Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ300 Beginner's Manual
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Also See for Lumix DMC-FZ300:
- Owner's manual for advanced features (363 pages) ,
- Basic owner's manual (72 pages) ,
- Operating instructions manual (64 pages)
Related Manuals for Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ300
Summary of Contents for Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ300
- Page 1 Jargon Free Setup & Use Easy to follow set up and use of the Panasonic Lumix Fz300/330 in conjunction with my YouTube video series written by Graham Houghton September 2017 Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330 Page ! 1...
- Page 2 Welcome to this supplementary guide for the FZ300/330 camera from Panasonic. This guide, plus the YouTube video series, will allow you to get the best image quality from your camera in a way that is easy to comprehend without any technical jargon or any pre-requisite understanding of this model.
- Page 3 The Panasonic FZ300/330 Main Features Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330 Page ! 3...
- Page 4 Once the camera has been reset select your home country and/or time and date if necessary. As this camera has so many ways of setting up user preferences I would make the following changes to the setup of the camera so that any of the following instructions that I give will always work for you.
- Page 5 Turn the TOP MODE dial to the iA position opposite the white marker. If you press Menu/Set and you then use the left hand navigation button. you can see the iA+ is selected from the iA menu as it is highlighted with the yellow background.
- Page 6 The ASPECT ratio is set from the REC Setup menu (the camera icon tab). This sets the height and width ratio of your image. If you are shooting images primarily for prints then for 4 x 6 inch prints (and its multiples 8 x 12 etc) then select 3:2 For other sizes 4:3 may be selected bearing in mind some common print sizes like 5 x 7 inch will require some cropping of the final image.
- Page 7 Always keep the largest Picture size (L) and the Quality should be left to the fine JPEG mode which is the double dotted bar until later setups when we will consider the other format available to you. Picture size (in Megapixels) will vary with each aspect ratio selected so you may see different values.
- Page 8 You will find this on page 4/9 in the Custom Setup (wrench plus C icon tab) The default time period for the camera self timer is 10 seconds. Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330 Page ! 8...
- Page 9 For normal operation I would suggest making this value 2 seconds unless you are doing “selfies” and want to appear in the image yourself if using a tripod to shoot the image. Self timer is found in the REC Setup menu tab, page 3/7. Set it to the 2 second option.
- Page 10 Select the “Setting in REC mode” and press Menu/Set Select the Fn2 icon on the button layout screen. Now step through to page 3/4 to select the Focus Area Set option and press Menu/ Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330 Page ! 1 0...
- Page 11 Some generic brands do not perform as well as the Panasonic battery but the DSTE types can actually outperform the Panasonic one and are entirely safe to use. The battery should be fully charged using the supplied Panasonic charger.
- Page 12 The Panasonic original battery during charging in the Panasonic DE-A80 charger. The FZ300/330 does not support USB charging of the battery in camera however there are USB chargers available from after market suppliers which will allow you to charge your batteries from any USB power source such as you laptop or from any USB power bank units.
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Page 13: Memory Cards
The camera uses SDHC or SDXC memory cards. In the illustration above you can see my recommendations for memory cards suitable for use with the Panasonic Lumix FZ300/330. The two cards on the left are the SDHC cards suitable for all photographic stills shooting plus AVCHD or MP4 video at 1080p. -
Page 14: Formatting Memory Cards
One tip I can offer you here is to use the micro SDXC cards in their supplied SD adaptor. Not only are they the same electronics in a smaller profile but are about half the cost of their equivalent SD card. Their functionality is the same as their full size equivalent. -
Page 15: Adjusting The Viewfinder Focus
Now we have a fully charged battery and a formatted memory card we can begin to look at using the camera to take images. Adjusting the viewfinder focus It is probably worth mentioning here the electronic viewfinder (EVF)and the facility to adjust the diopter of the viewing lens so that even if you wear glasses the focus an be set so that you can see the screen clearly. - Page 16 Letting the Camera Take Full Control When first beginning to take images with this camera it is a good idea to use the fully automatic mode - the iA mode to see what it can do in a variety of image taking situations. You will probably find that in most situations the resulting image is extremely good however there are some scene types which are not recorded faithfully or with optimum results...
- Page 17 The other Modes on the dial are as follows: Program Auto mode – use when fully automatic exposure is needed however this mode does not use scene recognition and the ability to change the selected aperture/shutter speed combination is available via the program shift option. Aperture priority mode –...
- Page 18 In the iA Mode (or the iA+ mode) the camera uses “scene” type recognition and automatic exposure determination to expose the images. The enhanced iA+ mode allows you the user to adjust the exposure (brightness of the image) and the hue or tint of the image to apply either a warming or cooling tint to the image.
- Page 19 Sometimes the scene recognition software incorrectly determines the scene being imaged. If this is the case switch to the SCN scene mode on the Mode Control dial and then select the most applicable scene type from the associated menu for the scene being photographed. The scene type is determined by the camera and can be one of the following cases.
- Page 20 This is a further increase in automatic scene detection over the previous FZ200 model. If shooting 4K still the scene detection works in the same way as recording video clips. When recording video, the camera will automatically select one of the following scene types: ...
- Page 21 Panasonic do state that, in some scene types, you should watch the indicated icon when you shoot in this mode and if the wrong scene type is detected then you should select the most appropriate mode from the SCN mode dial setting and menu choice.
- Page 22 When you have selected the image that you want to review you can see how the camera detected the scene type. In the image above the camera correctly identified that this was a close-up scene and selected the I-Macro mode and below it identified the i-Landscape mode setting optimal parameters for this scene.
- Page 23 If the camera doesn’t recognise a scene type, then it reverts to a default setting and determines the exposure without adjusting other parameters such as saturation of colour or aperture as seen in the illustration below. A lot of thought has gone into the automatic scene detection and it is becoming very reliable in selecting the correct scene type for the image being recorded.
- Page 24 Lets look at a scene taken in the iA+ mode The camera has selected the iLandscape mode and set the appropriate shooting conditions to capture the image. It slightly boosts the blue and greens in a scene compared to a standard image shown below captured with the P mode.
- Page 25 The three additional controls that are exposed when you touch the iA+ tab on the LCD screen. The colour tint control allowing a warmer or cooler image to be selected Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330 Page ! 2 5...
- Page 26 The background defocus control allowing aperture selection The brightness adjustment control showing the +/- 3 adjustment scale. Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330 Page ! 2 6...
- Page 27 Colour Tint Control In the iA+ mode the user has additional control by which the image can be change the colour tint from a warming bias to a colder look. Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330 Page ! 2 7...
- Page 28 Background Defocus Control The background defocus icon allows the user to select the aperture at which the image will be taken. The lower the number like f2.8 the image with have a blurred background (upper image) compared to the smaller apertures (larger number) like f8 (lower image) Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330 Page ! 2 8...
- Page 29 When this is used with the longer zoom setting of the lens some very good images of plants can be captured which totally isolate the image against the background. The image above taken at x24 zoom and f2.8 and f8 below using the defocus control Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330 Page ! 2 9...
- Page 30 Use of the background defocus control to set the aperture to f2.8 and use of the x24 zoom position to isolate this pigeon against the background. Brightness Adjust Control One of the areas that will cause the image to be captured incorrectly will be when the camera captures large areas of sky as shown in the image below.
- Page 31 The camera always tries to make very image appear to be a neutral grey colour. When it sees this large expanse of bright sky it will generally underexpose the image causing any subject to become silhouetted. The iA+ mode has the facility to be able to correct for this if you recognise this before taking the image.
- Page 32 Image Stabilisation The Panasonic Lumix FZ300/330 employs optical image stabilisation (OIS) to help the user get images which are free from handshake during exposure. At low shutter speeds the movement of the camera would produce images with blur. The image stabilisation keeps the image in the same place on the sensor even though the camera is moving slightly due to our natural body motion.
- Page 33 For Episode 3 PROGRAM AUTO MODE - “P” The P mode can be considered to be the ISO priority mode for this camera. You can set the ISO and the camera will set the aperture and shutter speed according to the amount of light reaching the sensor.
- Page 34 Alternatively you can set the shutter speed to either add subject motion blur, or remove it depending upon the desired look in your final image. The “P” Mode also gives you access to the other metering modes that the camera has, such as the spot metering mode, and this can be an important feature for getting the right exposure in tricky lighting situations.
- Page 35 The “P” Mode is the first giant step in taking more control of the way the camera handles your desired image capture. The “P” Mode however, always plays it safe and assumes that you are hand holding the camera. It does take into account the focal length of the lens to set an appropriate shutter speed in attempt to reduce any handshake.
- Page 36 Once the maximum aperture of F2.8 has been reached with a shutter speed of 1/100sec, if the subject is still too dark for this exposure, the “program” keeps the F2.8 aperture while decreasing shutter speed still further. If the you set ISO to Auto in this mode, the camera will give priority to increasing the ISO sensitivity before setting too slow a shutter speed thus reducing the possibility of getting hand shake in the image.
- Page 37 Program shift is indicated by a double headed arrow visible on the LCD screen. As I first indicated at the beginning of this section I said the P Mode is almost my ISO Priority mode. So what ISO should you use. Well it is always best to use the lowest ISO that you can.
- Page 38 Here is a table of suggested ISO settings for various lighting scenarios. ISO Setting Lighting Situation Bright, sunny day 100/200 Outdoor shade Indoor lighting at night or cloudy conditions outside. Late night, low-light conditions or 1600 sporting arenas at night These are just suggestions, and your ISO setting will depend on a number of factors that will be discussed later in this series.
- Page 39 In the image below the background is very magenta, a failure of my LED studio lights, and the camera has not made the grey background neutral. The image below is after a Manual White Balance Set has been made using a grey card (or white is acceptable to use). Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330 Page ! 3 9...
- Page 40 The manual white balance set procedure allows the camera to set the correct white operating point given a white (or neutral grey) target used as the reference. To set a manual white balance operating point we can choose any one of the four custom white balance presets by depressing the WB button on the 4-way controller select one of the 4 custom settings...
- Page 41 For Episode 4 Aperture and Shutter Priority Modes Aperture priority is selected by the user when the main exposure reason is one of the need for depth of field (DOF) or the amount of focus that is acceptably sharp from foreground to back ground. Selecting a wide aperture (like F2.8) produces a shallow depth of field and conversely selecting a small aperture (like F8.0) will give deeper depth of field.
- Page 42 Aperture priority is selected by rotating the top mode “A” control dial to the position. Use the top control wheel to set the aperture or the side control wheel if it has been programmed to F/SS in the custom menu setting for side button.
- Page 43 Shutter priority is selected by rotating the top mode control dial to “S” position. Use the top control wheel to set the shutter speed or the side control wheel if it has been programmed to F/SS in the custom menu setting for side button.
- Page 44 Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330 Page ! 4 4...
- Page 45 Glossary of Photographic Terms For When You Need Them Aperture – the variable opening in the lens through which light passes to the film or digital sensor. Measured in f-stops. I like to compare it to your pupil which opens and closes to allow light to enter your eye depending on the brightness level of the room.
- Page 46 Exposure – the total amount of light reaching the camera sensor. It is controlled by the setting of the aperture, shutter speed and ISO. See my Exposure Triangle for more details. F-stop – is a measure of the aperture opening in the lens defined by dividing the focal length of the lens by the aperture diameter.
- Page 47 Camera resolution – expressed in megapixels is the dimensions your camera’s sensor is capable of capturing. This is not the only factor in image quality, but generally the large the number, the larger prints you can produce from it without loss of quality. File format JPEG versus RAW –...
- Page 48 Lighting ratio: is a comparison between the intensity (brightness) of the main light and the fill light and thus the difference of the lit and shadow sides of the subject’s face. Incident light meter: is a handheld device separate from your camera that measures the amount of light falling on a subject (as opposed to the reflective reading your camera takes which is light bouncing off the subject back to the camera).
- Page 49 shadows with well-defined edges, contrast, and texture (if used at an angle to the subject). Emphasizes texture, lines and wrinkles, and used to create a more dramatic type of portrait. Soft light – diffused light such as from an overcast sky, north facing window with no direct light, or a large studio softbox.
- Page 50 Bokeh – often mispronounced “bow-kay” or “bow-kuh” it is correctly pronounced as “bo-ke” like the ke in kettle. It is used to described the out of focus blurred bits in the background when “fast glass” is used. Most often bokeh occurs where small light sources are in the background, far in the distance.
- Page 51 Chromatic aberration – in terms of lens optics it is the failure of the lens to focus all colours (RGB) at the same point. It shows up as colour fringes in areas of the image where dark meet light (think edge of a building against the sky).
- Page 52 This allows you to adjust the colour manually by degrees Kelvin. The lower numbers represent warmer colours like orange (tungsten light) and the higher numbers are cooler (blues). ND filter – stands for neutral density filter which is a filter designed to go in front of the lens to block out some of the light entering the camera.
- Page 53 Blown out – having highlights that are off the chart on the right side of the histogram, having no detail in the white areas. Clipped – similar to blown out being off the histogram, but it can also apply to shadow or black areas of the image. Selfie –...
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Page 54: The Exposure Triangle
The Exposure Triangle Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330 Page ! 5 4... - Page 55 Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330 Page ! 5 5...