rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

In another thread here, the OP asks about 'trimming' a photo while it is still in his Nikon D500. This leads me to three questions:

(1) how much can the user of a modern Nikon camera modify an image while it is still in his/her camera?

(2) does this affect the NEF version of an image or just the JPEG version?

(3) why would someone spend valuable time in the field doing such a thing when s/he could do it later on a much larger screen??

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

I was hiking the south portion of the AT last year for 4-months / 803-miles. I didn't have a computer, not on the trail nor in any of the trail towns. I captured in RAW from a pocket model and could post updates to social media using my phone. Processing the RAW files using the camera tools produced a better overall result than using the small JPEG and editing only with the smartphone tools. There's a relevant real-life example.

Your camera-based edits on RAW are the same non-destructive changes as editing RAW on the computer. The edit is output to a JPEG on the camera and the NEF / CR2 / etc retains all the original data when transferred into your robust tools on your computer.

Kuzano

On your question 3, I don't care if my screen at home is a 55 inch 4K TV running in HDMI. I will do anything necessary to avoid Post Processing. And I do not shoot RAW. But Hey, that's me, and more than a few others on this site.

SOOC with both film and digital.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Actually, I prefer to not PP, and the only difference I see between this functionality in camera and PP in computer is that the computer gives me a much larger screen.

A few days ago I posted some images I shot five days ago in Chicago.
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-523581-1.html

Only when I was looking at them on my computer did I realize that the motorman in the first train was visible, looking back at the rest of the train. That is just one example of the detail you can miss on a tiny screen.

BebuLamar

I never do any adjustment in the camera. I avoid having to use menu as much as possible.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Thank you for answering (2) and (3). As I mentioned in the post above this, personally I cannot imagine editing on such a tiny screen.

ToBoldlyGo Loc: London U.K.

The final question is obvious to my mind. You need the photo quick. Cameras do offer some pretty good editing options nowadays. As for 2, in a Nikon it just creates a copy. For 1, you can adjust white balance, colour temp, exposure. All things which can make for a useful photo with no corrective editing needed. You can crop too.

WessoJPEG Loc: Cincinnati, Ohio

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

(1) I've never bothered, tiny screens are not color corrected, too small to see any detail, very difficult to see if your edits make sense.
(2) No.
(3) Good question. My results are so much better after I have properly edited a raw file on my computer, I can't see myself using the camera to do this.

If I happen to have my Sony RX10M4, I will use the NFC sharing function to share a raw file to social media. Upon transfer, it will convert from .arw to .jpg according to my camera's setting.

I have no use for SOOC - my results are considerably better with raw, especially in high contrast or very low contrast lighting. Either way I always expose to protect highlights, similar to exposing to the right, which, in those two specific circumstances, would yield damn ugly jpgs that I would be ashamed to share.

Also, when I am in the field and do multi-row panos, which is fairly often, I can't do any adjusting in camera.

Here is an example of a high contrast shot, high contrast, and adjusted in post processing, and you can see why the SOOC image would not do me any good, not to mention that this is a 3 row pano, 5 shots each row.

It's the reason I abandoned jpgs out of camera 12 yrs ago, and never take raw + jpg. As you can see the raw file has all the info I need. If it was shot as jpg with a single lens, there is no way any in-camera setting could give me this result. I suppose the SOOC crowd will double down and either like the first unaltered image, or simply declare it to be an exposure mistake and not worth spending less than 10 minutes to make any adjustments (I may have spent less time) - and ending up deleting it.

Shooting raw opens up a whole other range of creative possibilities that just don't work with SOOC. I recently looked at camera review on Ken Rockwell's site, and was quickly reminded why I don't use SOOC. His stuff is downright ugly - oversaturated, super blown highlights with false colors in them, and either noisy or lacking fine detail due to high noise reduction settings. Ugly indeed . . .

.

As shot, no adjustments

(Download)

cropped, adjusted, enhanced

(Download)

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

I can never figure out why photographers on this site appear to be so judgmental and so narrowly focused (no pun intended, actually) on what they do and why it is the only way to do things, this in reference to #3. I say this in spite of agreeing with you on this point but I really don't care why other photographers do what they do as long as it does not affect me in some way. We are all different and I respect that, even when I don't think it is the best approach or agree with it.

1) As much as the camera software allows (which may depend on the camera) if that is their preference.
2) The camera creates and works on a JPEG version.
3) It is beyond my knowledge what special use or requirements a photographer might have, but I'm fairly certain someone would most likely do this at some point in time for some good reason unknown to me.

FiddleMaker Loc: Merrimac, MA

Wow, incredible, Gene - the SOOC versus edited.
I am using a stand-alone version Lightroom 5.7 but I really need to upgrade to something more current such as Lightroom Classic CC, for example. But I am afraid that there will be a conflict with my current Lightroom 5 Catalog with any new catalogs that would be associated with a subscription version of Lightroom. Of course, all I would need to do is speak with someone at Adobe about this.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Other than a few additional tools, such as a haze filter, and new profiles for lenses and RAW types, there's nothing special about upgrading from LR5. I can tell you. I did it within the last month. If you want to go with the subscription model, sure, you then also have the most powerful PhotoShop. But, there isn't any pixie dust magic that comes with the upgrade. The new software doesn't make the edit process any faster; no new button that performs Gene's before and after conversion example.

Regarding potential conflicts, it doesn't happen that way. Rather, the LR software installs parallel to your existing software. The first time you open the new LR after installation, it detects the existing LR catalog and converts the existing content into a new catalog leaving your existing software and LR5 catalog untouched. You do need to check your launch icons and assure you're working in the new software and remove or rename the older references so you don't get confused. But overall, the upgrade is pain free.

FiddleMaker Loc: Merrimac, MA

CHG_CANON, thanks for your advice. My concern was some sort of horror show when I upgrade but I guess I should be okay. I need to upgrade because my current Lr 5.7 does not read RAW files from my newly acquired Fujifilm X-T2. So I will make mention of this when I speak with the Adobe folks.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

All good questions. I can tell you that the NEF will not be affected. And as to why (#3) nobody really knows why a person does or wants to do certain things like this. Perhaps they want to send it to their boss directly from the camera or from where they are taking the pictures or to social media? I can't answer #1.

davefales Loc: Virginia

Your pp'd version is beautiful. Did you use luminosity masking. It looks like an example out of a LM tutorial.

Another one downloaded for my secret enjoyment stash.