Setting up the Panasonic Lumix FZ300 for still photos 6 January 2022

 

It does seem a bit strange to be posting a setting up guide for a 6 year old camera model.

However I think the FZ300 is just as relevant today as it was in 2015 and maybe even more so. 

Camera makers these days are promoting their latest zuper-dooper high spec high price full frame bodies  and  high performance lenses which many photographers simply do not need.

At the same time smartphones now outperform small sensor compact cameras in many respects but they still cannot incorporate the kind of zoom lens which we find on the FZ300 and probably not the same level of ability to capture action sequences as a series of still photos.

So here we go:

Preliminaries

Camera bag. The FZ300 with lens hood reversed, one spare battery, a 52mm close-up filter, microfiber cloth and several spare memory cards fits exactly into a Think Tank Mirrorless Mover 10 bag.

Strap. There is a neck strap in the box. I suggest you leave it there and fit a cheap generic wrist strap instead.  This makes the kit more manageable.

Filter. I advise fitting a high quality 52mm protect filter and leaving it there always. I use a Hoya HD protector.

Lens cap. The inner pinch lugs are flat which makes them difficult to grasp securely. I glue little pieces of aluminium near the outer edges of the lugs to make them easy to grip.

Batteries. I usually get around 700 shots per charge with genuine Panasonic batteries. Battery life is highly dependent on use practices. Shooting bursts in AFC gets more shots per charge. Single shots, reviewing and chimping eat into battery life. I carry at least one spare, either a Jupio or a genuine Panasonic DMW-BLC12E.

Memory cards. SD card are so cheap these days there is no point in using small capacity ones. I use SanDisk 64GB 170MB/s with good results.

Practice. Some vendors and some reviewers describe the FZ300 as a “point and shoot” camera. It is not. Best results require familiarity with the controls, experience with the camera’s strengths and weaknesses and plenty of practice.

Raw capture. It is not possible to consistently get best results from this camera with JPG capture and automatic settings. A JPG file has reduced bit depth and much of the information present in the original Raw file has been discarded, never to be retrieved.

I strongly recommend  Raw capture and use of a mainstream Raw converter/photo editor. I use and recommend Adobe Bridge/Camera Raw/Photoshop. Raw files give the photographer plenty of material to work with in post processing which is an integral part of the process of getting good pictures from the FZ300.

 

JPG settings   For those who do wish to use JPG capture much experiment with the many options offered in the Picture Style menu may be required. Rec. Menu, Screen 1, item 1.

For the record I find the following settings generally satisfactory.

Picture Style [Standard]  with Contrast +2, Sharpness +2, Noise reduction -3, Saturation +1.

Bear in mind that Picture Style setting suitable for one subject type may not be best for other subject types.

In summary, JPG is for convenience, Raw is for quality and control.

Advanced operating instructions    This 363 page PDF can be downloaded from any Panasonic Regional website. It contains much material and is well worth a read with the camera to hand.

Set viewfinder diopter

Look at the camera data not the image preview when setting the diopter. Press Disp repeatedly until a screen with plenty of data displays.

Camera controls

This setup is based on a philosophy keeping the user interface as simple as possible while being able to quickly change high priority camera settings as required.  Redundant or un-necessary or infrequently used controls are disabled or allowed to remain in the main menu system.

Mode Dial    Most of the time I set P on the mode Dial. This strategy works well on this particular camera as long as Auto ISO Limit Set is 800 or 1600. Rec Menu, Screen 6.

ISO 800 is the safe limit. 1600 can work for some subjects with careful use of noise reduction editing.

For close-ups I set A and aperture f5.6 which delivers a depth of field approximately equivalent to f32 on full frame..

For in-camera auto panoramas set the panorama icon on the Mode dial. Then go to Panorama settings in the Rec menu screen 5. For Direction set the bottom option of the four offered and Picture Size Standard. When making a panorama hold the camera in portrait orientation handle up, lock in metering and focus at around the middle of the scene with a half press (and hold the half press) on the shutter button then swing the camera all the way left and fully depress the shutter button then swing the camera to the right to make the picture. Some practice is required to get the speed of the swing right and to hold the camera level.

The output is a JPG.

Custom Modes.  Three Custom modes are available from the C position on the Mode Dial.

Any group of settings can be allocated to a Custom Mode. Follow the prompts at Cust. Set Mem. in the blue wrench custom menu top of screen 1.

For example on C1 I have my bird in flight settings.  These are Manual Mode, 1/2000 sec, f4. ISO 200, Drive Mode Burst M with live view (6fps), AF Mode 49 Area, Stabiliser on. AF lever to AFC.

On C2 I have my tripod/landscape settings. The are ISO 100, Drive Mode timer delay 2sec, AF Mode 1 Area, Stabiliser off, AF lever to AFS.

I don’t use iA, Scn or EXPS modes at all.

Fn button and Cursor Buttons (4-way controller) task allocations    There are almost endless numbers of combinations available. For the record I use:

Cursor buttons, Direct focus area ON. Menu Custom Wrench Blue screen 3.  This allows me to move the active AF area directly with the 4Way controller. I find this usually easier than reaching over to the touch screen.

Function buttons, Blue Wrench Custom menu, screen 7, Fn Button Set.

Fn1, ISO

Fn 2, Drive Mode.

Fn 3, Custom Q Menu. On Q Menu I have AF Mode, Stabiliser and Quality.

Fn 4 Macro Mode.

I disable Fn 5-9. These are the soft flyout Fn touch screen functions which I do not want to be able to touch inadvertently.

Side button setting, F/SS.  Blue wrench custom menu screen 7. This enables the wheel on the left side of the lens barrel to adjust exposure compensation.

Side lever, Blue custom wrench screen 8. I set this to step zoom and the lever in front of the shutter button to continuous zoom.

Dial Set. Blue Custom wrench screen 8. I leave rotation at default and allocate exposure comp to the side wheel. I leave [Dial operation switch] well alone. I want the camera to behave the same way every time I pick it up so I can develop muscle memory and learned patterns of movements for confident control of all parameters.

AF/AE Lock  button. I set this to focus and lock and hold focus until the button is pressed again.  Blue Custom wrench menu, screen 1, AF/AE Lock set to AF Lock and the next item down, AF/AE Lock hold ON.  This is handy for making a series of photos at a location where subjects such as people are moving about and might cause the AF to re-set when the situation requires focus to hold constant.

 Touch AE function  See page 55 of the Operating Instructions. The FZ300 can bias exposure metering either to the whole area of the frame or to the area covered by the active AF box. With the AF Mode in 1 Area or custom multi and the AF area box delineated by white corners, touch the middle of the AF box on the monitor screen. A little blue cross appears in the center of the AF box. This indicates exposure metering will be biased to the AF area. To switch this feature off touch the little box lower left on the screen labelled Off AE or switch the camera off.

If the AF are has a yellow bounding box and yellow arrows, half press the shutter button to re-set the AF area box to white. This setting can make a big difference to the selected exposure with some subjects which have very dark and very light areas in the frame.

Menus

Here follows my non prescriptive suggestions for menu settings derived after several years of on-and-off use of the camera. If an item is not mentioned assume the default setting.

Rec Menu Red

* AFS/AFF on the focus lever. Set AFS. AFF is a Lumix feature which seems to be an attempt to have the best of ADS and AFC. I have never found this convincing.

* Metering Mode. I use and recommend Multi for everything all the time. This is not perfect but in my experience is the easiest to use and produces the fewest errors.

* Burst rate M (6 fps) is the fastest which allows live view so I use this anytime I want continuous shooting.

* I might deal with 4K photo in another post. It is a feature which Panasonic has promoted  but which I have not found particularly useful.

* Auto bracketing is available, just follow the prompts onscreen. But I never bother with it, much preferring a well exposed Raw file with no highlight clipping.

* Highlight Shadow, i Dynamic, i Resolution,  Post focus, i Handheld night shot, I HDR and HDR are basically features which try to improve JPG picture quality with a range of difficult subjects. I find using single Raw capture much more user friendly and able to deliver consistently better results.

* Shutter type, Auto. By default the shutter uses electronic exposure start and mechanical exposure finish. This is best for most shutter speeds. If Auto is set the camera will change to electronic for shutter speeds faster than the mechanical shutter can achieve.

* Flash settings are largely self explanatory, follow the prompts. The camera is in fact capable of some very sophisticated flash functions which I have not used.

* Switch that annoying Red eye removal off.

* ISO increments 1 EV.

* Diffraction compensation, i Zoom, Digital zoom and Conversion Off. It may seem tempting at first to try out i Zoom and  Digital zoom but there is no free lunch here. Best results are achieved with optical zoom alone.

* Color Space sRGB

* Face Recog. and Profile setup Off.

Custom Menu Blue wrench+C

* Silent Mode really is spooky silent,  ideal for a situation where any noise would be unwelcome. Beware however that this mode uses the electronic shutter which could cause problems with some types of light and some subjects.

* Shutter AF On,. This is simply the usual behaviour expected of most cameras.

* Half press release,  Quick AF and Eye sensor AF all  Off.

* Pinpoint AF time Mid, Pinpoint AF display PIP.

* AF assist lamp Off.

* Direct Focus Area On.

* Focus/release priority Focus.  I see no point in releasing the shutter if the picture is not in focus.

* AF+MF On

* MF assist Left wheel focus.

* MF Assist display  PIP.

* MF Guide On.

* Peaking Off.  I find peaking more a hindrance than a help with manual focussing.

* Histogram Off. I find the zebras more useful than the histogram to prevent highlight blowout.

* Guideline. I use and recommend the single vertical and single horizontal lines both running through frame center. I find this very useful for estimating camera orientation.

* Center Marker On.

* Highlight On. This is the “blinkies” which appear in image review if highlights are overexposed.

 Zebra Pattern. I use zebras to check for highlight overexposure and to prevent clipping. I use Zebra 1 set to 105%. From experience I find that with the FZ300 if zebras appear in highlights they will be overexposed. I apply negative exposure compensation with the left wheel until the zebras are suppressed.

* Monochrome Live View Off.

* Constant preview On.  In Manual Mode if Constant Preview is On then changes to shutter speed, aperture or ISO settings are reflected in the image preview brightness in the EVF or on the monitor. This is the normal setting. But if for some reason the camera was to be used with studio flash lighting and manual exposure you would set Constant Preview Off, so the appearance of the preview stays the same regardless of camera settings. Exposure will be determined by the flash.

* Expo. Meter Off.

* Dial Guide Off.

* LVF (a.k.a. EVF) Disp. Style and Monitor Disp. Style. I set both for the style which locates camera settings data below the preview image. The image is a bit smaller but the data displays much easier to read in all conditions.

* Monitor info disp. When this is On and the Disp button is pressed repeatedly in record mode one of the screens is a multi-info data display of current settings. When Monitor Info.Disp is Off this screen is not displayed.

* Auto Review. Off.

* Zoom Resume. If  this setting is On the lens  will zoom to the last used focal length when the camera is turned on.

* Eye Sensor. I use Sensitivity Low and LVF/Mon Auto for the LVF Monitor switch setting.

* Touch settings. Touch screen On, Touch Tab Off, Touch AF > AF+AE, Touch Pad AF Offset, Touch scroll L.

* Menu Guide Off.

Setup Menu Blue wrench

* Live view mode. I use 60 fps for best rendition of moving subjects.

* Monitor Display and Monitor luminance Note:  Look in the viewfinder for viewfinder display adjustments.

I leave each of these at at default.

* Menu Resume On.  There is no my Menu and [Format] cannot be allocated to the Q Menu. With Menu Resume On, if Format was the last menu item to be accessed, it will come up the next time the Menu/Set button is pushed.

* Menu Background default.

* Menu Information Off.

* Exposure Comp Reset  On. This will automatically cancel Exposure Comp when the Capture Mode is changed or the camera switched Off.

* Likewise Self Timer Auto Off. Set this to ON to ensure the self timer is cancelled when the camera is switched off.

Playback Menu

* Rotate Disp. On    if you wish photos taken in portrait orientation to display upright when the camera is held in landscape orientation.

Otherwise I leave all these at default.

And that’s it for Setting up the FZ300 for stills.