imagine my surpise ...

Are those values somehow saved along with the pic? Presumably you don't manually enter them all yourself when you upload the pics?

Do you normally take the pics with saturation and contrast set high? I always try to capture the colours and hue on how I actually see them with my eyes, and shy away from accentuating anything, but looking at your pics I must confess that the richness of the colours are nice. Maybe I should let loose and experiment with the settings a bit more.....

 

Hi - yeah, the exif data is saved with the photograph...

iirc - I think I do have the saturation etc set to high - but I think this is only a recent setting I've discovered on my camera (well, a few months back!) - but the best thing is the manual setting and I like how it works on my panny... I set the arperture then click the button (to get the pic in focus and to check the shutter speed etc) - and they I adjust the paddle so that the exposure is set - this is gauged by a setting along a bar (i.e. 50% along the bar is deemed perfect?) but I normally have it about 35%...if that last part makes sense...it's more of a visual thing I guess...

what camera do you have..?

it just comes with practice as I've say set myself a task and tried to overcome that and I sometimes (in the house for example) take a pic of the same item using all the different permations of setting to see what comes out..!

 

I have the same camera as you - FZ7 - I bought it so I'd have all that manual control as well as the auto settings, but I have to confess that I haven't really tried many manual adjustments .

Must play more. I'm off on my hols next week, and my brother will be around and he's a real photo enthusiast, so must take the opportunity pick his brains and get some tips...

 

nice - try this for starters - select the setting on 'M', put the aperture on f5.6 (if it's a nice day) then hold down the photo taking button (I'm sure it's got a proper name!) so that it can become in focus - use the paddle to adjust the shutter speed so that the setting is between 25%-50% (from left to right of the bar)- I normally have it about 35% and take a picture - now, try to take the same pic but using the 'P' setting and compare the two...the manual one is normally better imo...
the only downside is that it can take slightly longer to take a pic but I can live with that...

 

sounds good to me, nothing wrong with that...

if you live in the lakes(?), then youre off to a good start with the pics!!

 

Weardale is beautiful. I don't blame you for wanting to take pictures of it.

If it was in the south of England Northumberland would be hugely famous.. I view it as 'britains best kept secret'..

 

yeah, the roads up in northumberland are the quietest in england according to the local news a while back...

weardales are a bit more busy - full of sunday drivers, bikers and tractors...
but at least you don't see any chavs whilst going on walks...