Wednesday 29 June 2016

Coming to grips with new technology

Well, not very new technology, but new-ish. I have a new camera, a Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ-300, to replace my aging Fuji f6500d. It has many bells, and also whistles, and it will shoot 4k video, which is nice I guess.

There's not really all that much difference when it comes to automated point-and-shoot photography, but there's enough difference when I'm shooting models on my little lighting stage that it's taking me a while to work out exactly how best to approach it.

Tiger 1 (15mm resin and pewter, from Battlefront)

Tiger 1

Tiger 1

Tiger 1
 The camera's resolution is fine at 12 Mpx — it's not up to the standard of high-priced DSLRs, but that's not really an issue for me since I don't need the capability to print high-rez full-frame A1 posters. The lens is good (it's a Leica product) and it has a very respectable zoom, 25–600mm equivalent at f2.8 throughout.

These photos of my Tiger 1 were shot straight to .JPG and then re-sized to 800x600px.

I need to learn a bit more about how to manipulate the camera's metering system, as these images tend to favour the light background over the more important foreground stuff. I know I can adjust for that, I just don't yet know exactly how.
Tiger 1

These next were shot to RAW, cropped down to frame the important bits and resized to 800x600px. I couldn't figure out why they were so grainy until I remembered that when I was fiddling around with the camera controls, I'd reset the ISO to 800 and forgot to set it back to ISO 100, my usual for shooting models. Even so, the images are reasonable for display on the web.

SdKfz7/2 37mm Flak

SdKfz7/2 37mm Flak
 Generally speaking, I'd say that I'm pretty happy with the camera, and if it gives me as long service as I got out of my Fuji f6500d (which is still perfectly serviceable, I might add) I'll be very pleased.
SdKfz7/2 37mm Flak

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