A question about Zebras

[Pete_W]

I am not a regular user of zebras on my LUMIX cameras when doing train photography as I find them distracting in the viewfinder when trying to frame (and quickly reframe) moving trains.

While taking some general landscape/street photos a few days ago in bright conditions I had some instances of blown highlights that were annoying to deal with in post so I thought I should just add zebras to My Menu for quick/easy access in future. And given that the sky is almost always going to show zebra stripes I wanted to set the level to 100% or 105%.

So that's what I did on my S5II. I then went to change my S9 settings to be the same but found that I could only set the zebras at maximum 95%!

I checked the S9 manual (the latest version is from firmware v1.3 even though firmware v1.4 was released last week) and it shows that zebras can be set up to 105%, same as the S5II:



I did some Googling but could not find mention of this anywhere. On this site I found this post from @CharlesH just over a year ago where the photo style can impact the zebra setting limit so I checked my photo style. It is set to 'Standard'.

So I am guessing this must be a bug?

 

[CharlesH]

I don't have my S9 anymore so I can't check this. That said, I never use 105%, but 100% or 95% to leave a little margin, and then I will leave some zebras just showing when I take the picture. I would go with the 95%.

 

[Pete_W]

Thanks Charles.

 

[pdk42]

My strategy is this:

- Set photo style to "Flat"
- Turn zebras on a 105%
- Set camera in A mode
- Assign a dial to exp comp
- Spin the dial until any important highlights show no zebras
- Fix shadows later in PP (assuming shooting in raw)

i never let the sky go to overexposure. If that leaves the shadows too dark, I use an EV bracket.

 

[Jan.Wedekind]

My strategy is this:

- Set photo style to "Flat"

Does that matter when you shoot RAW?