Lumix 100-300 tips please (1 Viewer)

njlarsen said:

Good luck with your new camera and lens!

Niels

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Thanks Niels.

Appreciated

Lumix 100-300mm v bridge superzoom

I've been taking pictures of birds for the last year or two using a bridge superzoom camera, but was getting increasingly frustrated by the slow and somewhat eccentric focussing and exposure, which meant that I kept missing shots. I could't afford a DSLR+lens with the kind of reach I want (at least 400mm on a DSLR with an APS-C sensor), and I don't particularly want to lug a monstrous lens around, so I bought a second-hand Lumix G5 and a Lumix 100-300 lens.

Compared to the bridge camera the Lumix lens has about half the optical zoom (600 35mm equivalent on the Lumix, 1200mm on the bridge), but at least I don't keep missing shots because the camera's decided that it doesn't feel like focussing today. So far I'm happy with the results. I attach some shots I've taken recently. The peregrine was taken using the tele-conversion feature and then cropped quite heavily. The mallard and little grebe were taken without tele-conversion and also cropped quite a bit. I tweaked them all using Apple's Aperture software.

The results are on a par with what I've been getting from the bridge camera, but the G5 is much nicer to use, the lens does a pretty good job, and I'm not missing opportunities as much. New, the Lumix was a lot more expensive than the bridge (around three times - so it ought to be better) but second-hand it wasn't too painful. I still have the bridge camera, but on the basis of my experience so far, I think I'll be keeping the Lumix.

Lumix 100-300mm v bridge superzoom - oops

I posted the wrong pergrine picture - I meant to include this one.

Jeff, good for you!

I have a GH2 with the same lens - as you probably know, that is supposed to be the same sensor as your camera. For me, I am not using the tele-conversion feature, partly because I am forgetting it is there, and partly because I save in RAW instead of jpg. With a good raw converting software, I use iso 3200 on this camera, and if the exposure is ok, feel comfortable with the results (yes lower iso is better, but you get the gist).

Niels

Some pictures

I've been using the 100-300 lens on a Lumix G5, and here are some shots I took yesterday. I'm quite pleased with them, particularly the jackdaw. I've always struggled with very white or very black birds, but the lens/camera did a pretty good job with this.

As to the title of this thread, the only hint I can give is to select as high a shutter speed as you can. I find that the stabilization is not that good - certainly not as good as the system on the Canon SX50 bridge camera that the Lumix replaced. At 300mm, I find that anything much less than 1/500 is likely to give blurry shots. That aside, I'm really happy with the camera/lens. It's nice to use, the focus and exposure seem pretty consistent, and I'm capturing birds that I couldn't with the bridge camera.

I think I have posted this previously: my standard settings is shutter speed 1/400-1/500, and auto iso with max at 3200 to allow me to use those shutter speeds. The problem with shutter speeds around 1/200 might actually be shutter shock more than poor IS performance - but what ever the problem arises from, the higher speed of the shutter alleviates the problem.

Niels

I'm still getting variable results with the Lumix 100-300 lens on my Lumix G5, so I tried a little experiment. I took some pictures of a sign on my neighbour's house from about 40 metres away using various zoom lengths. I then cropped all the pictures on the computer so that the sign completely filled the picture. The idea was to see which focal length gave the sharpest image. Much to my surprise the sharpest pictures were the shots taken with the lens at 100mm and the worst were the shots taken with the lens at 300mm - ie the "electronic zoom" performed by the cropping gave a better result than the optical zoom. I tried altering the shutter speed, but this made little difference – the 100mm shot at 1/200 was much better than the 300mm shot at 1/400 (see the examples below - the first is 300mm at 1/400 f5.6, and the second is 100mm at 1/200 f7.1).

What this seems to show is that I'll get better results in the field if I leave the lens unzoomed and then just crop the pictures on the computer when I get home. It also suggests that I could be better off leaving the lens at 100mm and using electronic zoom on the camera. Either would certainly make taking pictures a lot easier!

Any thoughts about the above would much appreciated.



Cheers


Jeff

That's not good. The problem is either the camera and lens.. Or you.
You can take any effects of user error out of the equation by resting the camera on a table or tripod, and firing the test shot with remote release, or timer delay. You might need to turn off the image stabiliser if it is on a tripod or table. See if that makes a difference.

jeffhosier said:

I'm still getting variable results with the Lumix 100-300 lens on my Lumix G5, so I tried a little experiment. I took some pictures of a sign on my neighbour's house from about 40 metres away using various zoom lengths. I then cropped all the pictures on the computer so that the sign completely filled the picture. The idea was to see which focal length gave the sharpest image. Much to my surprise the sharpest pictures were the shots taken with the lens at 100mm and the worst were the shots taken with the lens at 300mm - ie the "electronic zoom" performed by the cropping gave a better result than the optical zoom. I tried altering the shutter speed, but this made little difference – the 100mm shot at 1/200 was much better than the 300mm shot at 1/400 (see the examples below - the first is 300mm at 1/400 f5.6, and the second is 100mm at 1/200 f7.1).

What this seems to show is that I'll get better results in the field if I leave the lens unzoomed and then just crop the pictures on the computer when I get home. It also suggests that I could be better off leaving the lens at 100mm and using electronic zoom on the camera. Either would certainly make taking pictures a lot easier!

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Hi Jeff,

Several comments here. First, I would consider 1/400 too slow a shutter speed for shooting handheld at maximum zoom. I usually opt for at least 1/800 when there is sufficient light. Second, most lenses are sharper if stopped down a little. My recollection from DxO mark testing of the lens is that it is sharpest around f7.1; you are shooting at 100mm at f7.1 and at 300 mm with the lens wide open, so that alone would detract from the sharpness at 300 mm. (You might want to check the review of the lens on the DxO website for more info). Third, as Peter noted, using a tripod or other stabilization will help eliminate variables from your tests, so you can better determine what is going on. Finally, make sure you have the lens stabilization turned on. One flaw in the lens design is that is easy to accidentally turn off stabilization.

Hope this helps,
Jim

Jim and Peter

Thanks for your replies. Very helpful and much appreciated.

I did a few more experiments with the lens set at 300mm, and factored out what seemed to me to be the most important things (not in a terribly scientific way).

The sharpest picture was taken using a tripod, 1/800, timer shutter release, and no OIS. Almost as good were pictures using a monopod, 1/800 both with the OIS on and off. Worst were the handhelds at 1/800 with OIS. Interestingly the ISO went up to 1600 for most of the shots, but there didn't seem to be much deterioration. I was very happy with the best shots, and if I can get results like that in the field, I'll be well chuffed.

I didn't experiment with the aperture, because it was a typically English summer's day - gloomy and overcast, and the pictures were already underexposed.

In practical terms what this says is that I should always go for 1/800 (even if it pushes the ISO way up), and that if I'm not too laden down with all sorts of other stuff, take either the monopod or tripod on trips. I think I might also take up Tantric Yoga to see if I can learn to keep still at crucial times!

Thanks again for your help - I'm off to look for bitterns at the end of the week so I hope I'll be putting this into practice.


Cheers



Jeff

Jeff, do you shoot in bursts? I use medium burst rate to get a little feedback between images. I frequently find with my settings that if I fire bursts of 3 that one is better than the others, and when I fire 3-4 of those bursts that one burst is better then the others.

Niels

jeffhosier said:

....... I then cropped all the pictures on the computer so that the sign completely filled the picture. The idea was to see which focal length gave the sharpest image. Much to my surprise the sharpest pictures were the shots taken with the lens at 100mm and the worst were the shots taken with the lens at 300mm ...............

Jeff

Click to expand...

You provide two pictures that look identical in size. But when I click on them to enlarge them, they are a very different size. So it's impossible for me to see what you mean.

Niels and Robert

Niels, I've tried burst mode, and, as you say, you seem to get rather more keepers, but it seems a pretty random process.

Robert, I know what you mean about the pictures. I cropped them using Apple's new - and somewhat weird - Photos app on the Mac, and it behaves in a similar way there; sometimes the cropped pictures are the same size (as in the thumbnails in the posting), and sometimes they're not (as when you click on them in the posting). I have absolutely no idea why it does it, nor what I can do to stop it. I'm a long term member of the Apple congregation, but some of its efforts in the photographic area are testing my faith!

Thanks to you both for your interest.


Jeff

Hand-holding long lenses tend to be a little random

Niels