Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ300 User manual

Jargon Free Setup & Use
Easy to follow set up and use of the Panasonic
Lumix Fz300/330 in conjunction with my
YouTube video series
written by Graham Houghton September 2017 !
Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330
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Welcome to this supplementary guide for the FZ300/330
camera from Panasonic.
This guide, plus the YouTube video series, will allow you to
get the best image quality from your camera in a way that is
easy to comprehend without any technical jargon or any
pre-requisite understanding of this model.
To enable you to follow this guide and the YouTube videos it
would be a great idea to reset the camera to the default
factory set up so that all the items discussed in the video and
this booklet will work without any problems due to the
complex and inter reactive meaning system of the camera.
To do so, turn on your camera then press Menu/Set and
choose the wrench icon (Setup) and go to page 4 - use Zoom
tele to change pages quickly and select Reset and then
Menu/Set again.
Select YES to each of the three prompts which will appear.
Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330
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The Panasonic FZ300/330 Main Features!
Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330
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Once the camera has been reset select your home country
and/or time and date if necessary.
As this camera has so many ways of setting up user
preferences I would make the following changes to the setup
of the camera so that any of the following instructions that I
give will always work for you.
We will be first looking at the iA mode (intelligent Auto)
which is the fully automatic mode where the camera will
make all the adjustments for you to get the best exposure
and image.
The camera defaults to the new mode of iA+ which offers a
lot more user options and is one that I recommend that you
stay with as this will allow you to become more comfortable
with some of the adjustments we will be making in later
modes.
Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330
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Turn the TOP MODE dial to the iA
position opposite the white marker.
If you press Menu/Set and you then use
the left hand navigation button. you
can see the iA+ is selected from the iA
menu as it is highlighted with the
yellow background.
Now we will set up some of the other menu items;
Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330
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The ASPECT ratio is set from the REC Setup menu (the
camera icon tab). This sets the height and width ratio of
your image.
If you are shooting images primarily for prints then for 4 x 6
inch prints (and its multiples 8 x 12 etc) then select 3:2
For other sizes 4:3 may be selected bearing in mind some
common print sizes like 5 x 7 inch will require some
cropping of the final image.
If you intend to use the images for HD video or display
without borders on your HD aspect TV select the 16:9 option
from this menu.
Each of these aspect ratios will display the actual image area
that you have selected on the LCD display or electronic
viewfinder (EVF).
Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330
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Always keep the largest Picture size (L) and the Quality
should be left to the fine JPEG mode which is the double
dotted bar until later setups when we will consider the other
format available to you.
Picture size (in Megapixels) will vary with each aspect ratio
selected so you may see different values.
Here I have set the HD format aspect ratio of 16:9 which
give 9Megapixel images.
Selecting the 4:3 aspect ratio will give the full 12Megapixel
size.
To aid composition I would also recommend setting the
Guide Line to the “Rule of Thirds” from the list of options.
Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330
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You will find this on page 4/9 in the Custom Setup (wrench
plus C icon tab)
The default time period for the camera self timer is 10
seconds.
Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330
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For normal operation I would suggest making this value 2
seconds unless you are doing “selfies” and want to appear in
the image yourself if using a tripod to shoot the image.
Self timer is found in the REC Setup menu tab, page 3/7.
Set it to the 2 second option.
The self timer will operate when the camera drive mode is
set to the self timer which we will see in a later section of
this guide book.
We are at this point just setting the default time that the self
timer will delay the process of taking the image when the
shutter button is depressed or the camera is used with an
external remote wired cable plugged into the “remote”
socket on the camera.
Using the self timer when the camera is on a tripod is a good
way of preventing any vibration caused when pressing the
camera shutter button. This vibration cam cause loss of
image sharpness.
I also recommend setting one of the Function buttons, Fn2
to select the AF focus area when the single area auto focus
mode is selected. This makes it very convenient to make
selection of the size and position of the AF (autofocus) area.
Begin by
selecting the
Fn Button Set
option from
the Custom
Setup menu on
page 7/9.
Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330
Page !9

Select the
“Setting in
REC mode”
and press
Menu/Set
Select the Fn2 icon on the button layout screen.
Now step
through to
page 3/4 to
select the
Focus Area Set
option and
press Menu/
Set
Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330
Page !10

Now we have the camera with a common set up mode we
can begin to look at the basics of charging and installing the
battery and choosing a suitable memory card for use in the
camera.
Batteries and Charging Units
The camera is supplied with the Panasonic battery however
it is also possible to use third party batteries.
Some generic brands do not perform as well as the
Panasonic battery but the DSTE types can actually
outperform the Panasonic one and are entirely safe to use.
The battery should be fully charged using the supplied
Panasonic charger.
Charging will take up to 2 hours depending upon how
depleted the battery is when it is inserted into the charger.
It is advisable to charge the battery only when it is cold, not
when removed from the camera when it might be still warm.
This ensures that you will get a full and not a partial charge.
Charging is complete when the green LED goes out.
Remove the battery from the charger at this point.
Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330
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The Panasonic original battery during charging in the Panasonic DE-A80
charger.
The FZ300/330 does not support USB charging of the
battery in camera however there are USB chargers available
from after market suppliers which will allow you to charge
your batteries from any USB power source such as you
laptop or from any USB power bank units.
A USB power bank and USB charger for the BLC12 battery
Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330
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Memory Cards
The camera uses SDHC or SDXC memory cards.
!
In the illustration above you can see my recommendations
for memory cards suitable for use with the Panasonic Lumix
FZ300/330.
The two cards on the left are the SDHC cards suitable for all
photographic stills shooting plus AVCHD or MP4 video at
1080p.
On the right the two SDXC memory cards with the new U1
and the faster U3 ratings code.
The two cards are required for reliable shooting in both 4K
photo and video modes.
"
If you are shooting video, then the highest capacity card is
advisable as the files can become quite large and fill smaller
cards quite quickly.
Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330
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One tip I can offer you here is to use the micro SDXC cards
in their supplied SD adaptor.
Not only are they the same electronics in a smaller profile
but are about half the cost of their equivalent SD card.
Their functionality is the same as their full size equivalent.
Keep them in their adaptor when you use them in your pc or
external card reader.
Formatting Memory Cards
Formatting the cards in camera is the best option after they
have been used a few times, and especially if you share them
across a range of cameras.
This has the advantage of recovering the file system and
structure and thus overcoming some of the fragmentation
which occurs if you delete files either from within the
camera or later when the card is in your pc card reader.
This process allows the camera buffer to write to the card
faster and hence allowing it to clear quickly.
This process is essential when shooting in the burst modes
of the camera to achieve the highest burst speed.
Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330
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Now we have a fully charged battery and a formatted
memory card we can begin to look at using the camera to
take images.
Adjusting the viewfinder focus
It is probably worth mentioning here the electronic
viewfinder (EVF)and the facility to adjust the diopter of the
viewing lens so that even if you wear glasses the focus an be
set so that you can see the screen clearly.
To set the focus it is best to do this on a menu rather than
looking at an image.
Press Menu/Set to bring up any menu and then bring the
EVF up to your eye. The LCD will switch off and the image
will appear in the EVF.
If the image is sharp you need not do anything else.
If it appears to be out of focus there is a small knurled wheel
at the side of the viewfinder that will allow you to bring the
viewed image into sharp focus.
Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330
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Letting the Camera Take Full Control
When first beginning to take images with this camera it is a
good idea to use the fully automatic mode - the iA mode to
see what it can do in a variety of image taking situations.
You will probably find that in most situations the resulting
image is extremely good however there are some scene types
which are not recorded faithfully or with optimum results
and later we will see how we can improve on these.
The intelligent auto mode iA is selected by turning the top
Mode Control dial so that the iA icon is opposite the white
marker on the camera top plate. On the LCD screen you will
see the iA icon at the top left hand side of the screen.
Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330
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The other Modes on the dial are as follows:
"
P Program Auto mode – use when fully automatic exposure
is needed however this mode does not use scene recognition
and the ability to change the selected aperture/shutter speed
combination is available via the program shift option.
A Aperture priority mode – use when depth of field (DOF) -
how much front to back focus is recorded in the image is the
main requirement in the image.
S Shutter priority mode – use when it is necessary to select
a specific shutter speed. For example, a fast shutter speed to
eliminate subject motion blur or a slow shutter speed to
create effects like silky running water or streaking clouds.
M Manual exposure mode – use when you want to select a
specific aperture for DOF and a shutter speed for motion
effects. Use the ISO to control the exposure.
M Creative Video Mode – used to select the recording mode
for video capture using the same P/A/S/M options
depending upon requirements.
C Custom mode – allows the recall of pre-set conditions for
image capture after they have been registered to one of the
custom mode settings
We will look at these other modes later in this guide book.
Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330
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In the iA Mode (or the iA+ mode) the camera uses “scene”
type recognition and automatic exposure determination to
expose the images.
The enhanced iA+ mode allows you the user to adjust the
exposure (brightness of the image) and the hue or tint of the
image to apply either a warming or cooling tint to the image.
It also allows the user to set the amount of sharpness
recorded in the image by allowing the user to set the
aperture at which the image is taken.
The combination of aperture size and lens zoom value will
determine how much of the image appears to be in focus.
Thus you can create portraits with very blurred backgrounds
or shoot landscapes with all from foreground to distant
background in sharp focus.
When you point the camera at the subject the image
processor will attempt to determine what type of scene that
the lens is imaging on the sensor. It looks for colour and
light intensity patterns and facial features to set the optimal
exposure conditions.
You can see the scene type that has been selected by looking
at the top left hand side of the LCD (or EVF if enabled).
Initially the icon will be displayed with a blue colour for
about two seconds and then will turn red.
It is advised to check that the scene being captured is
correctly interpreted by the camera.
Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330
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Sometimes the scene recognition software incorrectly
determines the scene being imaged.
"
If this is the case switch to the SCN scene mode on the Mode
Control dial and then select the most applicable scene type
from the associated menu for the scene being photographed.
The scene type is determined by the camera and can be one
of the following cases.
i-Portrait, i-Scenery, i-Macro, i-Night Portrait, i-Night
Scenery, i-Hand Held Night shot (if set to ON in the REC set
up menu), i-Food, i-Baby, i-Sunset and the iA mode when
neither of these scene types are determined.
Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330
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This is a further increase in automatic scene detection over
the previous FZ200 model.
If shooting 4K still the scene detection works in the same
way as recording video clips.
When recording video, the camera will automatically select
one of the following scene types:
"
i-Portrait, i-Scenery, i-Low Light, i-Macro and iA when none
of the scene types are recognised.
When shooting in the fully automatic mode (iA or iA+) the
camera will select the most appropriate focus method."
In this mode, face detection is active (as shown in the image
above) and eye detection software attempts to locate and
focus on the eye closest to the camera.

Beginners Guide to the FZ300/330
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