Do you guys dumb down your RAW pixels?

Matthew Saville

Nikolai wrote: »

Matt,
I shoot full RAW (21mp) plus small JPEG. That combo plus the right equipment and the right tools gets me a fairly decent speed workflow-wise (nobody ever beat me to an upload ).
And I really have no clue where do "hundreds or thousands of dollars" come from - I think I would notice.
I may buy a new HDD every now and then (like once in 18 months), but that's nothing compared to the price of a body upgrade or a decent glass.

As I said, small matters...

Shooting TIFFs - well, I don't understand it, but if it works for somebody - by all means.

Let me put it this way: How much have you spent on your computer in the last 5 years? (Not counting external storage) I've spent no more than $1000 on computers since 2002 or so. AND I'm a Mac user, so that's equivalent to like, $400 in the PC world. Yes, I have a ghetto computer, but it totally gets the job done for my workflow.

I do buy extra HD's like they're candy though. HD's are definitely NOT the issue. I live right down the street from Fry's!

And, what I meant by shooting TIF was, one man's limit is another man's minimum.

=Matt=

Matthew Saville

ziggy53 wrote: »

Be sure to try another RAW converter to see if the issue is occurring in the converter.

Also make sure that the shooter is using the latest firmware. There was a vertical magenta banding issue that was corrected in earlier firmware. I'm not seeing anyone else talking about "horizontal" banding with 7D sRAW files however.

I've been meaning to try DPP, I guess I shouldn't report any issues officially until I do. Thanks for the reminder!

=Matt=

Nikolai

Matthew Saville wrote: »

Let me put it this way: How much have you spent on your computer in the last 5 years? (Not counting external storage) I've spent no more than $1000 on computers since 2002 or so. AND I'm a Mac user, so that's equivalent to like, $400 in the PC world. Yes, I have a ghetto computer, but it totally gets the job done for my workflow.

I do buy extra HD's like they're candy though. HD's are definitely NOT the issue. I live right down the street from Fry's!

And, what I meant by shooting TIF was, one man's limit is another man's minimum.

=Matt=

Funny that you've asked... Not counting HDDs upgrades - zero :-)

Matthew Saville

richy wrote: »

Just doing the maths and thinking back. Four new machines or serious overhauls, plus external storage but excluding software, probably around $5-7k. Would barely buy an ipleb in mac land Then again I'd be scared Steve might decide photographers are bad and delete everything

Matt certainly makes a convincing point re cost. Admittedly its factored into my pricing but all being equal Matt would be left either able to undercut me, able to invest more in new kit or able to buy more wine to drink whilst waiting for his apple lisa to open a nef file. I don't buy bleeding edge computers but they are reasonably fast, I don't like waiting. I looked at it slightly differently from Matt, if I can spend an extra 500 a year on a pc to save 400 hours a year of waiting its a done deal. Both approaches are valid, just different. I would hate to think what I would have spent on apple gear.

That's on a PC? Good grief! I would have been surprised even if it had been *half* that much. And you're right- I could have upgraded my gear, but I decided to go to Seville, Spain for 10 days instead. AND pay for my wedding. It was totally worth the $$$ :-D

Nikolai wrote: »

Funny that you've asked... Not counting HDDs upgrades - zero :-)

Wait, are you seriously processing 21 megapixel, 14-bit RAW files on a computer that is more than 5 years old? Dude! That's nuts...

Nikolai

Matthew Saville wrote: »

Wait, are you seriously processing 21 megapixel, 14-bit RAW files on a computer that is more than 5 years old? Dude! That's nuts...

It gets a bit sluggish sometimes , but it gets things done regardless..
However, I'm in process of "mentally configuring" something more adequate (i7, 24Gb of RAM, dual GPU, etc.), so if all things work out I should be an a slightly better shape by Xmas (or maybe even earlier).. I already have a 1yo Windows7x64x1GbGPU/8GbRAM laptop on which this all is already silky smooth, but I want something a bit more solid...

NeilL

richy wrote: »

Just doing the maths and thinking back. Four new machines or serious overhauls, plus external storage but excluding software, probably around $5-7k. Would barely buy an ipleb in mac land Then again I'd be scared Steve might decide photographers are bad and delete everything

Matt certainly makes a convincing point re cost. Admittedly its factored into my pricing but all being equal Matt would be left either able to undercut me, able to invest more in new kit or able to buy more wine to drink whilst waiting for his apple lisa to open a nef file. I don't buy bleeding edge computers but they are reasonably fast, I don't like waiting. I looked at it slightly differently from Matt, if I can spend an extra 500 a year on a pc to save 400 hours a year of waiting its a done deal. Both approaches are valid, just different. I would hate to think what I would have spent on apple gear.

I just love the way this is served!!!!!:DD


Neil

Manfr3d

I am always town between shooting at 21MP or lower. You never know when you take that photo where 21MP are needed, but you always have to deal with those bigass RAW files. For Newspaper/Website stuff, even 5MP (sRAW2) is fine, for any other professional work 21MP is the way to go. For personal shooting I mostly shoot at 21MP or with my S95 taking away the luxury to worry about file size

Matthew Saville

Manfr3d wrote: »

I am always town between shooting at 21MP or lower. You never know when you take that photo where 21MP are needed, but you always have to deal with those bigass RAW files. For Newspaper/Website stuff, even 5MP (sRAW2) is fine, for any other professional work 21MP is the way to go. For personal shooting I mostly shoot at 21MP or with my S95 taking away the luxury to worry about file size

...Which is why I'm SO GLAD I don't even have to worry about the option of shooting high-res. My cameras are 12 megapixels, and that's the end of my thought process. RAW for tough light, JPG for easy light or goofing around. Done deal.

I think that when Nikon comes out with some form of D3X sensor in a D700 size body, I'm sure I'll eventually get it. but there is absolutely no way I'm going to shoot the misc "puppy sleeping on the couch in a cute position" images at 24 RAW megapixels, that's for darn sure.

I dunno, I was just raise with the mentality that it's okay to forsake paramount image quality when it is either practical OR when it is just downright FUN. I don't know if others here have shot with polaroid cameras, or pinhole cameras, but that is what I considered to be fun, "back in the day" before megapixels ruled the world... (2000-2005) So I have no problem treating my DSLR like a polaroid camera. In fact I have a JPG preset labeled "holga" and it is one of my favorites for when I'm just goofing around with friends. I do it because it's fun / artistic, and because it saves me time when I challenge myself to make the picture look "done" on the back of the camera...


=Matt=