Panasonic LUMIX TZ80 - poor quality/blurred images :(

I was bought a Panasonic LUMIX TZ80 as a present for my amateur wildlife and sport (mostly rugby) photography . However I find my photos can't take any zooming in on the wildlife final photo without losing the fine detail and my action shots are blurred. I was advised by the photography shop to use P setting but still not up to my previous camera. (A couple of models older I believe) I am a beginner and would really appreciate anyone's time and advise in trying to sort this out as I love my photography and am becoming increasingly frustrated and fed up with my rubbish pics. Thanks in advance.



J

We might be able to better recommend possible solutions if you were to post the full-sized original photos with intact EXIF and other metadata.

Agreed with kkardster's earlier opinion, posted sample having full exif information would be crucial for members to diagnose your issue and suggest any recommandation.

However, if you choose to use small size image (assume you did not intentionally scale it down) or under high compression, you might never get great image.

For the sort of posted samples, they are either BIF or fast moving sport. Both require fast shutter speed to freeze their action/movement. for the BIF eagle shot, 1/500" is definitely far too slow.

To capture a well lit image, it must be properly exposed. It is determined by a combined effect of shutter speed, f/stop and ISO.

When we need a fast shutter speed for your sort of shooting, under the same lighting condition we must either use a larger f/stop (like f/1.4, f/2.8 etc instead of f/5.6, f/8 etc and obviously is a matter of hardware limitation) and/or higher ISO (that would result noisier image affecting the sharpness of an image) to compensate for the reduced amount of light reaches the sensor because of a shorter exposure time.

TZ80 uses a 1/2.3" sensor, which is classified among the small ones and is not the best on high ISO performance:


Extracted from Wiki

And it has a f/3.3-6.4 zoom lens which might not support very fast shutter speed under not the best lighting condition. For FZ300 which has the same size sensor of TZ80, but has a much faster f/2.8 zoom lens would be better for the job.

Finally can the AF system of the camera keeps up with the movement is another concern. CDAF of compact camera might not track fast moving object as good as PDAF cameras (DSLR). It is a major reason why we have cameras specifically for sport shooting.

As long as we can shoot within the limitation of TZ80, it should be a very nice, compact, full zoom range camera for general usage. For specific usage we might need something else I think.

--
Albert

BaileysQueen said:

Click to expand...

Part of the problem here is that you are "zooming" by cropping rather than taking advantage of the optical zoom. You've only used half the optical zoom here. It is key with this class of camera to fill the frame with the subject, if possible. You simply have to get closer, and the zoom is usually easier way to do that.

Again, seeing the original would help us here. But I suspect that the bird only occupies a small part of the frame and this could actually be fairly good result, considering.

--
Bruce
You learn something new every time you press the shutter

I had my ZS60 (TZ80) all packed up and ready to take back to Costco. I'd bought it to carry a wildlife capable camera on my bicycles. But the results were no better than the old Canon SX280hs I'd bought the ZS60 to replace.

Then I thought to ask on this forum if anyone had come up with settings that made them happy with their ZS60/TZ80. Saudidave replied with a link to Andrew Sullivan's Camera Ergonomics blog.

Several highly informative articles there, specifically for the ZS60/TZ80, about optimizing the setup, image capture and PP strategies. Detailed info on all the different functions for still photography.

I suggest you read his pages and try his settings before giving up on the camera. And be aware that with any camera with a small sensor and small lenses, good wildlife shots require a fair amount of light.

Thanks to Andrew's "Contrast +1, Sharpness +4, Noise reduction -5, Saturation 0" (which I never would have thought to try) I'm now over the moon about a camera I hadn't much cared for. And my other camera is an FZ1000, so my expectations aren't that low.

Not as easy to use as the FZ1000 but a whole lot easier to carry on a bike.