What do FZ18 users think of there Camera? (1 Viewer)

J. Moore said:

Take photos of large, slow moving birds that soar or beat their wings slowly. I also find that burst mode and panning help.

Best,
Jim

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Thanks for your kind words!

Jim: Indeed! Also overexpose slightly if it is against the sky. Key thing for me was to be in the right place at the right time. For example, bear in mind that the kite shots were taken at a feeding station where there were c50 or so birds to choose from lots coming quite close- lots of missed shots, but a few good ones too.

The swallow was just about timing- the bird was in and out of it's nest in a shot. But using burst mode I was able to get this picture. The gull below, was shot on a ferry crossing from Mull- it was basically just hanging there just off from the boat so much easier to line up the shot. The kestrel was a lucky break- he was at the kite feeding station hovering right in front of me. I got a few bursts off but they were all very grey due to the overcast sky- I did a bit of post processing in photoshop to bring out the colours and the contrast a bit. The White tailed eagle was just really lucky again- the bird flew right over the loch, low down because it was being mobbed by gulls and a buzzard. We were well positioned for the shot, but it was still quite far away so I had to use the 3 mp EZ function and the TC to get close enough.

kittykat23uk said:

Also overexpose slightly if it is against the sky. Key thing for me was to be in the right place at the right time. For example, bear in mind that the kite shots were taken at a feeding station where there were c50 or so birds to choose from lots coming quite close- lots of missed shots, but a few good ones too.

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Hi,

What is your preferred method of achieving slight overexposure for flight shots against the sky?

With respect to the kites, do you mean there was a "feeding station" for the kites themselves? If so, I have never heard of a feeding station for a bird of prey. What does it involve?

Best,
Jim

about +1/3 ev I think. The feeding station is a farm where the owners put out chicken pieces at 2 pm every day and the kites come in and grab the food. Its quite a sight!

Hiya,

I've had my FZ18 nearly 2 weeks now and I am really pleased with results I've had so far. I'm a complete amateur so have been using the auto-modes mostly at the moment, but the camera has plenty of manual settings for me to learn more about photography. I am planning on going to RSPB Marshside this weekend so I can just sit in a hide and play about with the settings and modes for a few hours!

These are some of the images I have taken so far, all hand-held, all auto-mode, cropped to 800x800 pixels from original .jpeg file to upload on this thread...

1. Feral Pigeon - 18x optical zoom
2. Lesser Black Backed Gull & Herring Gull - 72x zoom (18x optical, rest digital), Edit: through a gap in a fence trying to stand upright in very strong wind... stabiliser really came through!
3. House Sparrow - 18x optical zoom, through dirty glass, brightness increased very slightly on Paint Shop Pro 8
4. Meadow Brown Butterfly - 1x (no zoom) macro mode

Lisa x

Buddhist Vegan Birder said:

I'm a complete amateur so have been using the auto-modes mostly at the moment

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Me too on both counts but having said that I have taken over 17,000 photos with it since April 2008 so have considerable experience if not expertise.

Here are few tips/comments

1. In most zooming situations, especially in bright light, I use the electronic view finder (ie you hold it up to your eye)

2. The infinite auto burst is a bit slow and iffy so usually turned off

3. I have tried using manual when subject is back lit to increase exposure and it works well but is slow - your subject will have given up and gone home

4. Leave the camera in a sensible mode so that when you see something while having lunch you can just turn it on and shoot (see cormorant swallowing an eel on my phlog below) Unfortunately these photos are blurred but in these kinds of situations you only have literally a few seconds and if you are too fussy you will end up with nothing of interest

5. Always charge the battery every time you take the camera out but as soon as it is charged put it back in the camera (nothing is worse than spotting something out of the window and then hunting for the camera then hunting for the battery - been there, done that) Even if you live in a cul de sac something interesting could happen ...

6. If you have more than one Panasonic Lumix (we have 4 in total - FZ18, FX50 and ...er, two more semi retired after minor injuries sustained in the cause of duty) you need a file name changer or you will get confused at some point. I use File Renamer Basic from
http://www.sherrodcomputers.com/products_filerenamer.cfm
which is good and free (so far but maybe it will demand money with menaces at some point)

7. For every published photo there are at least a hundred scrapped (maybe 1,000) not to mention hours of Photoshop so don't be too hard on yourself. Often in a day out we take 400 shots and boil that down to maybe 2 or 3 and even they are not that good.

8. We are now looking at moving up a little but to what exactly? Something that needs a handcart and tripod? Any ideas?

We (my girlfriend and I rather than the Royal variety) now find it impossible to go anywhere without the camera, partly because I do a daily photo blog but it has also just become part of the way we live. Incidentally, we have never been told not to take photos apart from when trespassing in a naval base to take photos of a US warship. I mention this because I see reports in the press of people being treated suspiciously if carrying cameras

Hiya,

I'm really starting to get better results with the FZ-18 after about a months use, only about 750 images taken so far. I am still using the auto-modes mostly... P, Sport Outdoor, Scene 'Beach' ...smallest AF area, spot metering, continuous AF, -2 noise reduction, +1 sharpness, burst mode left on and used occasionally for flight (or flighty bird) shots in Sport Outdoor Mode. Not really ventured into Aperture/Shutter Priority or Manual Settings much yet.

The attached images are from taken from one 8Mg image (Edit: obviously using optical zoom a bit!), using Sport Outdoor Mode with the flash. I'd like to think it's because I'm actually getting better, but I think I was just lucky, haha! Image 1 is reduced to 800x600 to upload on here, image 2 is an 800x800 crop from the full image.

Lisa

I think that looks pretty good!

Niels

I like the camera, a lot and bought it after having it suggested to me by a member here on the forum.

I'm not very up with terms and words used with the technical elements of the cameras or what exactly each lens would do but, would the teleconverter lens make pictures like the first one I posted more clear or is it up to the photographer?

The rest of the pictures are some of the better ones I've gotten since purchasing the camera.

Matt

The tele converter makes the lens enlarge more. If the problem with image one is lack of good focus, then the converter would not help. If that image is soft because you have cropped a lot, so that this is a tiny part of the entire picture, then yes, the converter might help.

Disclaimer: I do not use a converter on this camera, but I used one one my previous nikon.

Niels

MLoyko said:

I'm not very up with terms and words used with the technical elements of the cameras or what exactly each lens would do but, would the teleconverter lens make pictures like the first one I posted more clear or is it up to the photographer?

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Hi Matt,

The last four photos are quite good. I think I like the praying mantis shot the best; quite a nice find.

I am still trying to figure out myself why certain shots with the camera come out almost perfectly, while others seem blurry and distorted without a clear reason. In any event, here are some thoughts related to your question and the photos you posted:

1. Not sure how much you know about photo editing software (I am not an expert but know the basics). I find that with pretty much all my photos I get the best result if I leave the sharpness setting on the camera neutral (which yours is), and then add a bit of sharpening using photo editing software. (I use the free program PhotoFiltre; Picasa is another popular free program). I added some sharpening to your photo of the mallards as an example and attached the result. (The amount of sharpening you will want to do varies according to taste; I might have done too much with this photo).

2. It seems that the greater your distance from the subject, the greater the likelihood that something will go wrong. Either the focusing will be off, the exposure will be off, or heat distortion will come into play. I think with your photo of the Red-tail, all of these might be an issue. With respect to exposure, when photographing a bird against a bright sky, you probably want to increase the exposure a bit to avoid underexposing the bird. You need to do this because the camera will often be setting the exposure to make the sky come out well, but not the bird. Probably the easiest way to adjust the exposure is to tinker with the EV value. Just press the button directly above the word "menu" on the back of the camera and then press the right arrow button to increase the EV value and the exposure.

3. With birds in flight, getting the focusing right can be a challenge for the camera. In these situations, I just try to take lots of photos and hope I get something good. I might take five shots, refocus, take five more, and so on. If you are not already using it, I would suggest you use "burst mode". In continuous burst mode, you just press the button, hold it down, and the shutter keeps on clicking.

4. A teleconverter does help you get closer to the bird, and will help you get satisfying frame filling shots even with more distant birds. But on the other hand, since it increases the magnification, this also means that things like heat distortion may cause greater problems, especially at a distance. So I do not think I would say in general that it is the answer to getting sharper photos -- but you certainly can get sharp photos with it.

5. Finally, it can help to practice your technique on more common birds, such as house sparrows or pigeons or crows. If you only try flight shots when a hawk comes around, is going to be difficult to get the hang of it. But I think even with practice flight shots are going to be challenging, and you do have to wait for conditions to be right (lighting, etc.) to get a good shot.

Hope this helps,
Jim

Thanks a lot,

Yes, the hawk was very far away I was zoomed in all the way and used the trimming feature to get in to even see that it was a bird on the LCD screen.

I will take everything you mentioned into consideration!

Thanks again,
Matt

That is a lot of good points that Jim makes. My thinking differ in one particular instance, in that I prefer the regular continous (which yields about 2 shots a second) rather than the burst mode which yields 3 shots a second. My reason is that I often find that the first shot is slightly too light, and that the repeated measurement that the camera does before shooting the next shot in continous often means that the second shot has better exposure.

Both continous and burst have the advantage that at the second to third shot my hands often are a little bit more steady, so the second to third shot often looks sharper. This is especially an advantage when in the forest with shutter speed around 1/20 (at 400 iso). Of course, bird movement may ruin the shot, but taking a series increases the chance that you catch the bird in the split second it is holding still.

Niels

njlarsen said:

My thinking differ in one particular instance, in that I prefer the regular continous (which yields about 2 shots a second) rather than the burst mode which yields 3 shots a second.

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Hi Niels,

I think we just have a difference in terminology. If you look on pages 47-48 of the manual, you will see the discussion of burst mode. The way the manual explains it, there are three settings for burst mode,"off", "normal", and "unlimited". Normal means a burst of three shots and then you have to press the shutter again. "Unlimited" means a continuous burst where the camera keeps on taking photos until you release the shutter. I believe what I refer to as continuous burst mode is the same thing that you refer to as "regular continuous".

But I think it is more accurate to refer to both modes as a form of burst mode. If burst shooting is set to off, then the camera takes only one photo at a time. That is the regular mode as I understand it.

Best,
Jim

J. Moore said:

Hi Niels,

I think we just have a difference in terminology. If you look on pages 47-48 of the manual, you will see the discussion of burst mode. The way the manual explains it, there are three settings for burst mode,"off", "normal", and "unlimited". Normal means a burst of three shots and then you have to press the shutter again. "Unlimited" means a continuous burst where the camera keeps on taking photos until you release the shutter. I believe what I refer to as continuous burst mode is the same thing that you refer to as "regular continuous".

But I think it is more accurate to refer to both modes as a form of burst mode. If burst shooting is set to off, then the camera takes only one photo at a time. That is the regular mode as I understand it.

Best,
Jim

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Jim,
you are right, and my excuse is that I have not used much time on reading the manual (which means that pretty much everything is selfexplanatory on this camera, which is a recommendation all in it self). I just clicked the button on the camera, and as you say, the heading for the menu is Burst Shooting, and the one I have it set to is labeled Unlimited.

Cheers
Niels

I have owned an FZ18 for 5 months now and have been really pleased with the quality of the photographs and the numerous functions available on the camera!! I have now decided to take it one step further and have ordered a TCON-17 convertor (+ adapter) after viewing some of the amazing photographs on this thread (and others!) that have been taken using the convertor! I just hope my pics come out just as good!!!

FZ18 with converter

I've had my FZ18 for a couple of weeks now. The picture of the ruff adopting a threat posture to warn off a rival was taken with the straight FZ18 on full zoom, cropped about 50% and lightened and sharpened a little in Photoshop and noise reduced in Denoiser (http://denoiser.shorturl.com/). I soon realised I needed more gun, so I've purchased the Pemaraal adapter (http://www.pemaraal.com/index.php?page=fz18ac) plus step rings to use either my old Olympus B300 X1.7 teleconverter or the Nikon TC-15ED X1.5 converter I got for £30 on Ebay. I'll be interested to compare the results. The Nikon converter has a little less power, but is lighter and feels better balanced for handheld shots.

Oh by the way this is what happened when they met. One bird decided to back down pretty smartish. As you can see he's trying to go backwards while still facing his rival and looking pretty silly.

I have had the FZ18 for about three month now, and have a question on quality. The attachment is full size, untreated crop of a picture which can alsoo be seen at http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/212415/ppuser/7427 in a version that has been sharpened etc.

Given the distance, I am reasonably satisfied, but I also feel there is a little less than optimal feather definition. Are there some settings I need to change?

File tells me that the image was taken using:
1/400 f/4.2, Aperture priority
Iso 100 (automatically chosen, camera set at iso-max 400)
Exposure bias 0
focal length 82.8 (maximum, I think -- there was no converter)
Contrast, saturation, sharpness: all standard
I cannot find noise reduction in the data, should be set at -2 (that is where I remember setting it, and camera still reports that setting)

Thanks for any insight
Niels

Looks better than most of mine I've taken with the camera (see my gallery) I've only started using the other setting other than iA function. I've been trying P but have no clue what I'm doing when I change any of the settings

-Matt

MLoyko said:

Looks better than most of mine I've taken with the camera (see my gallery) I've only started using the other setting other than iA function. I've been trying P but have no clue what I'm doing when I change any of the settings

-Matt

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The iA function will try to guess which kind of photo that you are taking, so if there is an oval in your image, it will guess that it is a face and focus on that part of the image. If you are really taking a photo of a bird in flight, that might instead be a cross and not chosen by the artificial intelligence. Beyond that, I will recommend that you try reading a book on basic photography, and off course, even better if the book talks a little about wildlife photography as well.

Cheers
Niels