Great action shots but everything looks "squat"

[whiskyd13]

I am trying out a Lumix TZ3 and right out of the box I was able to take great action shots -sort of. The people and dogs look "squat" (shorter and fatter then reality). I had it set on Scene 1 - action and was taking rapid shots. Any suggestions? :confused:

[benp]

Is it just a perspective thing? Close subjects get distorted like that with the lens at wide-angle. This effect should be worse with the 28mm TZ3 than with a more common 35mm lens. Try different angles, e.g. crouch down if you're tall, or zooming in a bit and standing a bit further back.

[whiskyd13]

Actually I was quite a distance from the shots ... I had the zoom on to catch the action

[John_Reed]

Actually I was quite a distance from the shots ... I had the zoom on to catch the actionIf you're seeing them on a TV, your perspective could be getting distorted by the disparity between the TV's aspect ratio and your camera's images. I've never seen this on my TZ3, and I've taken a whole bunch of people shots with it.

[whiskyd13]

I am viewing the images through my pc -- I tried two different viewers including the one that shipped with my camera...

[Ambriel]

Daft question but is your PC monitor one of the wide screen variety or traditional? If you're shooting in 4:3 aspect ratio and displaying in 16:9 then you would get a similar effect to what you describe.

Regards
Gary