Back to RAW and thinking of processing

[james_de_h]

<p>Those of us that remember the cost of getting a roll of transparency film developed will no doubt also recall the discipline of really thinking before pressing the camera shutter. When I got my first digital camera, a Canon EOS 10D, I treated it like a film body, capturing all my images in RAW and acting as if I had a roll of 36 inside. Then I caught 'digital shutter disease' and over the years got lazy, even switching to JPEG capture to make the most of my CF cards capacity. Now I have gone backwards. I take far fewer shots, only capture in RAW and have reverted to full manual, as opposed to aperture or shutter priority, to get the job done. By acting slower I am now a heck a lot faster as I have far less post processing to do. Am I alone in taking a step back? Even for action pictures I am shooting 'old school' and get far more pleasure as a result.</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>My aging rear end is certainly getting more and more tired of being parked in front of a computer doing post, so I do indeed try to "get it right" as much as I reasonably can when doing planned, deliberate shooting. But I'm not at all above a little spray and pray when the circumstances call for it. I'd rather get the shot and invest a few minutes poking and prodding at it later than thoughtfully and masterfully take the time to dial in the perfect exposure as whatever it was I was looking at wanders off. <br /><br />I would agree with you that the wisdom, coming from the experience of doing too much post, of using one's time more wisely is a part of this. But I recognize that experience also just makes it more likely that I'll understand a proper exposure going into a situation now, where before I might have been feeling less sure. So I can BE more deliberate about exposure only because I'm simply better at it now, and that means not having to bracket as much, or rely on the camera's exposure computer to attempt to read my mind and the scene. </p>

[William Kahn]

<p>Matt, I just turned 75, so I'm pretty well acquainted with the aging butt syndrome ;-) I don't really mind spending time doing post-processing work on the computer - provided I spend less time doing other stuff. In fact, I'm finding that other media "interests" are becoming less interesting over time, allowing more post-processing time with less posterior pain. Maybe there's a mathematical equation in there, somewhere.</p>

<p>I think that a lot of the way we handle the process of exposure depends on what kind of shooting we do. My preference is for shooting landscapes and mostly stationary objects shot from a tripod, so I can take the time twiddle and tweak exposure, aperture, ISO, etc., to get the best result in one shot. (Okay, three shots. I'm addicted to bracketing.) The goal is to get a result that lets me spend most of my post-processing time with creative efforts and less time fixing the screw-ups.</p>

<p>On the rare occasions where I'm forced to shoot hand-held, I usually just set the ISO to 800, aperture at f/11, centerline the shutter speed, and pray. It seems to work....most of the time.</p>

[Spearhead]

<p>Until someone can show the effect of this on their photos, it's just a working style that may make someone happy or more comfortable, but then again, maybe not. Everyone has their own way of working, but the effect on other people is really just the results. </p>

[ellis_vener_photography]

Makes sense to me James de H., if it works for the way you work.

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>Now I have gone backwards. I take far fewer shots, only capture in RAW and have reverted to full manual, as opposed to aperture or shutter priority, to get the job done. By acting slower I am now a heck a lot faster as I have far less post processing to do. Am I alone in taking a step back? Even for action pictures I am shooting 'old school' and get far more pleasure as a result.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Not getting a clear point as to your benefits derived from going back to Raw. When you first started shooting Raw with your first digital camera what was different then than when you returned to shooting Raw after shooting jpegs for a while?</p>

<p>What was making you take more pictures when first shooting Raw before going jpeg and then returning to shooting Raw? I'm just a bit confused about the point of your topic and the way you've outlined it here.</p>

<p>Have you ever attempted to adjust the incamera jpeg settings like noise removal, saturation, sharpness and contrast in order to get better looking jpegs shooting with controlled exposures over what you could get shooting and post processing in Raw and compare the results by the number of keepers?</p>

<p>For me to attempt that comparison test in the manner described I'ld have to get a more modern camera with better sensor/noise performance to my current 2006 Pentax K100D. I would think shooting jpegs with more modern (expensive?) cameras would deliver more keepers that didn't need as much post processing.</p>

<p>I could be wrong but what I'm seeing from the image quality seen of online captures off of smart phones suggests a jpeg calibration method with higher end cameras might give more keepers requiring less PP.</p>

[Jochen_S]

<p>James you are not alone. - I just stocked up with cameras without JPG capability worth mentioning. Coming home with a few RAWs and considering maybe even just one of them worth working on is a delightful hobby.<br>

RAW & thinking aren't my only option though. - I am also looking forward to get a whole lot of acceptable SOOC JPGs out of my Fujis.<br>

While I sometimes shot JPG only back in the days of horribly expensive cards - 1 think a 70 RAWs GB was more than 50 Euro? I don't mind wasting space for "just in case" -RAW+ "lets see if I'll get away with it" JPG now.</p>

[sjmurray]

<p>I've never shot anything but raw and processed in ACR. I did film for decades and I really like having all the raw information I can get. Software is so good now it takes very little time for me to maximize my images. I just can't imagine shooting jpgs and then wondering what shadow or highlight detail I might have missed that I would want to use as I do post processing. </p>

[vrankin]

<p>For me raw is better also, though out-of-camera jpegs from my D3300 have better dynamic range, color and resolution than anything I did with raw and older bodies, up until a couple of years ago. However, sometimes for family activities where the kids want instant files for their social media sites, jpeg comes through beautifully with no muss, no fuss. It depends on the shooting situation, so for me it's both/and, rather than either/or.</p><div></div>

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>If you don't want to bother with post processing, shoot RAW images and simply export them in TIF or JPG format to a different folder. Let Lightroom do all the work. However, you retain the ability to make significant corrections without posterization, including overexposure recovery.</p>

<p>I take a lot of shortcuts in post processing too. If you're shooting an event, for example, the lighting tends to fall into relatively few groups, which you can adust by synchronization. That includes spotting for dust (thank you , Lightroom).</p>

[james_de_h]

<p>Thanks for making comments. I would never suggest JPEG is a no go area. I have a point and squirt Sony Cyber-shot that captures great images in JPEG. My old EOS 5d does a good job when everything is on its side with JPEGs but RAW helps me lift detail from poorly exposed areas. My EOS 7D is a bit more forgiving but still I have found it delivers more if I use RAW. Inside dark buildings, vehicle cab floor pedals, under the carbs of a motorcycle, between the chassis and axles etc. With RAW, I take one shot where in my 'hit the button and shoot' days I would take several. So with me I have fewer large images as opposed to loads of smaller images. Not the right or wrong way. Just how I have evolved - backwards! (Oh, forgot to mention LR5. Really helps).</p>

[ted_cousins]

<p>I am sympathetic to your cause, James. I changed from a Nikon D50 to a Sigma SD9 raw-only camera, so had no choice in the matter. Have since 'advanced' to the SD14 but it's OOC JPEGs are pretty poor in my hands so, like you I continue with full manual, including focus, and raw-only shooting.<br>

In their usual user-friendly fashion, no raw + jpeg on <strong>that</strong> camera :-)</p>

<p>rgds,<br>

Ted</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>So I take it there's very few people that have attempted to calibrate their camera's jpeg rendering engine using available incamera settings such as saturation, sharpness, contrast, noise removal, HDR, etc. in order to produce better looking jpegs combined with good exposure settings.</p>

<p>The reason I stress this point is I have read in the past here at PN pro photographers who only shoot jpegs and get gorgeous results straight out of the camera or at least with very minimal post processing as they have admitted, but would not offer full disclosure of their incamera rendered jpeg settings.</p>

[rconey]

<p>Really, why would you NOT shoot raw. If your settings are to your liking (in Nikon speak that is picture controls) you can flip them to jpegs immediately in PP, or tinker with them at your leisure. I did occasionally set up jpeg settings to not blow out highlights or bury shadows- then I could PP some without trouble. Why not just set up raw to give images as you like and have raw.</p>

[james_de_h]

<p>For me the key is to not take as many shots. Shutter diarrhoea has its place for action etc. but do we really need multiple shots of exactly the same static things? The fact that RAW makes me think a bit both when taking and editing a shot is why I have reverted to using it exclusively. Being able to rescue a duff shot is a real plus too. That said, six shots I sent out yesterday had just one correction made, a crop to one image that needed to lose a telegraph pole. In camera processing has its place and I am not suggesting otherwise. But with RAW it is slightly more down to me and a little less down to clever electronics that gets the shot I need.I just think we should bless those who have made these advances in image capture possible although I do miss the frisson of excitement I used to get when picking up a box of transparencies - carefully forgetting the disappointment I also got five minutes later!</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>Really, why would you NOT shoot raw.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>No one's suggesting not to shoot Raw at least I wasn't on my last comment.</p>

<p>I've just seen some very professional looking jpegs come out of $3000 and up camera systems and thought by now with the newer and more advanced cameras a few or so photographers might have implemented a jpeg or Raw plus jpeg workflow.</p>

<p>I have to shoot Raw with my 2006 Pentax K100D DSLR because it renders very undesirable jpegs when shooting outdoors.</p>

<p>And I do now take very few shots because shooting Raw has motivated me to get to know how my camera's sensor records scenes with constantly changing brightness and contrast and how much data software in post can recover over what my lousy jpegs would throw away.</p>

[Spearhead]

<blockquote>

<p>Really, why would you NOT shoot raw.</p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

I know plenty of PJs and sports shooters who don't. You have to upload photos from a laptop within minutes of taking a photo and there's no time to process, often at either end given expectations in the internet era. If the photos are owned by the publisher, which they often are, and the only value is news, there's not even a reason to shoot RAW+JPEG. High end operations, such as the one SI uses at the SuperBowl and similar events, have on-site processing, but that's only for the biggest events.<br>

Of course this doesn't impact the original post response, but it's worth pointing out.<br>

</p>

[dave404]

<p>Ah the good old days with the dodging mask blocking the light in the enlarger to tease out details in the image followed by a few baths and a dry out then inspection and then repeat until done. I'm done with that. </p>