Panasonic FZ300 Subjects with high brightness range

This is from the RAW file worked in Adobe Camera Raw and converted to a JPG for publication.

This is the JPG straight out of the camera.

Conventional digital camera wisdom says that small sensor cameras have poor dynamic range. This means they struggle to render detail in highlights and shadows when subject brightness range is high.

DXO Mark reports that the FZ300/330 has an overall RAW score of 38 and a DR score of 11.0.

These results might tempt a prospective FZ300 buyer into thinking that the camera would be of little use when subject brightness range is high.

So I put it to the test with many difficult subjects.

Here are some pictures which illustrate the camera’s capability.

For all but the most extreme situations the camera manages just fine as long as RAW capture is used and the full range of options in a good RAW converter are utilised. I use Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop.

Of course this illustrates the paradox of the small sensor cameras.

This is that the people most likely to use such cameras are snapshooters who leave the Mode Dial on the [iA] setting and always shoot JPG.

But the users most likely to get the best results are the enthusiast/experts who capture RAW and process thoughtfully in a RAW converter/image editor.

See the difference in the pictures above and below:

This version stared as a RAW with work in adobe Camera Raw. There is direct mid day sunlight shining through the clear glass roof onto the flagstones below. I would normally not bother to press the shutter button with light like this no matter what camera I am using as the subject brightness range is so high,  but I wanted to stress test the FZ300 .  You can see here the peak highlights have blown out but overall the result is quite pleasing I think.  

This is the original JPG straight out of camera.

Here is one from the rainforest

Rainforest in direct sun on a clear day is one of the most difficult subjects to photograph due to the extreme subject brightness range. The tree in the center has blown out as have a few other highlights but overall I think this is quite a good result.  As with the QVB above I normally would not bother pressing the shutter button on a day like this.

This is the out of camera JPG