[Rockhounds] shooting dim odd things.

[J. R. Hodel]

Hi Tim,
I also have a Panasonic camera, which has several night-time automatic settings that I enjoy using for snapshots. Mine surely takes multiple exposures on the nighttime settings, and then stacks them up to create a more well exposed shot. The proverbial shooting with available darkness works now, the snapshots of a bar or cave or cat in the dark can appear to be well lit scenes. BUT... not for special purposes.

I think you would be better off to use a manual exposure time setting, which most Panasonic cameras can manage. Experiment with different times from 2 or 3 seconds up to 15 or 20, you will probably need different times for different rocks depending upon how bright they glow. 

The problem with using the automated night time settings is partly that they have preconceived programmed in assumptions about the color balance as it should be. They aren't expecting to see the violent colors of fluorescing minerals that you want to capture and will naturally attempt to capture the lighting on the scene, which is blue...
This is how I have always gone about shooting fluorescent minerals, and it works pretty well. I agree that the white threads and lint are distracting, I do the best I can to clean things up. I agree with the others who recommend a yellow filter, you can even use a tiny bit of duct tape to attach one in front of the camera lens if needed. My Panasonic takes screw in filters, you would just need to measure the diameter of your lens in mm to see what size to buy.

You can also probably adjust the ISO setting for you camera, higher is more sensitive to light, but also introduces more "grain" is the word when you use film, but digitally the term is noise. They look the same, though, a loss of detail and the introduction of spurious pixels. So a little higher is good, too much is not so good. Experimenting is good, one of the best things about digital is that experimenting is nearly free, but for the time invested. Back when I learned this stuff, you spent good money on materials, film and chemicals.
Let me know how it goes.
JR