Hello I'm Graham and I hope everyone's having a great day and welcome to part
two in this video tutorial series I'm running for new users to the panasonic
lumix I've said eighty or eighty to bridge camera now in part one we looked
at the ia mode and how capable that was of getting some great results in part
two we're going to look at using the program Auto mode and some of the
reasons why you should choose program Auto over the fully intelligent auto
mode so first of all I'd like to recap on some of the issues that arose from
yesterday's video mainly around the selection of auto focus so I'm going to
set the camera up so again I can record the screen and walk you through some of
those setups before we start talking about the program the auto mode I've got
the camera now set up so I can record the screen of the FCAT to you notice I'm
in the ia plus mode the cameras not identified this as a landscape shot
which is surprising but that is one of the issues with intelligent auto it
relies on the camera determining the type of brightness of the scene the
colors of the scene the distribution of tones in the scene as to what it
recognizes as its subject so here it's just said it's a standard scene there's
no bias towards a landscape or portrait or food that sort of thing but that's
okay but what you will notice is when I press the shutter button halfway down
you'll get a series of rectangles which the camera believes are the focus points
that I want to be taking now that might be right or it might be wrong and that
is one of the issues with the intelligent auto mode that sometimes
you'll get out of focus pictures because the cameras determined a focus point
which may be closer to the camera then you would particularly want and it's
that focus on that now the way around that is either to use the auto focus
tracking mode or the method that I used in the first video which is the single
point so for example if I wanted that archway to be the focus point for this
video I can touch that with my finger or with a stylus and you may notice on the
screen now there is a little box with cursor marks through it if I gently move
the camera side to side you'll notice that even if I'm moving the camera
around and the camera attempts to keep focus on
that door so it means that the camera will stay locked in focus to cancel that
you just need to touch the AF mark on the screen here and that will turn that
particular point off now the method I prefer is to use the single point
autofocus but it's a workaround and you can't normally achieve that in the ia
mode the way I do this is to use the control which allows us to change the
aperture so if you press in the top control dial first of all you'll get to
expose your conversation which you don't want then press it in again and that
will bring up the scale which tells you the aperture and shutter speed now you
just need to move it away from wherever there so if I it's on its default of run
about f/4 I'm just gonna move slightly to the right which will just move it off
the bottom stop and then press the button again and that brings us back to
shooting screen and you know notice we've got a rectangular square in the
middle of the screen now if I use the cursor control left here it means I can
position that to where I want the camera to focus so fun doorway is the focus
point that I need I can leave it set there and then I can take that picture
and that point will be in focus if I wanted this tree here to be the focus
point then obviously I can move that over to this tree and that will become
the focus point again if I wanted the building to be in focus just change the
focus point over there so it's as simple as that
now to cancel that you just need to move out of the ia mode and go to say the P
mode and go back and it will go back into its regular pattern identifying
focusing mode the 49 area method so to get into that again just press the
button twice on the top of the camera move it one click to the right which
then selects a reasonably small aperture press it once again and you'll come back
to the focus square I can position that to where you need it
and then you can take your shot to cancel it just move off the ia mode and
back to the io mode and you'll be ready to shoot again so in today's video we're
going to start looking at the program Auto mode no program Auto mode is
exactly the same as the intelligent auto mode except that it doesn't use the
scene type determination to set the parameters for the picture so there's no
chance that you'll get a food type scene if you're taking a portrait or anything
like that so the P mode doesn't use scene time to termination to enter P
mode just turn the top control dial until p's opposite the white index mark
and you'll get verification by the fact you've got P on your screen now when we
go into a program out of mode it opens up the camera for a lot more current
controls you notice we only had a few options available we're in the ia plus
mode but now we're in the P mode if we're going to the menu we've got a lot
more options that have come to life a
lot of these options were grayed out but now we're getting options to set them
again you can use the zoom key to move quickly through those menus if you
wanted to get to a particular page now remember in the intelligent auto mode
the photo style we just have a choice of the standard or monochrome but here now
in the program auto mode we've got a choice of standard vivid natural
monochrome scenery portrait and one which you can customize yourself but
also noticed that within those photo Styles we've now got control of our that
camera deals with that scene so if we wanted to increase the contrast on a
dull day we can increase the contrast if you wanted to increase the sharpening so
we can use the out of camera JPEG as we can just increase the sharpness slightly
and to compensate might want to knock the noise reduction down so that it
doesn't smear the finer details and again if you wanted to increase the
saturation we can increase the saturation
if you press menu set those will be locked into that folder stone when you
come back to the shooting menu you notice we got standard now and there's a
little plus by the side of it to remind you that you've got some additional
control set on that particular photo style remember in the intelligent auto
mode the ISO was automatic now in the program auto mode the ISO is under your
control so to gain access to the ISO it's the top position on the cursor
button press that and you notice now we can change the ISO to whatever we need
in intelligent auto mode it's always in the eye is open but no we've got manual
control so we can actually lock it down it is all 80 so it always stays on the
best I soul for this camera or we can change that to a higher value if we need
to select say a faster shutter speed for the shots we're taking in this essence
because I'm on a tripod and I want the very best image quality of this camera
I'm going to set that to ISO 80
the other thing you had no control of or various control was white balance no
white balance is set by using the right hand side of the four-way navigation
dial so by pressing white balance you notice it comes up to oughta my balance
which is what the intelligent auto mode uses but it now gives us an option to
change that to one of the presets so you've got sunny which would be a bright
sunny day cloudy if you're photographing in shade tungsten light flash I know
you've got four customizable white balance settings that you can use if
you're using it in the studio you've got a particularly ting setup you can record
that lighting setup and save it as a custom preset so you don't have to keep
going through the white balance set procedure now I will be doing a manual
white balance later in the series so to recap to set a white balance
preset press the white balance control and then select the one that's most
appropriate for the day so I'm going to select cloudy today which will give me a
slightly warmer look than what would currently guide which will go a night
over this stonework so I'm going to select the cloudy preset so we've now
set our ISO to the lowest value which is 80 we've got a cloudy preset we've set
our photo style to give us extra sharpening and slightly less noise
reduction and now we can take the picture but I'm going to set the drive
mode so we can take this with a two second timer so two seconds let the
camera decide on what aperture and shutter speed it should take because
that's a function of the program auto mode and it will take that picture for
us
now you notice we've got a few blinkers there which is the bright white sky but
it's a very overcast very gray day so that sky is likely to show high light
warnings there's no real detail in the sky if I was to try and change that by
using the exposure value compensation and again we access that through the top
control dial if I change this to minus say two-thirds and let's take that
picture
you notice there's very little change to the sky detail so in this particular
case I'm going to leave the exposure value compensation set to zero if you've
got it set - then you are running the risk of having to push the image in your
processing and lift the shadows and you might get more noise so the variety can
get the picture the better it is for the final result so just take that picture
again just to confirm with it so we're taking this at aperture F 4.3 with the
shutter speed of 150th of a second but if I wanted more depth of field and to
get more depth of field then I need to use a smaller aperture I need to make
the camera change that combination of shutter and aperture to give me the one
that I want so while it's highlighted in yellow if I use this top control dial
and move it to the right and then move it to the left you notice that I've got
ap come up with a double-headed arrow and it means no wearing what's called
program shift so well I'm changing the value of the upper - you notice the
camera is also changing the shutter speed to make that corresponding change
to keep the exposure right so 4.3 is where it starts I want to go to f5 point
6 so I'm new no move the ctrl T of F 5 point 6 and that will stay locked at 5.6
so you'll notice that once the shutter speed and aperture combination has gone
away there is that double-headed arrow to remind you that using program shift
so I'm now going to take this picture which will be at F 5.6 which will have
slightly more depth of field
there's also the issue with lens sharpness now this camera is
particularly sharp at F 4 and F 5.6 it runs a little bit softer as you move
towards f/8 because of what's called diffraction but don't worry about that
it just means if you've got a small aperture you will end up with slightly
less sharp pictures now remember as you zoom in the aperture will change all the
way up to F 5.9 you now notice that we zoom fully in that F 5.6 the reset has
now become f 7.1 because it's this is not a constant aperture lens as this
lens extends it loses brightness and that's reflected in the aperture setting
if I were to go into the setting mode you notice that I can only go to F a 5.9
which is the lowest aperture when this lens is fully extended so I would
recommend you try and keep 2 F 5.9 if you use in the extended telephoto mode
because that gives you the sharpest aperture if you like to go up to f/8 you
know just slightly softening in your image so try to keep that 2 F 5.9 so now
we can we can take that shot let's that find a better subject now we'll take the
picture and again we're using that two second timer to take the picture
I also remember in intelligent Auto we had the option there to change to an
electronic shutter and I'm gonna do that because we are now at the extended
telephoto modes are 1,200 millimeters effective focal length the camera will
respond to the slightest change with any breeze blowing on it if your tripods not
on a really surface any actuations in the camera such as a shutter will
because the camera to change its position and give you a blurred picture
so I'm going to use the electronic shutter which doesn't move any
components in the camera apart from opening the shutter so they should be
nice sharp pictures
I'm now going to focus the camera on ribbons and pike was about a mile away
from me and then we can see whether you get any bones with a mechanical shutter
versus electronic shutter saab now set up the camera on Remington pike you
might just notice there are a couple there walking by the railings which
surround the the tower on the hill so this is using the 1200 millimeters
effective focal length and you can verify that with the zoom control there
the first shot I'm going to take using that two second time work with the
electronic shutter
and then the next shot I'm going to use the mechanical shutter and let's see if
there's any change in the showers of the picture
with the bridge coming like this there's probably not much movement because the
shutter is actually in the lens it's not like a DSLR where you've got a curtain
moving at the back which does cause the camera to vibrate so with an in the lens
shutter like these have you're probably not going to notice a lot more
difference the benefit of the mechanical shutter is the extended times you can
use the camera so while you're in program auto mode and you've got program
shift enabled so you've got the P with the double-headed arrow even if I move
into the aperture priority mode or the ia mode when I go back to the P mode
you'll notice that it's remembered the value that you've left set so if I press
the shutter button again you notice it comes back to f7 point one
now the way to cancel that is obviously to turn off the camera but if you go
back into the control once it's in the yellow indication of aperture and
shutter speed move the control until that double arrow double-headed arrow
disappear so you turning it counterclockwise and notice notice that
the arrow has disappeared when we come back to shooting you notice there's no P
and a double-headed arrow so we're not using program shift now the other thing
you've got control of when you're using the P mode is the auto focus area now by
using the left hand navigation button here you can bring up the AF mode
selection and you can use one area so you can use the custom motor and that
allows you to select the points that you want and save them as a custom multi the
vertical horizontal you can define the pattern that you want for this multi
mode you can see on screen now that is the area that the camera will use to
take the picture but more importantly you've got the 49 area you've got focus
tracking and face detect but the most important one for me is the single area
maybe we have single area in the ia mode if used the workaround that I showed you
but in this method I'd now allow you to change the size and
the position of that focus area so if you wanted a pinpoint
control then you can position this on your subject and then it would use that
for the focus point
so it allows you to change both the size and the position of that focus area so
this position is changed by using the left/right navigation button or by
moving it on the screen using your finger and the size is controlled by
using the top control dial well there we are that's the program auto mode and you
can see we can be a lot more creative with our photography because we've got
more control over the camera features in the next video we're going to be looking
at the aperture priority mode and the shutter priority mode and how again
those can add to your creativity when you're shooting with this particular
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the next one thanks again for watching please do take care and I hope to see
you all in the next one good bye for now