Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ31: Imagequality issues

Hi

I have bought the DMC-TZ31 because my DMC-TZ6 unfortunately was broken. I've taken it now with me on holiday and I have to say, I am not impressed by the image quality at all.

Compared with the DMC-TZ6 I think the quality is worse. The pictures at 100% look like they have been overprocessed, not sharp at all.

Is this a common problem with the TZ31 or is it a hardware failure?



Thanks & regards




DMC-TZ6




DMC-TZ31

As no one else has replied I'll try to help. I don't think there is any problem with your TZ31. The beach scene looks quite sharp to my eyes, and at 1/1600s and full WA it should do. I think there could be several reasons why you may think the TZ6 image looks "sharper and better quality".

Firstly, the scenes are very different. In your TZ6 image there is a lot of foliage, rocks and breaking water near to the camera, so these are showing a lot of detail in the image. In your TZ31 image it is quite a featureless scene, with distant sand, sea and sky. As these features are a long way away from the camera there is of course little detail to be seen, as would be expected.

The other main difference, when viewing at 100%, is that the TZ6 image is 10MP (3648 x 2736 pixels) while the TZ31 image is 18MP (4896 x 3672 pixels). If you were to reduce the size of the TZ31 image to the size of the TZ6 image and compare them at 100% you would see that (if the scenes were similar, which they are not) there was more detail in the TZ31 image.

So, to really compare the two models you would need to take shots of comparable scenes to compare, and then compare at similar sizes. The TZ31 has a much higher resolution than the TZ6.

Another point is that you seem to have used a scene mode - landscape mode? While that may be OK for those scenes, it uses pattern metering and 0EV, which may not be optimum for a particular scene where you may want to focus more on one part of the scene, and to adjust the EV to prevent over/underexposure.

Ian

I completely agree with Ian except that he mistakenly said 18mp for the TZ31 instead of 14mp. But his point is just as valid. As pixel counts get higher and higher to rediculous levels for these small sensors the quality at the pixel level can change and sometimes look a little worse. It doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with the overall image though at normal viewing sizes. I actually think that the TZ31's image is a little oversharpened looking at it at the pixel level. If there are some in-camera adjustments for image quality maybe you can experiment with some different settings to see what you like better.

-Tim

Timj351 said:

Timj351 wrote:

I completely agree with Ian except that he mistakenly said 18mp for the TZ31 instead of 14mp. But his point is just as valid. As pixel counts get higher and higher to rediculous levels for these small sensors the quality at the pixel level can change and sometimes look a little worse. It doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with the overall image though at normal viewing sizes. I actually think that the TZ31's image is a little oversharpened looking at it at the pixel level. If there are some in-camera adjustments for image quality maybe you can experiment with some different settings to see what you like better.

Click to expand...

Hi Tim,

Thanks for that correction. I did get as far as recognising that TZ31 meant the German version of the TZ30, but then I mixed up TZ30 with ZS30, my bad! :-( The ZS20/TZ30/TZ31 has 14MP as you said (4320 x 3240 pixels) and so those figures need to be substituted for what I said above.

About the sharpening, unfortunately the ZS20/TZ30/TZ31 doesn't have any adjustment for that. However, for comparison or other purposes it would be possible to downsize the TZ31 image to the same size as the TZ6 image using bicubic but without applying the normal sharpening. That would result in a less sharpened looking image.

Ian

Yeah I was initially confused by the TZ31 as well since I only found the TZ30 on this site.

So not a lot of in-camera adjustments? That's too bad but I still think most images would look fine when viewed on screen or average sized prints. I personally don't worry too much about the actual number of pixels in my images until I get ready to print or share it online. In those cases I am working on copies of the full size original. It is a little interesting that have been floating between only 10 and 12 mp on all my cameras for the last 7 years so I am quite used to working with those sizes. For my needs that pixel range is plenty good.

I don't have this type of Panasonic camera but I do have several others. I mainly jumped into this thread because I see more and more people being a little troubled by the appearance of images at the actual pixel level and that can be a little deceptive. There is much more to image quality than that.

-Tim

Welcome bond2K. I agree with Ian. The sea/sand combination in the second is a far more challenging shot for the camera's metering to deal with.

Note, it has been found, through experience, that the TZ30/31 performs best at widest aperture. So, if you are prepared to go beyond auto and scene modes, set the dial to A mode and the aperture to f3.3 and, using the top button above the menu button marked +/-, set EV to -1/3 or -2/3, with ISO on Q.Menu set to 100 or i.ISO

Good Luck

Thanks for all the replies. I will try to shot in Aperture mode with the widest aperture.

Here is another shot with the TZ31. It just looks like some kind of filter was applied.