Photography Thread

[Eric Frei]

I bought a new camera not long ago, A Panasonic FZ100.

Experimenting using manual settings to auto and part auto.

There is no adjustments made at all to these pics, no photo-shop or Picasa adjustment etc, straight out of the camera just resized.

My camera in manual has a scroll bar to bring the shutter speed into correct correlation with aperture etc to get the exposure right, I can have the ISO set to auto so it figures out that part itself though.

Here I put the camera on a rock near a little waterfall over a rock (I should have taken a tripod). I used the 2 seconds delay to take the pic to avoid camera shake.

This first pic is shot from pretty much an auto mode

Shutter speed 1/160
Focal Length f/3.4
ISO 800



This next one still in partial auto mode but moving shutter speed down and ISO down (shutter open longer lets more light in so ISO goes down.

Shutter speed 1/60
Focal Length f/3.4
ISO 320



Now this was shot in manual mode, I wound the aperture up to max (pin hole) so least light would come in, then had to make the shutter speed real slow to get that blurred water look. You can see how pic by pic the motion of the water is getting blurred, I see this a lot in magazines etc.

Shutter speed 1/5
Focal Length f/8
ISO 125

[Eric Frei]

Morans Falls near O'Rielly's in Lamington National Park



Heading out .....



Tying up .....

[redmower]

Ekka, Is the camera a digital SLR. Didn't think Panasonic made them, but I haven't been paying attention in recent years to advances in digital pic technology. I was once big on slides and ektachrome in decades past, before getting a city job.

ps the boots grabbed more of my attention. Looks like a deep instep, rare in steel caps. Any idea what brand and model they are? I am still looking for a better pair to climb in than the ones I have.

Red

[Eric Frei]

No it's not an SLR.

It zooms to 24X optical (600mm 35mm equivalent) but also goes macro to as close as 1cm from the lens. Has manual settings also.

Allows me to go wide angle to fit the whole tree down to macro in seconds.

Originally Posted by Eric Frei

This picture was shot at 4320px x 3240px (14MP and 5.4mb) but I have resized it to 621px x 426px (62kb)



But the same picture I also cropped here, cropped around that cap which worked out to be 621px x 426px (62Kb), no alterations to original picture, no sharpening or adjustments just fresh out of the camera. Of course the picture was taken in macro mode with the lens about 2cm off the subject, you can see on my thumb in the first picture the shadow from the camera body itself .... camera held in one hand while the other held the cap. Camera is a Panasonic FZ100.



Hopefully now you understand the relationship between resizing and cropping plus file sizes.

[Darrell Mcleod]

Eric,

How close can you zoom into a Eucalyptus from 10 metres away to identify - in other words what clarity can you get from a distance away

and how does the video function go

I have a Lumix (Panasonic) DMC-1215 which cost $500 plus that is two years old and I need a better one for the above reason especially for Eucs

[Eric Frei]

I have a really good video camera and this camera is not a patch on it for video. It will take HD video but no way does it compare to what the video camera will do.

10m is close, you'd near on zoom in on a seed cap. Holding steady so there's no blur is the hard part. Fast shutter, large open aperture, hit the 2 second delay, half press the button for auto focus, press all the way for the pic but it takes the pic 2 seconds after pressing the button allowing you to do nothing but hold it still.

It can also go 32X intelligent zoom where it uses some digital zoom but no pixelation. I do not use that though because 24X times is heaps but I can show examples.

I'll go out and take an example for you later.

The people who helped my purchase were very good and experienced photographers. I walked in hell bent on buying an SLR but they asked me many questions and advised me I'm not an SLR style guy.

A bloke who wants to travel light without lenses, wants to go from zoom to macro to wide angle quickly, With an SLR there would be lens swaps to do that, sure the quality might be better but what are the pics for? Oh resizing to 1000px for a forum and 500px for tree reports, hardly magazine or billboard style pics. This camera has manual mode with adjustments for the finicky user, has a full auto mode for the point and shoot user, and my favourite a "P" (Program) mode where my personal settings remain and aperture and brightness can be changed quickly with a thumb dial.

[Garry Brockley]

Originally Posted by redmower

Ekka, Is the camera a digital SLR. Didn't think Panasonic made them, but I haven't been paying attention in recent years to advances in digital pic technology. I was once big on slides and ektachrome in decades past, before getting a city job.

ps the boots grabbed more of my attention. Looks like a deep instep, rare in steel caps. Any idea what brand and model they are? I am still looking for a better pair to climb in than the ones I have.

Red

the boots are blue steels very comfy and light ive had them for about two months and love them they are like slippers to wear.

[redmower]

Thanks Garry

I think I've seen them (similar model Blue Steel)once but the place had limited sizes in stock and I hadn't found them again since. the deep 'instep' is the first thing I look for. Sorry to interrupt the camera chat.

Cheers Red

[Eric Frei]

Here we go as requested.

The tree is codominant from ground stringybark.

The tree is about 1m DBH and is about 25m tall.

This first pic is no zoom at all, to fit the entire tree in I had to 15m away from the centre of the tree. The red circle is where all zooms will be and is about 8m high, that area is also 5m closer to me (it's a branch 5m from centre of trunk. I stood at this same spot for all pics.

There was a decent breeze so tree was moving a little.

Now remember, the camera shoots 14megapixel so this pic has been resized.



Now this is the same pic but I have cropped the area around the red circle to the same dimensions (1000px tall) as the above pic.



Now here we look at zooms. I will present a resized pic and a cropped pic so you see the detail.

This is using intelligent zoom which is 32X



Now same pic but cropped to what the naked eye could not see.



Same again but 24X only optical zoom.





Now check this one out. It's only 18X zoom but I upped the shutter speed to 1/1000 to try to get a stiller picture as the wind was blowing.



So not bad eh, and then you can drop it into macro mode and shoot something 1cm away from the lens, like caps, fungi etc.

[Darrell Mcleod]

Thanks Eric,

That is fascinating information that would make my works with Eucs much easier - will look into it

[Eric Frei]

It is very hard taking a panning shot, you know, move the camera at the same speed as the subject keeping the subject in focus with enough shutter speed to blur the background.

Tried many times and this is about the best on the day. Model T's at Dreamworld.



Check out these two cats chillin'



Close ups are always good and this emu had his eye on me.

[Apocalypsse]

Thats some mighty good quality pictures the camera takes. Whats the original res of the images?

[Eric Frei]

14 megapixel

4320 x 3240

[Eric Frei]

They were making a new "Allens" commercial in Alice Street Botanical Gardens today.



golden candles - Pachystachys lutea are a great small shrub (height to 1.2m), nice flowers, do well in shade/part shade and need pretty much no pruning or care .... ideal for under-story planting. I should have used a tripod here as shutter speed was 1/60 and a touch of blur is there.





The old Government House, they had balls back then (sorry Bligh )

[Eric Frei]

Kingston Park Raceway .... a hell of a day out.

[Bowani Siam]

Hahahaha all those pics look like something from Alice in Wonderland. Trippy!


Here are a bunch of snaps taken with my trusty Canon..


Conospermum, Erythrorchis, Ficus, Fungus, Phoenix going...going...gone, Persoonia, View of Sydney, Xylomelum