It's a "Huh?"

Maybe someone can explain something to me. My goal is to capture the image as close to the image I saw

in the field (realism). And since I added a digital camera I've been doing some tests to see the differences

in the various user controls, such as white balance, picture style, and metering. While reading some

questions around the Internet and sometimes in topics here, I see some photographers wait until they get

the images into Photoshop before they discover the color balance wasn't correct, and then ask how to fix

it in Photoshop. With all the controls photographers have with their cameras, why do some just set things

on automatic and shoot, not changing anything? I can understand tweaking things in Photoshop but why

wait to correct for things you can set in the camera? Just a "Hmmm...."

Why? Human nature, ignorance, laziness, haste. It's easier to sit comfortably at a monitor and

try to make it up there. Look at all the posts that could be answered right in the camera's

manual. Many don't even read the manual. It's easier to ask at a keyboard. If they don't have

the manual, they don't even bother going to the manufacturer's site to download it.

 

That said, final 'tweaks' are usually necessary at the keyboard anyway, but all as much as the

questions might indicate.

i take it from your comment that you shoot in JPEG format. When you start shooting RAW you will understand... Sorry this sounds patronizing it's not meant to be. When you are shooting in JPEG you need to do all the adjustments in camera because the camera will process your picture. But if you shoot RAW, as many of us do, it doesn't matter what setting you choose in your camera because the image is captured and saved without any adjustment or correction. Those adjustments are meant to be done in post processing, and this gives the photographer/artist full control over the final image.

Michael, that doesn't quite address the question.

 

Do you ignore white balance when you shoot? Do you ignore potential clipping? Proper

exposure? Do you expect to make up for all that using RAW?

It's no longer necessary to take a good picture the first time. Just fix it later. Hell, take 100,000 and you'll get one good one, they don't cost anything.

Except the time of your life.

And a full understanding of what you're doing.

I guess I should've put a " : ) "

I knew there was a smiley there, James 8-)

 

 

"With all the controls photographers have with their cameras, why do some just set things on automatic and shoot, not changing anything?"

 

My guess is they don't know much about photography and don't want to, or are unable to work out just what photography is.

 

You can tell who they are when they ask a question: "How do I do this in Photoshop?" and post an example of what they want to achieve. The example shows great lighting, careful composition, and a seriously good lens, or is a pro studio shot with all that implies: excellent cameras. lenses, and lights, makeup artist, seamstress, skilled model, and $5K in props, maybe.

 

Evidence suggests they do not know what photography is since they are unable to parse the photograph that attracts them. Given enough ignorance, their assumption will be it is done in Photoshop, hopefully with an Action they can download for free.

"Do you ignore white balance when you shoot? Do you ignore potential clipping? Proper exposure? Do you expect to make up for all that using RAW?"

 

RAW can fully correct white balance of course, so you can afford to ignore it.

 

It can't make up for bad composition, lousy choice of subject, shakey hands, lack of photographic vision or wildly incorrect exposure.

Come on Scott, people swing on a rail inside a train with one hand and take shots with the other using a cell phone.

 

Should you or I go around and tell them that they should get a Nikon, Canon, or a Hasselblad, and put it on a tripod with MLU and remote release?

 

People can, and do whatever they want!

"Do you ignore white balance when you shoot? Do you ignore potential clipping? Proper exposure? Do you expect to make up for all that using RAW?"

 

Pico if you are shooting raw, white balance, picture style, sharpening/softening, tint etc are actually being bypassed at the camera level. Your shot settings will come up when you open your photo in Camera RAW or whatever software you are using but only as a an option and can be adjusted easily with the slide of a button. Exposure is different of course and it needs to be set properly for the situation, metering is a tool to help find the proper exposure not a setting. Exposure has a +/- 2 fstop adjustment range in software (always assuming you shoot RAW) but of course that doesnt mean you can ignore it in the field. It simply gives you a bit of flexibility to fine tune the exposure in computer. But as far as WB and picture style are concerned, yeah i ignore it or leave it on whatever setting it is at that time.

Thanks for the answers on White Balance. It makes sense to a certain point. However, if one's

subject is white, and the balance is set for, say, 5000K, but the actual color is something like

2200K due to tungsten light, then the subject is going to be underexposed. No?

 

Another question: because color channel luminances are not assigned in a linear manner, but

with curves dependent upon the definition of White, other colors will not be as well 'known'

to the camera. Is that true?

Michael wrote, "But if you shoot RAW, as many of us do, it doesn't matter what setting you

choose in your camera because the image is captured and saved without any adjustment

or correction. " Do you have some reference why if this is true? Why wouldn't the camera

use the user settings in any image record mode? Jpeg is the internal conversion from the

settings, wouldn't raw just be the unadjusted version from the settings? If not, what

settiings is the camera using? It has to use something?

 

It's what I tested and used raw to get the original image, and compared them through the

iterations of white balance, picture style and metering. The white balance is the most

critical choice, and is different if you use automatic or the different light settings. Picture

style became the second, but less, critical choice, and metering the least critical. I've also

shot landscape using different white balances, and the differences are small but noticable.

This is especially true with scenes with clouds and blue sky.

 

My question is that with all the controls the photographer has with the camera, why are

they apparently shooting almost mindlessly with automatic settings and fixing problems in

Photoshop. Why not learn and use the different settings to get the image you want the

most? If you want examples for this logic, read the darkroom forum, a recent post

prompted my question.

 

And as for what I shoot, it's large or fine jpegs for images I don't plan to do much expect

small prints and the Web, and raw for images I want to save for later use. That's the beauty

of it, you can chance as you go. It can also be argued just shooting raw isn't the be all

answer, how many photographers shoot and/or recommend shooting jpegs for the

simplicity of workflow and little loss of quality.

 

If raw is "the" choice why all the discussion about jpegs? Obviously they have some

advantages. And if you know what your camera will do, can't you work in jpegs with very

little loss of quality and produce the images you want? It's seems somewhat illogical, to

me at least, to shoot an event, festival, or other photo op in raw when you know you'll

need lots of images (and cards will hold 300-700 jpeg images) for general use. Unless of

course you can to carry lots of cards with you and spend a lot more time later converting

the raw images.

 

Thanks for the responses.

Scott you asked: "Do you have some reference why if this is true?".

 

There is plenty of reference material on this subject. In fact if you open your operator's manual for your camera i bet it's explained right in there. Here is a quote from "Complete Digital Photography", by Ben Long [Third edition] page 26: "If you're saving images in raw format, all the processing that you just read about -- demosaicing, linear conversion, white balance, contrast and saturation adjustments, sharpening, and compression -- are skipped. the camera simply writes out the raw, unprocessed pixel data. Through special software you can later use your computer to specify how the raw data shoud be processed..." If you don't have this book or if you don't trust the author, I'm sure if you go to your public library and do a little search in any book on digital photography you will find similar information/reference about RAW format.

 

Second you asked: "My question is that with all the controls the photographer has with the camera, why are they apparently shooting almost mindlessly with automatic settings and fixing problems in Photoshop"

 

RAW format is NOT automatic setting actually in most camera when you set your camera to automatic or programmed mode, you cannot shoot in RAW the camera will default to JPEG. RAW is the most manual format you can find, it doesn't make any automatic adjustment for you, it doesn't set the white balance, the color balance, the sharpening, softening, saturation etc. It leaves all these decisions for you to make later on when you download your picture. The advantage of RAW is that it gives you full control and amazing flexibility over your final image from your computer station. Because there is no compression in RAW mode, you don't have to deal with JPEG artifacts. The main dissadvantage of RAW format is size. Because the files are not compressed they use a lot more space on your card, but with the rapidely falling cost of cards and the increasing size (in Gbites) in each card, this is becoming less of a problem by the day. Typically on my camera one 2Gb card will store over 200 photos, two cards get me through a couple of days of shooting without any problem.

"And if you know what your camera will do, can't you work in jpegs with very little loss of quality and produce the images you want?

 

Because the settings available in-camera are very crude for jpeg, usually some variant of "high" "normal" "low". Soooo...should the saturation be high, normal, low? The contrast? The noise reduction? The sharpness? Suppose you don't want any sharpening or any NR?

 

What about the next exposure? and the next? Should I use "high" saturation or "normal"? and so on.

 

Then there are the various 'modes'...which to use for this shot, the next, and the next?

 

This is all analogous to rewinding the Reala and loading Portra and winding forward to the next unexposed frame, then the next exposure doing the same to get a shot with Velvia.

 

All this interferes with the task of photography at the capture. With film capture, your "emulsion" is already chosen, with digital jpeg capture you leave that decision to the software developers. With raw you choose the "emulsion" and apply it after the fact.

Scott, your question did not mention raw. Had I known this was a jpeg vs raw thread, I would not have replied. Here I thought you meant (as my first response demonstrates) you were referring to jpeg shooters who use their cameras as jpeg shooters on full auto and never learn how to meter, focus, or expose.

 

I really think I should avoid the digital forums from now on.

I apologize for the confusion with this thread. I didn't mean it to be a raw vs jpeg

discussion, it wandered that way, and again, partly my confusion, I apologize. But with

respect to raw format, what settings does the camera use? It has to use some settings in

the camera just besides the exposure, such as temperature, to record the color.

 

Well, running a scene through the different settings (adjusting one with two the same) with

the same lens, same ISO, and same aperture/shutter combination, meaning adjusting the

white balance, picture style and metering, there are noticable differences in the raw image,

also observable in the histograms. This is where I don't understand the comments there

are no adjustments when shooting raw format. I discovered this in my original test and

now with this one.

 

My original question was the question of camera settings. And as for the number of

images, a full-frame camera using a 2 Gbyte card give you about 110 images. And now

back to your regular program.

"Well, running a scene through the different settings (adjusting one with two the same) with the same lens, same ISO, and same aperture/shutter combination, meaning adjusting the white balance, picture style and metering, there are noticable differences in the raw image, also observable in the histograms. This is where I don't understand the comments there are no adjustments when shooting raw format." Scott

 

Raw data cannot be viewed unless a tone curve is applied to it. Thus, if you "see" a "raw image" what you are seeing is some form of processing. This is likely to be the jpeg settings set in-camera, or an embedded jpeg preview, or an associated jpeg file, or the default or custom settings in the raw converter.

 

The raw data itself is analogous to exposed but undeveloped film.

Scott - I am one of those who try to use my camera settings to their fullest advantage because I don't know photoshop very well and can't fix my images afterwards - but I am still learning all those settings. I am a new photographer and I don't always understand what some of those setting can do. But I keep reading and keep trying the different settings. I know alot of people that don't bother though. They keep everything on auto and let the camera do it's thing. Sometimes that's because the auto settings can take a pretty decent picture. Sometimes it is a laziness to learn like Pico says, but with others, it is a fear of the settings and not understanding them. I have fallen into all the above categories as some times. So please don't judge us too harshly -as you can see, there are many reasons why auto is used. I think the serious ones will eventually learn to use their cameras to their fullest potential- I hope I can get there.

For new photographers with digital cameras, I'd recommend the following:

 

Just leave the jpeg settings (saturation, sharpening, contrast etc) on whatever the middle range is called "default" "normal" whatever.

 

Ignore the modes.

 

See how auto wb works in varying situations. It is likely to be accurate outdoors in daylight, less so indoors in artificial light. You'll know when this has to be set by hand. If you can't get a good wb in some situations, then those are the ones you will want to shoot raw.

 

Study the various settings for autofocus and autoexposure (light meter) provided in the camera. Understand how these work and what situations a change in af or ae can improve the image.

 

Learn the relationship between shutter speed, aperture size, and iso. Using aperture and shutter priority should help. Get comfortable with the ev compensation gauge.

 

Study the Exif data.

 

When comforatable with the cameras focus and exposure capabilities, then move on to evaluating the modes and jpeg settings.