Who needs RAW?

jaapv said:
This is totally oversimplified and thus incorrect.The RAW storage is far more complicated. The files behave like 14 bits files for most of the scale due to the algorithm that points at the lookup table. See various LFI articles amongst other publications for details and diagrams comparing it to true 14 bits files. Overblown highlights are lost in any digital photograph. The number of bits won't help you one bit there, btw. The only thing to do is to expose correctly. RAW is not more " sharp" than Jpeg. That is a totally different part of the story.
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Jaap, I would suggest you experiment with CR2-files on Canon cameras. You can over-expose a photo so that there's completely white areas, and then load it to Lightroom and change the exposure. Perfect color will be revealed from the white pixels. If you do the same with M8's RAW files, the white pixels give you no color information at all. I use M8 and 400D, and in practice the 400D has a lot of dynamic range, M8 has very little if any at all.

I don't know how the lookup table for 14 bit colors would work but I guess you mean you have 8 bits per color component which point to an array of 256 14-bit values... or perhaps there are mupltiple look-up tables if the image is split into multiple smaller segments. Perhaps they are not storing color values above 1.0, and instead just have more precision on the lower end of the scale. This would not be such a good idea given the noise - it's a common technique in Canon to shoot slightly over-exposed and then correct the exposure in LightRoom to get the best color reproduction. Anyway, whatever they have done with M8, the dynamic range is just not there.

As for JPEG... I don't know for you, but the JPEG files I have looked at from M8 are heavily compressed and lose a lot of fine detail. When zoomed in, they look almost like looking at a television screen compared to a computer monitor. That is what I mean by RAW being sharper - it doesn't lose detail.
 
xihalife said:
Jaap, I would suggest you experiment with CR2-files on Canon cameras. You can over-expose a photo so that there's completely white areas, and then load it to Lightroom and change the exposure. Perfect color will be revealed from the white pixels. If you do the same with M8's RAW files, the white pixels give you no color information at all. I use M8 and 400D, and in practice the 400D has a lot of dynamic range, M8 has very little if any at all.

I don't know how the lookup table for 14 bit colors would work but I guess you mean you have 8 bits per color component which point to an array of 256 14-bit values... or perhaps there are mupltiple look-up tables if the image is split into multiple smaller segments. Perhaps they are not storing color values above 1.0, and instead just have more precision on the lower end of the scale. This would not be such a good idea given the noise - it's a common technique in Canon to shoot slightly over-exposed and then correct the exposure in LightRoom to get the best color reproduction. Anyway, whatever they have done with M8, the dynamic range is just not there.

As for JPEG... I don't know for you, but the JPEG files I have looked at from M8 are heavily compressed and lose a lot of fine detail. When zoomed in, they look almost like looking at a television screen compared to a computer monitor. That is what I mean by RAW being sharper - it doesn't lose detail.
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You are right, Canon files can be "shot to the right". M8 files are different. They should be shot to the left. The m8 is biased towards shadow recovery, contrary to for instance Canon. Basically the Canon behaves like negative film, detail is lost in the shadows and the Leica is like slidefim, detail is lost in the highlights. The latter mimics the response of the human eye. In the end, the dynamic range is similar. It is just a matter of exposing properly. It seems you are transferring the correct technique for Canon to your Leica - and losing a lot of dynamic range in the process. Try it.
For not-owners I'll happily put up a DNG file for you to download - a file btw, that convinced another M8 dynamic range sceptic to buy one - a very happy user now.
As for Jpeg - the last time I used one was , I think, in 2004....
 
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Jaapv,

I would be intersted in taking a look at a DNG file which shows good dynamic range. I admit I probably don't know enough how to use the M8, but so far my experience has been (and I've also read it over and over again on this forum) that the exposure needs to be dead on correct. Over-exposure is a big no while dark areas tend to have quite much noise (Canon suffers from this too, but it can be addressed by the above mentioned exposure technique). I am an owner so you don't need to convince me into buying one, but I would be happy to become a believer of M8's dynamic range. I am very interested in HDR photography and thus far my impression has been that M8 simply cannot be used for it.
 
I can't shoot RAW on my M6 :(

I can't shoot RAW on my M6 :(

... but I have some Canon digitals and I always shoot RAW. They are very easy to handle using Lightroom.

Some posters have stated that they can't tell the difference bewteen RAW and JPEG images produced by the M8. This does not make sense. You cannot view a RAW file until it has been processed, and then you see the result of processing it in a particular way. Process it differently and you will get a different result.

I'm not sure about the M8, but with Canon, the camera settings (WB, sharpening, ...) are recoded in the RAW images, so initial processing produces essentially the same result as the camera would have done. So it may be the case that some people are comparing what are essentially the same image.

However, the BIG advantage with RAW is that you can use other settings when processing a RAW file.

David
 
I always shoot RAW. As a lot of digital sensors are overly sensitive when it comes to highlights, I see no reason to run the risk of losing information to a JPEG. True, you can't always recover all the info in a highlight, but it seems crazy to me to not want that option. That was my main reason for beginning to shoot RAW, and even though my technique has improved and my highlights are reigned in now, I can't bring myself to just throw away information, just as I never would have thrown away my negatives when I shot film.

Sam R - I use lightroom for raw processing - love it. Easy to use, good for cataloguing, and I only ever really need export to PS for a final sharpen, which you can do by right clicking an image and selecting 'edit in photoshop' - nice feature.
 
xihalife said:
Jaapv,

I would be intersted in taking a look at a DNG file which shows good dynamic range. I admit I probably don't know enough how to use the M8, but so far my experience has been (and I've also read it over and over again on this forum) that the exposure needs to be dead on correct. Over-exposure is a big no while dark areas tend to have quite much noise (Canon suffers from this too, but it can be addressed by the above mentioned exposure technique). I am an owner so you don't need to convince me into buying one, but I would be happy to become a believer of M8's dynamic range. I am very interested in HDR photography and thus far my impression has been that M8 simply cannot be used for it.
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The first thing to do when you get a M8 is to set exposure compensation to EV -1/3. The M8 is a 200ASA camera, to my view. The jpg files 'right out of the box' are aweful, simply scandalously bad. Due to hard compression and signal handling. - All M8 owners start to sweat when they see these jpg's. This quite to the contrary of Canon cameras which generally produces excellent jpg's right out of the camera.

Shoot RAW and convert the jpg files you need from the DNG file in Phase One. Then you get a perfect jpg of about 4,60 MB compared to the ugly 3,58 MB file right out of the M8. - Even your Canon jpg's will get a lift when doing this.

Will there be a M8 up date that will provide us with better jpg's? No. I don't think so. The camera computer is too small to handle larger jpg's combined with DNG's. But it is no big deal. The jpg's from a M8 via/out of Phase One are very beautiful.
 
JPEG is for dummies and professionals
RAW is for serious amateurs.
I'm a serious when it concerns quality of my photos.
Processing time isn't an issue - just run batch converter on all files in the directory... and get the result in 10 minutes or so.
But if something went wrong with partucular shot (wrong exposure, or WB, or excessive noice) - it can be fixed with RAW and different processing parameters. In case of JPEG it is not.
Aother issue is with high ISO noise and JPEG. Many cameras apply very aggressive noise reduction in JPEG, with loss of details indeed.
I shoot in JPEG only when I don't care about results (for example, it is a drinking party with colleagues )
 
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