Panasonic ZS3 versus Fuji F70EXR – Round 9 – Snowy Day Revisited

I’ve shot these against each other a few times now, but this time I thought I’d see how well I could shoot them for the mom and pop users who do not like to process their output. This is quite useful for those who want to upload to blogs or facebook with a minimum of fuss.

I started in my front yard … my neighbour has a lovely spruce in his front yard that looks great after some snow. So I like to target that sucker now and again.

These are unedited. Uploaded exactly as the camera shot them for the reasons stated above. Blogger / Picasaweb did the downsizing, so this is totally realistic for those who hate the idea of processing images.

The settings were my standard P mode and EXR DR800 … I post whichever I prefer, and for the Panasonic I generally held to auto with compensation dialed in. Intelligent auto is not smart enough for snow.

ZS3

F70EXR

 

For web sizes, I’d have to call that a tie. The ZS3 image can print a bit bigger, but not as much as you think from the 5mp / 10mp size difference.

After these shots, I drove out to the point, where the wind surfers hang out. It was cold on this day (shot two weeks ago), but the sun was irresistible. Idiot that I can be, I left the ninja underwear at home … duh.

I opened with a comparison of that wonderful willow again.

ZS3

F70EXR

Again, both are perfectly credible here. One thing you might be thinking is that the Panny seems to be having no issue with dynamic range. And I’m thinking the same thing. We’ve seen this in previous rounds as well.

I walked over to the river and saw that there were lunatic wind-surfers out braving the extreme cold wind.

ZS3

F70EXR

Hard to choose there … I used a bit  too much compensation here at –2/3ev … the Fuji used none and handled the snow itself. That would be an advantage for some people for sure. But both images are pretty good anyway.

I happen to love the look of a shoreline … especially when lined with trees.

ZS3

F70EXR

Again, the difference is my extra compensation for the Panny. But both look pretty nice.

How about some grass with shadows across them?

ZS3

F70EXR

That one is again a tie. The images are very similar, with the Panny being a bit darker because of the compensation.

Here’s an action shot that I only captured with the Fuji … it was too fleeting.

I shot one isolation image of a tree growing out of the side of a snow bank … or so it seemed.

ZS3

F70EXR

So for outdoor shots on a sunny day, I really see no important difference between these two. They both handle the scenes well, and that includes dynamic range.

The Fuji’s shadows are more open, so you can give a slight nod there if you like, but I don;t see how anyone would be dissatisfied with what these things turn out. And remember that I have dragged these straight from the explorer, so there are no edits applied at all.