Two More Special Features in the LUMIX Family - guest post by Bob Coates

Intro by Skip Cohen

Bob Coates is no stranger to guest posts here at SCU. While he's pretty much shot with every type of professional camera in his career, he keeps finding some serious features in the LUMIX family that blend in perfectly with various challenges from different situations/conditions.  And before you say, "Well, he's working for Panasonic as a Luminary," remember that Bob made the jump on his own and was shooting with the GH2 long before he ever met the LUMIX team. Here's a much earlier guest post.

Interested in seeing more of Bob's work, check out his fine art site and follow his new blog. You'll never be disappointed. 

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I was recently hired to help cover the Sedona International Film Festival for the organizers. 

One of the assignments was to grab some images from a live stage performance. There was some grief in the air from a previous performance being disrupted by flash being used and disturbing the audience. I assured the client that would never happen during my capture of a show.

Using built in features of the Lumix cameras makes it possible to be extremely stealthy. I always work toward being low key in capturing images at events. I jumped up in the esteem of the President/Director of the Sedona Film Festival, because of a couple features on the Lumix GH3 and Lumix GX7.

Here's the inside scoop.
 
Feature one - Silent Mode. Being able to turn the camera to perfectly silent mode has been a feature I've always wanted to have and now it's available. I was standing right beside the guy who hired me capturing the scene. When we moved out to the lobby he asked when I was going to get the photos. I told him I already had and showed him some on the back of the camera. He said, "You are amazing! I didn't hear a thing!"
 

 
Feature two - Using the auto bracket on the cameras allows you to capture the large dynamic range of the scene by blending the various exposures together. You have the choice of three, five or seven image brackets in 1/3, 2/3 or full stops at the twist of a button or a quick visit to the menus depending on which camera you are using.
 

Photographing on the go and making a white room with lots of lights look good takes a large dynamic range. This was accomplished by bracketing seven stops and then blending the images together in Adobe Photoshop essentially 'lighting' the scene with the software.

 
I keep finding more and more reasons to choose the Micro 4/3rds system and loving it!