P3 photos, am I doing it wrong or is this the limit?

[chucknorris]

I have been using the P3 here in Ireland for 3 weeks, weather permitting.

The video is great and I'm getting a good handle on features bit by bit.

One major concern I have is photographic quality. The video quality appears to be sharper than what the camera can handle.

I've tried auto, rich colour etc, but the images just don't seem to be sharp or as a clear as i would hope and as clear as the video footage appears.

Surely this cannot be the cameras limit?

 

[vegas-k9]

The best shots come from manual settings where one would play with iso and shutter speed and take multiple shots to play with in post processing. Auto does a pretty decent job but learning your manual settings will yield better results.

Also for bright sunny days, look into some filters.

 

[chucknorris]

The best shots come from manual settings where one would play with iso and shutter speed and take multiple shots to play with in post processing. Auto does a pretty decent job but learning your manual settings will yield better results.

Also for bright sunny days, look into some filters.

Many thanks

One quick question - is there an option to click on the screen to force it in to a focus? in the same way you would half press the shutter button on an SLR to get it to re-focus?

 

[Phil Tuggle]

That sample shows here as 1280x720, but the max size of images from the camera is 4000x3000 pixels (4:3) - pretty decent by most opinions, yes? That's actually far better than the video frames can provide if you have 1080p running (I have Advanced model).

Anyway, I have experimented with P3 jpeg and raw and believe the jpeg compression is pretty good in color range and all around. Of course you can edit raw, but the resolution won't get better. Even though you can (actually, must) run the raw files through the DNG Cleaner to get the white spots out, and then adjust the distortion (Lightroom has a Phantom 3 preset available now), I haven't seen a huge improvement over jpegs out of the camera in my daytime, medium light range shots. So, I just set the App to take jpg only - besides, it's probably faster anyway. I like P3 still photos a lot!

That said, there are a couple of absolutely fantastic cheap/free programs you can use to beautifully enlarge your results (and/or do a BUNCH of other things). In fact, you can increase dpi AND size to almost a billboard layout with virtually ZERO pixelation, no trouble at all. Yes, it is MAGIC! These two are Reformator for Apple computers, and Irfanview (weird name) for Windows. Both are incredibly good, easy to use, and lightning fast - great for doing huge batches of files, too.

It seems your photo is pretty great, to me. Check out a thread in this forum, "A Few Photos" started by @snerd, Awesome really.

Good luck, and enjoy.

 

[4wd]

The best shots come from RAW - if you know how to deal with it.
I'd avoid the vivid and other settings, and under-expose on about -0.3 or -0.7
Best to keep it on ISO 100, and go full manual ideally.

There's no need to be routinely blending photos.
This is from one RAW file I think it's great.

 

[chucknorris]

fair play - appreciated. irfanview i'm aware of and will give it a bash. as for video, only windows media player will smoothly play my mp4 videos, but i see people recommending adobe premier pro for windows and i might also give that a bash

 

[Aramis]

I would avoid under-exposure with the P3, RAW or not, as the images are very noisy even at 100 ISO. The best is to expose in the middle and always have the histogram on screen before taking stills. Overall quality is not so good (not to say bad) and the worst is with the green color.

 

[Phil Tuggle]

Oh, I DID forget to say I always use 100 ISO in the daytime. That is pretty important.

As to video processing, if you are budget-conscious, I strongly recommend Adobe Premier Elements 13 (which is RIGHT NOW on sale for 70USD or 82 Euros) - I am very happy with its features and quick processing speed (especially if you have a separate and good graphics card) - it includes "grading" for separate colors, keyframing, MANY tracks, etc., and does more than I will ever need for 1080p. It also handles 4K, but perhaps only in NTSC format...not sure, because I do not need it.