iISO does its thing
The iISO function in the Panasonic G1 (“intelligent ISO”), according to the wretched instruction manual which ships with this otherwise fine camera, does the following: “The ISO sensitivity is adjusted according to the movement of the subject and the brightness”. (Page 79). I use this setting in my default setup for street snaps.
Here the CPU in the camera elected 1/500 second to freeze the running boy and an enlarged view in Lightroom confirms that his shirt is, indeed, tack sharp.
Runner. iISO, Panasonic G1
It’s a two edged sword, however. If you want movement blur, it has to be switched off or, much better, simply set the large mechanical mode dial on top to Shutter Priority, in which case iISO is switched off, though that fact is buried in a footnote in the instruction book. As I wrote earlier, Panny must have had some real live photographers involved in the design of this fine camera. Too bad they weren’t involved in the writing of the manual.
A note on AE lock: You can elect whether the ‘AF/AE Lock’ button on the top rear of the body locks focus, exposure or both, much as you can on the Canon 5D, my other ‘serious’ camera (though the G1 is to the 5D as a Ferrari is to a Mack truck). In both bodies I have set the button to lock exposure only, as focus can be locked with a first pressure on the release button of either.
Canon does this right. The AE lock lasts for some 10 seconds – ample time to recompose and take the snap.
The G1 gets it wrong. You have to keep the button depressed to maintain exposure lock until you press the button. That makes for some strange contortions of the hand.
The alternative in the G1 is to enable ‘AF/AE Lock Hold’, a separate choice in the Custom menu, but they got that completely wrong. Yes, it does lock exposure (and/or focus depending how you set ‘AF/AE Lock’) but the camera’s settings remain locked to your exposure even after the shutter is released. You can only unlock things by again depressing the button on the back of the camera. If you opt for a minimal viewfinder display as I do, you don’t know that your exposure is still locked until you notice a super bright or dim screen when making the next picture. You then scramble to unlock things only to find that your subject has gone ….
What Panny should do is change the firmware so that, with ‘AF/AE Lock Hold’ enabled, the lock is released after the exposure is taken. Let’s hope they change this, as selective exposure reading is a useful tool with dynamic range-challenged digital sensors.
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Hi Thomas,
reading your blog and hints by dpreview-talks I learned today: AF/AE-lock button (Hold-Modus) can be used to focus before (independent) from half press shutter. The white focus border turns to green and remains green. Another push on this button is necessary to change. By the way in this mode it is easy (for me)to handle Auto-focus-overwrite or focus control (push left four-way-controller, then menu-set and the manual-focus-magnifier for manual focussing is switched on (without touching the focus ring)). It`s applied research to use a camera without a adequate guide.
Best regards,
Helmut
Helmut – that’s true, but AE/AF Lock remains ‘on’ until you press the button again. In my opinion, it should switch off once the shutter is released (Canon’s 5D does it right), otherwise you are stuck with the same AE and AF for the next picture, which is probably not what you want.
I like your concept of ‘applied research’. In this case that is dictated by the awful instruction book!
A less kind way of putting it is ‘trial and error’. And I a giving the G1 a mighty trial and, slowly, getting it set up the way I want.
I think the goal of AE lock is to hold the exposure settings across shots. E.g. Taking a series of shots for a panorama. But I agree the behavior of this button is not always obvious. So far, I’ve primarily used it to engage the spot meter (another feature that could use some attention in the manual) when I want to meter something that is not dead center in the frame. I’ve on the verge of declaring the spot meter of dubious use because of the AE lock issues. Have you used it much? Do you find the spot useful?
Mark – for my style of photography with the G1, which is almost exclusively street snaps, I have little use or time for the spot meter which would dictate a meter-recompose cycle which is simply too time consuming for my chosen subjects. I actual use matrix metering (no real idea what it does but it works – probably just marketing gobbledegook for ‘averaging’) and if there is a need to underexpose simply depress and rotate the front dial a couple of clicks.
That’s not a criticism of the G1′s spot metering, more a recognition of the realities of street snapping.
Your point on AE lock for panoramas is well taken – I use the 5D for those and simply set it on manual as the subject tends not to move.