Panasonic GX80

[Joe Gaul]

Just had my first QC failure since I don't know when. The offending image was taken with my new Panasonic GX80 micro 4/3 which was bought in an effort to save weight. Images from this camera have recently passed QC but this one being a landscape with the smaller than my usual aps-c sensor and with a base ISO of 200 rather than 100 may have caused the image to fall foul. Does anyone have QC experience with this camera, and any idea how long my sentence will be since I previously had a 3 star QC rating?

Thanks

Joe

[M.Chapman]

58 minutes ago, Joe Gaul said:

Just had my first QC failure since I don't know when. The offending image was taken with my new Panasonic GX80 micro 4/3 which was bought in an effort to save weight. Images from this camera have recently passed QC but this one being a landscape with the smaller than my usual aps-c sensor and with a base ISO of 200 rather than 100 may have caused the image to fall foul. Does anyone have QC experience with this camera, and any idea how long my sentence will be since I previously had a 3 star QC rating?

Thanks

Joe

 

What was the failure reason?

 

Mark

[Betty LaRue]

1 hour ago, Joe Gaul said:

Just had my first QC failure since I don't know when. The offending image was taken with my new Panasonic GX80 micro 4/3 which was bought in an effort to save weight. Images from this camera have recently passed QC but this one being a landscape with the smaller than my usual aps-c sensor and with a base ISO of 200 rather than 100 may have caused the image to fall foul. Does anyone have QC experience with this camera, and any idea how long my sentence will be since I previously had a 3 star QC rating?

Thanks

Joe

If the latest images in your port was taken with the GX80, then I don’t think you’ll have much of a problem.  I expect you’ll find some CA where the trees meet the sky in a landscape, or a bird that looks like dust, or something like that. You may have chosen a wrong focus point. 

There are many ways to run afoul with landscapes. Too slow a shutter speed with wind moving trees. Who knows. Inspect it again at 100% and you’ll probably see what’s wrong. What was the reason QC gave for the failure?

Just yesterday I was developing a landscape taken with my mirrorless Fuji XT-2 and it was slightly blurry. I suspect user error, I must’ve jerked the button instead of squeezing. Luckily I had another frame that was sharp. The reason I usually take 2 or 3 frames.

Betty

[Joe Gaul]

Hi Mark, it's the old SOLD story. I've reviewed the image and for what my view is worth I don't think it is soft. Scarecrows are by their nature lacking in definition (sheets of plastic in this case). Have uploaded the offending shot elsewhere so will see what happens.

Thanks for the reply

Joe

[Joe Gaul]

Hi Betty, appreciate the reply. You could be correct about the focus point. The Panasonic is a learning curve after years of Canons (and of course the Sony RX100 2). Have already changed preferences on the GX80 after watching tutorials. Have been using the 80 for the grandkids  school presentations and high ISO files seem to have less colour noise than my Canons.

Joe

[Sally]

3 hours ago, Joe Gaul said:

Just had my first QC failure since I don't know when. The offending image was taken with my new Panasonic GX80 micro 4/3 which was bought in an effort to save weight. Images from this camera have recently passed QC but this one being a landscape with the smaller than my usual aps-c sensor and with a base ISO of 200 rather than 100 may have caused the image to fall foul. Does anyone have QC experience with this camera, and any idea how long my sentence will be since I previously had a 3 star QC rating?

Thanks

Joe

I don’t know if that Panasonic is the same as the G7, but the base ISO is really 200. Although it’s possible to set it to 100 (though I cannot now remember how as it’s not just a question of turning the ISO button) it’s not advised. Someone told me today in fact that’s it’s an in camera adjustment which doesn’t work well

[TABan]

I’ve been using two GX85s (North American GX80) for nearly two years with no failures. I have the kit 12-32, the Lumix 45-150, 14-140, 20mm f1.7 and 42.5 f1.7. I find the images to be cuttingly sharp even with the kit zoom, probably due to the lack of an anti-aliasing filter. The two primes are especially sharp even wide open. You do have to be careful and watch for blue/purple fringing with things like backlit tree branches and leaves, but this is easily fixed in Lightroom.

 

I love these things. I can carry one with the kit lens, 20mm and 45-150 in the tiny Thinktank Mirrorless Mover 10 bag. The 14-140 lives on the other body for when I don’t want to change lenses. It’s the sharpest lens of its type I’ve ever used.

[M.Chapman]

3 hours ago, TABan said:

The 14-140 lives on the other body for when I don’t want to change lenses. It’s the sharpest lens of its type I’ve ever used.

 

+1

I use it for the vast majority of my shots on a Lumix G5 body.

 

Mark

[Joe Gaul]

Thanks, Sally. I didn't intend to change to ISO 100 but wondered if the 80s base being 200 was inherently more noisy than a camera with a base ISO of 100. I genuinely appreciate your input.

TABan and Mark. Thanks to both of you too. As you don't experience any problems then I must work on my GX80 technique. The problem image was shot with the 12-32 which gets good reviews. I also use the 45-175 which I really like for internal focusing and internal zoom and is really small and discrete for the focal length covered. May also add the 12-60 f2.8-4 if the price becomes right, as this is really a secondary system. It's good to know that the 14-140 can also produce the goods.

Thanks again all above

Joe 

[Sally]

2 hours ago, Joe Gaul said:

Thanks, Sally. I didn't intend to change to ISO 100 but wondered if the 80s base being 200 was inherently more noisy than a camera with a base ISO of 100. I genuinely appreciate your input.

TABan and Mark. Thanks to both of you too. As you don't experience any problems then I must work on my GX80 technique. The problem image was shot with the 12-32 which gets good reviews. I also use the 45-175 which I really like for internal focusing and internal zoom and is really small and discrete for the focal length covered. May also add the 12-60 f2.8-4 if the price becomes right, as this is really a secondary system. It's good to know that the 14-140 can also produce the goods.

Thanks again all above

Joe 

All my Panasonic lenses do a great job and I’ve had no fails apart from one at very beginning when I was less sure about what I was doing. I use the 12-35, 35-70 and 70-100.

[Betty LaRue]

All my Nikon crop cameras, from the D70 on had 200 as the base ISO.  I wished the D70 had 100, because I did a lot of noise reduction in smooth areas and it was a pain with that camera, that otherwise took excellent pictures. The later cameras were better.

 

Later on I realized that I routinely slightly underexposed my shots (Nikons tended to do this if you shot semi-auto or auto) and when I corrected in PS, it added noise. A brick had to fall on my head before I realized the shots that were properly exposed or slightly over were fine. I learned to set the cameras with +.3 exposure as a routine setting. I seldom shot full manual, opting to shoot either shutter speed or aperture preferred. I still do except for tabletop which is full manual.

Cameras these days handle noise much better, but you can still introduce noise when correcting exposure, but there is more latitude than in the older days of digital.

And LR and ACR does a much better job of handling noise than older iterations of the software. Win/win.

Betty

[M.Chapman]

5 hours ago, Joe Gaul said:

It's good to know that the 14-140 can also produce the goods.

 

A slight caveat - I do downsize quite often to 24MB (8MP) just to be on the safe size with Alamy QC, but I'd rather do that and have the convenience of a 10x zoom than have to carry and swap between several lenses.

 

Mark

[Joe Gaul]

Hi Betty, thanks for your advice on exposure. When I studied photography I used the college D70 and really liked it, producing good A3+ prints.

Mark, I generally downsize Sony RX100 2 files to 30mb for QC, perhaps this should also be done with the GX80.

Also wondering if my problem could have been that I usually blur skies, not the rest of the image, by .3 of a pixel to hide noise and the offending image contained a lot of sky.

Thanks again everyone.

Joe