x100 - RAW or JPEG?

[gavinlg]

I'm trying to decide wether to utilize RAW or JPEG output with this fantastic little cam. Using lightroom as the raw converter, I'm finding a lot of the time I can't get the same noise performance, highlight range, and shadow detail as the JPEGs have, no matter how much I tweak the raw file.

So right now, I'm shooting:
- JPEG fine
- ASTIA mode for everyday shooting, PROVIA specifically for people/portraits
- color on mid
- shadows on STD, highlights on med-soft
- sharpening on med-hard
- noise reduction on med-low
- Auto ISO on, auto dynamic range on


What is everyone else doing? Post your setup and some photos with that setup!

 

[paulfish4570]

i am very interested in this thread ... 🙂

 

[willie_901]

I only use RAW. I never go above ISO 1600 or use a shutter speed below 1/80. If these parameters lead to under exposure I just increase the exposure in LR. The Fill slider works well for shadows. I find the default color balance to be accurate and warmer than the D700's. This is nice for shadows in dayllight.

LR's noise filtering seems to work well with X100 RAW files. The few times I end up with the equivalent of ISO 3200 - 6400 exposures, converting to B&W gives printable results.

In LR I apply the ACR X100 profile during import. Next I tweak the color balance. After that I adjust the Exposure, Fill, Recover and Black sliders as needed to optimize the histogram. Finally Contrast and Clarity are adjusted followed by noise filtering. Sometimes I reduce Saturation because I prefer muted colors.

Results can be seen in my Flickr stream.

I don't record jpegs on general principle. Because of my past training in digital signal capture, I am not willing to destroy original data. This is a bit silly because a perfectly exposed jpeg is not superior to the original RAW as far as human viewing is concerned. I should experiment with converting the in-camera RAW to jpegs using the X100's internal firmware. The results would be interesting to compare with my LR adjustments.

 

[NickTrop]

JPEG. JPEG, JPEG, JPEG, JPEG, JPEG... Specifically, JPEG fine mode or whatever setting has highest res. This is true for any digital camera including the X100, which I don't own and will never own. Jpeg. Jpeg, jpeg, jpeg, jpeg, jpeg - unless you want to spend more time twaddling away hours in front of a computer futzing with basic adjustments that nobody but maybe you will notice when you pixel peep, that the camera's internal computer does automatically in a nanosecond. Hey, let me fix that tiny bit of unnoticeable barrel distortion manually in a pricey RAW processor now that they (finally) have that the "module" for this lens, that the camera corrects automatically in an instant! Sounds like fun. Then after I export it to PDD, let me open it in Photoshop to fine tune it further! Pure silliness.

Pixel peeping is a form of OCD that camera manufactures fed into when they started making cameras with RAW "capabilities" after spending millions in time/money developing the "engines" for their cameras. I'm sure the engineers and marketers who first came up with the RAW "feature" had a nice laugh over a round or three of sake.

You are shooting 35mm "style". 35mm is for run and gun. The X100 is for "street photography". HCB's printer got the basics down - good contrast, saturation, to make a nice print. The camera does this for you, and Photoshop gives you everything you can possibly want to fine tune further. Who wants their hard drives clogged up with these giant raw files, not to mention the slowness with which they process depending on your computer because they're gigantic for what they are - still images? Ansel Adams shot large format landscapes. And he spend days, weeks perfecting a single print. This is a very different kind of photography from what a 35mm film or digital camera was intended. Photographers - esp. amateurs, seem to have lost sight of this. Shooting jpeg, I bang out scades of pics shooting jpeg and doing some minor adjusting in Photoshop - and truth be told I don't usually need this much power. RAW? Lol - just slows everything down by doing something manually that's, like, a zillion times slower than what your X100's internal processor does, that you paid a few hundred bucks for. It's there, you paid for it, put it to use.

Jpeg. Jpeg, jpeg, jpeg, jpeg, jpeg! For the love of god.

RAW? I'll concede maybe for the once in a great while shot where the lighing is especially crappy - one in 500 shots. Maybe - but not as your default shoting mode.

RAW just slows everything down. From write speeds, to transferring to your computer, to processing the image - 999 out of 1000 times for nothing.

 

[paulfish4570]

are you sure about that, Nick? 🙂

 

[Teuthida]

JPEG. JPEG, JPEG, JPEG, JPEG, JPEG... S
Pixel peeping is a form of OCD that camera manufactures fed into when they started making cameras with RAW "capabilities" after spending millions in time/money developing the "engines" for their cameras. I'm sure the engineers and marketers who first came up with the RAW "feature" had a nice laugh over a round or three of sake.

You are shooting 35mm "style". 35mm is for run and gun. The X100 is for "street photography". HCB's printer got the basics down - good contrast, saturation, to make a nice print.

LOL. You're wrong.And Yelling really loud won't change that.

And as for HCb's printer, I've sat in front a computer screen on more than one ocassion with the guy who printed HCB's negatives for 30 years. He marvelled at what he could do in Photoshop. And he really liked the stretchability of RAW files.

 

[kbg32]

Nick, you are so wrong. JPEGS have their place, but if you really want something special and get the most from your camera files, RAW is the way to go. For me, Photoshop is my darkroom. JPEGS more often then not, cannot match a properly converted RAW. A JPEG does not fully complete my vision. Down and dirty for a quick photo job, sure, but for my own personal work, or for something special, never.


RAW, RAW, RAW!

 

[David_Manning]

I've recently convinced myself that for color, the X100 jpeg engine is the best for me. RAW files, as to be expected, are very flat, and take LOTS of time to end up with what the camera does instantaneously.

When I KNOW I'm shooting for b&w, I'll shoot RAW in order to start with more tonality. I even switch the chimping LCD to b&w to cement that thought in my mind. Then I let SilverEfex Pro be the b&w image engine, which I think it does better than anything I've seen, and most of my b&w film scans. And obviously, since it's RAW, if I decide I like it in color, I can still "OCD" them to death until I get a presentable shot 😀

 

[Frank Petronio]

Jeez you can make presets to process the RAW files that will get as close to the JPGs as a starting point and then have the freedom and potential to do so much more.... I can't believe anyone would seriously only shoot jpgs - that's nuts.

Get a modern computer/software and cheap TB hard drives if all those RAW files are slowing you down... if you can't match the X100 jpg engine then work harder, turn off all the bull**** film and scene settings, filters, plug-ins, and all that voodoo crap and start with a clean file.

 

[NickTrop]

Nick, you are so wrong.

Nope. I am (as always) correct. And - as always, the extent to which one disagrees with me is directly proportionate to the degree to which one is wrong. 😎

Consider what you said, "...for something special, you need raw" (words to that effect...) How about Subject? Composition? The file type you work in could not be of less importance. And as far as file types go, RAW is INefficient - grossly so. Any special mojo you may observe pixel peeping your twaddled-over RAW files is psychological in nature having to do with the "pride of authorship" effect, and is delusional in nature. Like that old horror flick starring that great ac.TOR, Roddy Rowdy Piper, "They Live" - only you see it, nobody else, because nobody else is pixel peeping, because viewed at a normal viewing distance, all those twaddled-over mucho magnified pixels converge. This is how vision works. RAW is for pixel peeping photographers with OCD (most photographers) but not me.

And this is not to say I don't mess with my photos. Nothing I shoot goes straight from the camera anywhere. I digitally screw with the stuff I shoot more that just about anyone on this forum, shooting infrared, and tripping stuff out, fake bokeh - etc. (Example here: http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=111383&highlight=grounds+for+sculpture ) to the point the old-schoolers (much love, respect) flame me and hate the photos I post more than my text posts on things like the absolute ridiculousness of raw files, and the virtues of the modern cheap consumer-level DSLR. And I have a master-level cert in PS (top 1% of test takers) and teach it at the college-level regularly. But it's about speed and efficiency. Not twaddling in front of a computer using slow, inefficient ridiculous raw files.

 

[kbg32]

I never said that subject or composition had to do with with what file type you capture your images in.

Nick, you are, along with everyone else, entitled to their opinions, but I wouldn't want to live in your skin.

 

[NickTrop]

I've recently convinced myself that for color, the X100 jpeg engine is the best for me. RAW files, as to be expected, are very flat, and take LOTS of time to end up with what the camera does instantaneously.

David Manning mostly gets it. You'll come around on black and white too... A zillion actions in Photoshop and even less expensive editors. In camera black and white these days is pretty darned good too. I was recently thinking that a black and white conversion looked pretty good - was admiring my own handiwork... then (D'oh!) realized I shot it using in-camera black and white. You are on your way to recovering from digital photography OCD. Congratulations!

 

[NickTrop]

Nick, you are, along with everyone else, entitled to their opinions, but I wouldn't want to live in your skin.

Why? I'm pretty comfortable in my own skin! 😛

 

[Michiel Fokkema]

RAWRAWRAWRAWRAWRAW.
I want to be in control and I want the 12 or 14 bit data I payed for. Not the stupid 8 bit of a jpg.
I don't spray and pray and therefore spent very little time in front of the pc. But I'm still in control!
Although I must admit that the X100 jpg's look pretty good.

Cheers,

Michiel Fokkema

 

[gavinlg]

I only use RAW. I never go above ISO 1600 or use a shutter speed below 1/80. If these parameters lead to under exposure I just increase the exposure in LR. The Fill slider works well for shadows. I find the default color balance to be accurate and warmer than the D700's. This is nice for shadows in dayllight.

LR's noise filtering seems to work well with X100 RAW files. The few times I end up with the equivalent of ISO 3200 - 6400 exposures, converting to B&W gives printable results.

In LR I apply the ACR X100 profile during import. Next I tweak the color balance. After that I adjust the Exposure, Fill, Recover and Black sliders as needed to optimize the histogram. Finally Contrast and Clarity are adjusted followed by noise filtering. Sometimes I reduce Saturation because I prefer muted colors.

Results can be seen in my Flickr stream.

I don't record jpegs on general principle. Because of my past training in digital signal capture, I am not willing to destroy original data. This is a bit silly because a perfectly exposed jpeg is not superior to the original RAW as far as human viewing is concerned. I should experiment with converting the in-camera RAW to jpegs using the X100's internal firmware. The results would be interesting to compare with my LR adjustments.

Wait so adobe has an 'x100 profile' for ACR? This could help a lot...

 

[greyelm]

To each his own. I can't understand why so many people get hot under the collar about raw v jpg, there are almost as many as film v digital. Do whatever you like best, it's a free country (well mine is at least). Having said all of that I personally prefer RAW as it suits my workflow. YMMV

 

[JonR]

I think this is a question of what you like most - to just compose and take photos and maybe print the or put them on the webb or if you want to also spend time in front of the PC tweaking and processing it to even better results. To me I prefer being out there with the camera and jpg is fantastic for that. Instant result and perfect for me but I can understand those who like to work with the raw files. I use jpg 100% with my X100.
JonR

 

[Rangeman133]

i think of a RAW file as a digital negative. depending on how good your digital camera is, i've seen some fantastic jpg's though. with my lx3, most of my shots come from dynamic b/w setting, in jpg mode. the jpg output is stunning in that camera, with those settings.

having said that, RAW images, are like a negative. years from now, when you want to revisit the 'negative', you have RAW files which still contain the 'original' information, from which you can make 'changes to', and 'print', much like 35mm negative. if you don't care for this, then shoot in jpg then. like someone posted above, whatever works for you.

personally, i always shoot in RAW + JPG mode 🙂 (assuming the camera can do that - not sure if the x100 can)

i don't understand the argument that those who shoot RAW don't spend time composing their shots. i don't think that's true.

 

[gavinlg]

Okay guys, this thread wasn't meant as a RAW vs JPEG argument - it was meant as a discussion base for RAW vs JPEG output specifically for the X100. With my 5d/1d I'm a RAW shooter for the reason that I can get better output than the in-camera JPEGs.

What I'm saying though, is that with the x100 I don't seem to be getting better output with the RAW files through ACR conversion!

 

[David_Manning]

Just a few quick thoughts.

I prefer the Fuji jpegs to what Apple Aperture decides the RAW images should look like. On a *few* occasions, I'll work an image a bit...generally, I'll have an idea of these first and so plan for then in-camera.

For Nick, the b&w curves added by SEP for each "film" type is as exciting as it was choosing a film emulsion. So, the benefits outweigh the minuses. I generally only send selects over to convert anyway.

As far as opinions of RAW vs. jpeg, I like that anyone can do it any way they choose. The way the proponents of RAW point to the digital negative, they make it sound like nobody made good pictures with slide film, which is essentially what a jpeg file is...it's exposed, baked, done. Sure, you can monkey afterwards, but why?

I don't honestly expect every shot to come out of my cameras as a piece of art waiting for it's 20x30 enlargement to be made. In fact, I think most of my personal photography is contextual, so it's better as an editorial story (even if it's just a place visited, or the kids' first day of school). Jpegs are more than enough to translate the emotion or thought behind the "story."

If I go out to capture a landscape (or maybe a studio shoot?), THEN I apply the whole RAW workflow, and maybe even bracket.

Shooting RAW in every single case seems like saying you HAVE to shoot Portra 160NC all the time, just in case you get into tricky light, or need to photograph skin, or have to enlarge. So many great images have been created, and published, using contrasty slide film...

The other side's argument, of course, is that RAW saves everything. I get it, I'm just not sure I need it routinely.