Panasonic FZ300 Review - Exposure

23/08/2019 Panasonic FZ300 Review - Exposure
Search creative images
Panasonic FZ300 Exposure

Camera Reviews / Panasonic Cameras / Lumix Point & hoot
Jump to review page... ▼
Panasonic FZ300 Image Qualit

Color
aturation & Hue Accurac
elow average mean saturation levels, with aout average hue accurac.
In the diagram aove, the squares show the original color, and the circles show
the color that the camera captured. More saturated colors are located toward
the peripher of the graph. Hue changes as ou travel around the center. Thus,
hue-accurate, highl saturated colors appear as lines radiating from the center.
Click for a larger image.
aturation. Mean saturation levels are a little lower than average from the
Panasonic FZ300 using default settings at ase IO, at 106% or 6%
oversaturated. The FZ300 pushes dark lues quite a it, ut onl oversaturates
dark red and dark green  small amounts, and it undersaturates ellow
https://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/panasonic-fz300/panasonic-fz300A5.HTM 1/17
moderatel. Most other colors are close to accurate in terms of saturation. Most
consumer digital cameras produce color that's more highl saturated (more
intense) than found in the original sujects. This is simpl ecause most people
like their color a it righter than life.
kin tones. Here, the Panasonic FZ300 did a decent jo, producing reasonal
natural-looking Caucasian skin tones with Auto white alance in simulated
dalight, though transitions etween lighter and darker skin tones showed a
noticeale color shift from pink to more ellow. Where oversaturation is most
prolematic is on Caucasian skin tones, as it's ver eas for these "memor
colors" to e seen as too right, too pink, too ellow, etc.
Hue. The Panasonic FZ300 shifts can toward lue  quite a it, ut most other
shifts like orange toward ellow, and ellow toward green are  smaller
amounts. The can to lue shift is ver common among the digital cameras we
test; we think it's a delierate choice  camera engineers to produce etter-
looking sk colors. The FZ300's handling of ellows is one of its weaknesses:
Yellows are noticeal undersaturated, and shifted slightl toward green. With a
mean "delta-C" color error of 5.35 after correction for saturation, hue accurac is
aout average. Hue is "what color" the color is.
ee full set of test images with explanations
ee thumnails of all test and galler images
ensor
xposure and White alance
Indoors, incandescent lighting
The Auto setting produced slightl cool results and Incandescent was quite
warm. Manual was prett accurate, just slightl cool. Average exposure
compensation required.
Auto White alance Incandescent White alance
+0.3 V +0.3 V
Manual White alance
+0.3 V
Indoors, under normal incandescent lighting, color alance was a it cool and
magenta with the Auto white alance setting, though it performed etter than
most cameras. Results with the Incandescent setting were quite warm and
orange. The Manual setting produced ver good, neutral results. (Note: The
FZ300 also has a Kelvin Temperature White alance option, however we did not
test that mode.) The Panasonic FZ300 required +0.3 V exposure compensation
which is aout average for this scene. (Our test lighting for this shot is a mixture
of 60 and 100 watt household incandescent uls, a prett ellow light source,
ut a ver common one in tpical home settings here in the U..)
Outdoors, dalight
Natural colors overall, with a tendenc toward high contrast under harsh lighting.
Aout average exposure accurac.
Auto White alance, Auto White alance,
+0.7 V Auto xposure
Outdoors, the Panasonic FZ300 performed well for its class, with natural-looking
though slightl cool colors in the Far-field shot. kin tones are fairl realistic in
our "unlit" Portrait shot, with a health-looking push of pinks and reds which is
preferale to too flat and ellow, though transitions from lighter to darker skin
tones showed a noticeale color shift. xposure accurac is aout average, as
the camera required +0.7 V compensation for our "unlit" Portrait shot to keep
facial tones reasonal right. That's tpical for this shot. Quite a few highlights
were lown in the mannequin's shirt and flowers though, and there are some
ver deep shadows that are nois and posterized, however that's to e expected
from such a small sensor. The default exposure is quite good in our Far-field shot,
with ver few lown highlights, though again there are some ver deep shadows
that are nois and discolored. Default contrast is on the high side, ut that's how
most consumers prefer their photos.
ee full set of test images with explanations
ee thumnails of all test and galler images
Resolution
~2,050 to ~2,100 lines of strong detail from JPGs, a little higher from RAW.
In-camera JPG: In-camera JPG:
trong detail to trong detail to
~2,100 lines horizontal ~2,050 lines vertical
ACR converted RAW: ACR converted RAW:
trong detail to trong detail to
~2,100 lines horizontal ~2,050 lines vertical
An in-camera JPG of our laorator resolution chart revealed sharp, distinct line
patterns up to just under 2,100 lines per picture height in the horizontal direction,
and to just under 2,050 lines per picture height in the vertical direction. ome
ma argue for more, ut lines egin to merge at this resolution, and significant
aliasing artifacts appear as earl as 1,600 lines. Complete extinction of the
pattern didn't occur until aout 2,600 lines. Adoe Camera Raw produced ver
similar resolution results ut with lower luminance moiré elow the limits and
higher color moiré aove the limits. Use these numers to compare with other
cameras of similar resolution, or use them to see just what higher resolution can
mean in terms of potential detail.
harpness & Detail
Fairl crisp images with good detail, ut some sharpening artifacts are visile.
trong noise reduction alread at ase IO.
Good definition of high-contrast utle detail: Hair
elements here with moderate Noise suppression tends to lur
sharpening haloes. detail in areas of sutle contrast.
harpness. The FZ300 produces fairl crisp, sharp looking images ut with some
ovious sharpening haloes around high contrast transitions, as can e seen
around the lines and text in the crop aove left. The camera uses area-specific
sharpening, which means sharpening varies depending on the suject matter,
which can lead to more ovious artifacts especiall where the suject matter
changes. dge enhancement creates the illusion of sharpness  enhancing
colors and tones right at the edge of a rapid transition in color or tone.
Detail. The crop aove right shows a decent amount of detail for the size of the
sensor, though as ou can see, strong noise reduction lurs man of strands in
the mannequins's hair alread at ase IO. This is tpical of cameras with small
sensors, though, and the FZ300 does a good jo at suppression more
ojectionale chroma noise here. Noise-suppression sstems in digital cameras
tend to flatten-out detail in areas of sutle contrast. The effects can often e
seen in shots of human hair, where the individual strands are lost and an almost
"watercolor" look appears.
RAW vs In-Camera JPGs
As noted aove the Panasonic FZ300 produces fairl sharp, crisp and clean
images at ase IO. Let's see how an Adoe Camera Raw conversion compares.
ase IO (100)
Camera JPG, defaults RAW via Adoe Camera Raw
In the tale aove, we compare an in-camera JPG taken at ase IO using
default noise reduction and sharpening (on the left) to a matching RAW file
converted with Adoe Camera Raw 9.1 with no noise reduction and using strong
ut tight unsharp masking applied in Photoshop (in this case 350% UM with a
radius of 0.5 pixels and a threshold of 0, as the FZ300's RAW files are quite soft).
As ou can see, ACR revealed significantl higher detail than what is present in
the JPG from the camera, ut also a lot more noise (rememer, though, no noise
reduction was applied to show what ou'll need to contend with even at ase
IO). The iggest increase in detail is in our trick red-leaf faric crop, and ACR
also did a it etter reproducing fine detail in the pink faric, as well as more
accurate color. ut as mentioned, noise is alread quite high at ase IO from
small sensors like the FZ300's, so ou'll need to trade-off some of that detail for a
cleaner image  appling moderate to high amounts of noise reduction
depending on the sensitivit. ottom line: As is almost alwas the case, ou can
do noticeal etter than the camera with a good RAW converter, provided
ou're willing to appl our own noise reduction and sharpening to taste.
IO & Noise Performance
Aout average high IO performance for its class.
Default High IO Noise Reduction
IO 100 IO 200 IO 400
IO 800 IO 1600 IO 3200
IO 6400
IO 100 is fairl clean, though as mentioned, lose of fine detail can alread e
seen at ase IO. IO 200 is just a it noisier and softer in areas, ut fine detail is
still prett good. IO 400 starts to show some purple and ellow chroma
lotching in the lower midtones and shadows, ut detail is still fair. IO 800
exhiits noticeal stronger luminance noise with a slight peppering effect as
artifacts of noise reduction. IO 1600 is softer with much stronger color lotching,
and image qualit degrades rapidl from here to the point where IO 6400 looks
more like a watercolor painting than a photograph when viewed at 100% like this.
We're of course pixel-peeping to an extraordinar extent here, since 1:1 images
on an LCD screen often have little to do with how those same images will appear
when printed. ee the Print Qualit section elow for our evaluation of maximum
print sizes at each IO setting.
xtremes: unlit, dnamic range and low light tests
High default contrast with limited dnamic range. Fair low-light performance.
+0.3 V +0.7 V +1.0 V
unlight. The Panasonic FZ300 struggled with the delieratel harsh lighting of
this test, though that's to e expected from a small 1/2.3"-tpe sensor. Contrast is
quite high at its default setting, and dnamic range is limited. We felt the +0.7 V
exposure is the est compromise here. Although skin tones around the ees are
a it dark, we prefer it to the +1.0 V exposure overall, ecause there are fewer
clipped highlights, and +0.3 V was too dim. It's reall the photographer's choice
here as to which direction to go in. For those Panasonic FZ300 owners that are
going to want to just print an image with little or no tweaking, the +1.0 image
would proal produce a etter-looking face uncorrected. The ottom line
though, is that the Panasonic FZ300 struggled with the wide dnamic range of
this shot, though that's tpical of the class, and using features such as Intelligent
Dnamic Range (see elow) helps to mitigate the limited dnamic range offered
 the small 1/2.3" sensor.
ecause digital cameras are more like slide film than negative film (in that the
tend to have a more limited tonal range), we test them in the harshest situations
to see how the handle scenes with right highlights and dark shadows, as well
as what kind of sensitivit the have in low light. The shot aove is designed to
mimic the ver harsh, contrast effect of direct noonda sunlight, a ver tough
challenge for most digital cameras. (You can read details of this test here.)
A note aout Panasonic DFD autofocus and sparkl ojects
A ke element of Panasonic's technolog arsenal is their Depth from Defocus
(DFD) autofocus technolog. asicall, cameras with DFD use a detailed
knowledge of exactl what out of focus ojects look like through a given lens to
determine how far the lens is out of focus for an given suject, and in what
direction (near or far-focused). Normall, cameras using contrast-detect autofocus
(CDAF) can onl decide whether a suject is in focus or not  looking at the
image, changing focus and then looking again, to see if contrast got worse or
etter. Panasonic's DFD lets the camera adjust the focus to ver nearl the
correct value after just one "look" at the suject, speeding up the process
consideral.
This is essentiall the same thing that the phase-detect AF (PDAF) sstems in
digital LRs accomplish. PDAF can determine focus error amount and direction
with just a single "look" at the suject. Conveing much the same information,
DFD does a lot to narrow the AF performance gap etween LRs and mirrorless
cameras, and the technolog also works for point & shoots like the FZ300.
As far as we can tell, DFD does what it's supposed to, as AF sstems in cameras
emploing it are indeed fast and accurate. We've encountered an oddit with our
Outdoor Portrait suject aove, though, where some cameras with DFD have
refused to focus accuratel on it. It's onl that one suject that we've had troule
with, ut having seen it a couple of times now, we thought it worth mentioning.
After some head-scratching, we're prett sure we've figured out what's going on,
and it's interesting indeed. Right in the center of the frame which is where we
focus, there's a little costume-jewelr rooch with some faceted glass "jewels" in
it. It turns out it's the cause of the AF prolem, and if we cover up the rooch with
a piece of paper (with some lines on it, so the camera has something to focus
on), the FZ300 autofocuses just fine. Thus, we ended up reshooting the aove
series with manual focus.
o what's so special aout a little fake-jewelr rooch? It sparkles! Acting as a
collection of tin mirrors, the facets of the jewels reflect surrounding light into the
camera lens, notal the light from the right dalight-simulator light source
overhead. The thing is, the lights are at a much different overall distance from the
camera than the main suject is, so their out-of-focus appearance ("okeh") is
telling the camera that the suject is a lot further awa than it actuall is, causing
the mis-focusing.
In normal usage, most times ou could just shift the camera slightl to put an
sparkl ojects outside the active AF area, half-press and hold the shutter utton
to lock focus, and then reframe as needed. ut ou need to know that sparkl
things can cause prolems in the first place, so ou can take measures to avoid
them. Now ou do :-)

Face Detection
Aperture Priorit, 0 V, f/4 Aperture Priorit, 0 V, f/4
iAuto, 0 V, f/2.8
Face Detection Off Face Detection On
Face Detection. Like most cameras these das, the Panasonic FZ300 has the
ailit to detect faces (up to 15 in a scene) and even ees, and adjust exposure
and focus accordingl. As ou can see from the examples aove, face detection
made a huge difference to exposure in Aperture Priorit mode at f/4. iAuto mode
where the camera selected Portrait scene mode was also much improved, with
smoother skin tones and lower contrast from automaticall applied Intelligent D-
Range processing (see elow).

Far-field Intelligent D-Range xamples
Off Auto Low tandard High
Panasonic's Intelligent Dnamic Range
The aove shots are examples of Panasonic's Intelligent Dnamic Range Control
(or iD-Range) at work, with no exposure compensation. Note that the camera
does not take multiple shots and merge them as HDR mode does (see elow). It's
a sstem that adjusts local contrast and exposure more akin to Nikon's Active D-
lighting, Canon's Automatic Lighting Optimization or on's Dnamic Range
Optimization.
There are three levels of iD-Range availale on the Panasonic FZ300: Low,
tandard and High, plus Auto and Off. It's automaticall invoked in iAuto and
some scene modes and manuall selectale in PAM modes. Here, ou can see
darker midtones and shadows were progressivel oosted as the strength was
increased, without lowing an additional highlights in the process. Do e aware
that oosting shadows and lower midtones can reveal more noise, though.

Far-field HDR xamples
Off Auto +/-1 V +/-2 V +/-3 V
HDR mode
Here, ou can see the Panasonic FZ300's High Dnamic Range mode at work
with our Far-field shot. HDR mode takes three images at different exposures and
comines them to increase dnamic range. Mouse over the links, and click on
them the view the full resolution files.
Auto did a decent jo, producing results similar to +/-1 V, while +/-3 dimmed the
entire image. Notice the doule images and ghosting in the person, leaves and
flag from movement etween frames in some of the images. Also notice the
angle of view is narrower in the HDR images, likel ecause the images have
een cropped and upsized during the optional auto alignment process.
Dnamic Range Analsis (RAW mode)
While we once performed our own dnamic range measurements ased on in-
camera JPGs as well as converted RAW images (when the camera was
supported  Adoe Camera Raw), we've switched to using DxO Las' results
from their DxOMark wesite. As technolog advanced, the dnamic range of
modern high-end cameras in some cases exceeded the range of the touffer
T4110 densit scale that we used for our own measurements. DxO's approach
ased on RAW data efore demosaicing is also more revealing, ecause it
measures the fundamental dnamic range of the sensor, irrespective of whatever
processing is applied to JPGs, or to RAW data  off-the-shelf conversion
software.
In the following, we use DxO's "Print" dnamic range results, which are scaled
ased on camera resolution. As the name suggests, this scaling corresponds to
the situation in which ou print at a given size, regardless of how man
megapixels the camera might have. (In other words, if ou've decided to make a
13x19 inch print, that's the size ou're printing, whether the camera's resolution is
16 or 300 megapixels.) For the technicall-minded, ou can find a discussion of
the reasoning ehind this here on the DxOMark wesite. Also note that DxO
Las uses a signal-to-noise (NR) threshold of 1 when defining the lower
oundar of acceptale luminance noise in their dnamic range measurements,
which corresponds to the "Low Qualit" threshold of the Imatest software we
used to use for this measurement.
Unfortunatel, DxOMark has not tested the FZ300 at the time of writing. We'll to
come ack and fill this section in after the do.

1 fc 1/16 fc 1/16fc

11 lux 0.67 lux No NR
ISO

100
30s, 30s,
2s, f2.8
f2.8 f2.8
ISO

3200
1/15s,
1s, f2.8 1s, f2.8
f2.8
ISO

6400
1/30s, 1/2s, 1 1/2s,
f2.8 f2.8 f2.8
Low Light. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ300 performed reasonal well for its
class in our low light tests thanks in part to its fast lens, and was ale to capture
right images down to the lowest light level we test at. The darkest level equates
to aout 1/16 the rightness of average cit street lighting at night, so the
Panasonic FZ300 should e ale to take well-exposed photos in almost an
environment in which ou can see well enough to walk around in, though ou'll
want to stead the camera on a tripod or some other support to keep IO
sensitivit as low as possile.
Using default noise reduction setting, noise is low at IO 100 ut a little high at
our standard IO 3200 setting, particularl at the lowest light level. As ou'd
expect, noise is even higher at the maximum IO of 6400. We didn't notice an
significant issues with hot pixels, heat looming or pattern noise.
Automatic color alance is quite good even at the lowest light level of 1/16 foot-
candle, just a touch cool.
The camera's autofocus sstem was ale to focus on our suject down to just
aove the 1/8 foot-candle light level unassisted with its f/2.8 lens, which is good,
especiall for a camera with contrast-detect autofocus and a small sensor. The
Panasonic FZ300 also has a focus-assist light which allows it to autofocus in total
darkness, as long as the suject is within range and has sufficient contrast.
How right is this? The one foot-candle light level that this test egins at roughl
corresponds to the rightness of tpical cit street-lighting at night. Cameras
performing well at that level should e ale to snap good-looking photos of
street-lit scenes.
NOT: This low light test is conducted with a stationar suject, and the camera
mounted on a sturd tripod. Most digital cameras will fail miseral when
faced with a moving suject in dim lighting. (For example, a child's allet recital
or a holida pageant in a gmnasium.) For such applications, ou ma have
etter luck with a digital LR camera, ut even there, ou'll likel need to set the
focus manuall. For information and reviews on digital LRs, refer to our LR
review index page.
Output Qualit
Print Qualit
Good 16 x 20 inch prints at IO 100; a nice 8 x 10 at IO 800; a good 4 x 6 at IO
3200.
IO 100 prints are good at 16 x 20 inches,
with crisp detail and good color reproduction. This is aout the largest sized print
for a 12-megapixel camera efore individual pixels egin to show, ut the printed
20 x 30's are also fine for wall displa purposes.
IO 200 ields 16 x 20 inch prints that are fairl good, certainl fine for less
critical applications. We'll give the 13 x 19 inch prints our official "good" seal here.
IO 400 images at 11 x 14 inches egin to lose some contrast detail in our trick
red-leaf swatch, and there is a hint of noise in flatter areas of our till Life target,
ut it's still otherwise a good print overall.
IO 800 prints at 11 x 14 inches start to introduce a it too much noise to warrant
our good seal, though the're fine for less critical applications. The 8 x 10 inch
prints here are actuall quite good for this sensitivit and sensor size, and onl
have minor issues similar to the 11 x 14 at IO 400.
IO 1600 is where this small sensor size egins to show signs of real strain. We
can call the 5 x 7 inch prints good here, though there is ver little contrast detail
remaining in our target's red-leaf swatch, and a hint of noise is visile in flatter
areas of our target such as in the shadows. It's important to note that these
issues are all ver tpical for smaller-sensored cameras as IO sensitivit rises to
this level.
IO 3200 ields a 4 x 6 inch that just passes our good grade. There is some loss
in overall contrast visile, ut full color reproduction is still on displa, and the
print is actuall quite good as compared to the 4 x 6 from the FZ200 (which did
not pass our good grade).
IO 6400 prints are not usale at an size and this setting is est avoided.
Given the same 1/2.3" sensor size as the Panasonic FZ200 from 2012, and the
same lens, we were pleasantl surprised to see print qualit fare noticeal
etter from the FZ300. The new processor is certainl performing its function
well indeed, as print sizes have gone up across the oard at almost ever IO
except for 6400 (which is still not usale for printing purposes). When ou
comine weather resistance and other new features and enhancements with
higher image qualit from printed images, the Panasonic FZ300 certainl stands
out against its predecessor.
The images aove were taken from our standardized test shots. For a collection of more pictorial
photos, see our Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ300 Photo Galler .
Not sure which camera to u? Let our ees e the ultimate judge! Visit our Comparometer(tm) to
compare images from the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ300 with those from other cameras ou ma e
considering. The proof is in the pictures, so let our own ees decide which ou like est!
Buy the Panasonic FZ300

YOUR PURCHA UPPORT THI IT
Panasonic FZ300
u from Amazon for U$397.99
u from Adorama for U$397.99
u from &H Photo for £328.30
All FZ300 Deals

Jump to review page... ▲
CAMRA RVIW COMPAR CAMRA
COMPACT CAMRA COMPAR IMAG
MIRRORL CAMRA PHOTO NW
DLR CAMRA PHOTO OF TH DAY
CANON CAMRA LN RVIW
NIKON CAMRA PRINTR RVIW
ALL RAND T CAMRA
AOUT U CONTACT U ADVRTIING UAG POLICY PRIVACY POLICY
FACOOK TWITTR
Imaging Resource © 1998 - 2019. Material on this site ma not e reproduced, distriuted, transmitted or otherwise used without the prior
written consent of The Imaging Resource.

Panasonic FZ300 Review - Exposure

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Panasonic FZ300 Review - Exposure

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

23/08/2019 Panasonic FZ300 Review - Exposure

Search creative images

Panasonic FZ300 Exposure

IO 100 IO 200 IO 400

IO 800 IO 1600 IO 3200

+0.3 V +0.7 V +1.0 V

Off Auto Low tandard High

Off Auto +/-1 V +/-2 V +/-3 V

1 fc 1/16 fc 1/16fc

Buy the Panasonic FZ300

AOUT U CONTACT U ADVRTIING UAG POLICY PRIVACY POLICY

You might also like