ill give it a shot, but i cant guarantee it will be simple.
for digital cameras, the sensor that "takes the picture" can be adjusted to have increased sensitivity to light. for simplicity sake, this is calibrated the same as what film sensitivity used to be i.e. ISO 100, ISO 200 etc.
the higher your ISO number, the less time you need to expose the picture to light, to still get a proper exposure. i.e. if you set the ISO to 100, you might need a aperture of F2.8 and a shutter speed of 1/100th of a second to get a proper exposure. If you increase the ISO to 200, then you can reduce the shutter speed to 1/50th of a second, whilst maintaining the same aperture.
the question then is, what is the downside to having increased ISO sensitivity. the answer to that is noise.
theres a very detailed technical explanation to why you get noise, but the simple answer for your friend, is that the higher the ISO setting that you use, the more dots or grains you will get in the picture (that is noise).
coming back to the panasonic. some cameras are better at controlling noise at high ISOs, than others. i.e. one camera might have some noise (dots or grains) at ISO 400, whereas another camera might have more noise at the same ISO.
unfortunately, whilst the panasonic is a very good camera in a lot of respects, it doesnt have very good noise performance, as compared to say the fuji or the canon.
but, this doesnt mean she shouldnt get it or consider the panasonic. because it all comes down to the user and their preferences. some people are very "sensitive" to digital noise, some wouldnt even recognise it or it doesnt bother them.
for digital cameras, the sensor that "takes the picture" can be adjusted to have increased sensitivity to light. for simplicity sake, this is calibrated the same as what film sensitivity used to be i.e. ISO 100, ISO 200 etc.
the higher your ISO number, the less time you need to expose the picture to light, to still get a proper exposure. i.e. if you set the ISO to 100, you might need a aperture of F2.8 and a shutter speed of 1/100th of a second to get a proper exposure. If you increase the ISO to 200, then you can reduce the shutter speed to 1/50th of a second, whilst maintaining the same aperture.
the question then is, what is the downside to having increased ISO sensitivity. the answer to that is noise.
theres a very detailed technical explanation to why you get noise, but the simple answer for your friend, is that the higher the ISO setting that you use, the more dots or grains you will get in the picture (that is noise).
coming back to the panasonic. some cameras are better at controlling noise at high ISOs, than others. i.e. one camera might have some noise (dots or grains) at ISO 400, whereas another camera might have more noise at the same ISO.
unfortunately, whilst the panasonic is a very good camera in a lot of respects, it doesnt have very good noise performance, as compared to say the fuji or the canon.
but, this doesnt mean she shouldnt get it or consider the panasonic. because it all comes down to the user and their preferences. some people are very "sensitive" to digital noise, some wouldnt even recognise it or it doesnt bother them.
