Review your camera manual and settings occassionally

[Peterj]

I use a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ300 (fixed lens bridge camera) exclusively. Today I decided to review my camera manual with my usual settings and was surprised to discover the flexibility of in camera raw processing. I certainly won't be using this for every day raw conversions, however my tests indicated that for much of my photography I can probably set my camera's raw to jpg processor to produce very nice images. I stepped through the raw processor on a recent raw file and found that the SOOC jpg just produced was every bit as good as my processed raw image. This made my explore a bit more and found there were some aspects of my camera that I was restricted from using because I 99% of the time shoot raw + jpg.

The aspect that most intrigued me was something Panasonic calls iZoom which I thought was marketing lingo to cover up the camer's limited 25-600 optical zoom. I spent some time researching and decided to give it a trial. Initially the results were marginally good; I noticed some graininess / pixelization. I took it a bit further and decided to use PSE and Elements+ noise stacking using a multiple image burst sequence. The results were pretty dramatic. My plan is to use this for the next few weeks for full evaluation. The processing time is less than that of full raw image conversion with the added benefit of doubling my zoom range. 

Here's my results side by side at 100%

comments / questions welcome

[pontiac1940]

Hi Peter

Your comment about reviewing your camera's manual is excellent. Thanks. It is something I don't do, but should. (On occasion I want to take videos to show something specific ... I am not a videographer and not that interested. But video can be handy. I really do need to bone up on the video settings as they are complex and I have screwed up a few times. Note to self!) 

When blown up there is some improvement. If the easier route is suitable and makes you happy then use it. Perhaps there are times when (say) lighting is tricky and the stacking might help. 

Thanks

Clive

[Peterj]

Apr 29, 2019 2:31:39 GMT pontiac1940 said:

Hi Peter

Your comment about reviewing your camera's manual is excellent. Thanks. It is something I don't do, but should. (On occasion I want to take videos to show something specific ... I am not a videographer and not that interested. But video can be handy. I really do need to bone up on the video settings as they are complex and I have screwed up a few times. Note to self!) 

When blown up there is some improvement. If the easier route is suitable and makes you happy then use it. Perhaps there are times when (say) lighting is tricky and the stacking might help. 

Thanks

Clive

Thanks Clive ... My camera has custom set ups so I dedicated one of the to jpg only with iZoom enabled; my default setting is still Aperture Priority raw + jpg, ISO 100, f/4.  My tests produced pretty good results but in only good lighting and limited subject matter.

[Bailey]

Hi Peter,

I'm not sure how you are doubling your zoom range.  According to your camera's specs, your sensor size is 6.2mm x 4.6mm.  This is much smaller than an APS-C sensor and even much smaller than a full frame sized sensor.  The small sensor size in your camera crops the incoming scene to the same field of view as a full frame (35mm) camera at 600mm.  The actual focal length is less than 600mm by whatever your sensor's crop factor is.

The graininess/pixelation you are seeing is most probably mainly due to the small sensor size.  The smaller the sensor size, the smaller the photosites on it and so the more vulnerable it is to noise, especially in low light.

Even with my APS-C sensor (22.2mm x 14.8mm), I am very reluctant to go above ISO 1600 in low light because of the increased noise.  In good light, 1600 is fine if I need help to bump up my shutter speed.

[Peterj]

Apr 30, 2019 6:49:32 GMT Bailey said:

Hi Peter,

I'm not sure how you are doubling your zoom range.  According to your camera's specs, your sensor size is 6.2mm x 4.6mm.  This is much smaller than an APS-C sensor and even much smaller than a full frame sized sensor.  The small sensor size in your camera crops the incoming scene to the same field of view as a full frame (35mm) camera at 600mm.  The actual focal length is less than 600mm by whatever your sensor's crop factor is.

The graininess/pixelation you are seeing is most probably mainly due to the small sensor size.  The smaller the sensor size, the smaller the photosites on it and so the more vulnerable it is to noise, especially in low light.

Even with my APS-C sensor (22.2mm x 14.8mm), I am very reluctant to go above ISO 1600 in low light because of the increased noise.  In good light, 1600 is fine if I need help to bump up my shutter speed.

Thanks for your interest Baily. The real purpose of my post wasn't technical at all; but rather a reminder for folks who've been using their camera for some time to explore their settings vs the manual. I posted initial results of my test only as an example of what I learned.

Another little tidbit I discovered was how to increase my burst rate - set the burst rate to SH (super high) gave me the opportunity to capture a complete golf tee shot from addressing the ball to follow through resulting in 60+ captures in less than 2 seconds. The images were nice and sharp, with the ball motion leaving the club head very slightly blurred. These images were used in a slide show following a PGA Hope charity event held in our 55+ community. The caveat is by using SH my camera stores only jpg at much less than maximum. They were very good for intended purpose. If I were to aspire to be a professional golf photographer I certainly wouldn't be using this camera at all, but since I'm not I find learning about my camera enables me to provide / volunteer photo services that not only please me but are valued by others.

[Bailey]

Thank you Peter. Reviewing the controls on a camera every now and then is certainly a useful exercise, especially for people who don't use their camera very often.

Regarding a "super high burst rate", another way of achieving that on cameras where you can't set the burst rate is to record a video clip of the action. Then import the clip into something like Premiere Elements. PRE allows you to export individual frames as image files - jpg, png and 1 or 2 other types from memory.

So if a video clip is set to 30fps, you can export 30 frames as images for each second of action.

I suspect your camera is using its video function to achieve your super high burst rate.

[Peterj]

Apr 30, 2019 23:46:12 GMT Bailey said:

Thank you Peter. Reviewing the controls on a camera every now and then is certainly a useful exercise, especially for people who don't use their camera very often.

And also for those of us who dig themselves into a rut: "I get the best images at    therefore I won't change the settings

Regarding a "super high burst rate", another way of achieving that on cameras where you can't set the burst rate is to record a video clip of the action. Then import the clip into something like Premiere Elements. PRE allows you to export individual frames as image files - jpg, png and 1 or 2 other types from memory.

So if a video clip is set to 30fps, you can export 30 frames as images for each second of action.

I suspect your camera is using its video function to achieve your super high burst rate.

Yes my camera does have 4k video capabilities, but I chose not to use it due to the extremely short time between the event end and the following banquette - I had 60+ individual images of 1 tee shot and simply choose 1 to be included.  SOOC sample

[Bailey]

Even if you didn't specifically choose the video mode, when you press the shutter release in Super High burst mode your camera is probably recording video frames internally but outputting the frames as individual jpgs instead of a video file.

For cameras where you can't adjust the burst mode rate, I would put the camera in Video Manual Mode, set the exposure settings for the video manually as when taking still photographs and then export the individual frames as I described earlier via PRE.

If you leave the video mode in auto, the shutter speed the camera determines might not be fast enough for the effect you want, for example freeze motion in each video frame.

So for anyone interested in video recording, becoming thoroughly familiar with the controls in video mode can produce some amazing results as well.