Shooting RAW...

Vapor Audio · « **Reply #20 on:** 13 Aug 2007, 11:08 pm »

I had a Fuji S2 for awhile, their D-SLR ... and the Hyper-Utility raw processor was a total piece of crap. With Fuji, Photoshop did a much better job of raw processing. Still, with any point and shoot you're not going to get near the advantage of raw's as you will with a D-SLR simply because the point-n-shoot sensor and lens won't capture near as much information.

jcrane · « **Reply #21 on:** 14 Aug 2007, 12:47 am »

Turbo
That does not surprise me about your findings with the Nikon converter.
I have read that the best results are garnered by using the converter that comes with your camera. (Canon's DPP and Nikon's program you mentioned) as they are the only ones with the actual programs your camera uses. Adobe "reverse" engineers so to speak to get the converter to work with your camera in PS. So it is really a best guess situation.
I use PS for the ease in use as I tend to use Bridge to view my photos and do all my converting in PS CS2. I tried using Lightroom but did not want to invest in another book to learn another program.

Jamie

Levi · « **Reply #22 on:** 14 Aug 2007, 03:20 am »

Hi John,

I went to Nikon School awhile back and they swear RGB color space + RAW file format proved to have the ultimate in picture quality when processed correctly. Unfortunely, the comparison pictures above do not do justice as they are two different pictures. In the two flowers, the jpg picture looks like has more saturation. It is not that your comparison picture is bad, I don't think it is the same picture. What I mean is if your camera can take both RAW + JPEG at the same instance. Hmmm...

My D2Xs can take RAW + JPEG at the same time. I hate post processing because it is time consuming to do 700+ pictures at one time, I will try to come up with a good comparison. I have an older version Nikon Capture 4.4.2 but should be good enough to process RAW images straight from the camera. I know it is a moot point. RAW will always have the better image as compared to .JPEG.

-Cheers

navi · « **Reply #23 on:** 14 Aug 2007, 12:41 pm »

Quote from: TurboFC3S on 13 Aug 2007, 02:02 am

Nikon's raw processor is far superior to Adobe ACR or any other raw processor btw ...

Bloody surrounded by Nikon users!!!!! (98% of the pro's i know use Canon.)

Phase One's Capture One is the best- I use it for all my digital shooting (tethered lappie to camera), meta tagging, processing, batch processing and adjustments. it's easy to use, fast and there was no need to read any manual when I first started using it.

Aperture is a piece of crap. tried it once- hated it. Canon software has improved over the years but still isn't as user friendly as CaptureOne. Waiting to try lightroom but from what a another photographer has told me..... i'll stick with CaptureOne. The only problem with captureOne is that it doesn't like Nikon cameras when tethered..... but that doesn't concern me.

Double Ugly · « **Reply #24 on:** 14 Aug 2007, 10:52 pm »

Quote from: navi on 14 Aug 2007, 12:41 pm

Aperture is a piece of crap. tried it once- hated it.

Thanks for the data point.

brj · « **Reply #25 on:** 15 Aug 2007, 12:08 am »

Quote from: navi

Bloody surrounded by Nikon users!!!!! (98% of the pro's i know use Canon.)

"74.6 percent of all statistics are meaningless - Anonymous"

Just for reference, what kind of "pro" were you referring to? Print news? Web news? Ad-work? Landscape? Sports? Portrait? Artist? All very different with different demands on their tools...

Quote from: navi

Aperture is a piece of crap. tried it once- hated it.

Which version did you try? (v1.5 was supposed to be a major update, current is 1.5.4)

Quote from: Levi

I went to Nikon School

I've heard of this before, but haven't really researched it. Is it mostly aimed at how to get the most out of your Nikon camera? Was it worth it?

jcrane · « **Reply #26 on:** 15 Aug 2007, 12:36 am »

I am a Canon guy and from what I have exp. Canon has the foothold on pro sports.
Other than that I am not sure of market share.
But those BIG ASS WHITE L's are everywhere at Pro Sporting events.
My little white L can be seen this fall shooting High School Football in Metro East STL for IHSFW.com

(selfless plug....)

Jamie aa

Levi · « **Reply #27 on:** 15 Aug 2007, 01:26 am »

That's what I thought about Nikon School. Actually, Nikon School teaches you about RAW, color space, composition, lense perspective, post processing, Nikon Capture...etc. Nikon school does not teach you how to use your digital camera. You can however ask questions during the break about how to use your new Nikon camera but this is not about the class.

Here is the link for more information about the Nikon school classes. I attended all the classes and I find them very stimulating.
-Levi

Quote from: brj on 15 Aug 2007, 12:08 am

Quote from: Levi
I went to Nikon School

I've heard of this before, but haven't really researched it. Is it mostly aimed at how to get the most out of your Nikon camera? Was it worth it?

Levi · « **Reply #28 on:** 15 Aug 2007, 01:36 am »

Here is a very important thing to remember when shooting RAW:

1. Keep them sharp. Focus well. Post processing cannot fix poorly focused or blurry images.
2. Get the correct exposure. Under exposed pictures are better than over exposed. over-exposure = lost of image detail. You cannot bring that back. If the image is a little under exposed, you can slowly bring that up in your post processing. Details are not lost completely.
3. Finally, try to take a great picture from the start. This would keep your workflow smoother and quicker.

-Levi

nathanm · « **Reply #29 on:** 15 Aug 2007, 03:34 pm »

If you take focused, sharp, correctly exposed great pictures then what do you need RAW for? They just take up more space, require proprietary, slow software before you can see the thing. The camera is doing the exact same thing as your software app is doing, but with dedicated hardware so it does it rather fast. If one is willing to accept a hundred years or so of photographic reality when shooting (i.e. having to take focused, correctly exposed images) then RAW is simply a speed bump along the way.

Depending on what your goals are for your photos to me it makes more sense to open your images in Photoshop, do all your retouching, add all your adjustment layers and whatnot and save as a layered LZW TIFF or PSD. Avoiding a SECOND JPEG compression is the key. If I am going to tweak an image at all I'm gonna want to resave it in a lossless format. But if your shots are generally good to go then you might as well bite the bullet and shoot JPEG and save yourself some tedium.

I do understand the audiophillic impetus to crank up the quality sliders to maximum of course, but RAW doesn't seem to offer the same situation like what you have with say PCM WAV files vs. MPEG audio. Hmmm. If anything I'd rather shoot a TIFF, at least that way I can open the file using conventional means. But if there really is minimal JPEG artifacting even that may be moot.

Vapor Audio · « **Reply #30 on:** 15 Aug 2007, 04:00 pm »

Nathan, you said it yourself before - you're using some of the worst raw processing software available - the Fuji HyperUtility - with a point and shoot camera. I wouldn't expect you to see any benefit from shooting raw.

What a camera's integrated CPU does to process jpg's is nothing like what you can do with software. Especially when you're talking about the massive amount of data captured by today's D-SLR sensors. I've seen it myself more than enough to know there's no comparison, but if you still don't believe it, look at the reviews on dpreview.com. When reviewing D-SLR's they've been showing differences between the camera created jpg's and jpg's created from software raw processing. In every case the difference is obvious and a win for the software processed raw's.

Vapor Audio · « **Reply #31 on:** 15 Aug 2007, 04:24 pm »

Quote from: navi on 14 Aug 2007, 12:41 pm

Bloody surrounded by Nikon users!!!!! (98% of the pro's i know use Canon.)

I'm a pro Sports shooter - motorsports and youth sports. I also do weddings, and some studio work for a couple different magazines. Field sports is the only area I've seen with any sort of Canon dominance, weddings and studio work from what I've seen is owned by Nikon.

nathanm · « **Reply #32 on:** 15 Aug 2007, 04:43 pm »

Not just my camera, but also with the SLR we use at work. We tried the RAW thing early on and quickly discovered it was too much hassle to be of any use. There may be good reasons for shooting RAW, all I'm saying is that it's vastly quicker to do your edits in Photoshop. It's like two different levels of adjustment. I want to get the basics right from the get go and tweak the details later. With RAW it seems like you're doing this low level stuff better left to the camera. For me I just don't have the time or patience to mess with that. I'm sure things will improve in the future but right now, for my purposes with digital images RAW offers nothing. I dunno, I used to work with poster-sized drum scans on Quadras and early beige Powermacs and I never recalled experiencing the amount of thumb-twidling as I did in modern days with this RAW thing.

Vapor Audio · « **Reply #33 on:** 15 Aug 2007, 05:15 pm »

Alright, sounds like you need to setup an efficient raw workflow. That's a totally different arguement than whether working with raw's can create better final images, because there's no doubt they can. Also whether or not your work demands the better images is yet another arguement.

I don't really enjoy working with and storing raw's either, but I do it because the quality difference is obvious.

nathanm · « **Reply #34 on:** 15 Aug 2007, 05:54 pm »

Is there a specific review I could look at at dpreview.com where software vs. hardware RAW processing is compared for a given camera? I poked around there but wasn't sure what to look for.

Vapor Audio · « **Reply #35 on:** 15 Aug 2007, 07:35 pm »

Quote from: nathanm on 15 Aug 2007, 05:54 pm

Is there a specific review I could look at at dpreview.com where software vs. hardware RAW processing is compared for a given camera? I poked around there but wasn't sure what to look for.

Checkout any of the D-SLR reviews ... at the end of the reviews I think in the Image Comaparison sections they compare what's being reviewed to other cameras, both from-camera jpgs and software processed raw images. They're crops, but show very well the difference in detail available from raw.

jakepunk · « **Reply #36 on:** 16 Aug 2007, 03:54 pm »

Nathan, this article on Ken Rockwell's site reinforces your existing impressions of RAW. I don't have an opinion since I am so new I aspire to be an amateur photographer.

Vapor Audio · « **Reply #37 on:** 16 Aug 2007, 05:49 pm »

Oh no, somebody had to break out the Ken Rockwell links

That guy is a complete joke in the photography world ...

nathanm · « **Reply #38 on:** 16 Aug 2007, 06:19 pm »

How come?

Levi · « **Reply #39 on:** 16 Aug 2007, 09:53 pm »

He likes Nikon gears.