest systems still lag behind dslr phase detect AF for CAF, but to be honest I wasn’t expecting a massive breakthrough - I have found the G80 with 100-400 a far easier combo to get bif than my previous G7 + 100-300 combo, and if the G9 betters the G80 it would be easily good enough for my needs!
A lot of my bird photography is of stationary birds, or slightly moving on the ground/in water, so contrast AF actually can give a bit of an edge for that re. speed and accuracy - but the improvements in CDAF do give me more confidence to attempt flight shots - but if they were my bread and butter, and I didn’t mind bigger kit, I would go the dslr route under current technology - I do like smaller telephoto lenses however, hence still firmly a m43 user :t:
As CDAF is software based there is always hope that new algorithms will speed it up further for tracking etc, so while the G9 is Panasonic’s flagship stills model, hopefully they will come up with something new and release via firmware.