p.3 #1 · New article - Why shoot RAW - The real answer
Bifurcator wrote:
Yeah, I don't know what cameras are as good, better, or worse than something like Capture One Pro for example. You say the Leica isn't very good at it huh? That's interesting.
The Leica M8 has far to much compression (read: destruction) in their "in camera" JPEG's...so if your a JPEG only shooter i would not recommend M8/2...don't know about the M9 though?
p.3 #2 · New article - Why shoot RAW - The real answer
brainiac wrote:
Shooting raw has hurt my business because it has dramatically prolonged the wait. What used to take a few hours now takes days. That turns my customers off. These days my workflow involves delivering jpegs from the raw files with no alteration, but keeping the raws anyway. But the volume of data is out of control. 4000 21 Mpixel raws from one job is affordable in terms of disc space, but unmanageable in terms of access to all the material. I am constantly under my desk shuffling RAIDS. Something has to give. I remember with great affection the days of only shooting JPEG. The example given in the article is just heavily underexposed. You couldn't do that with slide film, so why expect to get away with it now? There are still plenty of applications where JPEG is more than adequate and more efficient....Show more →
I regularly shoot 4000+ 21 MP images on a single job (RAW + sjpeg) but I only load the jpegs into Lr for initial culling & basic PP to allow me to get a gallery up on my site fairly quickly. I only load the RAW's once an image is sold & I need a print. However, so many images are only printed at 8x12" or smaller that I'm sure a jpeg would deliver a good enough file.
p.3 #3 · New article - Why shoot RAW - The real answer
atufte wrote:
[The Leica M8 has far to much compression (read: destruction) in their "in camera" JPEG's...so if your a JPEG only shooter i would not recommend M8/2...don't know about the M9 though?
I would guess it uses the same processing engine. That's only a guess though. A quick search could find that out.
I set my camera to JPEG + RAW and set the JPEG size to 1600 x 1200 out of habit from back when not every application could show the RAW thumbs and previews. I guess I should stop doing that as I never open them and the RAW icons/previews show up now in everything I've used throughout 2009.
Feb 08, 2010 at 04:35 AM
brainiac Offline [X]
p.3 #4 · New article - Why shoot RAW - The real answer
pascal03 wrote:
I ask this only out of curiousity.... but why 4000 images from one job. Did you shoot the same when shooting with film - pre-digital days?
Why do dogs lick their balls? Because they can ;-)
The cost per frame has dramatically decreased since film. I try to produce the best pictures I can, but also as many good pictures as I can. If it were your wedding, you might be pleased that I gave you 1500 images. They are for your memories, not winning awards. I'm not the sort of event photographer who only shoots the beautiful people and goes home at 10pm. I want to provide good VFM, so I work hard.
p.3 #5 · New article - Why shoot RAW - The real answer
brainiac wrote:
Why do dogs lick their balls? Because they can ;-)
Dont give up on that yoga, one day you'll get there too (j/k)
brainiac wrote:
The cost per frame has dramatically decreased since film.
There's a break even point and clearly you're way past it at 4,000 photos a day, so yeah it has for you. But for the average amateur who shoots 4,000 frames a year and constantly replaces his "superseded" Dxxx for the new Dxxx+1 wundercamera (plus memory cards and GBs) maybe its not the case? That Dxxx+1 translates to a lot of film. Gary Winogrand had the same camera for 40 years. Ditto Gary Stochl. Cant do that with digital...
Feb 08, 2010 at 06:47 AM
brainiac Offline [X]
p.3 #6 · New article - Why shoot RAW - The real answer
Spyro P. wrote:
Dont give up on that yoga, one day you'll get there too (j/k)
Luckily I have someone to do it for me ;-)
Feb 08, 2010 at 07:21 AM
brainiac Offline [X]
p.3 #7 · New article - Why shoot RAW - The real answer
Spyro P. wrote:
Gary Winogrand had the same camera for 40 years. Ditto Gary Stochl. Cant do that with digital...
p.3 #8 · New article - Why shoot RAW - The real answer
brainiac wrote:
Luckily I have someone to do it for me ;-)
No dogs involved I hope
Anyway I had a look at your website the other day and it does look like a lot of hard work but its a very clever business and very well set up. I'd def hire you if I was in England, well done
brainiac wrote:
They are for your memories, not winning awards.
p.3 #11 · New article - Why shoot RAW - The real answer
i like comparing it to film- when i sho0t film, it has always been daylight balaced, and i (for most of my film shooting life) have had no access to fancy darkroom stuff. I don't nor have i ever worried about Grad ND's or anything fancy like that. I just work on getting the shot as best as i can, the first time i fire the shutter. If i can't get a good file in the field, i often would not be able to do much better with RAW, at least not in a fashion that i would like the results.
Therefore, when i shoot JPG's on my D700, i still have more control over the file than if i had shot it on film- AND i have a better file than i could afford to get out of even half the volume of film i shoot, due to the prohibitively expensive nature of (proper) scanning.
To me, and i think most other non-RAW shooters, it is just a waste of time to bother with RAW.
Feb 08, 2010 at 09:51 AM
brainiac Offline [X]
p.3 #12 · New article - Why shoot RAW - The real answer
ISO1600 wrote:
i like comparing it to film- when i sho0t film, it has always been daylight balaced, and i (for most of my film shooting life) have had no access to fancy darkroom stuff. I don't nor have i ever worried about Grad ND's or anything fancy like that. I just work on getting the shot as best as i can, the first time i fire the shutter. If i can't get a good file in the field, i often would not be able to do much better with RAW, at least not in a fashion that i would like the results.
Therefore, when i shoot JPG's on my D700, i still have more control over the file than if i had shot it on film- AND i have a better file than i could afford to get out of even half the volume of film i shoot, due to the prohibitively expensive nature of (proper) scanning.
To me, and i think most other non-RAW shooters, it is just a waste of time to bother with RAW....Show more →
Good on you. There is a little too much raw snobbery around here. Raws are only one way of getting a good job done. Now, gods, stand up for jpeg shooters!
p.3 #13 · New article - Why shoot RAW - The real answer
A few things:
1. The amount of DR in a JPEG depends on the contrast curve of the JPEG, not the bit depth. For example there's a good stop of difference in DR between a Vivid and a Neutral JPEG from a modern Nikon body. As a general rule, in-camera JPEG's have around 1-2 stops less DR than there is in the RAW file, but this is not always the case and solely due to design choices made when specifying the JPEG settings, for example many Olympus bodies can get essentially the full DR of the sensor into the JPEG when set to Neutral. Note this also applies at RAW conversion, when you increase contrast, you're throwing away DR.
2. The ability to recover highlights from RAW which are lost in JPEG is mostly unrelated to bit depth. A linear analog-digital converter resolves most of its data in the upper ranges of its dynamic range. When the gamma curve is applied at conversion, you fundamentally throw away a massive amount of luminance data near the white clipping point. Highlight recovery pulls this data downwards in the range so it can be used rather than being ignored. Note that the same inability to recover highlight data exists (to a smaller extent) if you're producing 16 bit tiffs rather than 8 bit JPEGs. The difference is fundamentally between linear data and data with a gamma curve applied. You get a little more room to manipulate with 16bit data even after the gamma curve, but not nearly as much as you can before you apply the gamma curve to the data at final conversion.
3. As to matching in-camera and in-post JPEG's, the real answer is 'it depends'. If you're using a Nikon and CaptureNX or a Canon and DPP, the answer is yes, you can get identical JPEG's out of post as you get in-camera (And with the Nikon, you can save your favourite CaptureNX presets and use them in-camera, I'm not sure if Canon allows this). Sony may do this with IDC as well. Other makers and 3rd party converters do not, but usually you can get pretty close. Some cameras just have awful JPEG output (older Pentax's, non-Panny derived Leica's).
p.3 #14 · New article - Why shoot RAW - The real answer
4000 21 Mpixel raws from one job is affordable in terms of disc space, but unmanageable in terms of access to all the material.
Far from me to criticise the way you do your business, but my first thought on reading this was that maybe some serious, read savage, culling and editing is required.
Feb 08, 2010 at 11:16 AM
brainiac Offline [X]
p.3 #15 · New article - Why shoot RAW - The real answer
wolfloid wrote:
Far from me to criticise the way you do your business, but my first thought on reading this was that maybe some serious, read savage, culling and editing is required.
I will find the time to do that by ceasing to post on FM ;-)
p.3 #16 · New article - Why shoot RAW - The real answer
there are at least two definitions of dynamic range. you have chosen one.
Herb...
mawz wrote:
RAW does NOT necessarily provide more Dynamic Range. It depends strongly on the camera used and the JPEG profile chosen. What the extra bit depth of RAW provides is finer resolution of the dynamic range, which primarily gives you more room to manipulate that data without running into posterization.
p.3 #17 · New article - Why shoot RAW - The real answer
And pray tell what is the other? Hint: there isn't one. Different applications of the term do exists but the definition doesn't change, merely the quantity that is being measured.
Dynamic range is the range between the largest and smallest possible values of a changeable quantity,generally measured as a ratio or a logarithmic value. Photography uses a base-2 logarithmic value for measurement (which is what a 'stop' is).
It is an engineering term which is often misused by photographers, but there is only one correct definition.
I suspect what you're thinking of is the dynamic range of the ADC's vs the dynamic range of the sensor itself. ADC dynamic range is measured in bits. A 12bit ADC has more dynamic range than an 8bit ADC, and less than a 16bit ADC.
But since we're dealing with an analog sensor whose output has a specified range, the ADC's dynamic range is irrelevant with regards to the range of the output, it functions as increased resolution of the data rather than increased dynamic range of the data.
Same definition, different component.
HerbChong wrote:
there are at least two definitions of dynamic range. you have chosen one.
Herb...
Feb 08, 2010 at 11:57 AM
brainiac Offline [X]
p.3 #18 · New article - Why shoot RAW - The real answer
mawz wrote:
Dynamic range is the range between the largest and smallest possible values of a changeable quantity,generally measured as a ratio or a logarithmic value. Photography uses a base-2 logarithmic value for measurement (which is what a 'stop' is).
It is an engineering term which is often misused by photographers, but there is only one correct definition.
p.3 #19 · New article - Why shoot RAW - The real answer
brainiac wrote:
Correct exposure and minimum contrast in jpeg mode won't get you much less DR than a raw especially if you want to keep highlight colours real.
Flat out wrong. If you utilize uni-WB you can set your exposure value as much as a full stop hotter with RAW than you can with JPEG. With JPEG the WB gain is applied to the file and is not recoverable; with RAW highlights blown by WB gain are recoverable.
p.3 #20 · New article - Why shoot RAW - The real answer
10 stops of dynamic range can reference maximum and minimum light levels referenced to some external value or it can merely specify how many steps there are between and arbitrary maximum and minimum. both are valid and seen in engineering literature.
Herb...
mawz wrote:
And pray tell what is the other? Hint: there isn't one. Different applications of the term do exists but the definition doesn't change, merely the quantity that is being measured.
