One inch sensor cameras

bykfixer

Flashaholic
Joined
Aug 9, 2015
Messages
20,348
Location
Dust in the Wind
Here in 2020 the cel phone cam seems to have taken over the world of photography, and for good reason. They're actually pretty good at producing everyday, general life photos like the vast majority of the camera market desires. Mix that with a hand held computer that makes phone calls and it is no surprise how popular they are.

Now just a few short years ago the world of cameras was evolving so quickly and decent gear was priced so well that everywhere you looked was people carrying SLR cameras. I'm kinda glad the celphone cam took over actually. For us hobbyists it now means we can enjoy our nice gear for more than a weekend before Canon, Nikon or Sony sends out the next big thing that made our next big thing obsolete.

With celphone cams dominating it meant camera sales went flat faster than an ice cube melts on an Arizona summer day. The makers had to get smart to keep from going belly up. Go Pro entered the market and grabbed even more remaining market share. The fabled point and shoot seemed to be going the way of the Brontosaurus……extinct. Somebody said "Houston, we've got a problem". The SLR sales were flat, be it mirrored or the compact mirrorless. And point n shoot was on life support. Yet there remained a market still willing to plunk down between $500 and $1000 for a full function point and shoot sized camera.

Around 2008 or so the digital camera had gotten pretty close to creating film like pictures and point n shoot cameras could be had that did a lot of things an SLR could do. Pictures were nowhere near as good but to the hobbyist it was a great trade off to carrying 10 pounds of gear. Yet the big camera companies saw big dollars in SLR and largely focused on those while turning the point n shoot into basic automatic featureless predessecors of the cel cam. Many hobbyists sighed as the travel cam became more and more auto this, no frills gadgets that could do everything but start your car on a cold morning or……take good photos. But then came the 1 inch sensor. They are not as large as an APC sensor on your SLR camera, but a heck of a lot bigger than an iPhone sensor. And with a sweet spot of 20 or so megapixels a lot of info could be packed into each photo site. Not over crowded like a small sensor either.

Now with a market still willing to shell out $500 or more the camera companies went backwards in time and began producing nearly full featured point n shoot cameras again. Cameras with near full 35mm sensors, all those point n shoot whizz kid features and pretty good lenses to boot. So finally in 2016 the hobbyist setting on the sidelines has something to get excited about. Now the only question is will those full featured point n shoot numbers with jumbo sensors take good photos?

I jumped in the pool yesterday with a mid price one by Panasonic. I've always liked the photos from Panasonic point n shoot along with their digi-cams, which are fixed lens numbers with SLR characteristics.

BEA94-C38-C335-4-AFC-BC7-E-04978-B82-D2-AB.jpg

The Lumix DMC ZS 100 is a merge between a point n shoot and a digi-cam with a 1" sensor. After a few initial photos in a sundown lit setting I learned what it won't do. And that is produce ultra crisp crops like my SLR cameras. Today I begin a journey on what it will do.



Anybody with 1" sensors please chime in and share your thoughts. Happy snapping.
 
Last edited:

bykfixer

Flashaholic
Joined
Aug 9, 2015
Messages
20,348
Location
Dust in the Wind
Right now I'm still getting to know the camera and so far photos have pretty much been pictures of dull and lifeless subjects while I get used to its strengths and weaknesses. A fence post with a big truck on the other side to see how to tweak some bokah with depth of field tricks since closes the aperature long before zooming in very far. Like 2.8 at 25mm, 4.0 at 50mm and all the way down to a 5+ at 200+ mm.

I'm also checking how it handles a scene such as under a shade tree with a bright sky in the frame. How well does it do with getting shadowy areas correct without blowing out a mid day sky.

Plus it has been a few years since I was interested in taking photos of scenery so my brain has to relearn how to spot good pictures again. Something beyond my usual photo journalism of a giant Tonka toy loading a dump truck or some kind of photo of a Road Closed sign.
 

SCEMan

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Nov 6, 2005
Messages
1,872
Location
Treasure Valley, Idaho
I picked up a Sony RX100 1" sensor camera in 2015 for an upcoming Med cruise to get quality images w/o having to lug my heavy bridge camera everywhere. It worked out great, capturing wonderful photos especially in low light scenes. It's still my travel camera, like having a DSLR in your pocket.
 

louie

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Aug 31, 2002
Messages
1,101
Location
Seattle
I used a Canon S95 (10MP) compact for many years, and it worked so well I wanted to upgrade, and went with a Canon G7X mkII a few years ago.

TBH, it's been a bit of a disappointment. Just taking general point-n-shoots, sometimes with minor exposure correction, white balance, some macro, and the like, I think I got more, better, faster general photos with the S95, despite the doubling of pixels. I'm still experimenting with settings. Canon now has a G7X mkIII.

Note also that 1 inch sensor cameras have an actual image sensor size of 13.2 x 8.8mm, and the 1 inch comes from some equivalent video specification. Nowhere near a 35mm full frame.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_sensor_format#Table_of_sensor_formats_and_sizes
 

bykfixer

Flashaholic
Joined
Aug 9, 2015
Messages
20,348
Location
Dust in the Wind
Thanks for clarifying the sensor size louie!! Changed my words above accordingly.

Edit:
This little camera does all kinds of things I will probably never use. After a few days I am now learning what questions to even ask such as how to assign a frequently used setting to a fn button. ISO was first on my list being I use apperature priority mode (for now) and would like to quicken shutter speeds at times. Wifi to my phone? Eh, I could learn to like that. That is if the Panasonic app is any good at that.

My first custom setting was to keep the playback display of a just taken photo on a lot longer. I prefer at least 10 seconds but it maxes out at 5. There is a "hold" that keeps showing last picture taken until you half press the shutter button. I chose that one.

Some reviewers complained the the eye piece dipolar adjustment moves too easy. Yup, it does. It does have positive clicks but I find myself having to adjust it nearly every time. Strange. I do like how you can turn the monitor off completely and make it like a film camera, but half the fun of a touchscreen digital is gone if you do that. Great for discreet shooting though, like a private eye would use.

Another reviewer complaint was the grip area lacks………grip. Not even any knurling on the matte finished body. I keep the wrist strap at the top of the bag and stick two fingers through that before even pulling the camera from the little case. I can see a small piece of leather or something glued to the grip area in the future. I use wrist straps religiously, even on my big SLR's so it's no biggy to me but geez Panasonic, c'mon man.

I'm learning how to adapt my style to what this thing will do while learning what it won't do. Looking at various scenery photos I'm impressed overall. I had a situation today where a pair of cardinals popped up about 25 yards away and were doing male/female cardinal rituals. Now having an SLR in my truck I opted for the portable knowing I pack the SLR away with a short street lens, battery out. So by the time I swapped lenses, popped in the battery, aimed at the scene the birds would be long gone. Instead I grabbed the portable, hit the on switch, zoomed in a bit and snapped a decent photo through my windshield. So that right there made it worth the coin to me. I was eating lunch and not thinking of taking photos but in about 3 seconds was able to snap a half way decent photo even though I was completely unprepared.
 
Last edited:

bykfixer

Flashaholic
Joined
Aug 9, 2015
Messages
20,348
Location
Dust in the Wind
After a few days I ended up with a few pix to share. Each was a test to see either how the Panasonic ZS 100 handles huge contrasts.

0857-C9-B6-0-BBF-49-C5-AF30-C12-F4-E7-AB9-EF.jpg

The mailbox pic where to the right was shade and to the left mid day bright.

5-F1-FC763-07-B3-42-F0-BACA-305-B105-B9795.jpg

The cinder was just a random still life thing I thought was kinda cool and it handled the shade real well.

270-B854-F-763-B-4-C80-B6-AF-C6-E40658854-C.jpg

The electric transformer pic was again just some random thing about 100 feet away that an iso boost helped quicken the shutter speed enough to get a pretty sharp hand held photo zoomed in all the way.

260480-C3-FAD4-41-FF-BD48-34-A2-F13-A5-B51.jpg

The green leafy stuff was to see how it would handle some over blown bright spots and still capture other items. As in it looked pretty close to what my brain saw.

BC68-E77-D-CA73-46-DB-920-D-8-E46222-ED0-B1.jpg

Finally the car/grass seed heads was a depth of field experiment to see how close the blur would begin.
 

bykfixer

Flashaholic
Joined
Aug 9, 2015
Messages
20,348
Location
Dust in the Wind
The photos are pix from my asus tablet reduced to 800 res for posting here.
For whatever reason my Windows 10 and IOS 13 refuse to talk to one another so I just snap a photo of my tablet screen with my iPhone. Now Mrs Fixers Windows 10 and IOS communicate perfectly. I'm thinking I turned something off on my phone somewhere along the way to thwart intrusion and somehow it affects the pix transfer process. My phone won't let the camera in either.
It lets stuff out but not in.

Anyway, overall the Panasonic is doing exactly what I'd hoped it would.
 

SCEMan

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Nov 6, 2005
Messages
1,872
Location
Treasure Valley, Idaho
Glad the camera is working out for you. Always hard to view images across different monitors but overall everything looks well exposed for the varying conditions. I find I need to do some digital darkroom work to get the most from some shots, but fortunately my camera captures all the information I need to accomplish this.
 

bykfixer

Flashaholic
Joined
Aug 9, 2015
Messages
20,348
Location
Dust in the Wind
I played around with EV for several photos of the same spot in my den, then ISO and compared. In daylight the EV of -1.0 and ISO of 200 was the charm.

In my home after sundown EV goes back to 1/3 and ISO gets bumped up to 800.

The camera will shoot in RAW but for now I'm shooting jpegs.

At some point I'll see how the Panasonic will print because my SLR cameras print things using non-calibrated equipment way too dark where point n shoots always printed well on any old setup. I did figure out how to adjust Gamma using Windows 7 to get decent prints from SLR cameras using my work laptop. Decent for Power Point presentations and low res prints for hard copies. I haaaaaaaaate having to tailor photos on a computer but to get that extra special something sometimes you just have to.

My wife did a wedding where the brides white dress was baby blue from the lighting. Ugh! Every photo had to be tweaked. And some of the photos were blue on one side with the other side orange from being near a window at sundown. Those were tough to get right. Thankfully she had shot in RAW.

So for basic photos that may end up 8x10 prints the ZS 100 aint bad.
 

bykfixer

Flashaholic
Joined
Aug 9, 2015
Messages
20,348
Location
Dust in the Wind
Yesterday at sundown Mrs Fixer went outside to feed the skeeters and take a few pictures. Her armed with a new Gro Pro 8 and me with the ZS 100. Colors are much nicer with digital photos taken while the sun sets just over the horizon. I did my usual aperature priority mode and adjusted iso to quicken shutter speed since the small-ish openings prompted by the lens at practically any zoom cause shutter speeds that (in my quaking hands) gives blurry results even at a 1/25th second. At sunset using iso 200 with f8 it would prompt 1/6th or slower. At iso 800 it would shoot 1/25th. But I chose not to go above 800.

Now as it got dimmer I used "intelegent Auto" to see how it would handle things and compare to my settings. It chose iso of 1600 and 3200 nearly everytime, which really quickened the shutter speeds. Today I will compare them on a laptop for noise but looking at my viewfinder for sharpness it was beating the pants off my settings. I like having a monopod hooked to a camera even for walk around shots but it is not practical for insta-pix scenarios which is why I bought an adjustable point n shoot. So if boosting iso provides good results I'm sold.

Years ago iso above 250 spelled disaster for noise. 800 was ok for bright light pix. But I'm talking 2008 to 2012 technology. My old Nikon D700 does a phenominal job at processing noise free photos at 1600 so I'm hoping this 2016-ish tech is the same. When I turned the camera on the first time to set the date it thought it was Sept 1 2018 so I figure that was the born on date.
 

bykfixer

Flashaholic
Joined
Aug 9, 2015
Messages
20,348
Location
Dust in the Wind
So now that I have found my sweet spot for iso is 400 instead of 200 there are times in really bright conditions the max shutter speed of 1/2000th requires the iso to be dialed back as far as 125 to avoid over exposure. But having programmed the fn2 button to bring up iso and having a dial just above and to the right of that makes adjusting iso a snap.

FA9745-F7-2-D88-45-CB-982-F-B2-CA2-FEA1-B67.jpg

fn2 button was the one I won't use in factory mode.

So far nearly all photos have been in daylight or incan from a table lamp in my den so I've yet to try white balance tricks. I haven't needed to. At least not yet due to a pretty acurate camera. However I do plan at some point to find a scene with mixed lighting and see how it handles that because that can be pretty hard to get right.

In the meantime I found that in macro mode the camera cannot seem to decide what to focus on. So I tried macro-zoom and love that setting. It can zoom up to 75mm and focuses on exactly where I want it to while at 75mm I get to keep some distance too. Not like my Nokor 150 manual focus macro lens mind you, but certainly better than my 60mm lens. All with a couple of button pushes. The macros are nowhere near as crisp as those from an SLR lens but something worthy of an 8x10 print is easily obtained.

ABA21448-89-CE-4-E27-BC81-9-BB19-D1-BCBA8.jpg

A bit of e-dark-room can clean this up nicely.

A80-A807-A-10-D3-4-B33-BED8-4-D39-E287-B99-F.jpg

Zoomed in about 50% on the camera screen.
It's one of 5 little daisys in the photo. Zoomed in shows using handheld it aint crisp like an SLR macro shot from a rock steady tripod.


Yeah I miss pulling out the full sized gear but getting some spur of the moment keepers is starting to cause my urge to carry 10 pounds of gear around really wane during the mid day July heat. Eh, it'll do.
 
Last edited:

bykfixer

Flashaholic
Joined
Aug 9, 2015
Messages
20,348
Location
Dust in the Wind
Last evening after a thunderstorm the sunset had some glorious colors. Before turning on any lights in the den the ambient lighting changed everything to a wonderful shade of red much like fall sunsets. But being July it seemed to take longer to go dark. Having not taken a sunset photo in over a decade beyond an occasional celcam pic I thought I'd try the new 1" sensor'd cam. I used to take all kinds of sunset photos in the early 2000's. Many with film turned out great. Did they match what I saw? I dunno since the film had to be developed. But with digital you can hold the screen up next to the real thing and compare instantly. I noticed none could match the real thing no matter what adjustments I made. My old Panasonic FZ8 (circa 2007) was probably the best digital camera at producing life like sunset pix that I had ever owned. Trouble was shooting in RAW is was sloooooooow! Slow focus also plagued it in less than daylight settings. And noise was a problem for anything larger than 5x7" prints, even post processing. I learned the detail was also a problem. As my gear got more advanced my sunset pictures sucked. Those smart sensors just got dumber it seemed.

After a while I just stopped trying. It was refreshing to just enjoy cool sights and not try to capture it on a digital sensor. To just enjoy a sunset while others snapped away, or to watch a bee collect nector and not "fight" my camera for that perfect photo was refreshing. Heck, until yesterday I had forgotten to even try. But while my den glowed red I thought, why not? And at first it was more of the same. My eyes saw a nice red sky while my camera screen showed yellow. Not even orange. Yellow! Ridiculous!! I tweaked this and changed that only to see more of the same. But then I noticed my EV goes to +4 and -4. Lets try -3…… and as it turned out -2 and 2/3 was near magic.

Where red turned to purple, then blue was spot on. Fringes were great. But a defined edge of orange to blue was still an issue where the light blue was still over exposed. The crisp edge between light orange and light blue was washed out in favor of an orange. At -3.0 it was too dark. At -2 and 1/3 was too bright. It was close at -2 and 2/3. Probably the closest to what I saw since my old Pansasonic FZ8. Shooting iso 800 provided a nice quick shutter speed where hand held wasn't bad. Bracing the camera on a solid object was much better so it looks like a monopod will go with the camera.

I think with a bit of e-dark room I can get the keepers much better, but I'm pretty sure that washed edge is what it is. So the exhilaration of those glorious color mixtures will have to remain inprinted on my brains photo sensor but I was able to get some pretty good looking colors from the camera. Of course the texture details in the clouds didn't pop either but over all I was pretty happy with the results and the mosqitoes were well fed too.


4-A11-D00-A-ADAB-42-A4-83-B6-D5-F880-BADFD0.jpg

What the camera wanted to show at -1.0 EV.
Uh, not even close.

AC1-CF6-C0-6-CA2-4-EB3-9-AEC-B6-AFC987-C4-D3.jpg
At -2 and 1/3 was pretty close.
The bottom center was washed out but getting close.

4-EE38-AD3-3-DEC-4-B34-B58-F-D086-D002285-C.jpg

At -2 and 2/3 was the sweet spot.
Still not exactly what I could see, color-wise but not bad.
In the bottom center the very bottom below the stripe was a baby blue.
Other than that it was pretty close to what I saw in real life.

Keep in mind these were hand held iso 200 with a shutter speed of 1/60th, which in my hands means blurry photos.
Also note the battery meter still shows full after 100 or so photos since charged. Not bad. I got to 300 before it was down to 1 bar so it seems to be a sipper even though I zoom a lot, view photos a lot and use the electronic viewfinder about 50% of the time. According to Panasonic you get less photos per charge using the electronic view finder.

Another thing I like is the near 100% what you see on the screen or viewfinder is what you get photo wise. Much more predictable than my Nikons that show 95-97%.
 
Last edited:

bykfixer

Flashaholic
Joined
Aug 9, 2015
Messages
20,348
Location
Dust in the Wind
One of the chief complaints about the Panasonic TS100 was the smooth outter shell on the right side grip area. Now I keep a wrist strap on so dropping it won't be a problem but it could certainly use more grip there. Previous models had a leather grip pad. Why they did away with a good idea is a $64k question. Cost of production? Looks? Who knows but the new way leaves a lot to be desired.

Well I decided to add some grip via water proof medical tape. Just cut strips to fit and apply. But it's white and looks "home made" so I used a sharpie to stain the tape for a more factory look. I was pleased with the way it grips and how it looks.

6-AE4-FE4-F-BC51-4-BC9-9-FDB-FCFA6-ED43-A0-D.jpg

Before the sharpie it was kinda ugly.
I thought the white tape may compliment the lettering on the camera but it didn't.

3108-C4-A5-2-D01-44-FB-8-A98-18-E8-F0-DAFCED.jpg

A small swatch on the rear where your thumb rests.

BCFA3945-A0-AF-439-A-A700-A5-CD6-C364138.jpg

After the sharpie it looks factory up close and is near invisible at a distance.

214-F09-BE-FFE1-4-C4-B-AF59-231-B45551528.jpg

Rear swatch is hard to spot too.

I'll color it one more time after the ink soaks in for a little while.
It's a totally reversable way to add grip to a point and shoot camera that has slippery areas.
 
Last edited:

SCEMan

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Nov 6, 2005
Messages
1,872
Location
Treasure Valley, Idaho
You might try searching for a grip adaptor made for your camera. I added one to my RX100 years ago and its made a big improvement in gripability. I also added a piece of "camera leather" to the top of the flash unit where my index finger rests when shooting two handed. You can do a search for "camera leather" and hopefully find sources for textured self-adhesive material if you'd like an alternative to your mods. I've also used spare handgun grip tape for the same effect.

NbBNe7Bl.jpg


I also added a filter adaptor to mount a CP-L when I'm shooting around water or reflective areas.
 

bykfixer

Flashaholic
Joined
Aug 9, 2015
Messages
20,348
Location
Dust in the Wind
Yesterday the camera passed to 500 photos taken mark. Time to decide which to keep and format the card. Now it has a 32gb card so capacity wasn't the issue. I bought the card(s) for the 130mb/s potential for less than 16gb that write up 85 mb/s where the camera came from. Anyway most of the photos were experiments so a year from now when scrolling through the roll I'd be like "well that sucks, why did I keep that dud?" so I kept about 20 all told.

Oh and I scored a "lightning SD card" reader adapter for transfering photos straight to the iPhone without a laptop in between. $32 but worth it. It transferred all 500 photos to my phone in seconds. About 45 seconds. Wow!! I deleted the folder after but it was cool to learn the potential. So with the ability to edit pix in camera combined with quick transfer to phone (and potentially edit there) that is a very handy thing to have. Also handy are little 99 cent ear bud cases to hold things like spare memory cards or charger cord/plug without over stuffing a small camera bag. Just use a mini carabiner to quick connect or detach those spare accessory holders.

0312-B99-E-4803-41-A8-9-A86-02-ACA6691-AA8.jpg

Blue for lightning as in electrical stuff, black for extra cards in this case.

I picked up an inexpensive monopod during a weekly trip inside a mega mart where Mrs Fixer and I walk around the perimeter once a week. I miss the quick coupling block like my SLR's have but figure I've already saved a minute or two between using a P&S over setting up the SLR for a scene so a few seconds to twist the camera onto a monopod is no biggy. But I do miss the swivel head of my full sized monopod for taking portrait orientation(s). Tradeoffs are required when going portable. At least for now.

The other day I put the fps ability to the test. Standing by the side of the road at about a 45 degree angle I waited for a semi to pass an object and pushed the shutter as rapidly as I could and got 9 photos with all or a portion of the vehicle in the frame. Considering it was going about 45mph I consider that pretty good. My giant Nikons can't do that. Perhaps the modern card plays a role? My old "raw steel" brand cards max out at like 25mb/s and I shoot RAW with them.

So once I figured out what it won't do I'm now enjoying discovering what it will do. I've also discovered that it provides better photos at around aperature 5-7 than 2.8 to 5 so I just use aperature priority and adjust iso to quicken the shutter speed since the noise flattening features (ie detail softener) aren't really needed until 1600 or more. Up to 800 are pretty crisp considering. And bokeh is pretty close to same between 2.8 and 7 with the TS100. Not enough difference to really play a role anyway. So all of those dud pictures taught me about its limitations so I can now set about enjoying its abilities.
 

SCEMan

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Nov 6, 2005
Messages
1,872
Location
Treasure Valley, Idaho
Looks like you're getting your setup well tested. Always a steep learning curve with feature laden cameras. The beauty of these high-quality compact cameras is their pocketability. Depending on my clothing and the weather, most of the time I carry it in my front pocket or clipped with a carabiner to my belt loop in an Ape Case. I also have a small pocket case containing spare batts, cards and a CP-L. Just be sure to use compressed air periodically to remove lint, etc. that collects everywhere.

Nice tip on the lightning SD card" reader adapter. I just snagged one on Amazon.
 

bykfixer

Flashaholic
Joined
Aug 9, 2015
Messages
20,348
Location
Dust in the Wind
A couple of years ago I was working out of a hotel room and each day carried a days supply of food, drink, phones and other stuff so every day I wore a vest in and out of my room. Yet in summer a spring/fall weight vest is real hot in summer.

Enter the pigeon hunters vest. Some call it dove hunter vest. Either way it is a light weight, very open mesh garment with large pockets that holds phones, flashlights, my camera and still has room for other small stuff.

920-F1689-7352-43-F3-A94-C-FA3303-A12-C01.jpg

Now that my P&S is a mini max the bag still fits in the over sized pockets.
It's much cooler than a fly fisher or journalists vest too.
The one in the photo was less than $15 at a mega mart store.

My coworkers sometimes ask "why do you wear a vest in summer?" and when I show them all the stuff I carry hands free they nod in understanding. "I see" lol. They are the first to say "got a knife I can borrow?" "got a flashlight?", "can I borrow a thumb drive?" etc.
 
Last edited:
Top