Who needs RAW?

Isca said:
Martin

You hit the nail on the head. I'm not having issues organizing, I really don't press the shutter button that much. The isue is ensurin that I can take a RAW and convert it to jpg quickly, presumably in batch mode.

if I shoot a 2 gig card then I'll pull 10 shots to work on, maybe one to go to 8x10 or bigger and the remainder at 6x4. I tend ot be fairl lazy at PP as well so I'll only open up Photoshop every 3 months or so just to get caught up.
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To be more specific. An example: A family outing to the museum. About 100 "actuations" (whatta word!) in the neighborhood of 1 gig. I created a folder, batch named and numbered, and converted to DNG all of them prior to even bothering to look at the shots.

Next step can occur over several days/weeks. I preview using FastStone MaxView- - -that free down load I've mentioned. The best, fastest viewer I've found for all previews and searches. Full screen + full res if I want. I want to be sure that I am choosing files that have the best potential. At this point I do my major deletes. In the case of my family shapshots, I settled on about 20.

Next step is to use PS Bridge for WB check and often some adjustments with the sliders. Then to PS where I.m resized to 72 for sharing, and I use any of the PS tools that I might want. Maybe a dozen get posted, but all the jpegs and DNGs are saved/archived in the same folder. If I want to print something I'll return to the DNG and re-edit for printing. Possessing drawers-full of prints, I've decided that I will not print anything that I or someone else won't frame or display in an archival portfolio. Lots of good stuff doesn't get printed, but I've decided to get real.
 
I have 35K+ Raw files (and climbing) plus many of these as Jpegs (just in case). I access the Raw files on a near daily basis but rarely, if ever, look at the Jpegs and have for the most part stopped shooting jpeg on either my Canons or M8. I have read many discussions on Raw vs. Jpeg and my own take is that they both work and even have their place but Raw has so much more 'Potential', which may or may not be needed but is there. I can go back to old Raw files from my early digital SLRs and reinterpret them today with far better results than I could when they were taken. My old Jpegs show far less improvement with more modern software.
 
It seems that your shooting habits and presentation standards/habits are about the same as mine Martin. I guess the big difference is that I don't pull the card ot until it's full or close to it, the Luigi case and the work to get into the bottom of the M8 definitely deter it :)

I keep meaning to look into Lightroom t see if it can do anything for me, having an Adobe workflow seems appealing.
 
It seems that your shooting habits and presentation standards/habits are about the same as mine Martin. I guess the big difference is that I don't pull the card ot until it's full or close to it, the Luigi case and the work to get into the bottom of the M8 definitely deter it :)

I keep meaning to look into Lightroom t see if it can do anything for me, having an Adobe workflow seems appealing.
 
I shoot exclusively RAW. The memory cards are large so it's not a question of space. Tools such as LightRoom read RAW files so shooting JPG has no advantage in the workflow. The M8 JPG mode is so low quality that any photo shot in JPG is basically lost, so the RAW for me is the only choice anyway.

I wish they would update the firmware to save in full 14 or 16 bit RAW. Having high dynamic range is just so nice and since the camera supports it internally, it's a real shame they have hidden it from the users. We pay a premium for this hardware so I'd like to get the most out of it!

Something I like to do with my Canon DSLR is shoot slightly over-exposed (as long as there is enough light available) and then fix the exposure in LightRoom. This gives a *lot* more color information to play with. With M8, if the photo is over-exposed there's nothing you can do. The color information is lost... obviously this is true for JPG too. In M8 you could argue that the RAW format is not much different from JPG, but the low quality compression in JPG just makes the RAW still the preferred choice.
 
I use the Olympus C-5050 for my digital work, the same camera Alex Majoli from
Magnum has been using for some years. Now, if he would have worked with RAW
instead of JPEG, how many of his fantastic shots would have been lost because in RAW
mode the camera needs an awful amount of time to write the pics on the card????
 
wallace said:
I use the Olympus C-5050 for my digital work, the same camera Alex Majoli from
Magnum has been using for some years. Now, if he would have worked with RAW
instead of JPEG, how many of his fantastic shots would have been lost because in RAW
mode the camera needs an awful amount of time to write the pics on the card????
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Depending on the camera, not necessarily very many. M8 is quite slow in writing but Canons for example are quite speedy and have a decent buffer so you can shoot a dozen or more photos before you need to wait. The new DSLR's also have a nice half-RAW format which saves a 2.5MP RAW on a 10MP camera. This wouldn't work for everyone but I think I would use such mode a lot... I rarely need all of the 10MP resolution but I do need the colors and the sharpness.
 
Personally I find zero difference in JPG and RAW except you have to fiddle around with RAW to get it to look as good as JPG.
 
The C-5050 may be ancient, but I love to use it (mainly wide angle fixed (35/1.8!) and
with an additional viewfinder. And I can see no camera on the market right now that could replace it. Wish they made a Ricoh GRD with 35/2 and the finder of the Hexar AF
and quick raw mode. I'd order it today!
 
Get a Mac and use iPhoto

Get a Mac and use iPhoto

Sam R said:
You guys are very smart, and I am very confused.. I have been using jpeg and Elements for software. I am about to purchase a new computer and will enter the world of RAW files. Can I get some direction on software I should be considering?

Thanks
Sam
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"iPhoto" is easily one of the best choices. It is available for cheap right from Apple.
It's often overlooked (almost always)but it works as well as anything for raw conversion,sorting,viewing,etc.
"iPhoto" is just like a simple to use version of Apple's "Aperture" program. It's a world class raw processing tool.
 
Files shot in raw are noticeably sharper but the real benefit of raw lies more in the ability to increase dynamic range (recover blown highlights) and not having to worry about the white balance as it is easier to correct in a raw file.
Much time can be saved shooting jpegs and most of the time it is good enough but if I was selling my work I`d shoot raw.
John
 
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Giovatonny,

The RAW format in M8 has 8 bits per color component so there is no dynamic range. Overblown highlights are lost. The only real benefit of RAW in M8 is that it's really sharp while the JPEG is over-compressed and results in quite bad image quality. That, and the fact that you can change the white balance more easily, of course...
 
With the digitals I shoot, it only makes sense to shoot RAW since it automatically creates a jpeg along with it. Truth be told, I wouldn't notice the not-so-great compression of the jpeg AS MUCH if I didn't have the RAW alongside it.


With the d-lux 3, the write times can be painful (4-10 seconds) but it's usually worth it for a "keeper" shot.

With the hard drive space available, why not just shoot RAW? It gives more dynamic range and shows you essentially what the sensor captured.
 
I only shoot RAW. For two reasons:

First, since I got Lightroom, making jpegs as necessary is extremely simple after the fact, as I can do a whole shoot in a short while, with higher quality than the camera can. If I do it without adjustments, it will use all of the parameters that were set during shooting, including the terrible WB if I've set Auto WB. Of course I do a quick look-see and do some minor adjustments to some images first. It's just so easy, and the quality is invariably better than the jpegs that the camera produces.

Secondly, the M8 is more responsive if you shoot RAW. Just try it. Put your favourite card into the camera, set it on continuous and a high shutter speed, and jam down the release button. Count the number of shots (about 9 to 12, depending on the card). Then time how long it takes for the red blinking light to stop to let you know the buffer has been flushed to the card. Shooting DNG might take 35 seconds, shooting jpeg 65 seconds and DNG+jpeg 95 seconds (times are approximate, and depend on a bunch of factors). In any case, DNG is always fastest, and DNG+jpeg is always slowest.

Henning
 
xihalife said:
Giovatonny,

The RAW format in M8 has 8 bits per color component so there is no dynamic range. Overblown highlights are lost. The only real benefit of RAW in M8 is that it's really sharp while the JPEG is over-compressed and results in quite bad image quality. That, and the fact that you can change the white balance more easily, of course...
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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.
 
giovatony said:
Files shot in raw are noticeably sharper but the real benefit of raw lies more in the ability to increase dynamic range (recover blown highlights) and not having to worry about the white balance as it is easier to correct in a raw file.
Much time can be saved shooting jpegs and most of the time it is good enough but if I was selling my work I`d shoot raw.
John
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I timed it. Raw conversion in C1 is faster than conversion to Jpeg in the camera. How do you save time by shooting Jpeg? Postprocessing on Jpeg files leads to inferior results, notably posterizing, for any purpose, not just sale. The only way to get decent results is to use 16-bits Tiff's in Photoshop. In Lightroom it is even easier. Opening a DNG file is as fast as opening a Jpeg. And you want to save your adjustments to the DNG file anyway.

I transfer and sort my files by date with Image Ingester.
Then I sort and tag them in Adobe Bridge, which in turn will automatically open them in ACR and CS3. I then save either in max quality Jpeg for simple prints and the web, or as full Tiffs for critical and large prints. If I need the utmost quality I will substitute C1 for ACR.
 
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Oh Excuse me. I didn`t realize you were discussing the M8. I seemed to have missed the OP`s mention of M8 in particular.
According to Phil Askey (Dpreview) the M8 has horrible jpegs so apparently it`s obvious one should use Raw only with this camera.
John
 
If you print shoot RAW, if you shoot for web work shoot JPEG. RAW is like having an original neg so you can always downsize a RAW file but upsizing a JPEG is disaster.
 
giovatony said:
Oh Excuse me. I didn`t realize you were discussing the M8. I seemed to have missed the OP`s mention of M8 in particular.
According to Phil Askey (Dpreview) the M8 has horrible jpegs so apparently it`s obvious one should use Raw only with this camera.
John
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Nobody is denying the Jpegs are not that great. But then, 95% of M8 users are interested in getting the best from their camera - any camera, and are thus utterly uninterested in Jpeg...If you do the type of shooting that requires Jpeg, use a GRD2 or something. Horses for courses
 
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