Night settings for FZ5?


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Simon_84

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Mar 18, 2004
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any FZ5 user have an idea what manual settings should i stick with for night photography in low light conditions or street lightings without the help of using a tripod?
 

Simon_84 said:
any FZ5 user have an idea what manual settings should i stick with for night photography in low light conditions or street lightings without the help of using a tripod?

in term of shooting non moving objects, if shutter speed is below 1/8s (with OIS mode2) i

strongly recommend use tripod, won't bother using ISO400, damn noisy
 

how's ISO 200 since is also a bit noisy only slightly better than 400 but if i downsize/reduce the mega pixels then print out on 4R.

will the noise be visible on the pictures?
 

As long as your photo is engaging, no one will look at the noise. People will start to nitpick if there's nothing much to look at..
Resizing it down to 4R size, there's not much noise visible.

*shrug* I printed a FZ5 5MP ISO400 photo at 12X zoom, printed it at 8R for some small competition.. Not much noise at all.. (LOL and I won a small prize for it..)
If really nit pick can see some noise, but the image draws your eye away from the noise.
your milage may differ.
 

unseen said:
As long as your photo is engaging, no one will look at the noise. People will start to nitpick if there's nothing much to look at..
Resizing it down to 4R size, there's not much noise visible.

*shrug* I printed a FZ5 5MP ISO400 photo at 12X zoom, printed it at 8R for some small competition.. Not much noise at all.. (LOL and I won a small prize for it..)
If really nit pick can see some noise, but the image draws your eye away from the noise.
your milage may differ.

actually i get what you mean,have an interesting subject/theme to distract the person looking at the picture to disregard the small issues like minor noise in the background or maybe the purple fringing at the corners of the photo.

but that means your subject has to more or less occupy 90% of the picture?

though i might be OT but may i ask what printer you are using or did you print at some photoshop?
 

LOL dun need lar.. just as long as something draws your eye..
if there's some main subject interesting enough to draw your attention, you'll look at it, then slowly you will start to look around the photo and see how the different elements interact with the main subject etc..

Err.. I'm not a good photographer.. here's 2 photos I just put up from my recent shoot ba.. see if u get what I mean..
Not say the best for illustration.. but.. I'm tired.. and lazy to dig for good photos...

1.jpg

2.jpg
 

I used to do try manual setting for night shots for people but i got tired of testing especially if people are waiting for you to take pictures. Nowadays, I just set it at PARTY mode and I have been quite happy with the pictures. I am regretting for forget about this mode because I wasn't too happy with the indoor pictures of my baby before. The only downside is if you're a bit far from the subject the iso setting will get really high and you'll lose the details. Just my 2 cents....
 

hee dun need to test lar.. er..FZ5 got this v nice exposure meter.. the thing at the bottom.. just adjust until the arrow in the middle.. very fast de.. and very accurate also.. LOL I quite like it..
 

yeah adjust according to that. usually play manual mode wf aperture n shutter speed together.
 

so far i have played with the night scenery mode and it really sucks.
even simple mode is far better.
regarding about the ois,does this function better in the day like taking pictures on a moving bus/car?
cos it looks terrible at night even when just standing there taking pictures.
when the ois icon on the EVF is red in colour what does it mean?
am i not holding my camera securely?
or is it a warning telling me that my shots are going to blur?
 

Simon_84 said:
so far i have played with the night scenery mode and it really sucks.
even simple mode is far better.
regarding about the ois,does this function better in the day like taking pictures on a moving bus/car?
cos it looks terrible at night even when just standing there taking pictures.
when the ois icon on the EVF is red in colour what does it mean?
am i not holding my camera securely?
or is it a warning telling me that my shots are going to blur?

It's warning that your camera might explode soon.
:eek:

just kidding..
it just means that there's a possibility of camera shake..
Use a tripod ba.. will be better..
 

Simon_84 said:
so far i have played with the night scenery mode and it really sucks.
even simple mode is far better.
regarding about the ois,does this function better in the day like taking pictures on a moving bus/car?
cos it looks terrible at night even when just standing there taking pictures.
when the ois icon on the EVF is red in colour what does it mean?
am i not holding my camera securely?
or is it a warning telling me that my shots are going to blur?

Night scene mode is meant to use with tripod, not for hand held.

For hand held night shots, indoor or outdoor, try party mode. This mode is also good for orchard road light up portraits.

OIS is not for correcting movement of car, but to compensate hand shake.

If want to take a moving car, you will have to use S mode and set shutter speed of 1/500 or faster. U can only use this shutter speed on sunny day.
 

party mode...okay point taken.
if i were to take a picture through a window of a moving bus,what are the chances of the pictures blurring?
does changing to sports mode help?
 

Simon_84 said:
party mode...okay point taken.
if i were to take a picture through a window of a moving bus,what are the chances of the pictures blurring?
does changing to sports mode help?


Hmmm actually hor.. I would suggest you read up an article or 2 teaching you the fundamentals of photography. It'll help you lots.

Here's a good site:
http://www.tpub.com/content/photography/14209/index.htm
Lots of stuff there, but go and read up about aperture, all the way to Combining Aperture and Shutter Speed.

That will help you to go a very very very very long way..
I never use the modes. It's settings that some other photographer/panasonic uses and thus would like me to use. it will not produce the photo I have in mind. Almost never.

Try to learn to use aperture mode or shutter speed (I avoid this personally) mode.
The only other variant you need to care about is the ISO speed.
Other than that, it's as good as auto mode, and gives you the photo you want alot of the times..
 

the shutter speed mode is the only function i haven't try because at the lowest speed 8 sec,i would have to use a tripod which i'm lazy to carry recently.
but the aperture mode is real nice,the bigger the hole the better to capture more lights,helps a bit in low light photography which is better than nothing.
for the manual exposure,i have a rough idea which settings i'm going to use aperture value of 2.8 and shutter speed of 8 sec,with tripod and lens at 1X to take lightings with trailing effect.
actually the camera manual already provides tons of information,is just that recently i don't have much time to test out my camera.

when i'm working the weather is damn fine then when i'm off,it starts raining at night is such a pain not to go out and shoot sometimes.
 

Simon_84 said:
party mode...okay point taken.
if i were to take a picture through a window of a moving bus,what are the chances of the pictures blurring?
does changing to sports mode help?

Yes, sports mode (automatically select a highest possible shutter speed) is perfect to freeze a moving bus, but still must depend on a bright day in order to hv a chance to select a speed of about 1/500 or higher.
 

LOL well you should know then that to get the highest possible shutter speed you set ISO to 400, aperture to 2.8, and using aperture mode, that's about the fastest shutter speed you can get for a well exposed photo..

The other way is use the shutter speed mode, and set to say 1/200 or 1/400 manually.. you may underexpose your photo, but hey, as long as it's not more than 1 stop, your photo can definitely be "brightened" up later on photoshop..
 

LOL, sorry, it's all about night and yet i talk about bright day, my mistake. :bsmilie:
 

but how you take a picture of a person at a dark bus stop without using flash?
 

aperture to F2.8, fast shutter, iso set to 400... although will be noisy though.... seriously its not really possible
 

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