XZ-1 goes to the Museum of Flight (10 images)

Some shots of the family's outing today. Sorry that there's so many. All are hand held without the viewfinder. I was pretty stubborn and kept autoISO on (ISO200 and below). Most of the shots turned out, a few were blurry. All are post processed RAWs. C&C always welcome.

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Still look great !

Nice and interesting shots!
--
mspahl

nice shots... i've been thinking about getting an xz-1 and been getting advice that indoor shots will require iso 400-800. this certainly doesn't seem the case with your shots...

i'm pretty fresh at photography so can you tell me all the settings. I realise the iso and fstop are on the photos but what were the other settings etc? camera mode? method of shooting?

Did you notice your calendar/clock lost its correct setting? Or did your PP modify the EXIF?

Ken

Ken Sills said:

Did you notice your calendar/clock lost its correct setting? Or did your PP modify the EXIF?

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Yeah, I think it's a dpr issue. Exif info is intact. Whenever I try to modify the camera used, uploaded pictures seem to go nuts. Thought I'd try it again, oh well. All were taken yesterday.

hi Blualloy... i asked a couple of questions above... would really appreciate some insight from you...

sleeprequired1 said:

nice shots... i've been thinking about getting an xz-1 and been getting advice that indoor shots will require iso 400-800. this certainly doesn't seem the case with your shots...

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Since I was taking shots of just still objects I could get away with longer exposure times. For people anything less than 1/30 sec is going to be too slow. I took advantage of that. When I go back, I'll probably use ISO400 as the images could have been a little sharper.

sleeprequired1 said:

i'm pretty fresh at photography so can you tell me all the settings. I realise the iso and fstop are on the photos but what were the other settings etc? camera mode? method of shooting?

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I'm usually in aperture priority mode as that what I'm most comfortable with. Other than that I play with the ISO until I get the speed I want. There's other modes that would work just as well, but that just what I do. As far as method of shooting, since I needed to be very still I shot these pics like you shoot a gun, deep breathe, blow out and ease on the trigger. Using the VF2 would have helped, but like I said, I was being stubborn that day and seeing what limits I could push (since I've had the camera for less than 2 months).

Hope that helps.

ok thanks for that... sounds like you're quite used to shooting and steadying yourself while taking the shot... the images have since disappeared which has happened on a lot of threads but they were iso 100 and 200 mix from memory...

i actually recently watched a video on perfect exposure which really opened my eyes about photography and i'm just aking all the questions i can to understand it.

the video is about metering... in manual mode if you meter on a spot does the camera tell you which shutter speed and fstop? I understood the concept in the video but it didn't save how to do it on a camera, let alone the xz-1

sleeprequired1 said:

ok thanks for that... sounds like you're quite used to shooting and steadying yourself while taking the shot... the images have since disappeared which has happened on a lot of threads but they were iso 100 and 200 mix from memory...

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Pictures are back. YAY!

sleeprequired1 said:

i actually recently watched a video on perfect exposure which really opened my eyes about photography and i'm just aking all the questions i can to understand it.

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Most cameras meter a little differently. Some will intentionally underexpose to keep from blowing highlights, etc. Most aren't as accurate as a dedicated hand held light meter. Also remember that it's just a simple machine. It doesn't understand what your subject is, how bright/dim you want it. There are techniques like exposure lock that help "trick" the camera into getting close to what you want, but in my opinion there's no such thing as the "perfect exposure". That's why bracketing is important. The metering can be fooled, you can be fooled, previewing it on the screen can fool you, the scene can be too dynamic, you might need a flash fill, etc. I guess what I'm saying is to not trust the sensor too much, understand it's limitations, adjust it to your needs, and shoot RAW just in case you were wrong.

sleeprequired1 said:

the video is about metering... in manual mode if you meter on a spot does the camera tell you which shutter speed and fstop? I understood the concept in the video but it didn't save how to do it on a camera, let alone the xz-1

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In manual mode it constantly meters (tells you if it thinks it too dark light). It's up to you to adjust settings (fstop and shutter speed) to get it right. A quick half press (in a different mode PAS) is a quick way of getting a good starting point.

Does anyone know if using a wide angle lens is typical of shooting planes like this? I found that I was having issues getting everything in. I'd be a bit worried about distortion though. Any other tips would be greatly appreciated as well. Thanks for the help!

BluAlloy said:

Most cameras meter a little differently. Some will intentionally underexpose to keep from blowing highlights, etc. Most aren't as accurate as a dedicated hand held light meter. Also remember that it's just a simple machine. It doesn't understand what your subject is, how bright/dim you want it. There are techniques like exposure lock that help "trick" the camera into getting close to what you want, but in my opinion there's no such thing as the "perfect exposure". That's why bracketing is important. The metering can be fooled, you can be fooled, previewing it on the screen can fool you, the scene can be too dynamic, you might need a flash fill, etc. I guess what I'm saying is to not trust the sensor too much, understand it's limitations, adjust it to your needs, and shoot RAW just in case you were wrong.

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ok so what you're saying is to use the exposure bracketing? or is it WB bracketing? I'm going to get a chance to take some trial photos so if you could tell me how to access that in the xz-1's menu i'd really appreciate it. Did you use the exposure or WB bracketing on your photos? also now that i can see the iso it really seems that going to 400 with this camera is not really necessary. How low was the light when you took those photos?

BluAlloy said:

In manual mode it constantly meters (tells you if it thinks it too dark light). It's up to you to adjust settings (fstop and shutter speed) to get it right. A quick half press (in a different mode PAS) is a quick way of getting a good starting point.

Click to expand...

in the video i was watching, it was talking about metering the middle colours, and you got your shutter speed and f-stop, then it said to focus or meter on the bright colours and check that it wasn't blowing out on the bar with +2 to -2. So you're saying in manual mode i would press the shutter half way on a mid tone and then adjust the fstop and shutter to read "0" (ie the camera will not tell me?) then check the highlights by metering on the brightest part of the frame and make sure it's not 'blowing out' with your shutter speed and f-stop settings?

i'm not sure what you mean by PAS.

basically i went into a camera store near my place and put it on manual and took pretty off colour photos, trying to work out what i did wrong before i go back. Have you noticed your raw shots are a lot darker than the jpgs or did i mess that up as well?

really appreciate your help... want to make sure i'm understanding the basics.. l want to be able to go to china and take a picture at dawn/dusk and not have to go to iso 400-800 where the noise in this camera creeps in. happy to go with longer exposure for night photos and use tripod or rest somewhere for that level of darkness....

CC: horrible WB in some shots.

Xoom said:

CC: horrible WB in some shots.

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Hmmm. Yeah, looking at them again, I guess some of them are a little warm. I didn't notice as the colors are pretty accurate to what I remember, but I'll play with that a bit. Thanks!

Xoom said:

CC: horrible WB in some shots.

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Retouched the white balance on some of the shots. I tried to keep some of the warmth in the pictures as completely white balanced looked too sterile to me (especially on the first one). Better?

wow they really pop now don't they.. what are you using to retouch?

sleeprequired1 said:

wow they really pop now don't they.. what are you using to retouch?

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Just used Olympus Viewer 2 to tweak the RAWs. RAW files store what white balance settings you used, but don't actually apply it, and so tweaking it after keeps the color fidelity intact (unlike JPEGs).

BluAlloy said:

(snip) Sorry that there's so many.
(snip) C&C always welcome.

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I most often skip threads with more then 2 or 3 images and that is because not enough time to participate on all threads if CCing many image in each.

Now I am saying -

I like seeing what you are showing from you XZ-1.
--

KimR

Very nice shots here. I love seeing what this camera can do indoors without ever thinking of using the flash. This makes good use of the lighting provided instead of just blasting it with a flash and washing it all away. In my opinion it looks more dramatic with the natural lighting and this really works with the military aircraft!

I know I've seen other photos from this Museum of Flight and it looks interesting to me. In what city is it located?

luckymandran said:

Very nice shots here. I love seeing what this camera can do indoors without ever thinking of using the flash. This makes good use of the lighting provided instead of just blasting it with a flash and washing it all away. In my opinion it looks more dramatic with the natural lighting and this really works with the military aircraft!

Click to expand...

Yeah, I was seeing how far I could push the limits (at ISO200) and I'm very pleased with the results. There were some shots in an even darker section (space) that were too blurry, but now I feel more comfortable with the limits that I can hit (when hand holding pictures)

luckymandran said:

I know I've seen other photos from this Museum of Flight and it looks interesting to me. In what city is it located?

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It's in Seattle Washington. I've seen a few Dpr sample shots from this museum.