"Getting it right in the camera."

[dtmateojr]

Sorry Demo but the cpu in my camera doesn't convert the raw data to a jpeg format ( unless I ask it to ) as I prefer develop that data in a developing tank full of switches wires and silicon bits in my little dark room ----

From the mostly vacant recesses of my tiny brain I distinctly remember watching the development of slide film 40 odd years ago and noting the fact that altering chemical ratios or development bath temperatures resulted in colour shifts etc.

To me that sounds awfully like manipulation of raw data at the time of development whether it be a digital file or a strip of plastic.

No arguments there. That is equivalent to in-camera effects. Cross processing film is very common in lomography too.

[dtmateojr]

The resolution of film is about equivelent to a 50MP full frame camera. Why shoot in jpg and lose a heap of that resolution? I shake my head at comparing a JPG to film. Sorry, but you have lost me entirely by comparing film to jpg. If you shoot jpg fair enough, your choice, but no way I or most other photographers would. Just cause you wrote an article on JPG v RAW does not mean your opinion on it, is the correct one, it is just your opinion. I am moving on from this discussion.

Not sure where resolution fits into the picture but let me play... The Pentax 645 still shoots jpeg, right?

[ricktas]

Not sure where resolution fits into the picture but let me play... The Pentax 645 still shoots jpeg, right?

I am not going to 'play' with you. I disagree with your opinion. End of discussion.

[dtmateojr]

Disagree all you want. That's fine. I can make images that I am satisfied with even with very very minimal processing. Sitting in front of a computer is not my idea of fun in photography.

[I @ M]

The Pentax 645 still shoots jpeg, right?

8 bit jpeg yes, much the same as other cameras but I would rather be printing large images captured from uncompressed 14 bit raw files.

[dtmateojr]

8 bit jpeg yes, much the same as other cameras but I would rather be printing large images captured from uncompressed 14 bit raw files.

You can't print raw though and I'm not sure if jpeg is the limitation during printing. Printers actually have way lesser dynamic range.

[I @ M]

Disagree all you want. That's fine. I can make images that I am satisfied with even with very very minimal processing. Sitting in front of a computer is not my idea of fun in photography.

Yep, if you are happy that is all that is important. Nobody is knocking you for the way you do things. You do have to consider the way you present "your facts" however and be prepared to accept that you might be wrong sometimes.

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You can't print raw though and I'm not sure if jpeg is the limitation during printing. Printers actually have way lesser dynamic range.

Who said anything about printing raw?

Maybe you haven't looked at modern day commercial printers but I can assure you that an image printed from an uncompressed format looks much better than from a compressed 8 bit jpeg when compared side by side.

[dtmateojr]

Yep, if you are happy that is all that is important. Nobody is knocking you for the way you do things. You do have to consider the way you present "your facts" however and be prepared to accept that you might be wrong sometimes.

It would enlighten everyone if you can tell us what's wrong with the facts I presented with regard to slide film. For the record, I still shoot a lot of film, negative and slide, and I process my own negatives as well. I scan my negatives if I decide to print them.

[dtmateojr]

Yep, if you are happy that is all that is important. Nobody is knocking you for the way you do things. You do have to consider the way you present "your facts" however and be prepared to accept that you might be wrong sometimes.

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Who said anything about printing raw?

Maybe you haven't looked at modern day commercial printers but I can assure you that an image printed from an uncompressed format looks much better than from a compressed 8 bit jpeg when compared side by side.

No, I don't own one and not aware of whatever printers the labs use when I send my photos to them. Interesting to note that 8-bit and 16-bit printing output look the same according to this:

http://www.olegnovikov.com/technical...8vs16bit.shtml

[I @ M]

It would enlighten everyone if you can tell us what's wrong with the facts I presented with regard to slide film. For the record, I still shoot a lot of film, negative and slide, and I process my own negatives as well. I scan my negatives if I decide to print them.

Well, I don't know if "everyone" needs to be enlightened but I will present my theory to you as simply as I can.

I will liken slide film to the memory card in a camera, they are both carriers of raw data. The data contained in the slide film cannot be viewed on a light table or in a slide projector until developing and processing has occurred. The data contained on the memory card cannot be viewed on a monitor until developing and processing has occurred.

In short, going back to start of this topic, getting it right in camera is equally relevant to any form of image capture.

[dtmateojr]

Well, I don't know if "everyone" needs to be enlightened but I will present my theory to you as simply as I can.

I will liken slide film to the memory card in a camera, they are both carriers of raw data. The data contained in the slide film cannot be viewed on a light table or in a slide projector until developing and processing has occurred. The data contained on the memory card cannot be viewed on a monitor until developing and processing has occurred.

In short, going back to start of this topic, getting it right in camera is equally relevant to any form of image capture.

We are talking about photoshop retouching here. Your arguments don't apply. A jpeg in a memory card is a complete set of data capable of being viewed or printed. Slide film needs to be developed but NOT necessarily post processed.

Great photographers have achieved their level of status without ever retouching any of their shots. Cartier-Bresson, Steve McCurry and more recently, Vivian Meier, did not retouch. Very few greats retouched their photos and I can honestly name only one: Ansel Adams. The rest depended on labs or other independent printing people.

That's proof that if you are good enough then you can get it right in camera without the need for post processing. Digital shooters seem to think that photoshop is a necessary step. Well it is if you insist on shooting raw but you do not have to. If you really want uncompressed photos then get a Nikon. My D700 saves in TIFF as well.

[ameerat42]

Thanks to everybody for taking the trouble to comprehensively express their views.

I suppose this is a topic where perception of someone else's point of view can vary greatly among individuals.

I think that we have just saved this discussion from derailing into a post-processing vs not discussion, which has been treated elsewhere recently.

In the end, people are just describing what they think can be "got right" in the camera. Inevitably, photographic experience would play a part here.

No doubt there will be other (edit incl) interesting contributions to this thread.

Ta, Am.

[I @ M]

We are talking about photoshop retouching here. Your arguments don't apply. A jpeg in a memory card is a complete set of data capable of being viewed or printed. Slide film needs to be developed but NOT necessarily post processed.

Great photographers have achieved their level of status without ever retouching any of their shots. Cartier-Bresson, Steve McCurry and more recently, Vivian Meier, did not retouch. Very few greats retouched their photos and I can honestly name only one: Ansel Adams. The rest depended on labs or other independent printing people.

That's proof that if you are good enough then you can get it right in camera without the need for post processing. Digital shooters seem to think that photoshop is a necessary step. Well it is if you insist on shooting raw but you do not have to. If you really want uncompressed photos then get a Nikon. My D700 saves in TIFF as well.

Demo, I am not talking about photoshop retouching either. Quite simply I think that you are missing the point entirely as nowhere have I mentioned jpeg images when talking about developing digital files. I am talking about the raw format data. It does need some form of development whether in camera or in the digital darkroom of a computer because just as a slide film that has not been subjected to light and colour sensitive chemicals it cannot be viewed until processed / developed. Yes, a jpeg can be viewed on the camera, on a 'puter screen or even just printed ( direct from the camera if one wishes to do so ) and of course that image can be entirely satisfactory for many peoples needs. I too quite often photograph in jpeg and I am entirely happy with the results a lot of the time.
As I said a few posts ago, #26 ^, straight from the camera or processed to death are all valid ways to create an image and in both instances getting the basics right in camera go a long long way towards creating a good image.

My main point of discussion here ( not argument ) is that you stated as if it were a fact that slide film doesn't need processing, #31^ and until someone shows me a slide that hasn't been processed, your "fact" is entirely wrong.

[arthurking83]

Me. Modesty aside, I think I make better jpeg shots than a lot of photographers who shoot raw.

http://dtmateojr.wordpress.com/2013/...raw-revisited/

Way too many generalisations in that article to be considered useful!
Most comments are just plain wrong!
They may be right for your situations, but overall, like Rick said, they are just your opinion(you should really make that plain for any unsuspecting reader to be aware of!)

You can't print raw though and I'm not sure if jpeg is the limitation during printing. Printers actually have way lesser dynamic range.

Again .. an incomplete generalisation based on what you may be(or may not be) able to do, but I've printed my raw files successfully. Note that they were only test files, but that's beside the point.
Raw files can be printed if required ... just like any other static image format can be.
The external printing service I've used in the past has commented to me that for the best possible print, the 8bit jpg format is more of a hindrance to printing than is 16bit tiff.
This doesn't mean that you can't get good prints from a jpg, as may be assumed on initial reading .. it simply means that if there is a situation where you want/need a better quality print, 16bit tiff is better.
If you can't accept that more compression in a load of data will yield lower quality, then maybe you should reconsider offering advice on the topic.

.....

That's proof that if you are good enough then you can get it right in camera without the need for post processing. Digital shooters seem to think that photoshop is a necessary step. Well it is if you insist on shooting raw but you do not have to. If you really want uncompressed photos then get a Nikon. My D700 saves in TIFF as well.

We don't need proof that an image can be shot right in camera! This is a known fact by most people.
Again, generalisations don't help any discussion other than onto a path towards disarray and convolution.
I know many 'digital shooters' that don't need photoshop as a neccessary step in their workflow.
Photoshop doesn't help in a raw workflow in any way. In fact (that I know of) .. photoshop itself doesn't recognise most raw formats, if any at all.

But no matter which way you talk about it, whether it's jpg, tiff, raw or bmp .. software is still needed to view and print any image files.
The comment that jpg is a complete set of data that can be viewed or printed is completely meaningless. it's no different to tiff or raw .. they can all be viewed and or printed.

[Kym]

JPEG in camera means the camera CPU + firmware has processed the photo...
The camera has as a minimum done:

• Noise reduction
• Contrast
• Brightness
• Saturation
• Sharpening
• White balance

All of that based on what some back room geek decided to program into the firmware.

You have also gone from 14 bits (typically) to 8 bits per channel.
So your JPEG has less DR, less information, and has had inflicted upon it the 'average' processing decided by the gteek working for the manufacturer.

I guess that is the same as an instamatic film being processed by the local chemist on default settings (back in the day).
Which is fine for 99% of happy snaps, but leaves the processing creativity to someone other than the author.

Even with slide you had the option of altering the development process, then we used to print from slide via cibachrome.

Which is why raw is 99% of the time a better option.

[arthurking83]

While this is going to go partially off topic, there's more to raw than just the ability to enhance some aspect of the captured image.
While there are other advantages of shooting a scene in raw mode, a massive advantage not normally associated with raw file capture is in it's ability to teach the new photographer on how to set the camera right, when it's not quite right!
This is contrary to what dtmateojr says in his blog(which is technically wrong).
While there is no right or wrong format to shoot when new to photography, the best teaching tool is the one that offers you more data, both to play with and or manipulate.
Shooting in jpg mode restricts the ability to process the file in so many ways(that most of us already know of) and something that raw files can help you learn what you or the camera or even the lens did wrong!

Like Kym said, the jpg file out of the camera is usually preprocessed to a particular level.
The only further process that I'll add to Kym's list is lens correcting distortion in many instances nowadays(maybe not all, but many cameras do this by default now).

If the camera is attempting to fix a problem in some way(ie. in jpg mode), you won't see the true extent of the problem until you shoot in raw mode.
With a raw file and the correct software, if you are having trouble with getting it right in the camera, the correct software allows you to tinker with the incorrectly captured images much more easily on the PC with various tweaks it allows, which can be mirrored on the camera too.
So instead of fluffing about with all the various settings the camera has to offer and shooting a zillion images while the moment passes you by, you learn how to set the camera up to begin with at home, in an easy to visualize environment, adapt those setting you just learned on the camera .. which makes it easier to get it right in the camera next time around.

This nonsense being bandied about to shoot in jpg mode for beginners is becoming far too common. It's a KRism .. and the vast majority of experienced photographers have learned to ignore KR.

To use an analogy with books:

a jpg image is the literature equivalent of a book that reads:

In the beginning, _____________________________________________________ The End

A raw file equivalent read be more like:

In the beginning ... <loads of useful data/trivia/content/tools/ability/tweaking/etc> ... The End

Wouldn't it be more prudent to know of all this data, tools, tweaking, ability .. etc. Or is it more important just to know the ending?

.....

Which is why raw is 99% of the time a better option.

You're short by about 1% there Kym!!

I'm not the type that is against the internal processing of the camera. Doesn't bother me one iota that some geek programmed the camera to produce colours in a certain manner, or it's sharpening in a specific way, or that the image may even look cartoonish.
I like the ability to set the camera to produce a specific look, which is easy to create and tweak, and then load into the camera to give a resultant image .. but the image is always still a raw file.

What worries me more is dubious information!

[Allann]

A lot of this discussion has been about the technical aspects of "getting it right in camera" but there seems to be a big element missing that hasn't been touched on much at all. That of the image itself with regard to what is IN the image. Let me explain that a little; If taking 3 steps to the left will remove a tree from coming out of someones head, or moving an extension lead that crosses the floor, or maybe a stray leaf from a clean patio, or even sweeping a path before a shot, helps to improve the final image, that to me is a large part of getting it right. I don't want to spend forever removing distracting elements from an image.

Other things could also include fixing makeup in a portrait session, polishing metal in a product shoot, going to the grocery store to get just the right apple for a food shoot, etc. Many of us, myself included, sometimes don't take the time with the "props", the environment, etc to make the image just a little better. I know for example I have sat down to review/process my images and said, "why didn't I move that?", or "I should have cleaned that?", etc

Just my 2 cents worth.

[Kym]

No fixing bad composition (what is in the image) in photoshop .. well not without massive editing and adding elements.
Yes, getting as much right in camera is our goal, but it is still only step one of the process

[I @ M]

Just my 2 cents worth.

Worth way more than $0.02 Jon.

As someone who does quite a bit of "formal posing" subject placement and backgrounds are an important part of the process and one which I try get right before the shutter button is pressed. I agree it is as much a part of getting it right "in the camera" as the technical bits, thanks for expressing the thoughts in this thread.

[dtmateojr]

Way too many generalisations in that article to be considered useful!
Most comments are just plain wrong!
They may be right for your situations, but overall, like Rick said, they are just your opinion(you should really make that plain for any unsuspecting reader to be aware of!)


Again .. an incomplete generalisation based on what you may be(or may not be) able to do, but I've printed my raw files successfully. Note that they were only test files, but that's beside the point.
Raw files can be printed if required ... just like any other static image format can be.
The external printing service I've used in the past has commented to me that for the best possible print, the 8bit jpg format is more of a hindrance to printing than is 16bit tiff.
This doesn't mean that you can't get good prints from a jpg, as may be assumed on initial reading .. it simply means that if there is a situation where you want/need a better quality print, 16bit tiff is better.
If you can't accept that more compression in a load of data will yield lower quality, then maybe you should reconsider offering advice on the topic.




We don't need proof that an image can be shot right in camera! This is a known fact by most people.
Again, generalisations don't help any discussion other than onto a path towards disarray and convolution.
I know many 'digital shooters' that don't need photoshop as a neccessary step in their workflow.
Photoshop doesn't help in a raw workflow in any way. In fact (that I know of) .. photoshop itself doesn't recognise most raw formats, if any at all.

But no matter which way you talk about it, whether it's jpg, tiff, raw or bmp .. software is still needed to view and print any image files.
The comment that jpg is a complete set of data that can be viewed or printed is completely meaningless. it's no different to tiff or raw .. they can all be viewed and or printed.

Can you point out EXACTLY which part of the article is WRONG? :-)
Let's see if the "wrong" isn't just based on your own opinion.