Minimising lense distortion

[Fat Tone]

I have to take a full-frame picture of something the size of a rectangular tea-tray (somewhere between A2 and A1 paper sizes) and print it at full size. It is critical that the resultant print does not have any geometric distortion.

My camera for this is a Panasonic Lumix TZ65, which has a 12x optical zoom and a 25mm equiv wide angle. the lense is marked LEICA DC VARIO-ELMAR 1:3.3-4.9 / 4.1-49.2 ASPH.

What is likely to be the best zoom setting to fill the frame and have least distortion?

Thanks

T.

[VJ]

That really depends on the lens... For sure it would not be one of the extreme settings... And if you don't need the full resolution of your camera, use only the center part of the lens (distortion is worse at the edges).

But also the type of distortion can vary: most likely you'll have barrel distortion on one side (wideangle) and pincushion distortion on the other side... I couldn't find a review that comments much on the lens though.

You could make a picture of a grid to better see what the distortion is and ho to correct it.

Maybe more important than the amount of distortion is the type and how uniform it is: both barrel and pincushion distortions are quite easily solved in post processing. From reviews, I know my Nikon 24-85 f/2.8-4 exhibits a more difficult type of distortion on a full frame camera, and that one is more difficult to correct than distortions that may appear worse.

Hope this helps somewhat...

[Fat Tone]

Thanks VJ, it does help.
Did the photography last night and the limiting factor was lighting. I obviously couldn't use flash and still needed to have it under the best light. I ended up using a small amount of zoom and holding the camera about 4 feet away. I have a little bit of barrel distortion but as you say I can fix that in PS.

Cheers

T.