Panasonic Lumix FZ200 mini series- Getting Better Images Part 1 Bright Sunshine

In this new mini series I will take a look at some of the common issues faced by FZ200 shooters in getting good quality images. In this part I take a look at bright sunlight which is a killer for small, and large sensor, cameras alike. Bright sunshine causes huge dynamic contrast ranges to be generated.. This range, often referred too as the dynamic range, is far too large to be recorders in a single exposure by ANY digital camera in today's market place. The FZ200 has a maximum dynamic range of about 10 fstops at iso 100. This means that in bright sunlight the camera when set for correct mid tone exposure will clip highlights and crush shadow detail. The problem is made worse by small sensors with a high pixel density. The actual "well" which receives the photons of light and converts them into electrical energy "electrons" rapidly becomes saturated with high brightness situations. This saturation causes the highlights to become burnt out. There are multi exposure techniques like the HDR mode found in the scene menu which takes a series of exposures and combines them into 1 image. The result works reasonably well if the camera is tripod mounted but gives unpredictable results hand held as the separate images may have differing content due to subject or camera movement. Using reflectors or fill flash might be an option in some situations but probably inconvenient for most general shots. By using a camera photostyle which generates a tone curve which is a flat as possible is one way to get more dynamic range recorded during the exposure. Once you have this flat image it can be adjusted by post processed to suit any contrast you like your final image to have. I show how to set up such a profile and show some examples of images shot with this, before and after processing along with ones shot with the default standard profile.
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