Two small cameras go on a winter holiday

Written By Marlene Hielema

Everyone wants a small micro four thirds camera. They’re begging LUMIX and OMSystem to make one, and the sooner the better, before the action cameras take over that consumer craving.

But I’m here to tell you that there already is a small M43 camera, that is very overlooked - and it’s not 10 years old. I took it and an action camera on a weekend getaway and tried something I’ve never done with these tiny cameras - astro photography - in the winter no less.

So what are the two cameras? 

Marlene holding 2 small cameras on mini tripods

I tested the LUMIX G100 and the Insta 350 AcePro2

The LUMIX G100, and the Insta 360 AcePro2? (I can hear you snickering already.)

  • I wanted to travel light on a recent getaway.

  • One medium-sized camera bag.

  • The two cameras mentioned.

  • And no special lenses.

I only used the kit lens on the G100 - and for those of you who don’t know, it’s the 12-32mm f3.5-5.6, in other words, slow as molasses for night photography. I also took my iPad a microphone, extra battery for each camera, mini tripod for each camera, and all the usb cords. There was plenty of room in the backpack for a water bottle, snack, and my heated winter mittens from PGYTECH. I used the PGYTECH 22litre OneGo Lite camera backpack.

Marlene looking over an expansive landscape with a PGYTECH camera backpack on

That's me looking over the landscape. I'm wearing the 22 Litre “OneGo Lite” Camera Backpack from PGYTECH.

How to

Here’s my YouTube video which shows the photos and videos I captured, as well as the “how to” set this up on both of these small cameras.

AcePro 2

The Ace Pro 2 is a delightful little package, full of fun features, and for night photography there is the StarLapse feature.

There are lots of tricks to enhance your photography and video making, and a mobile app for auto video editing, and enhanced processing of things like star lapse videos and photos like I showed you.

LUMIX G100

Ok I admit that the G100 could use a few mod cons, especially weather sealing.

But do you really need Phase Detect AF on a camera like this? Will you be strapping your 100-300mm or 100-400mm super telephoto onto this tiny body to go birding? Not likely. BTW I tried with the 100-300mm lens, and it’s just not practical. Not only that, but you’re likely to break the lens mount. Focus for birding is impossible, as it’s lacking in some of the subject detection features of larger LUMIX cameras.

But the G100 also has Time Lapse, Stop Motion Video, ample Photo Styles, and Live View Composite! The LUMIX S9 doesn’t even have that! Which is a huge disappointment to me BTW. But that’s due to no mechanical shutter on the S9.

The photos!

Earlier that day, I picked out a good spot to shoot from using Photo Pills app and their augmented reality (seen in the first photo). The moon was up and rather bright that night, but I decided to go for it anyway. You can see shadows created by the moon in the time lapse (at 2:03 in the YouTube video above).

I’m over the moon happy with the results.

I had never tried any type of night photography with an action camera before, nor with the G100. Yes, some of the shots from the AcePro2 might seem a bit un-real and over processed, but it’s definitely fun to experiment with such a small camera.

As far as the G100 goes, it has surpassed all of my expectations again and again. I didn’t even realize it had Live View Composite until recently.

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Marlene Hielema
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