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06/30/2005 12:54:07 AM · #1 |
| I keep hearing that people are trying to shoot RAW, I assume it's not literally naked LOL, so it must be soemthing the camera can do, and can anyone tell me if my camera can do it ( I don't want to get up and find the manual) and what would be the advantage or disadvantage of doing it? My camera says JPG, is it capable of doing something I don't know about? |
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06/30/2005 12:58:54 AM · #2 |
| Long story short...RAW is just another file format like JPG...except RAW format contains much more information in the file...and requires MUCH more space on your memory card...i find the highest JPG setting on my camera works well enough. |
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06/30/2005 01:01:59 AM · #3 |
I was never even the slightest bit interested in shooting RAW until I forced myself to play with it some... and OMG what a difference! I have learned so much more about exposure and what can/cannot be "rescued" (for lack of a better term) in RAW as opposed to JPEG. I won't go back to JPEG unless I know I won't be printing or needing a decent-sized image, that's for sure. My name is Laurie, and I'm a RAW junkie. ;)
I don't know if your camera has that capability, but if it does, do what I did. Shoot RAW exclusively for one month and tell me you aren't sold. I was!!! :o) Good luck!
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06/30/2005 01:06:32 AM · #4 |
| RAW give you much more detail in the image. It also allows you to adjust white balance, exposure and many other details in the computer. It eats up alot more space on your card and Hard Drive, but it gives you A LOT more control of your image. Also you don't get any compression artifacts when using it like you do in JPEG. I always shoot RAW for weddings and portraits. i use JPEG for Sports and Action unless my editor requests otherwise, (which is happening a lot more lately.) |
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06/30/2005 01:07:00 AM · #5 |
JPG format is much like MP3. It is a highly compressed version of the original that has had a lot of the fine information stripped out to save space. The highest quality JPGs are usually sufficient unless you are cropping tightly or are very concerned the image be as good as it possibly can.
RAW is the data as it comes directly from the sensor. JPGs are processed with an algorithm that discards information.
Hope this helps... |
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06/30/2005 01:07:17 AM · #6 |
My name is Peter, I am a RAW junkie too...
Can not believe what Raw means to me... Almost like being born again. |
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06/30/2005 01:20:58 AM · #7 |
| Guess I better get the manual out and see if I can shoot RAW,but I have heard some negative comments on RAW not giving the quality expected--I'm thinking these could be camera specific, maybe a manufaturing problem? |
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06/30/2005 01:34:44 AM · #8 |
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06/30/2005 01:37:34 AM · #9 |
Mine name's Kelly, and after reading this thread i want to become a RAW junkie too..... im going out side right now to give it a go.... thanks for the inspiration.....
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06/30/2005 01:38:52 AM · #10 |
| Just to save you some time I looked it up for you and No, your camera does not shoot RAW. It can shoot TIFF though if you want to avoid compression artifacts. |
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06/30/2005 01:54:26 AM · #11 |
Rough analogy: you know how in photoshop you can change a picture by sharpening, contrast, hue/saturation, color balance, all sorts of things? A typical consumer camera does all that for you, to certain default parameters: raw data goes in, the computer in the camera makes adjustments, and the file is saved.
A RAW file is just that; it's the information collected by the sensor minus any adjustment whatsoever.
You apply ALL the adjustments to make the image "palatable" in post-processing, so you have every potential of the capture open to you; the camera didn't toss any of it when it made its "decisions".
Robt.
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06/30/2005 01:58:54 AM · #12 |
| Hi I have a 602 and it does not do raw. |
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06/30/2005 02:04:08 AM · #13 |
I have been dabling with raw for a little while now but have become born again in it's use last week. I was at Silver Lake at the dunes and shooting some seagulls. The camera's info view showed the gulls white feathers to be blown out. However, I had heard that in overexposed areas a raw file still has a large amount of detail in it that a jpeg file would have discarded. So when I loaded the images into the raw converter and dropped the exposure a stop and a half, there were feathers! Now I'm sold!
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06/30/2005 02:39:37 AM · #14 |
Originally posted by TooCool:
I have been dabling with raw for a little while now but have become born again in it's use last week. I was at Silver Lake at the dunes and shooting some seagulls. The camera's info view showed the gulls white feathers to be blown out. However, I had heard that in overexposed areas a raw file still has a large amount of detail in it that a jpeg file would have discarded. So when I loaded the images into the raw converter and dropped the exposure a stop and a half, there were feathers! Now I'm sold! |
Question: Did you have a permit to shoot them gulls? Are they good eatin'? And what kind of gun were you using that would blow them up?
...oh and one more, a 'raw converter', would that be like an oven or stove?
heeheeheeheehe
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06/30/2005 04:47:37 AM · #15 |
Another junkie here...
Now I know how much more leeway and control I have when processing a RAW image I would not shoot anything else unless, as Laurie said, it was intended from the start not to be printed etc. Such as a bunch of shots of friends at a party. And even then, who knows, so if I had the CF space, I might RAW anyway.
I recently processed images I shot in Africa in June last year in JPEG and that was a wee bit frustrating as I couldn't do a lot that I can now do, understanding RAW.
I'm now working through Antarctic shots and I only took some in RAW so it's a constant jump between "yay" and "nay"!
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06/30/2005 09:55:07 AM · #16 |
I've been shooting RAW for a couple of years, starting with my Canon G2, then my Rebel, now the XT. RAW is like a digital negative. It gives you a lot of control, and you always want to have the ability to go back to that negative and reconvert it with the latest technology for conversion, which is always improving!
But one issue is that RAW formats are mfr proprietary, and they change often. Each of my Canon cameras has a different RAW format.
Now why does that matter? Software support. I bought CS back in December or so because it supported RAW whereas Elements didn't (and I had to use a different program to convert it). Now I have a Rebel XT, and CS doesn't support that. (I can pay another $150 and buy CS2 if I want that).
And what happens in the future, to your old RAW files, if your software vendor (say Adobe) decides to discontinue support for an older RAW format? Like my G2 format? Or eventually the original Rebel format? I lose the benefit of keeping those RAW "negatives" around.
What I'm getting at is that it's time for us users to exert pressure on vendors to standardize RAW. There are several efforts underway. Adobe has offered up it's DNG format. You can convert your RAW files to DNG today and supposedly be "protected" for the future. (Though when I did it I seemed to lose the EXIF information--I'll have to play with that some more.) And there's the OpenRaw group, which is a vendor "independent" group working to achieve this goal, and is not yet settled on a format.
I am just starting my own research on this (if you couldn't tell), but I wanted to raise awareness of the problem, and get all you RAW addicts to start thinking about this issue, looking into the proposals, and exerting pressure on the vendors!
See OpenRaw.org for more information.
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06/30/2005 11:04:29 AM · #17 |
i dont believe that my camera has a raw setting but i do have a tiff option...what is the difference between raw and tiff...its obviously better than jpg but does it hold any sort of a candle to raw????
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06/30/2005 11:20:00 AM · #18 |
Here is the best way to think of RAW that I have found.
Get your film camera (mine is a F6) and go take some stunning shots.
take the film to your local high end processor and have just unreal prints made. (they look good don't they)
Now take the negatives and place them in your shredder (use the unrecoverable mutilation setting)
Scan your prints on your lower end Epson scanner, and then do reprints.
That is basically what you are doing when you shoot JPEG. You are loosing a majority of the rich data information that your sensor is delivering.
Yes RAW is much larger than jpeg, but storage is cheep!
yeah... jpeg is for snapshots... if you can shoot RAW take advantage of it .
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06/30/2005 11:31:14 AM · #19 |
Originally posted by buzzmom:
i dont believe that my camera has a raw setting but i do have a tiff option...what is the difference between raw and tiff...its obviously better than jpg but does it hold any sort of a candle to raw???? |
I believe the main difference between tiff and jpg is that TIFF is uncompressed so you do have more data and better quality since it isn't lost in the compression. Raw still is better since you can adjust different settings and exposures and such.
I once heard raw described this way...it is a "raw" steak, you add spices and marinate (adjust settings) and cook (process) it on a grill/stove (raw converter) the way you want and like it. JPG is that thing you get cooked their way at a restaraunt---big difference unless you're a lousy cook. It's also considered your digital negative. |
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06/30/2005 01:09:25 PM · #20 |
edit to delete a repeated site. Shoot RAW. There are no solid reasons not to use that mode - exception - the photograph does not have to be the best photograph you can produce and you want the card space for a larger amount of sub-quality shots.
Message edited by author 2005-06-30 13:16:41. |
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06/30/2005 01:59:11 PM · #21 |
Originally posted by RonBeam:
edit to delete a repeated site. Shoot RAW. There are no solid reasons not to use that mode - exception - the photograph does not have to be the best photograph you can produce and you want the card space for a larger amount of sub-quality shots. |
There are some other solid reasons:
Time is also a factor; it takes longer to write the RAW data to the card. This can be a big issue for sports shooting.
But more importantly is the postprocessing effort. To do most anything with the photo you have to postprocess. If you postprocess all your photos anyway, and your editor supports RAW, that isn't a big deal. But if you are fairly new, RAW can be a bit overwhelming. There is no reason to be afraid of it, but learn the basics first. Once you can consistently produce photographs with correct exposure, proper lighting, reasonable composition, etc., RAW is certainly something to explore.
Contrary to the impression given by many messages in this thread, high quality jpeg isn't bad. If the exposure and white balance are correct, you won't be able to tell the difference. Don't save intermediate edits in jpeg; the quality gets worse with every open-edit-save cycle. (Use psd or tiff.) But there really isn't a problem with the "original" being in high quality jpeg format. RAW does have the advantages that the white balance isn't yet "fixed" so color casts can be more easily avoided, and there are more bits/byte so you have more latitude to fix exposure problems (but blown-out pixels are still blown-out, so compensating for overexposure is limited). |
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06/30/2005 02:29:39 PM · #22 |
Originally posted by dr rick:
Originally posted by RonBeam:
edit to delete a repeated site. Shoot RAW. There are no solid reasons not to use that mode - exception - the photograph does not have to be the best photograph you can produce and you want the card space for a larger amount of sub-quality shots. |
There are some other solid reasons:
Time is also a factor; it takes longer to write the RAW data to the card. This can be a big issue for sports shooting.
But more importantly is the postprocessing effort. To do most anything with the photo you have to postprocess. If you postprocess all your photos anyway, and your editor supports RAW, that isn't a big deal. But if you are fairly new, RAW can be a bit overwhelming. There is no reason to be afraid of it, but learn the basics first. Once you can consistently produce photographs with correct exposure, proper lighting, reasonable composition, etc., RAW is certainly something to explore.
Contrary to the impression given by many messages in this thread, high quality jpeg isn't bad. If the exposure and white balance are correct, you won't be able to tell the difference. Don't save intermediate edits in jpeg; the quality gets worse with every open-edit-save cycle. (Use psd or tiff.) But there really isn't a problem with the "original" being in high quality jpeg format. RAW does have the advantages that the white balance isn't yet "fixed" so color casts can be more easily avoided, and there are more bits/byte so you have more latitude to fix exposure problems (but blown-out pixels are still blown-out, so compensating for overexposure is limited). |
You have some very valid points however the RAW converter can be used as a tool in the learning process. Being able to adjust the exposure gives insight into what settings to use the next time the same type of situation arises but still being able to 'save' the image you took this time. The other options in the RAW converter can be used in the same way. That's what I use it for anyway.
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06/30/2005 02:44:02 PM · #23 |
I was just editing some of my raw images using RSE. The greatest part is being able to convert the same image three or four times with different settings then either seeing which you really like best after photoshopping or using ALL of them stacked for better overall exposure of highlights and shadows or taking the parts you like best of each and using them on one image. You just can't do that in jpeg.
The only images I shoot in JPEG now are ones where speed is a huge factor. RAW takes an awfully long time to write when someone's sliding into home plate. :)
d
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06/30/2005 04:12:39 PM · #24 |
| My bad. I should have prefaced my statement about the value of RAW with the caveat that it is THE way to go for shots that the photographer knows will be considered for large format prints or when the need for ultimate clarity (such as commercial work or perhaps contests) overrides the need for fast card writing or large numbers of shots on a card. I did not mean to imply it is the best mode to use for every situation. Most non-pro cameras will not function in burst or bracketing modes while in RAW setting and delay time must be allowred for info writing to your camera storage. As to the post-processing issue; of course there is an additional step of conversion from RAW to TIFF or JPEG (or another format for storage), but the benefits of taking that extra time are worth it, in the finished product. |
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06/30/2005 04:34:16 PM · #25 |
Because I have too much memory, and need to fill it up! ;-)
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