Metering
In-camera JPEG images can lack fine detail, although more detail can be extracted from raw files, as shown in this ISO 400 image of a blue tit
I was fortunate to be able to test the Panasonic Lumix DMC-G3 in a variety of lighting conditions, including a 5am trip to a nature reserve. On the whole, there were few surprises created by the camera’s 144-zone evaluative metering mode. Most images were well exposed with only slight adjustments needed to the exposure compensation to produce better print-ready images. When taking landscape images, it has a tendency to underexpose photographs by up to 1EV, presumably to keep highlight detail in bright skies. However, smaller highlights are not compensated for.
When photographing birds with white details, I generally had to set the exposure compensation to -0.7EV to prevent burnt-out highlights and a loss of detail. This created quite dark images, but I could correct the raw files without introducing too much noise. Switching to centreweighted metering and framing the wildlife subject accordingly helped produce better exposures that took into account the brighter highlights created by white feathers.
Documentary-style street photographs proved no problem for the G3’s metering system, and clearly this is where the camera excels. The evaluative metering worked well and can be relied upon to produce accurate exposures when you need to point and shoot quickly.
