Canada, huh? Nice. I just rented one to save my vacation. Now here I am with a bunch of pictures but no camera.
I watched ypur video a couple of times and I certainly see the problem. However, I can't test it at the moment obviously. I never had the need to raise my ISO above 200, and I didn't take any video of lights because I was trying to figure out how to take photographs. This whole vacation was about photographs. I shot some photographs of fireworks, figuring I already knew how to shoot video. As such, I spent a lot of time taking pictures with shutter speeds of one second or more. That would not be good for blinking lights though.
If you have the opportunity to set up a string of blinking lights yourself, try a few different settings. First of all, I would normally move to 1/60 shutter speed when shooting 30p. Start close, perhaps using a Prime, and move farther and farther away and see if the problem has a sweet spot. Try different ISO settings. If you don't have a prime, just set your lens to a little above the lowest focal length or just below the shortest. Depending on the lens, I am told that the extreme ends of the lens are possibly a little softer. Also avoid the extreme ends of the f stop. You shot at f5.6 which may have been as low as you could go. Stop it down one and see what happens.
What lens did you use, and what focal length? Did you have a UV filter on the lens? (Probably a bad idea for lights but SOP for many photographers I am told.) Or, maybe a Polarizing filter?
Did you have the camera on full auto aperture and focus, or just focus, or full manual. I found myself on full manual everything by the end of the second day of my vacation. I just couldn't get proper focus in the dark without adjusting it myself. And since it was not a particularly sunny vacation, I found shooting in the dark to be more interesting than shooting in daylight.
I hate trying to look for user error, but I find it hard to believe that Panasonic would allow a problem that bad to sneak through. Or rather, I really hope it isn't a problem with the camera. Maybe you can figure it out for all of us?
Here are a couple of pictures in the dark. The fireworks started before I could get to where I wanted to be. So for fun, I tried to center a giant palm tree in the center of the fireworks display. I have a whole series of rocks in the ocean, under the moonlight, with the shutter open for 5 seconds. They look magical, mystical, and almost other wordly to me. I am now in love with this particular art form. You really need to see the whole series to get the full effect, but here is one of them.
Note to moderators. Please do not move this to the lounge. The first three posts will continue to be relevant for a lot of people over time.
