Picture Adjustment??

jhnel

:scratch The Panasonic FZ5 has the following 'Picture Adjustment' settings:
Standard, Natural and Vivid. Very little information is given about these settings in the user manual, except that 'Natural' makes the picture look 'softer' What does this mean? Which is the 'recommended' or most common setting for day-to day use?

colourbox

Most cameras I've seen have an adjustment like that. I think it's really a color saturation control, but the companies don't want to intimidate their non-technical customers by using the precise terminology.

"Standard" sounds like normal saturation.

"Natural" sounds like reduced saturation, subdued colors.

"Vivid" sounds like color saturation boost, more intense color.

Why is "Standard" not "Natural?" Consumers believe brighter colors indicate better quality, to the point where some consumers prefer bright colors even if they are no longer accurate colors. When I see TVs it seems like most are set to have unnaturally high saturation to make them look more vivid to buyers. It is possible that "Standard" is set to slightly more saturation than you'd see in the real world, just to make the camera's pictures look "better" to the general public. "Natural" might be closer to real world color and might give you better skin tones.

Note that I haven't used that particular camera and I'm not 100% sure of what I wrote there, but it's based on what I've read. You need to shoot a few test shots and view them on a calibrated monitor to see how camera colors at each of those settings match up with the real world objects, because I could be wrong about how that camera works.

jhnel

thanks
Thanks a lot for the reply.

colourbox wrote:

Most cameras I've seen have an adjustment like that. I think it's really a color saturation control, but the companies don't want to intimidate their non-technical customers by using the precise terminology.

"Standard" sounds like normal saturation.

"Natural" sounds like reduced saturation, subdued colors.

"Vivid" sounds like color saturation boost, more intense color.

Why is "Standard" not "Natural?" Consumers believe brighter colors indicate better quality, to the point where some consumers prefer bright colors even if they are no longer accurate colors. When I see TVs it seems like most are set to have unnaturally high saturation to make them look more vivid to buyers. It is possible that "Standard" is set to slightly more saturation than you'd see in the real world, just to make the camera's pictures look "better" to the general public. "Natural" might be closer to real world color and might give you better skin tones.

Note that I haven't used that particular camera and I'm not 100% sure of what I wrote there, but it's based on what I've read. You need to shoot a few test shots and view them on a calibrated monitor to see how camera colors at each of those settings match up with the real world objects, because I could be wrong about how that camera works.