RAW (Page 3): The implication of the raw religion is if you are shooting inferior JPEG, then you MUST be an inferior photographer - AND

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

The implication of the raw religion is if you are shooting inferior JPEG, then you MUST be an inferior photographer - AND - therefore, an inferior PERSON even !

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

xt2 wrote:

Why on earth do you care what a stranger prefers??? No need to denigrate those you disagree with!

I could care less what anyone shoots. But the fact remains, that those who reject the reality that you have more flexibility and options when you start out with an unedited raw file than a camera-produced jpeg, and that the result is better in nearly 100% of the time, and that using a set of coarse camera presets are a poor substitute for the fine tuning possible in a raw converter - well this is not denigrating anyone - it's just calling them out. I will always respect someone's opinion, even when I disagree with them. but when it comes to quantifiable facts - you really can't have an opinion, other than you either accept fact or you reject it. People who reject facts have cognitive dissonance - where even in the face of overwhelming evidence they will hold on to their beliefs rather than consider the facts before them. If this is some form of denigration, then let it be so. You are certainly entitled to your opinion.

leftj Loc: Texas

Gene51 wrote:

Yeah, ok.

I don't need accuracy. Cameras can be inaccurate and unforgiving, especially when you hit their hard limits. I really enjoy flexibility to be able to correct what the camera can't capture correctly.

Fuji does have great jpegs with 3 stops of highlight headroom. Not sure how they do it but it totally works. I don't shoot Fuji, so I can shoot raw if I want to. Not a matter of being snobbish. I just can't justify leaving image quality on the table just for the sake of saying this image came straight out of the camera with no post processing.

Three versions of the same capture.

First has only one adjustment - to set the exposure to a "correct" balance.
Second is what the camera saw, but using my exposure decision to protect the highlights. Straight out of the camera.
The last is what I post processed, which was WAY CLOSER to what I saw than what the camera would have captured.

Not snobbery at all. Just after better looking images. The scene's contrast range is beyond anything that can be rendered by a jpeg conversion in the camera. I spend 90% of my shooting time shooting high to very high contrast subjects. It is pointless, not snobbish, to limit myself to just jpegs. The first image would have been deleted, based on the total lack of detail in the shadows and the highlights. It's a terrible image. However, understanding my camera's capabilities, and knowing what the limits are in post processing, I was confident that my exposure choice was a good one, even if it did produce an "underexposed" image. This is not an example of great photography by any means, but it is a great example of a high contrast scene and why a jpeg is limited while a raw file, edited and converted to a jpeg is clearly superior.

If I did portrait/product photography or was a photojournalist, then I would accept whatever the camera produced. In the first case, I have 100% over the lighting, and I doubt I could tell the difference between a jpeg or a raw->jpeg image. In the second case, I'd generally be forbidden from producing a manipulated image.

If this makes me a snob, then great - I take it as a compliment.

Yeah, ok. br br I don't need accuracy. Cameras c... (show quote)

I didn't call it snobbery because you like to shoot RAW. It's because in your post you intimated that anyone who doesn't shoot RAW is dumb. If you like to shoot RAW all the time then power to you but don't put anyone who shoots Jpeg down as dumb or stupid. As far as your three pictures are concerned the second one is underexposed to begin with. You could have gotten a much better image SOOC. The first and third images do not reflect anything that could not have been accomplished by PPing a good Jpeg SOOC.

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

Gene51 wrote:

Yeah, ok.

I don't need accuracy. Cameras can be inaccurate and unforgiving, especially when you hit their hard limits. I really enjoy flexibility to be able to correct what the camera can't capture correctly.

Fuji does have great jpegs with 3 stops of highlight headroom. Not sure how they do it but it totally works. I don't shoot Fuji, so I can shoot raw if I want to. Not a matter of being snobbish. I just can't justify leaving image quality on the table just for the sake of saying this image came straight out of the camera with no post processing.

Three versions of the same capture.

First has only one adjustment - to set the exposure to a "correct" balance.
Second is what the camera saw, but using my exposure decision to protect the highlights. Straight out of the camera.
The last is what I post processed, which was WAY CLOSER to what I saw than what the camera would have captured.

Not snobbery at all. Just after better looking images. The scene's contrast range is beyond anything that can be rendered by a jpeg conversion in the camera. I spend 90% of my shooting time shooting high to very high contrast subjects. It is pointless, not snobbish, to limit myself to just jpegs. The first image would have been deleted, based on the total lack of detail in the shadows and the highlights. It's a terrible image. However, understanding my camera's capabilities, and knowing what the limits are in post processing, I was confident that my exposure choice was a good one, even if it did produce an "underexposed" image. This is not an example of great photography by any means, but it is a great example of a high contrast scene and why a jpeg is limited while a raw file, edited and converted to a jpeg is clearly superior.

If I did portrait/product photography or was a photojournalist, then I would accept whatever the camera produced. In the first case, I have 100% over the lighting, and I doubt I could tell the difference between a jpeg or a raw->jpeg image. In the second case, I'd generally be forbidden from producing a manipulated image.

If this makes me a snob, then great - I take it as a compliment.

Yeah, ok. br br I don't need accuracy. Cameras c... (show quote)

Sooo, have you done a properly exposed JPEG of this scene with proper PPing ??

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

imagemeister wrote:

Sooo, have you done a properly exposed JPEG of this scene with proper PPing ??

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It's not possible without HDR - there was easily a 16 stop difference between the dark shadows (behind the big rock) and the highlights in the water. Given my limited experience with Fuji cameras, though, I think I might have been able to create an exposure with retrievable highlights using a jpeg out of the camera with a little post processing.

Truth is, I abandoned shooting jpeg 12 yrs ago. But when I work with my students, it is unavoidable to have to edit jpegs. Once they see the possibilities with raw captures compared to what they typically get with jpegs out of the camera, they understand and almost always abandon jpegs altogether.

I must come clean though, I do shoot jpegs - using my Pixel XL cellphone. It makes great images in good light. I took this with the Pixel - part of my studio stuff just before I packed it all into a truck in my move from Yonkers to Delaware - a sextet of Speedotron power packs, a few 4x4 scrims, and parts to my 145 lb "tripod" - the base and part of the column are visible.

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

leftj wrote:

I didn't call it snobbery because you like to shoo... (show quote)

Being dumb are not the words I used - cognitive dissonance is not being dumb - that is your take on it.

I like to take pictures. If all I have is a cellphone in my pocket, yes, I will take the occasional jpeg. But for the best quality I have found, over the past 12 yrs, that shooting raw always gives me uncompromisingly good (at least when I get the exposure correct and have a decent composition) results, and for that very brief time in the beginning, when I had a camera that could do both, I tried doing just that, and found that the best images in challenging light were not coming from jpegs, but raw.

There is no way the 16 stop exposure could have been captured in a camera produced jpeg - seriously. This is exactly why I will ask you to put your money where your mouth is.

Go out, find a nice bright subject, where there is considerable shade - it could be a white bird or any subject. Meter the scene to produce the best jpeg possible. Then meter it again, and use the camera's spot meter to measure the brightest highlight in which you wish to retain details, and add 1-1/3 stops to the camera's suggested exposure. Then process each to the best result. Post them.

Man, I've been a photographer since 1967, and back in the day, the rage was to ensure that you had enough light to capture shadow detail, then dodge and burn the image to get a good picture. It's what we did. Contact prints were rarely good enough for anything but to check that you had enough details in the shadows, and to start to think about what areas would need additional work, and so on. Master printmakers could spend days on perfecting an image.

No, SOOC would definitely not have produced a superior image. What you are saying is that you can take an 8 bit image, shot in sRGB or even Adobe RGB, and somehow add the missing dynamic range and latitude and this would make a better result than shooting this as a raw file. You do realize that had I increased the exposure 1.5 stops to get the rest of the image to be less underexposed the highlights would have been lost. The first image would have been SOOC - blown highlights (unrecoverable) dark detail-less shadows, lots of noise - you might have ended up with something like this, complete with veiled highlights and crappy shadows:

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leftj Loc: Texas

Gene51 wrote:

Being dumb are not the words I used - cognitive dissonance is not being dumb - that is your take on it.

I like to take pictures. If all I have is a cellphone in my pocket, yes, I will take the occasional jpeg. But for the best quality I have found, over the past 12 yrs, that shooting raw always gives me uncompromisingly good (at least when I get the exposure correct and have a decent composition) results, and for that very brief time in the beginning, when I had a camera that could do both, I tried doing just that, and found that the best images in challenging light were not coming from jpegs, but raw.

There is no way the 16 stop exposure could have been captured in a camera produced jpeg - seriously. This is exactly why I will ask you to put your money where your mouth is.

Go out, find a nice bright subject, where there is considerable shade - it could be a white bird or any subject. Meter the scene to produce the best jpeg possible. Then meter it again, and use the camera's spot meter to measure the brightest highlight in which you wish to retain details, and add 1-1/3 stops to the camera's suggested exposure. Then process each to the best result. Post them.

Man, I've been a photographer since 1967, and back in the day, the rage was to ensure that you had enough light to capture shadow detail, then dodge and burn the image to get a good picture. It's what we did. Contact prints were rarely good enough for anything but to check that you had enough details in the shadows, and to start to think about what areas would need additional work, and so on. Master printmakers could spend days on perfecting an image.

No, SOOC would definitely not have produced a superior image. What you are saying is that you can take an 8 bit image, shot in sRGB or even Adobe RGB, and somehow add the missing dynamic range and latitude and this would make a better result than shooting this as a raw file. You do realize that had I increased the exposure 1.5 stops to get the rest of the image to be less underexposed the highlights would have been lost. The first image would have been SOOC - blown highlights (unrecoverable) dark detail-less shadows, lots of noise - you might have ended up with something like this, complete with veiled highlights and crappy shadows:

Being dumb are not the words I used - cognitive di... (show quote)

Your words. "Of course, there will be some who choose to remain crippled by their cognitive dissonance and not give any credence to even their own eyesight - and still continue to shoot jpegs because somehow they are either better or good enough." Any way you cut it you are saying that someone who doesn't shoot RAW isn't playing with a full deck.

Your entire dissertation above is an exercise in blowing smoke.

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

leftj wrote:

Your words. "Of course, there will be some who choose to remain crippled by their cognitive dissonance and not give any credence to even their own eyesight - and still continue to shoot jpegs because somehow they are either better or good enough." Any way you cut it you are saying that someone who doesn't shoot RAW isn't playing with a full deck.

Your entire dissertation above is an exercise in blowing smoke.

If you understand cognitive dissonance, you will realize that it can be crippling for some people. And the perfect example is someone who is resistant to facts even when they are physical, demonstrable, repeatable etc - and chose to believe what they have always believed. This is not an uncommon thing, and whether someone is playing with a full deck or not has nothing to do with this. Why do you think that someone who demonstrates CD is not "playing with a full deck" - and what does one thing have to do with the other - It sure sounds like you are being quite judgmental. And talking about my post as a dissertation is a bit of hyperbole, don't you agree? And if you know anything about CD you wouldn't characterize my musings as "blowing smoke" if I catch your drift.

Hell, I can't blow smoke, I don't even own one of these:

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Chaostrain Loc: Hillsboro, Oregon

Lol. You folks are funny.

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

Chaostrain wrote:

Lol. You folks are funny.

This is always a humorous topic. Each time it comes up

srt101fan

Gene51 wrote:

It may seem that way. br br Shooting jpeg is def... (show quote)

A friend of mine had a Sunbeam - Alpine, I think it was. The handbrake was on the outboard side of the driver's seat. Made it a little awkward to get in and out when the brake was set!

linda castellitto

i, also, have a canon eos, but mine is a rebel xsi. i'm not sure how similar they are, but they are pretty close. i got mine about seven years ago.my first camera was a rolleiflex TLR, which took the best pics ever. they are so different. but the convenience of my eos is the best.