Raw - Why should I bother?

24

Comments

  • ziggy53ziggy53 Super Moderators Posts: 23,764 moderator

    @Cygnus Studios said:
    ...
    If we are contracting the post editing, we shoot in raw because that is what the people who do our post editing wish.
    ...

    They sound like a very competent post-processing studio.

    ziggy53
    Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
  • puzzledpaulpuzzledpaul Registered Users Posts: 1,621 Major grins

    , but cgi gives more flexibility than anything,

    Always assuming the single individual concerned (as per the op) has all of the necessary skills to create the final rendered (photo realistic - if that's what's desired) image.
    If animation is also added to the mix, that's a whole new ball game.

    pp

  • FergusonFerguson Registered Users Posts: 1,339 Major grins

    @puzzledpaul said:

    , but cgi gives more flexibility than anything,

    Always assuming the single individual concerned (as per the op) has all of the necessary skills to create the final rendered (photo realistic - if that's what's desired) image.
    If animation is also added to the mix, that's a whole new ball game.

    Indeed it is. I guess one could even say that old style cartoons, drawn by hand, are more flexible than just shooting stills as well. Visual arts in general include a lot of media and means.

    I just interpreted the original question to imply "if I compare it to shooting JPG out of the camera, what does raw give me", but perhaps I am too simplistic. Regardless, I think we covered the point between us.

  • pathfinderpathfinder Super Moderators Posts: 14,694 moderator
    edited May 5, 2017

    The initial questions was whether a person - who seemed to be rather happy with the jpgs they were getting - should shoot RAW. I think for that individual the answer is probably no they shouldn't, unless they are particualarly interested in improving their images with image editing. If their SOOC jpgs satisfy them, great. They're happy, what more can one say.

    I am very well aquatinted with the advantages of RAW over jpg, and I shoot RAW 95+% of the times because I prefer the after shooting editing advantages that RAW offers me - lower noise, better color balance, better shadow to highlight tone ranges, etcetera. I have been shooting RAW over a dozen years. But I also know lots of fine photographers who get very nice results with SOOC jpgs, Frequently they work with some time constraints or they just don't like image editing. Could SOME of their images have been better if shot in RAW and carefully edited? Possibly, but they may not have the time or the interest to do that, or choose not to do that because their time and effort is better spent shooting jpgs in the field. This is just smart utilization of their tools. Like I always say, one of the marks of a pro, as opposed to an amateur, it that the pro knows more than one way to skin a cat. Probably several ways, and chooses the best, most efficient, most useful way for the task at hand. Smart!!

    I don't think one can say that shooting RAW is better than shooting jpgs unless you also specify what is being photographed, and why; and what the wants and needs of the clients getting the photos are. Color balance can be achieved with control of lighting and camera profiles, so that jpgs are very satisfactory with regard to color balance. It may require a different work flow than shooting in RAW and balancing after the fact.

    I do agree that saying you shoot in RAW as a marketing tool is pretty lame. I am certain most customers couldn't care less.

    I never asked a craftsman what tools he or she used to build a table, I just want to look closely at the table and see its quality whether it was built with hand tools or power tools.

    I think it is good to be able to shoot both RAW and jpgs, and to utilize the advantages both offer. For many amateur fine art hobbyists, RAW offers them some more control over the outcome at the expense of more time sitting at a computer monitor.. For a working pro where time is money, if one can shoot jpgs with good quality, time saved in post editing is a real plus. Which is better a steak filet or a salmon filet??

    Pathfinder - www.pathfinder.smugmug.com

    Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
  • puzzledpaulpuzzledpaul Registered Users Posts: 1,621 Major grins

    @pathfinder said:

    . Which is better a steak filet or a salmon filet??

    Wot? no veggie option? :)

    Totally agree, btw with comments about it being irrelevant what (and how) the pic was created ... the average punter doesn't give a stuff ... they just like (or not) the pic.

    pp

  • Cygnus StudiosCygnus Studios Registered Users Posts: 2,294 Major grins

    Got this conversation started again didn't I :D

    @Ferguson said:
    One thought though -- if someone asks a question, seems to express an interest in knowing why raw will help, should we then say "none of it matters, be happy"?

    Unfortunately there is never a one size fits all answer, so I would say that it depends on the person asking as to whether or not it is important for them.

    @ziggy53 said:
    They sound like a very competent post-processing studio.

    I agree.

    @pathfinder said:
    I don't think one can say that shooting RAW is better than shooting jpgs unless you also specify what is being photographed, and why; and what the wants and needs of the clients getting the photos are.

    That is the answer that I wish that I would have come up with, because it is perfect.

    Steve

    Website
  • grandmaRgrandmaR Registered Users Posts: 1,942 Major grins
    edited May 6, 2017

    I am my own client. So I am who has to be happy with the results. I think it was perfectly appropriate to tell me that as long as I was happy with what I was doing, that I didn't need to go and learn a new technique just because some other photographer said that everyone should shoot RAW (or that everyone should be shooting Manual) as if I would not be a "real" photographer unless I did. (I don't think of myself as a real photographer anyway. I'm just someone who likes to take picture of the things I see)

    I take a lot of photos from a moving car, and I take photos for a website with a size restriction - it would take me too long to edit 1200 photos that we took one morning to post to that website. Just shooting jpeg, it took me 6 weeks.

    I do try to learn new things and experiment. But it seems to me that learning to shoot RAW has a very steep learning curve to it. So I'm going to do simpler experiments with my camera.

    “"..an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered." G.K. Chesterton”
  • pathfinderpathfinder Super Moderators Posts: 14,694 moderator
    edited January 19, 2021

    You didn't mention what software you currently use to crop and alter contrast in your current images, nor did you mention what OS your computer system uses. The OS has a small bearing on what software options are available for images editors. Lightroom and Photoshop and many others are available for both Windows and Mac platforms.

    One thing I like about LightRoom is that I can quickly find an image that I shot 6 years ago and a 80,000-100,000 frames ago that I couldn't possibly remember where it was stored on a hard rive somewhere otherwise. And I can sort images by time , date, location, camera body, ISO, lens, as well as keywords and color flags. And the editing tools for RAW and jpg are essentially the same sliders - so yes, there is a bit of learning curve to Lightroom, but one can kind of gradually slide into it - unlike Photoshop which requires significantly more effort to get started with. Today 4 out of 5 of my images never leave Lightroom for editing whether they were shot in RAW or jpg - I do shoot both from time to time. Sometimes I shoot RAW for color files and simultaneously shoot jpgs for black and white images. I can also display a map of the geographical location where my images were shot - not necessary really, but kinda cool.

    Luminar is another editor that will let you edit your images - whether jpg or RAW - without really paying attention to the file format. Luminar is fairly inexpensive, but is for a Mac platform I think.

    As I said earlier, if you are getting good images that meet your needs, then be happy and continue doing what you are doing. The decision to shoot RAW or jpg has nothing to do with whether you are a pro or not. Some pros shoot RAW routinely, and some shoot jpgs all day long. Depends on how fast they need the images, and what their goals are with the images, and maybe a bit related to how much control they have over their lighting. Modern jpgs look pretty nice most of the time. Raw files can increase the likelihood of a better image at the cost of more work at the computer and more expense in terms of software and hardware.. Whether the potential increase in quality is worth the cost and time is a decision best made by a user who understands the advantages and disadvantages of both file types. As I said, more than one way to skin a cat. Images from RAW files may not look any better than a high quality jpg to casual inspection by many viewers.

    One advantage to RAW, that I find valuable from time to time, is that RAW editors are a work in progress and have gotten much better over the last decade, which means that I can go back and edit RAW files I shot in 2005 or earlier, and create a better images than I was able to in 2005 - sometimes a lot better. A jpg that was shot in 2005 can also be re-edited with more modern editing software ( like LightRoom ) but the jpg file structure does not have near as much data in it and tolerates the editing less well. Again, if one never plans to review their files from years ago, this is a moot point. I enjoy seeing if I can improve a file I shot a decade ago, sometimes on a winter evening with nothing more urgent to do. Raw editors are expected to continue to improve in the future as well

    So if your jpgs look good to you, if they are sharp, and if they have good color balance, and great skin tones, be happy and keep shooting.

    And post some of those pictures here on dgrin so that we can see them rather than talk about them.

    Images are meant to be seen, right!!??

    Pathfinder - www.pathfinder.smugmug.com

    Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
  • Cygnus StudiosCygnus Studios Registered Users Posts: 2,294 Major grins

    @grandmaR said:
    I do try to learn new things and experiment.

    That is the most important part. No matter how long you do photography, you'll always be learning new tricks and techniques. Finding what works best for you is a matter or trial and error.

    The actual shooting in raw isn't all the difficult, as most editing programs have some basic adjustments that are pretty intuitive. Highlights, shadows, whites, blacks, etc.

    Now once you get through the basic part and get into the full editing, this is where shooting in raw makes a major difference. This is also where the learning curve gets as steep as you want it to be.

    I've never been much of a post production photographer. I prefer to do it the hard way and get it as close to perfect before I take the picture. This works for me because I spend 99.9% of my time in the studio. If I had to deal with a moving sun or random shadows or stuff in the frame that I didn't want, I would have a much harder time without being able to edit afterward.

    I've made my living with a camera going on 26 years and I still aspire to be considered lousy when it comes to editing. When I hear people talking about masking and smart objects and layering they may as well be speaking Greek because I don't understand a word of it. I know just enough editing to get by. I can crop. I can dodge a little, I can sort of adjust lighting, that's about it.

    When it comes to big time post editing, I hire it out. That works best for me. I get to spend my time working on lighting and staging, because those are the things that I find fun. To me, spending an hour or more sitting on a computer editing an image is just mind numbing.

    Once you do learn a little post editing (if you choose to at some point) then will come the next debate. What software to use. This is almost argued as much as raw vs jpeg or Nikon vs Canon.

    For people who are just taking pics for fun, I used to recommend PicMonkey because it was free and easy. You don't get any bells and whistles with it, but it gets your feet wet. It is point and click, no learning necessary. I don't think that it is free anymore, but there is still a watered down limited version through Smugmug that offers some free editing.

    I'm sure that there are similar programs if you just want to play around with if you choose to play with post editing. I still haven't found an editing program that I personally like yet, for what little I do. Maybe if I ever find one that I like, I might actually learn a little and have fun with it :p

    Steve

    Website
  • ziggy53ziggy53 Super Moderators Posts: 23,764 moderator

    @grandmaR said:
    In another photography forum, someone stated that people should be shooting raw. I tried it once but I couldn't figure out what to do with the pictures. I don't have Photoshop and think it would be a waste of money to buy and figure out how to use it given my age and stage in life and what I normally do with my photos.

    What am I taking pictures of, you ask.

    I travel, and when I travel, I am often shooting photos from a moving vehicle as Bob doesn't stop for me to take photos.

    I also take photos of food - when traveling, and we go out to eat at least once a week when we are home.

    And of course I take photos of my family.

    To circle back to your specific request on how RAW capture and post-processing could help your photography:

    Travel photography:
    You're bound to have to deal with all sorts of white balance situations. Cameras sometimes handle white balance OK, but too often automatic white balance messes up.

    When you shoot to RAW files there is no "cooked" white balance, meaning that you can set the white balance in post-processing. You know how in film photography you could purchase daylight color film or tungsten color film, or add filtration to white balance? In digital RAW post processing you get to dial in white balance to the situation you remember. It's actually very simple once you do it a couple of times.

    You may also have difficulty with scenics and color saturation and contrast, where the scene just doesn't match your memory. In RAW processing you have a much better chance to create your "vision" of the scene.

    Food Photography:
    RAW processing again, as in scenics, helps you generate better "pop and sizzle" for your vision of the food. Instead of the dull and blunted colors that you probably capture in JPGs, you can get more of the vibrant and savory colors and hues you remember for great food. (... Or you can hire Steve/Cygnus Studios to recreate the scene for you.)

    Family Photos and Portraiture:
    It's rare that I process people images without a bit of Clarity or Mid-Tone Contrast. In JPGs younger skin can take on a slightly mottled or gradient banding due to JPG limited hues.

    Similarly, detail like hair often takes on a visible halo with in-camera sharpening, and post-processed sharpening on JPGs can yield visible artifacts like stair-stepping and aliasing.

    ziggy53
    Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
  • puzzledpaulpuzzledpaul Registered Users Posts: 1,621 Major grins

    @pathfinder said:

    One advantage to RAW, that I find valuable from time to time, is that RAW editors are a work in progress and have gotten much better over the last decade, which means that I can go back and edit RAW files I shot in 2005 or earlier, and create a better images than I was able to in 2005 - sometimes a lot better.

    __Excellent point, often forgotten in these RAW __/ jpg discussions.__

    Images are meant to be seen, right!!??

    Some more than others - imo.

  • pathfinderpathfinder Super Moderators Posts: 14,694 moderator

    Some more than others, I do agree....

    Pathfinder - www.pathfinder.smugmug.com

    Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
  • grandmaRgrandmaR Registered Users Posts: 1,942 Major grins

    The problems I find with color balance are mostly photos of the ocean from an airplane. The automatic fixes come out all rust and aqua.

    (this was a photo I took from a little plane in 2002 after Bob's heart attack at an uninhabited cay in the Bahamas)

    Pictures from a moving vehicle come out OK if I can shoot parallel to the line of travel and even sometimes perpendicular works OK. But the camera has to focus and fire FAST. This is a local cemetery right after a snow taken as Bob was driving to the doctor.

    Most of what I do are ordinary pictures taken while on a trip (Maclay Gardens at the tail end of the bloom season)

    l

    I am taking most of my food photos with my cell phone ATM. And I do a LOT of documenting cemteries like this - where I just want to have a readable picture.

    And photos like this (which I took yesterday) are not so much a problem with white balance, but a problem because I am on a scooter on the road and I can't physically get over to see the rest of the dates that are behind the angel. No amount of editing software is going to help me with that

    “"..an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered." G.K. Chesterton”
  • ziggy53ziggy53 Super Moderators Posts: 23,764 moderator
    edited May 8, 2017

    RAW can't help in every situation, but in images #2, #3 and #5 it could have helped.

    1) In image #2, RAW capture and post-processing would have allowed around a 1-stop improvement over JPG capture. This could have been applied to the shutter speed and reduce both subject blur, due to the car's speed, plus camera shake. It also looks like there was considerable overcast, muting the colors and contrast. RAW post-processing could have been applied to make the scene much more like a daylight capture. (Example below.)

    2) In image #3, RAW capture typically records a much broader dynamic range, especially helpful with the highlights in this image. Rather than provide one of my examples, I'll give you a link to others using the technique. (I'm not the only one recommending RAW for flowers.) I can also recommend using a polarizing filter for outdoor vegetation and flowers.

    https://pacificnorthwesttravelerdotcom.wordpress.com/2013/02/05/photographic-tip-of-the-day-exposing-flowers/

    3) In image #5, RAW capture would have allowed preserving more of the over-exposed highlights and correcting the white balance difference between the sunlit regions and the primary subject which is in shade. An external flash is extremely helpful in these situations

    I realize that the image is readable as-is, so you probably won't want to spend the time required, but flash plus RAW capture would improve the end result for any image deserving the extra treatment.


    To demonstrate RAW post-processing versus JPG capture:

    A few years ago I began a project to capture the church exterior for the church I attend. A major problem is that the north side of the church never gets direct sunlight, while the east side of the church gets morning sunlight. To help with the situation I decided to photograph the church on an overcast day. This provided a very diffuse ambient light while reducing color and contrast (which are more correctable from RAW files).

    Before and After:

    ziggy53
    Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
  • grandmaRgrandmaR Registered Users Posts: 1,942 Major grins
    edited May 8, 2017

    I confess - I like the color of the before photo better. Editing out the electric lines and poles would be something I would like, but is that Photoshop or RAW?

    In photo #2 taken from a moving car, I didn't actually expect to get anything - it was so close to the road and there were trees close to the road. Plus I didn't decide to take the photo until the last minute. Some areas of the photo (like the house in the back) are in focus. And for the rest, I like it the way it is - blurred and all. It's sort of ghosty which is appropriate for a cemetery.

    Other photos taken on the same day- it had snowed very lightly and my goal was to capture the way all the little branches were outlined with snow. I might have wanted to edit out the electric line in #1 here, but maybe not.

    One of the disadvantages (other than the time needed to deal with the photo after it is taken) that I am hearing to RAW is that the camera isn't as fast. For driving down the road, I really need fast.

    I agree that the flower photo could be better. This was the original

    And this was my husband walking ahead of me on the path - he's very cold because he thought Florida would be hot, and it was quite chilly. I was trying to get the dappled shade on the path, but the sun kept going in and out.

    And for the cemetery photos - I don't see the overexposed highlights. The shade and sun was a problem, but I was taking photo #5 with a 300 mm lens. Isn't that too far away for flash to be a help?

    You are right that I would not want to spend extra time. Bob and I took 500 photos yesterday morning in the cemetery. All of those photos have to have the data entered into the database (names, dates, marriages etc) for each of the photos. I managed in about 2 hours to do about 45 of the photos, and I have a backlog of 230 photos we took three days ago.

    If RAW would add an extra step to the process, I'm not interested.

    “"..an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered." G.K. Chesterton”
  • grandmaRgrandmaR Registered Users Posts: 1,942 Major grins

    But I appreciate everyone's help and I think I understand what RAW would involve and the benefits better now.

    “"..an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered." G.K. Chesterton”
  • TonyCooperTonyCooper Registered Users Posts: 2,276 Major grins

    QUOTE: One of the disadvantages (other than the time needed to deal with the photo after it is taken) that I am hearing to RAW is that the camera isn't as fast. For driving down the road, I really need fast. UNQUOTE

    There is no affect on the speed of the camera in shooting RAW compared to .jpg.

    I haven't been following this conversation, so I don't know what your workflow is. If you
    are using Lightroom, there is no additional time or steps if you shoot RAW.

    I shoot quite a bit of sports photography , and shoot RAW only and process in Lightroom.
    Sports require a fast shutter speed, and I often shoot in bursts...five frames of a batter's swing
    or a play at home or at a base at a shutter speed of 1/1000 using a 55/300 mm lens.

    I don't add metadata to images, but in Lightroom you can add, say, the name of the cemetery
    to one image and synch that data to all images taken in that cemetery to save repeat entry.
    You would have to indivdually add gravestone data, but you add that in Lightroom.

    Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida
    http://tonycooper.smugmug.com/
  • puzzledpaulpuzzledpaul Registered Users Posts: 1,621 Major grins
    edited May 8, 2017

    @grandmaR said:
    I confess - I like the color of the before photo better. Editing out the electric lines and poles would be something I would like, but is that Photoshop or RAW?

    Of Ziggy's before / after shots - without knowing what the building actually looks like (colour wise) I suspect the answer - for me - would be somewhere in between, methinks.

    And for the cemetery photos - I don't see the overexposed highlights. The shade and sun was a problem, but I was taking photo #5 with a 300 mm lens. Isn't that too far away for flash to be a help?

    Also depends on the actual distance, flash power, iso used - and what sort of modifier (if any) is also added to the mix.
    (I've used a 550ex flash with a home-made better beamer (to focus / concentrate output) with a 500mm lens at times in the past - but I appreciate you'd be unlikely to want to bother with any / all of this sorta junk for what you're taking in the circumstances you describe :)

    pp

    Edit - as previously said, I shoot RAW + jpg, and whilst I don't shoot sports (as TC) - w/life isn't always static either ...

  • grandmaRgrandmaR Registered Users Posts: 1,942 Major grins

    I agree that in between would also be my choice - just slightly brighter color.
    I am not using any professional editing software - I don't have Lightroom or Photoshop. In 2000, I got some software with my first digital camera (a Toshiba) called Image Expert, and that was what i used until I found Picasa (which was free). I love it because it would straighten out the horizon - I seem incapable of holding a camera straight, and I hate to see the ocean running uphill.

    Taking photos from our boat (as these were) I am often sticking the camera out under the lifelines so having a crooked photo is perhaps understandable, but it is annoying not to be able to fix it.

    So shooting RAW would not only require that I learn to do that but would also require that I get and learn to use the editing programs

    “"..an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered." G.K. Chesterton”
  • FergusonFerguson Registered Users Posts: 1,339 Major grins

    @TonyCooper said:
    There is no affect on the speed of the camera in shooting RAW compared to .jpg.

    Depends on the definition of speed. Stopping action via fast shutter speed: Absolutely no difference.

    But how fast you can shoot (frames per second) may matter; some cameras can shoot jpg's faster than raw. I'm going by memory, but if I the D300 I had was about 3 fps at 14 bit raw, 5 (?) at 12 bit raw, and 6 fps at jpg? Something like that, memory ages, but different.

    And there's how long you can shoot fast: Raw files are bigger than JPG, and (all?) DSLR's have a frame depth that is a combination of buffer capacity and card speed. So one might get 15 shots before it slows down in raw, and 30 before it slows down in JPG.

    More modern cameras tend to not have different frame rates for raw, but almost all have different frame depths. Many people incorrectly conflate these issues with "fast" in general and then confuse people. A friend I know was absolutely convinced faster cards allowed him to have a faster frame rate on a D4, no amount of discussion could dissuade him. There's a ton of misinformation on the internet.

  • ziggy53ziggy53 Super Moderators Posts: 23,764 moderator

    @puzzledpaul said:

    @grandmaR said:
    I confess - I like the color of the before photo better. Editing out the electric lines and poles would be something I would like, but is that Photoshop or RAW?

    Of Ziggy's before / after shots - without knowing what the building actually looks like (colour wise) I suspect the answer - for me - would be somewhere in between, methinks.

    I need to explain further.

    The church image is indeed a "marketing" image, and meant to be complimentary to our nickname for the building, "The Big Red Church". To that end, the red color is about a shade exaggerated. The structure has a red mortar covering the original stone, and it's likely that particular agents were introduced into the mortar to yield the resulting shade of red. Indeed, the color takes on a more effervescent tone in early-morning direct sunlight, and something that cameras struggle to capture.

    For printing, I do apply a bit of gamma adjustment to compensate for the printing process.

    ("The Big Red Church" nickname is not unique in the USA, but is unique in our town, which is why our pastor chooses to use it.)

    ziggy53
    Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
  • Cygnus StudiosCygnus Studios Registered Users Posts: 2,294 Major grins

    @grandmaR said:
    So shooting RAW would not only require that I learn to do that but would also require that I get and learn to use the editing programs

    I think that we need to back up a bit and start with what you hope to accomplish with your images.

    I know that you do this for fun (which is great).
    I know that you use free editing software (That is fine also).

    What are the things that you want to be able to do with your images? Boost colors? Create effects? Remove/add things?

    Steve

    Website
  • pathfinderpathfinder Super Moderators Posts: 14,694 moderator

    Most airplane windows have a color tint like windshields in a car. Frequently some shade of green.

    One trick is to try to find a white snowcap or some known neutral grey and use that to do a color balance on when editing the image. This can be done with either RAW or jpg, but jpgs aren't near as good at it due to the much smaller color data they possess after being processed by the camera.

    Overly green images usually need more magenta to help correct their color.

    Pathfinder - www.pathfinder.smugmug.com

    Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
  • TonyCooperTonyCooper Registered Users Posts: 2,276 Major grins

    QUOTE
    @TonyCooper said:
    There is no affect on the speed of the camera in shooting RAW compared to .jpg.
    Depends on the definition of speed. Stopping action via fast shutter speed: Absolutely no difference.

    But how fast you can shoot (frames per second) may matter; some cameras can shoot jpg's faster than raw. I'm going by memory, but if I the D300 I had was about 3 fps at 14 bit raw, 5 (?) at 12 bit raw, and 6 fps at jpg? Something like that, memory ages, but different.

    And there's how long you can shoot fast: Raw files are bigger than JPG, and (all?) DSLR's have a frame depth that is a combination of buffer capacity and card speed. So one might get 15 shots before it slows down in raw, and 30 before it slows down in JPG.

    More modern cameras tend to not have different frame rates for raw, but almost all have different frame depths. Many people incorrectly conflate these issues with "fast" in general and then confuse people. A friend I know was absolutely convinced faster cards allowed him to have a faster frame rate on a D4, no amount of discussion could dissuade him. There's a ton of misinformation on the internet.
    UNQUOTE

    I shot a Nikon D300, and my comments about speed were based on that. I see no difference when shooting RAW or .jpg using the continuous burst mode. The camera's buffer capacity and the card's speed do make a difference, but
    only when shooting multiple groups of bursts in one go. I don't think the RAW or .jpg factor affects anything, though.

    I think the key point here, though, is that shooting RAW will not her down when taking images.

    Based on what she's said, and the volume of photos (500 in a day!), I think the question she should be asking is "Should I be using Lightroom?".

    The $9.99 a month subscription price for Lightroom/Photoshop would be well worth it to her in processing time and the gain in image management.

    Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida
    http://tonycooper.smugmug.com/
  • grandmaRgrandmaR Registered Users Posts: 1,942 Major grins

    Green images - I find this is the case even when I am not in an airplane but the general landscape is mostly blue. Like blue sea and blue sky and not much else. It I try the automatic color, the sea gets really dark and the sky gets really light and both of them are off color. In my old editing software (Image Expert) I could add the magenta if I wanted to. Now I just have to be careful not to take the auto-edit option in Picasa..

    What I don't want is to run out of space for the pictures because the files are bigger. (and see below under cemetery photos)

    I asked the question because I didn't know what the trade-offs were - what would I gain by shooting RAW and what problems would there be.

    And yes - 500 photos plus some.

    I'm on a two week trip.

    My husband and I went to a cemetery on May 2nd. We weren't there very long but I have 260 photos from that stop. Plus about 40 non-cemetery photos.
    May 3rd - only 35 photos mostly from the car.
    May 4th- pouring rain - only 40 photos.
    May 5th - 59 photos mostly in Maclay Gardens. I was having some intestinal difficulties so we didn't start very early and didn't stay long.
    May 6th We went to a different cemetery. Between the two of us we did shoot about 500 photos in about an hour, plus I went to the Old Capitol in Tallahassee in the morning and I have another 100 photos from that. (Bob wasn't taking photos in the morning).
    May 7 - another travel day- 44 photos.
    Today May 8th I went to take some lighthouse photos and have 45 photos.

    In the old days, I would ration my shots because I had to pay for the film and the developing. I no longer have to do that. Now what I am short of is TIME.

    As to what I want to do with my images. Sometimes it would be nice to remove stuff like there's a bird dropping on the windshield and it is right in the middle of the photo. I can deal with this by selective cropping and a little editing unless the blob that i want to remove is in an area with a lot of detail. I'm not very good at this because I have no patience.

    Sometimes I do want to intensify the colors, but in general I do not like the bloated colors that some photographers seem to think are so great. I want the photo to be pretty close to what my eye saw or what I think my eye saw (as I have a cataract in one eye which the doctor does not think is ripe and so everything seen with that eye is very yellow). (And I do now understand the red church). I have been a painter. I want my photos to look like photos and not like paintings. If I wanted a painting, I would paint one. I don't like HDR as a rule, and I also do not like fuzzy water. I like to see the water drops.

    Creating effects - NO. I do like to figure out how to do shallow depth of field, but bokeh is not something I'm going to have as a goal. I'm not going to do a multi-shot overlay. I just want to take photos that show what I saw in close to the way I saw it with the least amount of editing time I can get away with.

    And for cemetery photos, they can't be over 8MB (and Bob's photos with the T5 are bigger than that sometimes (and bigger than mine with the T3) and I have to edit them down), I want the photos to be readable, and I want to be able to take as many photos as my level of energy allows. I don't have time to fool with the settings. I want the camera to take care of that. When we were in the cemetery on the 6th, it was hilly, and the roads were a little rough. My back started to get painful after about 40 minutes. And obviously I don't want to have to spend a lot of time editing.

    “"..an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered." G.K. Chesterton”
  • puzzledpaulpuzzledpaul Registered Users Posts: 1,621 Major grins

    @grandmaR said:

    Taking photos from our boat (as these were) I am often sticking the camera out under the lifelines so having a crooked photo is perhaps understandable, but it is annoying not to be able to fix it.

    So shooting RAW would not only require that I learn to do that but would also require that I get and learn to use the editing programs

    Well, straightening horizons in water related pics is something that I too have to do - on a regular basis - and this is invariably done in Canon's DPP s/ware - which is a freebie the OP will also have.

    One aspect of DPP that hasn't been mentioned (iirc) is that it can be used to 'tweak / process' jpgs - even tho its main function is a RAW converter.
    Any pic that I've taken with my 7Dm2 and has been posted here or elsewhere over the last 2+ yrs invariably started as a jpg, rather than a RAW, and will have been messed around with in DPP / p/shop - so, I'd suggest that the OP tries it out?
    The tilt correction tool I find pretty intuitive, btw, and its readouts are equally useful for evaluating tilt correction angle - when there's no horizon visible and there's only features + their reflections to go by.

    Having said that, an image management prog (as suggested above) as LR might be well worth considering judging by the types of pics being taken - I can also take 500+ pics a day (in a target rich environment), but many will be near dupes + loadsa junk, so a lot get tossed ... and they'd all have roughly the same caption - so I don't bother :)

    Ziggy, still think the sky colour (lack of) / brightness in conjunction with the building looks a bit odd - but if it helps to get bums on seats / pews - then it's done its job?
    (Overall effect / environment etc also make me think of a rendered computer model for some reason - maybe 'too' clean?

    pp

  • grandmaRgrandmaR Registered Users Posts: 1,942 Major grins

    I don't know DPP. Before I got the digital Canon (I had film Canons for years before that), I had a Kodak and the software with it was so awful and took up so much computer space that I took pains to eliminated it. So I haven't used the editing software I got with Canon.

    “"..an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered." G.K. Chesterton”
  • TonyCooperTonyCooper Registered Users Posts: 2,276 Major grins

    Grandma said: "What I don't want is to run out of space for the pictures because the files are bigger. (and see below under cemetery photos)"

    Whether you do or don't have enough space for all of your photos when shooting is dependent on the size
    of the SD or CF card you are using, not because you are shooting RAW or .jpg.

    The file size between scenes will vary, but a 16 gb card will hold at least 800 /1,000 RAW images.

    I wouldn't be comfortable having only one card with me, though. I have one in the camera and two
    spares at all times. I prefer 8 gb cards because I'm not a high volume shooter. I'd prefer to have
    four 8 gb cards over one 32 gb card.

    Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida
    http://tonycooper.smugmug.com/
  • puzzledpaulpuzzledpaul Registered Users Posts: 1,621 Major grins
    edited May 8, 2017

    @grandmaR said:
    I don't know DPP. Before I got the digital Canon (I had film Canons for years before that), I had a Kodak and the software with it So I haven't used the editing software I got with Canon.

    Well, only you can decide whether to try it or not (on jpgs) - but DPP isn't awful - I've been using its different versions since my first Canon DSLR ... a D30.

    pp

  • grandmaRgrandmaR Registered Users Posts: 1,942 Major grins

    I have spare batteries and a spare card, and a water bottle and a hat. The essentials.

    Wouldn't I have to downsize RAW photos to get them under the 8MB limit?

    “"..an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered." G.K. Chesterton”
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