My husband and I are making the most of lockdown by creating a 'book' for our grandchildren! My husband currently has a Panasonic DCM FZ200 bridge camera that is about four years old. We are creating dioramas to illlustrate the book and so want to take the best possible photos, with as much detail as possible.. especially as there is a chance that we could get this published!! Please could some kind soul point us in the right direction? We are no more than amateur photographers and usually have it set on automatic ! Please don't confound us with to much technical detail!
Best camera for Diorama photography
- Thread starter Lin333
- Start date
Harlequin565
Suspended / Banned
- Messages
- 8,684
- Name
- Ian
- Edit My Images
- No
That camera looks to be a 2012 camera that has a 12MP sensor which should* be fine for most* printing purposes.
*What's really important is how big of a book you want to make. Your camera will easily produce high quality images to 8"x10" uncropped. However if you start to crop in to the image (i.e. chop bits out) this will make the image file smaller, and reduce the print quality. Pay attention to how you frame your subject so you don't have to crop at a later date.
With it being an older camera, and with a smaller sensor, the performance in low light will be less than stellar. Is low light photography important to you? Presumably if you're making dioramas you can put them somewhere well lit (like a big window in bright light) to reduce issues there. If you're going for "moody lighting" though, the camera may struggle.
I would suggest a tripod or some sort of support to hold the camera steady unless you're sure you have steady hands (a cushion can work in a pinch). Many "blurry" shots are caused by shutter speed being too slow and 'wobbling hands when zoomed in too much' causing issues.
Finally, I would suggest ordering a couple of 6x4 or 8x10 prints of your images to see how they look in print. 8x10 as a print will look very similar to 8x10 in a book and it will be a cheaper way of making sure everything is ok. Having prints is also a good way to curate the images you're going to use in the final book too.
In terms of specific technical details, it's very difficult to help without knowing the setup, what you're taking a photo of, what lighting you have available (windows), and what your problems are with the images. I'd suggest taking some pictures to begin with, then seeing what (if any) issues you have with them and dealing with them one at a time.
*What's really important is how big of a book you want to make. Your camera will easily produce high quality images to 8"x10" uncropped. However if you start to crop in to the image (i.e. chop bits out) this will make the image file smaller, and reduce the print quality. Pay attention to how you frame your subject so you don't have to crop at a later date.
With it being an older camera, and with a smaller sensor, the performance in low light will be less than stellar. Is low light photography important to you? Presumably if you're making dioramas you can put them somewhere well lit (like a big window in bright light) to reduce issues there. If you're going for "moody lighting" though, the camera may struggle.
I would suggest a tripod or some sort of support to hold the camera steady unless you're sure you have steady hands (a cushion can work in a pinch). Many "blurry" shots are caused by shutter speed being too slow and 'wobbling hands when zoomed in too much' causing issues.
Finally, I would suggest ordering a couple of 6x4 or 8x10 prints of your images to see how they look in print. 8x10 as a print will look very similar to 8x10 in a book and it will be a cheaper way of making sure everything is ok. Having prints is also a good way to curate the images you're going to use in the final book too.
In terms of specific technical details, it's very difficult to help without knowing the setup, what you're taking a photo of, what lighting you have available (windows), and what your problems are with the images. I'd suggest taking some pictures to begin with, then seeing what (if any) issues you have with them and dealing with them one at a time.
kendo1
Suspended / Banned
- Messages
- 7,574
- Name
- Ken
- Edit My Images
- Yes
It's not the camera but rather how you take the pic.
Michael Paul Smith took his pics with a compact camera - nothing special.
www.shutterbug.com
Some pics on Flickr and how he took them:
Michael Paul Smith took his pics with a compact camera - nothing special.
Watch How Michael Paul Smith Created Realistic 1950s Scenes Using Miniature Model Cars (VIDEO)
Michael Paul Smith is both an artist and a photographer (and a self-proclaimed recluse) who used his ingenuity, model-building expertise, and some miniature model cars to create these very realistic views of the small towns he recalled from his childhood. The short video below from DeMilked...
www.shutterbug.com
AndrewFlannigan
Suspended / Banned
- Messages
- 11,977
- Edit My Images
- No
If the camera is working well, I'd stick with it.
I think that the FZ200 is an almost ideal camera for dioramas. The small sensor means that your lens is especially good for the sort of close ups you want while the twist & tilt rear screen is also very good for that sort of work.
The advice to get a tripod makes sense and possibly some form of soft lighting, which need be nothing more sophisticated than a white umbrella reflector with a powerful LED lamp. Neither of these need be expensive.
I think that the FZ200 is an almost ideal camera for dioramas. The small sensor means that your lens is especially good for the sort of close ups you want while the twist & tilt rear screen is also very good for that sort of work.
The advice to get a tripod makes sense and possibly some form of soft lighting, which need be nothing more sophisticated than a white umbrella reflector with a powerful LED lamp. Neither of these need be expensive.
Thank you all so very much for your really helpful advice...especially as it was all in 'plain english'!!!! We do the photography in our conservatory so have no issues with lighting...... and we have a tripod..... we will take up your suggestion of having some of the pictures printed and see what they look like. Also noted is the suggestion about cropping.... which we have tended to do, and we can see what you mean about too much cropping reducing the overall quality of the finished photograph. we will try and think about that before taking each shot. We are very grateful to you all for your very prompt and helpful advice. Watch this space.... who knows you may well have helped a future J K Rowling!!!!