lumi xlx 7 excerpt 1

8/12/2019 Lumi Xlx 7 Excerpt 1

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PHOTOGRAPHERS GUIDE TO THE PANASONIC LUMIX LX7

In Intelligent Auto, Creative Control, and Scene shootingmodes, ISO is set to Auto and the ISO button has no effect

or controlling this setting. You also cannot adjust ISO whenshooting movies, unless the camera is in Creative Video mode.

In Intelligent Auto mode, the up button activates AF rack-ing; i you press the button when the camera is ready to shootin that mode, the camera will display the AF racking ocusrame; you can cancel by pressing the up button again.

In the playback context, the up button is used to start play-

ing a motion picture when the initial rame o the motionpicture is displayed on the screen. Tat button also serves asa play/pause button once the movie has started playing. Tebutton also starts playback or panoramas, time-lapse shots,and high-speed burst sequences. When a normal still image isdisplayed on the screen, i you press the up button, the camerawill present you with options or using its Auto Retouch or

Creative Retouch procedure to make adjustments to the im-ages processing. I will discuss that process in Chapter 6.

Right Button: White Balance

Te right button is assigned the important duty o calling upthe menu or selecting the cameras setting or white balance. Iwill provide some background about this concept beore dis-cussing the mechanics o making the setting.

One issue that arises in all photography is that film, or a digitalcameras sensor, reacts differently to colors than the humaneye does. When you or I see a scene in daylight or indoorsunder various types o artificial lighting, we generally do notnotice a difference in the hues o the things we see depend-ing on the light source. However, the cameras film or sensordoes not have this auto-correcting ability. Te camera seescolors differently depending on the color temperature o thelight that illuminates the object or scene in question. Te col-or temperature o light is a numerical value that is expressedin a unit known as kelvins (K). A light source with a lower


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CHAPTER 5: OTHER CONTROLS

kelvin rating produces a warmer or more reddish light. Alight source with a higher kelvin rating produces a cooler or

more bluish light. For example, candlelight is rated at about1,800 K; indoor tungsten light (ordinary light bulb) is rated atabout 3,000 K; outdoor sunlight and electronic flash are ratedat about 5,500 K; and outdoor shade is rated at about 7,000 K.

What does this mean in practice? I you are using a film cam-era, you may need a colored filter in ront o the lens to cor-rect or the color temperature o the light source. Any given

color film is rated to expose colors correctly at a particularcolor temperature (or, to put it another way, with a particularlight source). So i you are using color film rated or daylightuse, you can use it outdoors without a filter. But i you hap-pen to be using that film indoors, you will need a color fil-ter to correct the color temperature; otherwise, the resultingpicture will look excessively reddish because o the imbalancebetween the film and the color temperature o the light source.

With a modern digital camera, you do not need to worry aboutfilters, because the camera can adjust its electronic circuitry tocorrect the white balance, which is the term used in the con-text o digital photography or balancing color temperature.

Te LX7, like many digital cameras, has a setting or AutoWhite Balance, which lets the camera choose the proper color

correction to account or any given light source. You get ac-cess to this setting by pressing the right button, which calls upthe White Balance menu screen, shown in Figure 5-23. Youthen have the ollowing choices or the White Balance set-ting, most o them represented by icons: Auto White Balance(AWB); Daylight; Cloudy; Shade; Flash; Incandescent; WhiteSet 1; White Set 2; and Color emperature. (Only the first ouroptions are shown in Figure 5-23; you need to scroll down to

reach the others.)


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Most o the settings are sel-explanatory. You may want toexperiment, though, and see i the specifically named set-tings (Daylight, Shade, Incandescent, etc.) produce the resultsyou want. I not, you may be better off setting the white bal-

ance manually. Tat is, you can use either the White Set 1 orWhite Set 2 option, either o which lets you measure the whitebalance based on the light that is actually illuminating yoursubject, and save a custom setting to that slot in the camerasmemory. Ten, you can use that custom setting whenever youare aced with the same lighting situation in the uture.

o set white balance manually, press the right button to popup the White Balance menu and scroll to select White Set 1 or

Figure 5-23: White Balance Menu

Figure 5-24: White Set 1 Option for Setting Custom White Balance


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White Set 2, as shown in Figure 5-24.

Ten press the right button, and a yellow rectangle will appear

in the middle o the display, as shown in Figure 5-25.

Aim the camera at a sheet o white or gray paper or other flatsurace under the light source you will be using, and fill therectangle with the image o that surace. Ten press the Menu/Set button (not the shutter button) to lock in that white bal-ance setting. Now, until you change that setting, whenever youselect that preset value (White Set 1 or White Set 2, as the casemay be), it will be set or the white balance you have just set.Tis system can be very useul i you ofen use a particularlight source, and want to have the camera set to the appropri-ate white balance or that source.

o set the color temperature directly by number, choose theColor emperature option rom the White Balance menu, asshown in Figure 5-26. Press the right cursor button to pop upa screen with a color temperature value displayed, as shown inFigure 5-27. You then can press the up and down buttons orturn the rear dial to adjust that value, anywhere rom 2500Kup to 10000K in increments o 100K.

Figure 5-25: Yellow Frame for Setting Custom White Balance


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One way to determine the appropriate numerical K value or aparticular light source is to use a color temperature meter likethe Sekonic Prodigi meter shown in Figure 5-28.

Figure 5-26: Color Temperature Option for White Balance

Figure 5-27: Color Temperature Setting Screen


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Tat meter works well, and I find it quite convenient to use itwhen Im striving or accuracy in my white balance settings.Tis device is airly expensive, though, and you may not wantto use that option. In that case, you can still use the Coloremperature option, but you will have to do some guessworkor use your own sense o color. For example, i you are shoot-ing under lighting that is largely rom incandescent bulbs, you

can use the value o 3,000 K as a starting point, because, asnoted earlier in this discussion, that is an approximate valueor the color temperature o that light source. Ten you cantry setting the color temperature figure higher or lower, andwatch the cameras display to see how natural the colors look.As you lower the color temperature, the image will becomemore cool or bluish; as you raise it, the image will appearmore warm or reddish. Once you have ound the best set-ting, leave it in place and take your shots.

Once you have selected a White Balance setting, either usingone o the preset values such as Daylight, Incandescent, or

Figure 5-28: Sekonic Prodigi


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Cloudy, or using a custom-measured setting or a color tem-perature value, you still have the option o fine-tuning the set-

ting. o do so, afer you have selected your desired white bal-ance setting, beore pressing the Menu/Set button, press theright button one more time, and you will be presented with ascreen or fine adjustments, as shown in Figure 5-29.

You will see a box with a pair o axes that intersect at a zeropoint, marked by a yellow dot. Te our ends o the axes arelabeled G, B, M, and A, or Green, Blue, Magenta, and Amber.

You can now use all our directional buttons to move the yel-low dot away rom the center along any o the axes, to adjustthese our values until you have the color balance exactly howyou want it. Te camera will remember this value wheneveryou select the white balance setting that you fine-tuned, so besure to remove the adjustment by setting it back to the zeropoint when it is no longer needed. When you have altered thesetting using this screen, the white balance icon on the cam-eras display changes color to indicate what changes you have

made along the color axes. For example, Figure 5-30 showsthe icon, in the bottom right corner o the screen, afer theWhite Balance setting was adjusted toward the Amber side othe axes.

Figure 5-29: White Balance Adjustment Screen


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One more note: I youre shooting in RAW quality, you donthave to worry about white balance so much, because, once youimport the RAW file into your sofware, you can change thewhite balance however you want. Tis is one o the marvels

o RAW. I you had the cameras white balance setting at In-candescent while shooting under a bright sun, you can justchange the white balance setting to Daylight in the RAW sof-ware, and the sofware will correct the image to look as i ithad been shot with the white balance set to Daylight. No oneneed ever know about the error o your shooting.

Beore I discuss white balance bracketing, I am going to in-

clude a chart (Figure 5-31) that shows how the white balancesettings affect the images taken by the LX7.

Figure 5-30: White Balance Icon Showing Adjustment - Lower Right

lumi xlx 7 excerpt 1

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