TZ1 Low Light Help PLEASE

[Andras5soul]

I recently bought a Panasonic Lumix TZ1. This question is mainly directed at other TZ1 owners. With my older Canon and my Fuji E900, I was able to take low light indoor shots WITHOUT FLASH on automatic mode, the camera would automatically have the shutter open longer and would boost the ISO i suppose. HOWEVER this is not the case with my TZ1. When I take a low light indoor shot of friends or objects without flash, I am left with a very dark image.

How would I achieve the best low light NO FLASH images with my TZ1? Tips and technical advice PLEASE! THanks!

[nrbelex]

I recently bought a Panasonic Lumix TZ1. This question is mainly directed at other TZ1 owners. With my older Canon and my Fuji E900, I was able to take low light indoor shots WITHOUT FLASH on automatic mode, the camera would automatically have the shutter open longer and would boost the ISO i suppose. HOWEVER this is not the case with my TZ1. When I take a low light indoor shot of friends or objects without flash, I am left with a very dark image.

How would I achieve the best low light NO FLASH images with my TZ1? Tips and technical advice PLEASE! THanks!

The easiest way is to set the flash mode to "slow-sync" which slows the shutter and compensates for a dark background. You can also go into the menu and manually select the shutter speed as low as one second. If it's pitch black and you have a tripid, starry sky mode can also work nicely.

~ Brett

[Dmares]

I recently bought a Panasonic Lumix TZ1. This question is mainly directed at other TZ1 owners. With my older Canon and my Fuji E900, I was able to take low light indoor shots WITHOUT FLASH on automatic mode, the camera would automatically have the shutter open longer and would boost the ISO i suppose. HOWEVER this is not the case with my TZ1. When I take a low light indoor shot of friends or objects without flash, I am left with a very dark image.

How would I achieve the best low light NO FLASH images with my TZ1? Tips and technical advice PLEASE! THanks!

...or just switch the camera into one of the night modes. I would reccommend the "high sensitivity" - it works great

Dennis

[John_Reed]

Chiefly because it's a "pixel binning" mode, where the captured image is downsampled by a factor of about 4 to average out noise. Then, the camera interpolates back to the full 5MP image, but it's a very soft result, suitable only for 4X6 prints, and not such sharp ones at that.

I'd try using ISO 400 and ISO 800 settings in the "Normal" shooting mode, and as someone else suggested, set your minimum "SLOW" shutter speed to 1 second. Be prepared for holding the camera steady, or setting it on a table at those slow shutter speeds! The camera does a pretty decent job noise-wise up to ISO 400, and in semi-decent light, ISO 800 has worked for me too. Noise removal software such as Neat Image will help out a lot on those kinds of shots.

[Andras5soul]

If i set the shutter speed to 1 second, does that mean its always going to be open for a second, or does it mean its just going to go as long as one second when necessary? Also what is slow sync mode? Ive heard it on forums but i dont know what it is or how to select it. And no mode works better than normal automatic for these shots?

[John_Reed]

If i set the shutter speed to 1 second, does that mean its always going to be open for a second, or does it mean its just going to go as long as one second when necessary? Also what is slow sync mode? Ive heard it on forums but i dont know what it is or how to select it. And no mode works better than normal automatic for these shots?If you set the "SLOW" setting to 1 second, you're just changing the lower limit for shutter speed under automatic camera control. Normally, that's 1/8 of a second. But if the light is so low that 1/8 would be too fast to collect enough light for a good exposure, having the "SLOW" parameter set to a slower setting will allow the better exposure, albeit with more risk of camera shake blurring the shot. Slow sync mode will let the shutter go down to your "SLOW" limit, and whatever the shutter speed turns out to be, the flash will fire at the end of the shutter interval. Without that, the shutterspeed with flash will almost always be 1/30 of a second.

[nrbelex]

To use slow-sync, turn on the camera, go to auto mode and use the right arrow on the keypad (with the lithning bolt) until you see a yellow lightning bolt, "S" and a picture of an eye. Make sure you tell your subject there will be two flashes and make sure you keep your hand especially steady during the shot.

~ Brett