Pulling Threads Together -- Lacrosse, RAW & 400 f/2.8

KED

I've been having conversations here and on other sub-fora about the relative merits of the 400 f/2.8 for outdoor sports, and separately about whether shooting in Raw has any benefits in daylight sports shooting. I did pull the trigger on the 400 a few months ago :ivar , but last weekend was the first time that I had the combination of opportunity and nerve to haul it out. I also took the occasion to switch from high-quality JPEG to raw to see if there was any discernible difference. On the latter, the jury is out -- definitely more PP time involved, at the very least for white balance, but clearly more to work with in terms of exposure, so I'l stick with it for a while.

But the 400? The jury is IN -- that glass rocks! I consistently got inside helmets and visors from 60 yards. Here are just two examples, not necessarily even the best ones:





The added bonus with the 400 is that by the end of the season I should have added 10 lbs of upper-body muscle just from carrying it around!

bikingbets

Impressive shots! I hear you about the nerve...how many remarks from people did you get about your big new lens? I can see lots of mad ups in your future!

I'd also like to know how you'd set the white balance when shooting jpeg as opposed to raw. Does the extra PP time come from just being able to tweak it, as opposed to having to tweak it? I'm new at all of this, and the longer I sit in front of the computer looking at a photo, the more I feel I have to do to it in PP.

Keep up the great work! Go Brown!
Betsy

KED

bikingbets wrote:

Impressive shots! I hear you about the nerve...how many remarks from people did you get about your big new lens? I can see lots of mad ups in your future!

I'd also like to know how you'd set the white balance when shooting jpeg as opposed to raw. Does the extra PP time come from just being able to tweak it, as opposed to having to tweak it? I'm new at all of this, and the longer I sit in front of the computer looking at a photo, the more I feel I have to do to it in PP.

Keep up the great work! Go Brown!
Betsy

No mad ups while holding that monster! No ups whatsoever is more like it. In terms of remarks, the thing tends to impress people; the only ones who are less than impressed are those who have, or think they have, a vested interest in how much I spent on it.

Setting WB in-camera when shooting JPEG works fine, and the consensus is that a specific WB setting (sun, shade, shadow etc) is better than AWB.

Shooting RAW, the WB setting is non-functional. I had been afraid of having to tweak all 260 of the images that I ended up shooting, but the majority were fine for WB right out of the camera (although every single shot needed lots of adjustment for exposure). I'd guess that I tweaked WB on maybe 40. The PP for this last game's shots took me several sessions at the computer, and every time I came back I found images that I had previously thought to be fine from a WB perspective that, with a fresh look, needed work. From now on I will rarely push my keepers out the door and onto SmugMug after one PP sitting, but instead will try to make one pass thru the images same-day, sleep on it, and review once more (unlike some folks here, I'm not on any sort of deadline). Even after multiple sessions on this one, now that I see the images up on my site, there are some things I would have done differently but I hate the whole process of replacing images.

PS I don't recall what PP app you use, but I find it helpful to scroll through medium-sized thumbnails in preview mode (Library module in LR for me) to check for consistency in WB, exposure, etc from image to image.

PPS -- I just looked back at those two images, and should have pointed out in the original post that those distracting little white dots on the top one were snow -- we went from moderately heavy snow to bright sunshine inside of a 60 minute game.

MichaelKirk

What software are you using???

KED wrote:

Shooting RAW, the WB setting is non-functional.

Not sure what camera or software you are using, but I though pretty much any software will read and apply the cameras WB settings?? Maybe I'm wrong??

I shoot RAW ans with use AWB on the D300 as it is very accurate - more accurate than the D200. Importing RAW images into lightroom and WB is one of the few settings it can read - so ALL images imported will have your WB setting applied at import.

Michael

KED

MichaelKirk wrote:

Not sure what camera or software you are using, but I though pretty much any software will read and apply the cameras WB settings?? Maybe I'm wrong??

I shoot RAW ans with use AWB on the D300 as it is very accurate - more accurate than the D200. Importing RAW images into lightroom and WB is one of the few settings it can read - so ALL images imported will have your WB setting applied at import.

Michael

I've been told, and had assumed the accuracy of this (because it makes sense), that in RAW your WB setting doesn't matter -- the camera does no internal processing of the "raw" image. So, while LR may recognize that your camera was set for AWB (or whatever), actually no adjustments have been made. There's a pretty big disconnect between your understanding and mine -- hopefully somebody will set us straight.

MichaelKirk

Here is how it works

KED wrote:

I've been told, and had assumed the accuracy of this (because it makes sense), that in RAW your WB setting doesn't matter -- the camera does no internal processing of the "raw" image. So, while LR may recognize that your camera was set for AWB (or whatever), actually no adjustments have been made. There's a pretty big disconnect between your understanding and mine -- hopefully somebody will set us straight.

At least all of the software I have been using - which is currently Lightroom. LR will read some of your camera's basic settings - WB being the main one. So, whatever WB setting you have in camera will be imported with your image.

You can use AWB and have 100 images showing 100 slightly different WB settings - import and each file will show the correct WB setting as shot.

So...to help you with your original post - wetting WB even shoot RAW is important if you want it correct when you import. The main differnce in WB between RAW and jpeg is you can adjust your WB in a RAW images with no degrading the image, adjusting the WM in a jgeg file will degrade the image.

Michael



Michael

KED

MichaelKirk wrote:

At least all of the software I have been using - which is currently Lightroom. LR will read some of your camera's basic settings - WB being the main one. So, whatever WB setting you have in camera will be imported with your image.

You can use AWB and have 100 images showing 100 slightly different WB settings - import and each file will show the correct WB setting as shot.

So...to help you with your original post - wetting WB even shoot RAW is important if you want it correct when you import. The main differnce in WB between RAW and jpeg is you can adjust your WB in a RAW images with no degrading the image, adjusting the WM in a jgeg file will degrade the image.

Michael



Michael

I'm not being obstinate, but I think it's worth drilling down on this a little bit. I'm also not challenging your expertise (I'd be the last person to do that) BUT it seems to me that there is at least a possibility that your images are not, in fact, adjusted in-camera for WB, but that they look fine anyway (as I mentioned I only had to WB-adjust ~20% of mine), but that LR "reads" your import as AWB-adjusted.

MichaelKirk

all I am saying
Just last week I shot two indoor soccer games in RAW - I set a manual WB for one game and used AWB for the other - just to test which setting provided more consistant results.

Importing the images in Lightroom, the game shot using the manual WB had the WB setting set to what was in camera. The game images using AWB had the WB setting varying....changing according to lighting cycles, where they were in the court, etc.

Michael

KED wrote:

I'm not being obstinate, but I think it's worth drilling down on this a little bit. I'm also not challenging your expertise (I'd be the last person to do that) BUT it seems to me that there is at least a possibility that your images are not, in fact, adjusted in-camera for WB, but that they look fine anyway (as I mentioned I only had to WB-adjust ~20% of mine), but that LR "reads" your import as AWB-adjusted.

oldtime

Some nice shots
I have always shot raw until I shot my last 2 games with the D300 I shot Jpeg fine
I will still shoot Raw for night games

hschlessphoto

fantastic shots...that large piece of glass must be so much fun to use!! hope your sons team won...great shots!:D

KED

MichaelKirk wrote:

Just last week I shot two indoor soccer games in RAW - I set a manual WB for one game and used AWB for the other - just to test which setting provided more consistant results.

Importing the images in Lightroom, the game shot using the manual WB had the WB setting set to what was in camera. The game images using AWB had the WB setting varying....changing according to lighting cycles, where they were in the court, etc.

Michael

I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier, but I called Canon today and they confirmed that you can apply a WB setting in RAW (including AWB), it's just that you can undo it in PP without degrading the image. In other words you were right. Thanks.