Panasonic DMC-FZ720 user here

9 years 2 months ago #423747 by Lorraine-Allaway
Hi all I am in the UK and I am struggling to find help - my husband bought me a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ720 to replace my old Kodak, I dont know how to use the settings and am getting frustrated as there seems to be no guides to help folks like me get off auto settings.  

I set out recently to take pictures of moving water, I wanted to get the smokey effect I have seen many times on various phographic sites but failed miserably. All I got was a white photo no sign of the image I was taking.

Does anyoine know what I need to do to get this effect or where I could get a decent guide to help me through the settings as the user manual for this camera is online and not the most helpful of documents.


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9 years 1 month ago #423804 by garyrhook
The camera should have come with a manual. If not, one can be had online:

service.us.panasonic.com/OPERMANPDF/DMCFZ20PP.PDF

You want to learn how to use manual mode? Great. It's no different on that camera than on any other. Once in manual mode you can control the shutter speed and aperture; looks like the ISO value is set to 100 for you (page 54). In that respect this camera is no different than any other, and there is lots of information online about how to modify the aperture and shutter.

With respect to taking a photograph of moving water: you must understand the exposure triangle, but your camera may not help you here. By increasing the shutter time (to capture movement) you must compensate be decreasing the aperture, decreasing ISO (making the sensor less sensitive) or use a filter to cut down the amount of light. Or shoot at dusk or dawn. If you do not adjust these, you get an overexposed image, which seems like what you describe. 

Your camera may not meet all of your immediate goals, but it sounds like it will be a fine piece of equipment upon which to learn. I myself started on a Pany FZ10 in manual mode. Just keep your expectations under control, and understand that you will need to research, learn, and practice


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