Lens or body defect?

A friend of my has a Panasonic G7 and a LUMIX G VARIO 14-140/F3.5-5.6 lens. Often she gets bad photo's, like this photo:

What is wrong?

We think there is a defect in the lens or body.

Although I couldn't examine the image close on my phone screen, off hand found nothing wrong.

Please kindly let us know what made you thinking your gear has problem?

A point wish to mention is f/11 has entered the diffraction zone of M43 such that the output might on the soft side.

Electuur wrote:

A friend of my has a Panasonic G7 and a LUMIX G VARIO 14-140/F3.5-5.6 lens. Often she gets bad photo's, like this photo:

What is wrong?

We think there is a defect in the lens or body.

I think there are a number of things going on here.

1. It’s a very bright sky, and the camera has exposed correctly, keeping the highlights under control, which might make the foreground a bit darker than you expected.

2. You might have the sharpness and noise reduction a bit high, resulting in less fine detail. This would be even more obvious if you used the vivid profile.

3. The camera’s automatic JPEG processing might not be to your taste. DPreview several times noted that Panasonic cameras tend to under-expose JPEGs compared to Olympus. The more recent Panasonic models have massively improved JPEG processing, with much nicer colours in my opinion. I recommend shooting RAW and processing with DXO Photolab if you’re unhappy with the camera’s JPEGs.

Electuur wrote:

A friend of my has a Panasonic G7 and a LUMIX G VARIO 14-140/F3.5-5.6 lens. Often she gets bad photo's, like this photo:

We think there is a defect in the lens or body.

If your friend has access to another lens and just stop using the 14-140mm lens for a while. If the problem goes away, then it is probably the lens, if not then it's probably the camera. Make sure that the G7 and the 14-140mm have the latest firmware updates and also consider a reset of the G7.

Would be helpful if two images were displayed, one good & the other bad so that it's possible to determine what is expected. Mentioning the lens indicates that the problem is to do with focusing & blurriness of the image, is this assumption correct?

Electuur wrote:

A friend of my has a Panasonic G7 and a LUMIX G VARIO 14-140/F3.5-5.6 lens. Often she gets bad photo's, like this photo:

What is wrong?

We think there is a defect in the lens or body.

Or the photographer.  A little explanation as to what you find upsetting migh be helpful. What is wrong? Is that a trick question?

Electuur wrote:

A friend of my has a Panasonic G7 and a LUMIX G VARIO 14-140/F3.5-5.6 lens. Often she gets bad photo's, like this photo:

What is wrong?

We think there is a defect in the lens or body.

I suspect, perhaps due to the passage of time since it was taken, that your friend may have misinformed you?

Her image apparently measures 4592 pixels by 2932 pixels - although the range of "Large" dimensions listed in the G7 manual are...

aspect ratio [4:3] 4592 x 3448

aspect ratio [3:2] 4592 x 3064

aspect ratio [16:9] 4592 x 2584

aspect ratio [1:1] 3424 x 3424

So I wonder if she has trimmed her picture slightly, either "in camera" or subsequently, and - in doing so - saved it at a lower quality that the original?

Indeed, from the G7 instructions...

My own JPGs of similar scenes from 16MP Panasonics generally tend to be a bit larger than the 5.69 MB of this one!

[Personally, I'd avoid f/11 - and would have preferred to shoot this instead in A mode, at f/6.3 or f/8, hoping for a higher shutter speed still, with base ISO]

All that said, the frondy maroon "flowers" of the bushes at centre and right were probably never going to come out very well at such a distance?

Peter

Why f/11 and ISO 400? Judging by the exposure data, Base ISO and a wider aperture would be better. Image is a bit contrasty. The tree gets a little dark. Sky could use more definition. Landscapes are often better done shooting raw and tweaking the contrast, color and exposure.

Composition wise, the image is not that interesting. Perhaps trying different angles, focal lengths, ect. would yield something better.

Simon97 wrote:

Why f/11 and ISO 400? Judging by the exposure data, Base ISO and a wider aperture would be better. Image is a bit contrasty. The tree gets a little dark. Sky could use more definition. Landscapes are often better done shooting raw and tweaking the contrast, color and exposure.

Composition wise, the image is not that interesting. Perhaps trying different angles, focal lengths, ect. would yield something better.

Yes, base ISO and wider aperture means more DR potential, sharper results, and faster shutter speed to minimize blur from wind blur on foliage. Also, excessive processing, especially noise reduction, will reliably blur detail rich parts of a photo.

Lens or body defect? Neither IMO, likely technique, shooting settings and/or processing choices. If lens or body then the problem would be easily reproducible

There is definitely something very wrong with this image.

Various other posters have mentioned the inappropriate settings, which make it hard to pin down the likely cause.  My guess is a focus problem.

Can you ask your friend to take 2 identical images on a tripod at ISO 200, f6.3 and 24mm with shutter timer delay.  For the first use SAF and for the second MF.

If you could upload the RAW files somewhere and post a link, we can have another look.

Andrew

ahaslett wrote:

There is definitely something very wrong with this image.

What do you see wrong that would indicate anything but exposure related problems suggested elsewhere? That would indicate a lens or body problem?

I'm in a meeting right now and can't take too close of a look at the photo.

Bassam Guy wrote:

ahaslett wrote:

There is definitely something very wrong with this image.

What do you see wrong that would indicate anything but exposure related problems suggested elsewhere? That would indicate a lens or body problem?

I'm in a meeting right now and can't take too close of a look at the photo.

The whole image is blurred on my laptop screen at Original Size.  Looks fine on a phone.

Andrew

user error.  Nearly always the answer before camera or lens..

Couldn't see anything particularly bad from viewing on the phone screen but the G7 is prone to shutter shock so you might have some portions of the image blurred, perhaps?

The blurred bush looks like what happens when you use DXO Deep Prime and it interprets something with little detail as noise and which it then completely blurs to remove the noise.

drj3 wrote:

The blurred bush looks like what happens when you use DXO Deep Prime and it interprets something with little detail as noise and which it then completely blurs to remove the noise.

That blurred bush looks like it's a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotinus_coggygria

No wonder it looks blurred.