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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Camera Settings to share (FZ18) (1 Viewer)

C

chipmunksky

New member
Hi,

I'm new to the hobby of both birding and photography.
I've recently purchased a FZ18 with the Olympus TCON17 and a decent tripod from Velbon.
There are so many setting son this FZ18 that I would like to know if somebody is willing to share his setings with me. I've seen some fantastic pictures taken but for the moment I'm having problems to even come close.
Especially with the focus and keeping the camera still.:-C

Therefore I would like to know e.g. :
  • Do you use a tripod? If not, tips on how to keep the camera still?
  • Do you use the EZ5MP or EZ3MP or just the maximum on 8MP?
  • ISO (auto or ???)
  • Auto focus or Manual?
  • Which stabilization mode do you use?
  • Settings for Contrast, Sharpeness, etc...
  • iA, Scenes, A, P, ... ??
  • From whih distance do you take the pictures
  • Do you use something like photoshop to sharpen the pictures?
  • ...

As you can see I have a lot of questions and I will be thankfull to anybody who wants to share his experience with me.

Thanks a lot!
 
Hi
I'll have a go at your thread if no-one else is prepared.
Sold my FZ 18 a few months ago, so from memory here goes,

I used a Velbon cx660 tripod
Left it on 8 MP
ISO set manually left as low as light conditions would allow
Auto focus
Always shot in A (apeture priority)
As close as possible to subject always
I used Picasa (free download) software imaging

Try researching on line for video tutorials for advice, there's lots of people using this camera so I'm suprised at the lack of replies,

Regards
Ian
 
Chipmunsky, Thanks for posting the question. I'm in exactly the same situation as you, being relatively new to photography and very new to birding. I only received my Olympus teleconverter this weekend.
Have you had an opportunity to follow the advice kindly given by h14hna, how did you get on ?
Weather permitting, I hope to try out the given suggestions this week.
 
Hi Pantena,

I didn't had any change to play with my FZ18 and TCON17 yet. I hope the weather will change soon in Belgium (certainly the lightning conditions) as it's pretty dark during the day.
I've put some feeding tables and fenders in my garden so as soon as I get some decnt pictures (at least as they are OK for me), I'll post them here together with the settings at that moment. Please also give me feedback of your results.

Best regards,

Walter
 
Hi Walter,
We also have a number of different feeders in place in our garden for about 3 months. we haven't had many visitors, just a robin, blackbird, blue and great tits and a couple of wood pigeons .
Setting the camera to the suggestions given above, I used the Tcon yesterday, it was a partially overcast day.
I took quite a number of photos by the riverside. Mostly swans, gulls and pigeons. Some were OK but not brilliant.
The majority of the birds in flight photos were really quite blurred, so I suppose that the shutter speed would also need to be adjusted ?
I didn't capture anything worth sharing with you. I'll try again later on in the week and keep you posted.
 
Hi Pantena,

There is no direct relation between the shutter speed value and the sharpeness of a pic with a flying bird. In birdforum gallery you can see very sharp pics with flying birds taken at ISO 200. I'm not an expert in photography, so I will not tell you more, but there are a lot of experts here on birdforum...
 
Thanks Christian for your input.
As you can probably tell, I really haven't got much idea at all !
Since buying the camera, I have used "sport" to photo birds or indeed anything that moved fast.
I have been using the preset modes as I didn't know which setting to use and when.
I've got a lot to learn and I'm very grateful for any help.
 
Pantena said:
Thanks Christian for your input.
As you can probably tell, I really haven't got much idea at all !
Since buying the camera, I have used "sport" to photo birds or indeed anything that moved fast.
I have been using the preset modes as I didn't know which setting to use and when.
I've got a lot to learn and I'm very grateful for any help.
Click to expand...


Some general advices here. But these are for any superzoom camera (I don't have any experience with Panasonic superzooms, but I have to say that I read only good things about FZ18).
There is an almost general opinion that for taking relative good pics with birds is better to use aperture priority mode. Like every superzoom camera there is an optimum value for aperture (teoretically at this value you'll have the sharpest pics). Panasonic users will tell you this value. Obviously, there are circumstances when you'll not be able to use this value, but you have to know it. For example, I use a Canon PowerShot S3 IS (12x optical zoom). For this camera the value is F/4.0.
Now about the shutter speed. For a superzoom like FZ18/28 shutter speeds bigger then 200 will give you an unacceptable level of noise, even in a good light. I would say that this is one of the main limitations with a superzoom camera...
 
Last edited:
Hi, I hope the following is of use to you:

chipmunksky said:
Hi,
Therefore I would like to know e.g. :
  • Do you use a tripod? If not, tips on how to keep the camera still?

    I don't usually, the optical image stabilisation is usually sufficient. However, if the bird is perched and in shade then I will sometimes use a tripod if possible- e.g. shooting owls. I use burst mode a lot and try to steady my breathing wich helps.
  • Do you use the EZ5MP or EZ3MP or just the maximum on 8MP?

    Depends on how far away the subject is.
  • ISO (auto or ???)

    I tend to shoot in Apeture priority and usually try and keep this as low as possible, setting it to ISO 100 when the light is good, but sometimes opting for Iso 400 Max and very occasionailly 800 if I'm shooting something in low light that I wouldn't want to miss.
  • Auto focus or Manual?

    Auto
  • Which stabilization mode do you use?

    Mode 2
  • Settings for Contrast, Sharpeness, etc...

    that's a matter of personal taste by NR I think is set to -2.
  • iA, Scenes, A, P, ... ??

    Usually A, sometimes P for birds. Scenes when photographing the appropriate subject e.g. fireworks, aerial photos.
  • From whih distance do you take the pictures

    Again depends - as close as possible but this obviously varies considerably.

    You can check the exif for each photo by clicking on the properties tab:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/8773601@N03/
  • Do you use something like photoshop to sharpen the pictures?

    Yes, sometimes, I use Topaz denoise on some of them as well. I usually shoot in Jpeg to enable burst mode.

  • ...

As you can see I have a lot of questions and I will be thankfull to anybody who wants to share his experience with me.

Thanks a lot!
Click to expand...
 
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