New toy, Panasonic FZ1 digital camera!!!

[ronbo 613]

Like burst mode, what is this for???

It will take a number of pictures in succession, like a motor drive. The number of photos in the "burst mode" is limited by your camera's ability to write to the memory card.

Auto exposure bracketing is just as you said. If you are shooting in unknown conditions and have no chance to retake the shots bracketing can save your butt.

Good call. Pro photographers regularly "bracket" their photos. That is, shoot one photo at the exposure the light meter says is correct, then shoot one f-stop over and one f-stop under that exposure reading. Out of the three shots, usually you get a perfect exposure. Digital cameras do this automatically.

[CrowdAds]

[Deer Slayer]

The camera takes pics exactly at the brightness I see when I take the pic, so I'd say the exposure is dead on! I don't think the auto exposure bracketing will get used unless I find situations where the camera might screw up the exposure settings. So far, it's been pretty good though, maybe indoor shots when it's kinda dark might want a little more exposure time sometimes. I dunno, I'll have to tinker with it some day. I think the manual exposure settings would be better though once I get them figured out! The camera does an instant review of every pic, so I see if it's any good or not.

Burst mode sounds like it will come in handy, that's exactly what I thought it did. It will be interesting to see how good that works for action shots, in combination with continuous autofocus, I think I can get some nice pics. It has a panning mode, and the image stabilizer function, so it ought to take some sweet action pics!!! Maybe I can catch a deer full stride!

The video out feature is kinda cool, this thing could be used as a video camera. It displays exactly what's on the viewfinder on the TV. I think that's a great feature, plus you can plug it in to a TV to view the pictures, allthough it's kinda grainy on the TV. Even after all the stuff I've done with this camera, it still hasn't moved off of the full mark with the battery! The battery life rules on this thing! Plus it has a battery saver function that turns it off after a 2 minutes (you can adjust it, or turn it off). I see why this camera cost $400+ when it came out! I'm glad I waited for a deal like that, I've been looking for a decent camera for a while now. I was looking @ 2-3 megapixel things with 3x zoom for just over $100 . Anything with 6x+ zoom was just out of the question, and they were all over 4 megapixel. This is much better than those rinky dink POS things! This is like a serious camera, I owe my friend big time for hooking me up!!! I'll cut him a good deal on my 6600GT when I go to build a new system.

[SupDawg]

Originally Posted by Deer Slayer

The camera takes pics exactly at the brightness I see when I take the pic, so I'd say the exposure is dead on! I don't think the auto exposure bracketing will get used unless I find situations where the camera might screw up the exposure settings. So far, it's been pretty good though, maybe indoor shots when it's kinda dark might want a little more exposure time sometimes. I dunno, I'll have to tinker with it some day. I think the manual exposure settings would be better though once I get them figured out! The camera does an instant review of every pic, so I see if it's any good or not.

Burst mode sounds like it will come in handy, that's exactly what I thought it did. It will be interesting to see how good that works for action shots, in combination with continuous autofocus, I think I can get some nice pics. It has a panning mode, and the image stabilizer function, so it ought to take some sweet action pics!!! Maybe I can catch a deer full stride!

The video out feature is kinda cool, this thing could be used as a video camera. It displays exactly what's on the viewfinder on the TV. I think that's a great feature, plus you can plug it in to a TV to view the pictures, allthough it's kinda grainy on the TV. Even after all the stuff I've done with this camera, it still hasn't moved off of the full mark with the battery! The battery life rules on this thing! Plus it has a battery saver function that turns it off after a 2 minutes (you can adjust it, or turn it off). I see why this camera cost $400+ when it came out! I'm glad I waited for a deal like that, I've been looking for a decent camera for a while now. I was looking @ 2-3 megapixel things with 3x zoom for just over $100 . Anything with 6x+ zoom was just out of the question, and they were all over 4 megapixel. This is much better than those rinky dink POS things! This is like a serious camera, I owe my friend big time for hooking me up!!! I'll cut him a good deal on my 6600GT when I go to build a new system.

Glad you like your camera. It is fun to learn about "prosumer" digicams. When you get over the "digital" part of it, you start running into the fine art of photography. IMO, It's a hard transition from a "gadget" guy to an artist. LOL.. I really enjoy using the camera, but I need some help from people. I still have a very hard time getting a good picture in certain situations, and I really can't do it on the spur of the moment. I usually end up taking most of my pics in point and shoot mode, because I don't have the confidence to make it look good manually without wasting a lot of time fiddling.

[JaGWiRE_abx]

Completely argeed supdawg..

Over at neowin, i've seen some peoples doings, and when they add the blurr effect, horus of editing and so forth with photoshop and other programs, I think it is a digital photo that was generated by a computer itself, it looks amazing..

Anyway, it's funny how I see kids run in Monday with camears for halloween.. They have these 500+ dollar Sony and whatever Cameras there parents bought them, and I'm damn 13.. I hate living in a spoiled area.

In my opinion, even if you are rich, unless your somebody like the president, there is no exscuse for taking a few minutes to research products and decide on what's best for you, just because some sony has a high price tag, it doesn't mean it will take good pictures.

Well, I could rant on about how I wish I didn't live where I live, but it wouldn't get me far. In short, I live in an area where all kids are spoiled and have this influence forced upon positively by their parents who also act quite similiar.

When a kid can have their parents buy them any gadget, piece of clothing, or something else just because they want it.. their's a problem.

Oh well, i've been looking to play around with some editing programs DS, snap me a nice shot of the leaves or something and i'de be glad to try some editing out if I find the time to do it.

[ronbo 613]

They have these 500+ dollar Sony and whatever Cameras there parents bought them, and I'm damn 13.. I hate living in a spoiled area.

There's millions of cameras out there, but only a few of those people can take good pictures. Like I said earlier, photography is not really about the camera.................

[Deer Slayer]

They're OK, but there's too much stuff in the way. I need to clear out the woods there so it's better for pics. It's good for hunting right now, because all the cover allows you to draw back your bow without being seen, but it gets in the way of pics. Anyways, here they are, untouched, raw pics straight from the camera! I love this thing, no need to screw with every single pic I take!

[Zulee]

Originally Posted by Deer Slayer

They're OK, but there's too much stuff in the way. I need to clear out the woods there so it's better for pics. It's good for hunting right now, because all the cover allows you to draw back your bow without being seen, but it gets in the way of pics. Anyways, here they are, untouched, raw pics straight from the camera! I love this thing, no need to screw with every single pic I take!

There is too much pixel-distortion (if that's the way to describe it). reminds me of pictures taken by my phone (a Nokia N70).. I use a PowerShot S2 IS and love it..

here's an example taken with the phone:

[Deer Slayer]

Originally Posted by Zulee

There is too much pixel-distortion (if that's the way to describe it). reminds me of pictures taken by my phone (a Nokia N70).. I use a PowerShot S2 IS and love it..

here's an example taken with the phone:

I don't see what you call "pixel distortion", but I do see a little bit of blur from motion, and it's slightly out of focus. It wasn't 4 feet away and standing still! The still objects that were in focus look great! I'd like to see your phone take a picture like that. Close up shots where the subject is still look perfect, and those were low quality pics for posting on here. If I set it to high quality, they'd be 600kb, and look a little better. I think they're good pix for 2 megapixels with a moving target 60ft away in low quality mode! Also, I was holding the camera by hand, no tripod, and nothing to set it on. I dunno, I'd like some clarification of "pixel distortion", I think those are decent pix for a digital camera. :o

[ronbo 613]

To get the most out of your 2 megapixels, you should shoot at the highest quality JPEG setting, usually something like "Fine". Also, the thick foilage in the woods may fool the autofocus. It works by contrast, the bushes and trees present many potential focus points.

[Deer Slayer]

Originally Posted by ronbo 613

To get the most out of your 2 megapixels, you should shoot at the highest quality JPEG setting, usually something like "Fine". Also, the thick foilage in the woods may fool the autofocus. It works by contrast, the bushes and trees present many potential focus points.

I need to clear out some of the brush so that there's a clearer path to the deer, and if I were going to print the pics, I'd use the fine setting. I wanted to keep the file size down for posting, so I used the low quality setting. I'll go out in the woods again tomorrow, and post a high quality pic. Maybe I'll climb up in my tree stand so that I can get above all the stuff, and take some better pics. I didn't get any time today, I had company . Maybe there will be some in the front yard in the morning when the sun comes up. I dunno, it seems to me that as soon as I got my camera, I didn't see as many deer :sad: ! This SUX, I usually see deer every day, but now I have a hard time finding them. Dangit, I'll post some good deer pics when I get a chance to take them. I wish I had this camera last year, I could have gotten some really good deer pics. :o I'd post some of the pics my friend took with his 4 megapixel camera, but they're all 1mb+, and by the time I play with the compression they're still 500k+, and look like crap! I still have to crop them, and they suck. The originals look ok, but any compression and they go to crap. He has some better pics on his computer too. I'll post a high quality pic some time when I take some serious deer pics. :o

[ronbo 613]

I didn't mean for you to go out and clear the brush. I ment that the autofocus of these digital cameras tends to lock on to just about anything in the finder. If you point it at a deer in the bush, the camera may focus on a stick in front of the deer instead of the deer. My camera does the same thing.

[Deer Slayer]

Plus, it's getting thick enough now that it will be hard to see to shoot! I wanna clear it out for next year, so there's not so much stuff in the way. It just takes an hour or so with a machette and a weed whip. No big deal, I did that two years ago, but it's getting overgrown again. Gotta do it once a year, I was lazy this year though. I should take a picture of my deer blind, it really is a hillbilly contraption! It's a wooden shed, bolted to the top of an old boat trailer so it can be towed with my truck to where I want it. Then I jack it up, and set it on logs so the tires don't get wrecked. It's pretty funny to see a truck towing a big ugly wooden shed spray painted camo through the woods! It's nice because it's got a roof on it, and you don't get wet in the rain. It's nice for winter time, you can take blankets with you and stuff to stay warm in there! I like it, it's where I hunt when I'm too lazy to climb the tree. I'll take a picture of it next time I go out (which I hope will be tomorrow), and you guys can get a good laugh! It's in need of rapair right now, the one brace that holds it on the trailer needs to be bolted back on the bottom so strengthen it up again. :o

[ronbo 613]

Or, set up a camera with a motion sensor and sleep in.

[Deer Slayer]

I went out to my deer blind to get some deer pics tonight, but I got hosed AGAIN! First, my cat followed me out there, so he's climbing all over the place and jumping on the floor making a bunch of noise! Then my stinking phone rings, and I forgot to put it on vibrate only! It was also windy as heck, so I couldn't hear the deer, and the deer don't like to move because they can't hear either. Somebody showed up, and I had to go in because they owed me $$$, and I needed it! That SUCKED, the day was cursed for deer pics, and the whole time I was out there, there was a plane flying overhead doing stunts (some local doofis does it all the time). I realized that the sun was down far enough I could probably get some good pics of him doing his thing, but as soon as I went out to take some pics, he headed in! So, the only pics I got were of my spoiled cat, and my hillbilly deer shed!

[Deer Slayer]

Hey guys, I'm looking for a reliable source for a spare battery. As with just about any rechargable device, I found that it's best to have 2 batteries, that way I can run one of them dead, and charge the other. That way they don't develop any memory (despite what they say, even lithium ion batteries get a memory). I'd like to pick up a second battery for my camera, and prices range anywhere from $10, to $40 for them depending on where I look! Now I figure the places that are offering the $10 batteries are full of it, they're either cheapo knockoffs that puke, or a scam. Either way, that's what I want to avoid. I'm guessing that they'll probably cost about $25 for a legit deal, so if you'd point me in the right direction, it would be appreciated.