Picture Quality Problems With FZ20

[tonyb109]

Can anybody advise on my problem? I recently purchased a Panasonic FZ20 following reviews from this site. My previous camera was an Olympus 750.My problem is that the FZ20 wide-angle shots do not view very well on my PC monitor,but pictures from my Olympus are superb.The FZ pics seem not to have the same clarity although they print perfectly well.Do I need a different jpeg viewer? I have been using Irfan view for some time and have been happy with it for viewing my Olympus shots.The Panasonic just don't seem very good. I've experimented with the camera settings time and time again to no avail. It seems to me that if you have to keep changing the camera settings something must be wrong. I never had to do this with the Olympus.Its very frustrating. I've tried to add an attachment but the files are too large. Can anyone suggest why the wide angle shots seem poor but macro and zoom seem fine on my monitor? I get very depressed looking at the Panasonic images when my Olympus images are so much better. Many thanks

[emalvick]

I think you'll have to explain more what you mean by not viewing well. One thing you might want to do is see how the shots print and then compare cameras.

Without knowing details, one thing you may want to look at are the EV (see the response I made to your question on that). You may want to look at the focus settings you have on the camera. Perhaps you have it set to 9 point or 3 point, and it isn't focusing on the item you want. This could be a problem if you have a large depth of field on such wide angle shots (trees in the way). I also find that items in the sky are difficult to focus on.

You might want to make sure that your camera has the autofocus turned on. Look at the side of the camera and make sure that switch is all the way up in the AF position. I've forgotten that a lot. The manual focus may be set that it takes great photos for you in some instances but not in all.

If the images seem washed out the EV may be an issue. Also check the light metering. I can't really recommend one setting as I tend to use them all depending on the subject. When you click the shutter butten halfway, you get an idea of how bright the image will turn out.

You shouldn't have to mess with too many settings though, especially if you are just playing in point and shoot mode. I've adjusted the camera settings from the default to "my defaults", which has limited any further need to adjust. Find the settings that are right for you, and you probably won't have to change much.

By the way, the viewer shouldn't affect anything. It could be a scaling problem as if you are shooting in 5 MP and you have the photo fill the screen. The viewer is going to scale the shot down. That doesn't reflect the real image. All viewers would probably do that. If you want to post images, you'd have to resize the photos to get down to the right file size. However, that could make finding the problem more difficult.

Good luck,
Erik

[genece]

My guess

Its the program your viewing with that is the problem.

What operating system do you use.
and what program are you viewing with.

Somehow you must have changed some setting to accomodate a 3mp picture and it does not handle a 5mp photo but most viewers have a "best fit option" that should work for all photos.

[tonyb109]

Thanks for all the replies. I have tried setting the EV down a shade and my first shot was much better,very bright and nice to view.I then went for a walk around the village and took some pics at the cricket club(flat green area,lots of white sky,and trees surrounding the area) I can see how setting the ev down helps to balance the difference between the light sky and the grass.This is something I can bear in mind in the future.

[genece]

I think I understand a little better what you meant , one thing to try is turn on the Histogram and try to center the graph.
Use spot meter or centerweighted meter and watch how the exposure changes as you meter on different parts of the scene,
I try to meter on a line between the light and dark part of the scene.
Maybe this will explain