In this second installment of thoughts about the settings for the Panasonic DMC-FZ28 we'll take a look at the camera's main menu system. The are two sets of Menus -- Recording (REC) and SETUP. The Recording menus adjust things like ISO and contrast, that may change from picture to picture and that's what we'll look at in this entry. You access these menus by pressing the Menu/SET button on the back of the camera. The four surrounding buttons are used to navigate the menus.

A couple of notes. This discussion is just about my own feelings about how the controls should be set. It's not a replacement for the camera's printed manual. In this section I'm going to skip items that I don't feel are important, and I'll skip items that are also on the camera's Quick-Access menus, since you're more likely to access them that way.

And a reminder. If you select a new menu option, remember to press the SET button, which does just what it says.

QUALITY - This changes how the picture is stored, including the file type.

- - FINE (JPEG format) - I'm going to bet that 99% of all of the pictures taken with the FZ28 are taken at the FINE setting. It provides the highest quality JPEGs, which are good enough for 99% of all users. If you like to tweak, there are some settings that we'll be coming to that let you squeeze out the last bit of quality from your JPEGs without sacrificing their benefits. FINE is the default setting and the one that I use.

- - RAW (RW2 format) - If you like to raise your own chickens for your eggs, or if you roast, then grind your own coffee beans, Raw shooting is for you. You get to play with the camera sensor's raw data and process it yourself. (Extra points for this if you mention it to people when you show them your pictures.) But you should know that the FZ28 automatically fixes a number of image faults (like distortion and fringing) when you use JPEG. With Raw, you're on your own.

ASPECT RATIO - I leave this at 4:3 (default). It gives the most pixels to work with and you can always crop down to one of the other ratios to suit each individual picture.

ISO LIMIT SET - The Intelligent ISO feature automatically chooses the best ISO setting for each picture situation. This is where you set the upper ISO limit for this feature. I usually set it to 800.

PRE AF - The default is for the lens to focus when you press the shutter button halfway down. If you set this item to Caf, the lens will always be trying to focus, and this can speed things up in a lot of situations.

AF/AE LOCK - This setting controls how the AF/AE LOCK button on the back of the camera works. (Note - Whatever you've locked with this button, it will unlock when you zoom the lens.)

- - AF - Locks the focus when the button is pressed. You can use this to lock the focus to speed the camera's response time when shooting action. There will be less delay when you press the shutter.

- - AE - Locks the current exposure when the button is pressed. This is handy when you're using spot metering. Just move the camera to different parts of the scene until the exposure looks right in the camera's viewfinder. Then press the lock button. Now move the camera to frame the picture.

- - AF/AE - Locks both focus and exposure.

COLOR EFFECT - I normally set this to OFF, but you can use this to set things like B/W (black and white), SEPIA, etc. The B/W setting is helpful when you want to shoot black and white - you can preview the scene in a way that photographers like Edward Weston and Ansel Adams could only dream of.

PICT.ADJ. - The four settings below let you maximize the image quality when shooting JPEGs. The settings I use on the FZ28 are a little different than the ones I used on the FZ18. This is because the FZ28 has improved image quality at high ISO settings, and does a better job of in-camera sharpening and noise reduction.

- - CONTRAST: 0   You can also try -1 or -2 as this will flatten out the tonal range and help with contrasty scenes. You can always pump up the contrast when adjusting things in the computer, but the reverse is not possible.

- - SHARPNESS: +1   Some in-camera sharpening is done. The FZ28 does a much better job of in-camera sharpening than the FZ18, so I let the camera do its thing. Setting sharpness to a negative number will actually add softness to the image.

- - Saturation: 0   You can set this to a higher number if you like more vivid colors. Certainly worth experimenting with.

- - NOISE REDUCTION: -1   On the FZ-18, I set this to -2. On the FZ28, the camera does a much better job of noise reduction and I found that -1 gave the best effect over a range of ISOs from 100 to 800. That's the range I use with the Intelligent ISO feature.

MIN. SHTR SPEED - If you use the Intelligent ISO feature, which sets the ISO for you, this menu item does not apply. If you manually set the ISO, this menu item sets the longest allowed shutter speed. The default is 1/8 sec. I set this to the maximum of 1 second.

AF ASSIST LAMP - I set this to OFF. It's really annoying when you're shooting in some dark place and this bright red light suddenly comes on.

CLOCK SET - Don't forget to check the camera's clock every once in a while. The time and date info stored with each photograph can come in handy. And don't forget to set it when switching to or from Daylight Saving Time.

In a future post, we'll take a look at the SETUP section of the DMC-FZ28's main menu system.

Meanwhile, here's some more pictures from my DMC-FZ28.