Can I see indoor people pics with your hx5v

Just bought a panasonic zs7 because I was hoping for more natrual looking colors straight out of the camera. I am not getting that at all. My kids look like they have weird plastic skin that is an odd shade of pink. Before I send this camera back and order the hx5v I would like to see examples of some indoor shots of people. Let me see how this camera does.

flash or no flash?

I would be happy to see a couple with flash and a couple without.

All pics taken with flash in iAuto mode. Second pic is at a concert last weekend taken from about 100 feet away at full 10x zoom (love this picture). Be warned, though this camera takes nice indoor shots with and without flash, it is terribly slow (see DPreview's latest P&S super zoom camera test article). Flash easily takes 5-6 seconds to recharge on a fresh battery. AF seems to take forever to lock in. Battery life is bad...actually it's terrible. Mine went dead at the concert last week after 100 flash shots and about 8 thirty second video clips.

In retrospect, I should've purchased a different camera. One that doesn't use a proprietary battery. I'll take lithium AA's and a bulkier body any day over the space-saving proprietary garbage being released recently. Such a shame because the picture, zoom, and video quality are excellent. After about 1000 pictures taken, I've decided that I'll be returning this camera this week.

That is a shame... your pics look so much better than mine. I can't get good skin tones at all... it is the weirdest thing. I did look at that review and my quandry is I want a camera that takes decent pics indoors and out as well as good video. I am missing far too many moments in my kids lives because I don't want to drag the dslr out.

All samples except one were taken with no flash, since I don't like the harsh shadow of flash and I enjoy taking nonintrusive candid pics. Also when taking flash pics with the HX5, I am getting dust orbs on a regular basis, maybe some dust have collected inside the lens, I don't know.

All pictures are straight out of the camera with some cropping applied.

As the previous poster mentioned, flash recharge is a bit slow, although I don't have issue with focus at all.

Battery life is bit on the low side, but when a spare battery cost only $8, it's not that big a deal.

I'll leaving the pics up for a day, I will remove them tomorrow, thanks.

Also, you are not alone having issue with flesh tone rendition when it comes to Panasonic camera, my sister has a Panasonic TZ3 and it has the exact same problem as you, that is why I didn't even bother looking into the Panasonics, their line of camera have a well-known issue of producing accurate flesh tones, it makes the person look either magentish red, or pale like a ghost.

Thanks so much for posting. These images look very nice and natural. I am thinking of exchanging my panasonic for this camera. Are you pretty happy with it overall? How is the video? I took some avchd today with the panasonic and burned it to a dvd for my blueray player using included software. It turned out very nicely. If only the pictures matched the video.

I know some people complain that the white balance is off on the sony and that the colors aren't true. Do you find that? I think your pics look great so I am hoping not.

Thanks again!

Leahmt47 said:

I know some people complain that the white balance is off on the sony and that the colors aren't true. Do you find that? I think your pics look great so I am hoping not.

Click to expand...

Before you return the camera, do try the advice posted below, see if this will help improve white balance for your indoor shots:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1033&message=35773698

As for the HX5's white balance, the only time you will get really poor white balance is when you underexpose a shot on purpose. When shooting indoor with or without fhen camera meters wronglash, this will result in a strong reddish-orange cast on the subject. slow synchro flash will also cause inaccurate color balance, but that is to be expected since flash color and indoor incandescent color temperature are so different.

Can you speak to the video quality? I took some with the panny and it turned out really nice. I was indoors but had good window lighting during the day and it looked pretty great.

I had similar experience with my ZS3 for indoors. Poor indoor AWB accuracy, I had to manually adjust blue, red shift to get it better. But indoor HD video looks very nice even under dim condition. Stereo mic/audio performance is also the best I have seen in P&S. This pretty much saves this camera when combined with good outdoor performance, long zoom. I wonder how they got poor indoor stills but good video.

How can you change the color balance??? I don't see a function like that on this camera but I may be missing it.

Outdoor video is excellent, indoor video is good with natural daylight. During evening when natural light is not available, chroma noise becomes an issue when a room is not lit evenly. For example, you will get great video when recording directly below a dining light, but darker area where the light does not reach will become quite noisy.

With noise comes compression artifact, because noisy area is harder to encode efficiently, so you may spot some blockiness/muddiness in shadow areas when recording in 720p MP4. Recording in AVCHD and 1080p MP4 usually cure this with their higher bitrate, although chroma noise remains an issue.

I think you had discussion with him on Panny forum, but he explained it better on this other thread.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1033&message=35773698

Basically you need to select any WB mode other than AWB. Then hit the top control button above OK button twice. It will give you the blue-red shift bar that you can adjust to any direction and view on screen. Normally I select manual WB with exposure on white paper indoor, and use this feature. It's not as good as having good accurate AWB to begin with, but it's possible to adjust in camera.

Thanks so much... I will test my panny in dim light. I have only used it in brighter light. I have been super impressed with the AVCHD lite format. I can't believe how much less noise it has compared to my old "digital" video camera.

I took some pics yesterday outside and they look nice. I am just still debating about the switch. It will cost me at least $50 extra to switch to the sony. I just want to make sure it is worth it.