African shots : when is RAW really worth it ?

[aravet]

This is a much debatted question but please follow me on this one.
I'm facing a real life "problem", and I'd like "those who know" to share their real life experience with me (us).


Situation :
-----------
I'm going to spend 2 weeks in Africa with my Canon 10D, and a 4Gb Digital Wallet.
Last time I went there, I shot 20 36-exp fims. This time, I'm going the digital way, and I feel I could shot a LOT more.

Problem :
---------
- I cannot shoot all pics in Raw mode. It won't fit into my Digital Wallet.
- I use PS7 on a calibrated system, and plan buying an Epson 2100-like and make big prints of the best shots,
but I don't plan to sell them many of them except to friends.


Questions :
--------------
In what kind of
- shooting situation : lighting, image contents, colors
- processing situation : PhotoShop
- printing situation : size, ink, paper
- viewers : normal people

does the RAW mode make sense.

I take all kind of pics :
- sunsets, sunrises, landscape, animals, people, long exposure night shots, campfire, ...

Options :
-------------

option 1 : everything in JPEG fine
- because at max 13*19 for nature and landscape picture, only professional printers would notice the difference, in only some case ?(this is a question)


option 2 : edit on the field (view and kill bad pictures)
Except for violent framing/exposure error, I don't like it :
- the screen is too small, and
- it could drain my battery.

option 3 : switch between RAW & JPEG
Doable, but a lot of hassle

3.a/ RAW by default, and switch to JPEG for less important pics.
3.b/ JPEG by default, and use RAW for the situations where I know the diffirence would be noticable.

Thanks in advance.

Alain Ravet

[defordphoto]

Personally, you could save gobs of time, much angst and answer almost ALL the above concerns by buying a larger digital 'wallet' to shoot everything RAW.

Granted, most of your JPEG's will turn out fine, but are you willing to risk The Shot to a JPEG? Once a JPEG, always a JPEG. RAW is an additional guarantee that if The Shot is a little off, it can be fixed. With JPEG, it is what it is and there's little room for fixing.

Maybe you go to Africa frequently, but I do consider that a once-in-a-lifetime and would not shoot anything less than RAW 100% of the time.

I'm not floating on money myself either, but you can get a 30gig X-s Drive for pretty darn cheap. I have one and it's a sweetheart. Also runs/charges off a car battery.

I bought mine from these folks: http://www.powerinnumbers.com.au/ and their customer support was second to none. I can't say enough good things about them.

Good luck.

[henkbos]

ALWAYS RAW!!
You bought the Canon to have the best, the glass to have the best so why holding back for a 'few' bucks for proper storage? Calculate all the costs of equipment, your trip, etc, etc, and you realize that you are talking 'peanuts'.
Other option: bring your lapotop as well, download and burn CDs when back in the hotel.

[rickyd]

I agree with henkbos, shoot only raw, take your lap top and burn cd's at night. I did that on my Grand Canyon trip last aug. Being able to review our days shooting at night also helped determine our next days shooting schedule.

[rampower]

Another choice instead of burning CD's with your PC is to use one of the portable CD burners like Disc Steno from Apacer. It's battery (rechargable) powered and reads directly from CF card to CD. apprx $300 (US)
Bob

[UK_Terry]

have you a web site for the disc steno?
Thanks

[rodbunn]

Always raw and save it to CD with a laptop as you go. That way you have less chance of loosing the whole thing. Rent a laptop if you have to.

RAW you can change "Camera settings" if you need to after you get home and it would be as if you were changing the camera at the time of the shot! Can't beat that. Like they said above, once a JPEG always a JPEG.....

[aravet]

Guys,

Thanks for your time, but

(Sorry for beeing harsh : )

you took the easy way out, and didn't answer the question :

"based on your experience, and what you have seen with your own eyes,
WHEN is it worth
- to occupy 4 times the space on your hardisk, FOREVER
- to use 4 times more CDs for backup, FOREVER
- to spend MANY MANY HOURS, once back home, to transfer 1000+ files, and convert them to JPEG
...


WHEN means

- will JPEG loss be visible on a 13x19 print of a sunset
- on a 10x15 print of a contrasty facade?
- .... of colourfully dressed people dansing on a sandy background?
- .....of pale dead trees on a pale dune background?
- .....portrait of wrinked old people?
....

Are there safe shooting situations, when loss will never be noticable by human eyes, on a normal viewing distance?

I think this question is worth many books, but I haven't found an article yet.

So, based on your experience, when have you seen a noticable difference?


Alain Ravet

[CyberDyneSystems]

I'll take a stab at this,. the problem is that the question and answers are apples to oranges.

In my opinion, you will not see a noticeable difference.

The question however is flawed,. because the reasons for shooting raw are many,. mostly to do with file manipulation after the fact. It is not neccesarily an issue of noticable difference between the two,. but how flexible the files are in the long run.

I think that is why you aren't getting the answer you are looking for.

[aravet]

Sorry for repeating myself, but please be patient. There is a surprise in the end.

This afternoon, I made a full backup - 5 CDs - of my first year of digital picture.
Just to be safe, and because CD decay over time, like teeth, I'm doing a 2nd copy.
==> total : 1 calm year of digital shooting == 10 CDs for backup

RAW = 4 times the space, the time, the cost, FOREVER.


I have the feeling JPEG artifacts, though having a mathematical accurate explanation, must be translatable in plain French - or English.
I'm looking for tips like (fake and potentially wrong examples)
- "Clouds are always safe", or
- "Corn field is OK, but not weat, when the wind is strong"

But maybe there is no simple explanation, and there is no simple, even non-exhaustive tips list.
That would be useful to know. That would make me shoot EVERYTHING in raw, FOREVER.

Alain Ravet

(ok, no surprise. I lied. I wanted to make sure you read this message completely. I know, I'm evil).

[henkbos]

Alain,
I have made many trips with a spare tyre in my car. Most of the times it was useless, I couldn't feel the difference. I have insurance against theft and fire, nothing ever happened!!
If you want to have the best go for the best. Suppose you have 1 or 2 great shots that would have been better in RAW, you might be sorry. On the other hand, it is your trip, they are your pictures, your backups, your workflow.
For me, making a lot of trips, every chance of getting something less than perfect at the costs of a few CDs, is not good enough.
By the way, how do you store all your old negatives and slides? Made duplicates, stored one copy off site? Don't get paranoid with backups because you can.
Have a great trip in the confidance that your equipment is OK, your procedure is tested and we expect to see some results, RAW or JPEG!

[damnengine]

http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/pix/rawvsjpg/

Personally I don't shoot everything in RAW, only if I need to do some severe manipulations and those pics I usually take at home, for plain photos I always try to get the shot as good as possible so I don't need to change anything, my 2 cents and I know I'm in the "wrong" subforum, I'm a g2 user, but these were my 2 eypocents.

[Jorge]

This is my experience. I had only 340 Mb with me on a one month journey to Laos and Thailand so I couldn’t shoot raw at all, but had to evaluate between JPEG fine and JPEG normal and took some of both. I knew that I could burn CD’s from the flash cards in photolabs only in a few major cities.

The nature of travel is also the nature of not knowing what you’ll experience next. I thus favoured not to run out of memory instead of shooting high quality. I seriously don’t think that evaluating for every shot, whether it will need raw or JPEG, will do you any good. The uncertainty is just too big. Not only will you have to evaluate every shot in its own right you will also have to evaluate whether the shot you’re about to take will be better to have as RAW than the shot you’re going to take 3 days later.

If you choose to do so anyway I would say that shots that needs the most post processing should be RAW whereas shot that needs little processing can be JPEG. I found that JPEGs are quite limited compared to RAW when it comes to post processing.

I agree that bringing enough storage capacity is the easy way out – but also that this is in fact the only way to ensure that you’ll maximize quantity and quality at the same time.

[aravet]

Henk,

Raw is better, no question asked, but so is large format.
Should I shoot large format? No, I don't need it.

If you quit chocolate cookies and lose 150 gr, ok, technically, you lost weight, but who will notice? If you are not a top model, nobody.

Raw is better. But how much better?
Because of the the cost (money, time, space), this is a legitimate question.


In PhotoShop, I NEVER flatten layers to save space, For a reason.
I could save a lot of space this way, but the price would be too high. I know it. I've seen it with my own eyes.

If lateral airbags for rear passengers add 0.5% to the price of a new car, you don't hesitate: you order them.
If they add 15% to the price, you should ask yourself "is it really worth it, or is it a fad, and do I need it (enough)?"



The cost of RAW files is
- one time : HOURS and HOURS of transfer and convertion of my 1000+ shots
- forever : 4 times the number of backup CDs
- forever : 4 times the space/cost in HD




Henk,
Have you ever had to throw the use the RAW version of one of your pics to get the best of it? If yes, why?
(Real question, I'm here to learn)


I know all the RAW format benefits because, like you, I saw, repeated all over the web that raw is better, I read the theory, the algorithms, etc. How many people who write "Use RAW, it's better" are not simply repeating what they read somewhere else but never experienced? I'm one of them. Well, I was.

[aravet]

Jorge,

jorge wrote:
.. shots that needs the most post processing should be RAW whereas shot that needs little processing can be JPEG. I found that JPEGs are quite limited compared to RAW when it comes to post processing.

What kind of processing do you mean?

[aravet]

Dennis,

damnengine wrote:
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/pix/rawvsjpg/


Thanks. Very interesting link - and conclusions - especially knowing that it was done with an "older" D60.

I'd like to find more experiments like this one.

[Jorge]

Primarily processing that involves significant shifts in the histogram – like curves command in PS.

For example adding contrast to a subtle fade in a sky. Or when having to adjust shots where the dynamic range is streched to - or beyond - the limit.

[damnengine]

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canond30/page14.asp (a d30 though)

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/raw_vs_jpg.shtml

[defordphoto]

Aravet: Quite the bucketful of questions aren't you? ;) The JPEG vs. RAW bush has been beaten many a time and it really comes down to personal taste.

If YOU can't tell the difference between a RAW print or a large JPEG print, then shoot ALL JPEG and never shoot RAW. Just be sure to NEVER recompress the file ever again. If you edit it, you'll have to select a lossless file format of some sort, and then there go the sizes again, so then RAW would win out as it would store quite a bit smaller than say a TIFF file.

This could be a huge thread with thousands of hits and hundreds or responses with nothing being resolved, like another thread on this forum.

It really comes down to what fits your style. I shoot RAW whenever I shoot anything important. Which, there's not too many times I pull out my camera to shoot unimportant stuff.

I like the flexibility of RAW. I like the attached JPEG as it makes for quick viewing/printing if I need that option. I like to post process. To me that's at least half the fun of photography: Tweaking my photos in the digital darkroom.

Yes, I like the bells and whistles of RAW. I like electric windows in my cars and sunroofs, and CD players and electric trunk releases and all that fun stuff. No, it's not necessary to get from point A to point B, but it sure makes it a lot more fun.

For a trip to Africa, I would not shoot anything but RAW, 100% of the time. Like I said in my earlier post in this thread, and I paraphrase myself: It's not worth the risk of losing The Shot on a once-in-a-lifetime venture just to save a little diskspace, which is extremely cheap these days.

But, if you're willing to take that risk and shoot a format that is still great, but less than your camera offers, then that's totally your choice.

To me that's like owning a Ferrari and never driving faster than 55 mph.

And of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. ;)

[mwinog2777]

I just can't believe you will have 1000 pictures worth saving. Even if you do, you can bulk convert them to tiff.

Life is very short, and there are only a few truly remarkable pictures we get a chance to shoot. (I haven't seen Ansel Adams' name in this thread.) Since there are so few life-defining shots in our brief lives, I take everything in RAW. I edit as I go, leaving only the best pictures each day. Space? Time? Einstein said its all relative. Suspend rationality, don't get caught up in issues of practicality. RAW.

[robertwgross]

If I were heading to Africa right now, I would carry my D60 and all of my 8 CF cards (2GB total). I would shoot everything in RAW mode. At the end of each day, I would review (on the camera display) and delete any obviously bad ones and keep any medium or fine ones. Then I transfer each CF card to my portable X's drive, which holds 5GB on hard disk. It is very small and lightweight and self-contained.

That way, I could come home with 5GB on hard disk and 2GB in CF.

Meanwhile, I would also have my film camera along, and I would be shooting Velvia in it, since some old habits are hard to kill off.

---Bob Gross---

[Roger_Cavanagh]

There is no definitive answer to your question. Raw format has a theoretical advantage that, in practice, is not demonstrated by every image.

My personal concern is not how much the CD's cost: I've got just over 30 from my two years of D30 ownership - not counting dupes. Although, I probably don't throw away as much images as I should. CD's are cheap. I don't sit and stare at the PC's while files are being downloaded. With the D30 I had a linear workflow that took up PC time, not mine.

I _know_ that some pictures will come out better because I shoot raw. I _know_ that some images can be "recovered" because I shoot raw. I _know_ that I will screw up camera settings (far too often) and shooting raw will get me out of a hole much more easily. I don't know how many and I've taken a personal decision that I don't really care.

Photography is a hobby. I do it for fun. It's important to me to try to get the best quality. When you shoot JPG you capture less data, when you save JPG you throw away some more. Why would I want to throw away data until I have to? Raw format is your digital negative - you wouldn't keep the prints and throw away the negative. Film is cheap - processing is expensive. Digital film is moderately expensive (but getting cheaper), but development is minimal - 50 cents to back up an MD to CD and some electricity.

Digital film can be re-developed. Since I bought my D30 2 years ago, there have been new conversion products that mean I can go back to old raw files and get better results.

What value do you place on your pictures? What value do you place on the fact that some of those pictures will be better because you shot raw? It's an impossible question because not every component is subject to rational analysis.

Whatever you decide to do, I'd still go and buy a larger storage device. I know that if I'm somewhere photographically appealing, I will take 250-300 shots a day - occasionally, I've taken around 500. If you shoot at that rate - and frankly with the 10D why wouldn't you? - even with large/fine JPG 4 gig won't be enough.

Regards,

[kellylipp]

With CF cards selling for $99 per 512MB and $199 for 1 GB, buy more and shoot the best. I'm a hack and I figured that out. I'm not wild about the post processing process, but I'm getting better at it and, wow, can you make a photo look great with little "curve" action in PS.

I had the same arguments in my own mind and couldn't resolve them adequately so decided to shoot the best.

I'm in Holland this week. Had a chance to go to big windmill site (and it was "everyone in Holland spin your windmill day") to shoot photos. Great, sunny day. Shot everything RAW which is not my usual. I did not have the situation where I messed up (much) so that arguement wasn't applicable. But the spice up agruement was. Wow. I really got some above average shots and made them way above average using PS.

By more cards, take a laptop, delete the obvious bad ones and shoot in JPG small so you can take many, many, many average shots. Tongue in cheek, of course.

Kelly

PS real disappointed that Roger is an amateur. I'm thinking he under-represents himself as I've looked at his photos.

[nsxpower]

Let me ask you a question: What would you rather have a negative (RAW) of every photo you took or a 8x10 print (JPEG)?

My personal recommendation would be to shoot everything RAW, because you may think that JPEG is sufficient but you never know what you may want to use the photo for tomorrow.

Mind you, this is coming from a person who keeps 90% of RAW files, converts/scale 75% of those for web albums for friends to see, 10% make it into the "good" pile and less then 1% into the "bragging rights" pile. I don't delete because I do not have the heart to. I've found myself coming back to some old photos and making use of them by actually being able to recover them or find new uses for them.

I guess my point is that you never know which one will be a keeper plus the photo is awsome right out of the camera in 0.001% of cases, hence the keeper is really created in PP and having a RAW file to work on is an advatage.

PP RAW file is not a PITA as some people make it look. Took me 10 minutes to make a Droplet/Batch Process for PS7 to convert CRW to JPEG for cataloging/web. It takes the CRW files, converts them, Auto Levels/Color/Contrast, Resize, USM and then saves at JPEG (10). Now I just drop the folder with CRW files on the Dropplet on my desktop and it does everything for me, while I am getting my coffee and a ciggy. Photos that I think can be made into "keepers w/ braggin rights" get a special treatment and are converted individually w/ attention to every detail and are later optimized for printing.

Have fun.

[dbailey]

aravet

I would say shoot high res JPG. Most pro's that shoot high volume in the field don't shoot raw. I've read numerous articles/interviews in Outdoor Photographer where the pro's except for a specific topic/shoot in the field, shoot high res jpg. It made be feel better after debating this subject internally continually.

This makes sense to me. Most of us would be happy with one or two shots to hang on a wall. If you get a good shot, high res jpg will still do the job while saving you a huge amount of time for those pics you just view on the computer or print smaller.

If it's a Pulizter winning shot, it will win either in jpg or raw.

The reason I waited so long to get into DSLR, was to be able to shoot jpg at a high resolution. If you shoot ton's of photos in raw, I would argue you would be better of shooting with film.

Save raw for those specific needs, portraits ect.

[CyberDyneSystems]

Taking things a little off topic,..

Just a possible solution to your dilemna,. but not an answer to your question :)

1: Buy a 30 gigabyte laptop hard drive for $85.00

2: Take the 4 gig drive out of your digital wallet and install the 30 gig drive.

3: Shoot in raw all you want.


Answering your question directly,. this is what I would do if I was dropped in Africa with the gear you mention.

I would leave the camera set in Jpeg fine mode as I carried it around for those "on the fly shots" I take far too many of. (can you take too many????)

Anytime I actually took the time to set up for a shot,. I would shoot raw.

I would allways review the card contents before transfering to the digital wallet. Any series shots or bursts I would save only the keepers.

Any shots with the sky or sunsets in them shoot raw. It is too easy to mess up the exposure,. especially in partial cloudy weather. (do they get clouds in Africa? :) )

Likewise If the composition will have strong differences in lighting from dark shaded areas to well lit,. this is another area where raw will help.

[Kennymc]

If you shoot in RAW when you get home you have the option to convert a copy to jpeg and compare the jpg image to one printed from a RAW file. If you are then happy with the results you can block process the lot to jpeg to save space. As mentioned by someone before you can't do it the other way round. If you are going to burn them to CD surely you would only burn the really excellent ones in RAW. The also rans could be burned as jpegs...

[David Lawson]

Raw when it matters. You know how it is, you just want records of some things, friends you meet, beer you enjoyed. Even in the bush there are times your taking pictures and you know in your heart your doing it because your in Africa and well, it's a Hyena behind a group of Gazelle, it's too far away but hey ho you take it anyway. You get home and in the old days the tranny went in the bin. Just my outlook. david

[aravet]

Roger,

Roger_Cavanagh wrote:
My personal concern is not how much the CD's cost: I've got just over 30 from my two years of D30 ownership - not counting dupes. Although, I probably don't throw away as much images as I should. CD's are cheap.


I made a quick mental comparison (all sizes approx, not checked ):

JPEG scenario :
Keep/save original file into a PSD file
total size = 2.8 M

RAW/TIFF scenario :
Keep original CRW file : 6.3 M
convert to TIFF, and save into PSD file : 18 Meg
total size = 24 M.

On 1 size 2.8 M, on the other 24 M !! 8 times more space.
That's a lot !!!! I must be wrong somewhere.



I _know_ that some pictures will come out better because I shoot raw.


Is there a pattern. Do you know in which categories those "some" fall, most of the time? Clouds, landscape, sand, ...

Do you know in which situation this "better" will be noticeable, from a normal viewing distance? 10x15? 13x19? bigger?

[robertwgross]

aravet wrote:

On 1 size 2.8 M, on the other 24 M !! 8 times more space.
That's a lot !!!! I must be wrong somewhere.



Geez, 24 Megabytes is nothing!

I can burn a CD-ROM for about 20-30 cents, and it will hold about 30 of those 24 Megabyte items. So, it costs me roughly one cent to store one such item.

Life is too short to do JPEGs.

---Bob Gross---

[aravet]

CyberDyneSystems wrote:
1: Buy a 30 gigabyte laptop hard drive for $85.00
2: Take the 4 gig drive out of your digital wallet and install the 30 gig drive.


It's a USB1 system => 4Gb = 2 hours of transfer. 30 GB ...

Well, I ordered a 40Gb XS-drive this morning, but it doesn't make the question pointless. I don't feel like using 8 times (see previous msg) the space, just because "you never know", and "raw is better; should be; must be".

If RAW "betterness" will only show in 20x30 prints, I want to know, because I won't print this big.
If RAW "betterness"will never show in mid-day shots of cows on green grass, I want to know, because 90% of my pics are of cows on a green background.

(OK; now, I'm gonna kill the thread : )
Replace file format by number of condoms.

Most people use only 1 condom at a time, because it's good enough for their type of usage. 2 is better; should be; must be; but who needs it. When will you see the difference. 3 is even better. and 4;
see my point.


(still there ?)

I simply want to know why I do things the way I do them, and if it makes sense.

[defordphoto]

Ya know what? Then don't shoot RAW. In fact, save a ton more disk space and shoot small JPEG. This obsession with disk space just baffles me.

The rest of us will go for quality photos, thank you very much.

[dbailey]

Here are some quotes from an Outdoor Photographer (Jun 03) article, "File Formats", on this topic.

"JPEG is definitely not a secondary, low-quality format. I once read a manufacturer's brochure that gave some nonsence about JPEG being okay only for snapshots you don't care about. Not true-that statement insults a lot of pros who gave sold and continue to sell images captured as JPEG files."

"You're unlikely to see any significant difference between RAW and JPEG files when prints are small (8x10 or smaller) and when any size images are reproduced on low-quality paper, such as newsprint. RAW is worth the effort for the fine image that you have to to deal with, but probably not when you need to shoot fast at a WILDLIFE REFUGE (My caps)."

"Personally, I find this more of a theoretical than practical issue. A well-exposed JPEG file that needs little adjustment is practically indistinguishable from a RAW image, yet it's much easier to use."

"I can't tell you which file format is best for you. I rarely recommend TIFF, not for quality reasons, but because it demands too much of camera resources. I think JPEG is grat when yoiu need to shoot a lot of pictures quickly, and I'll use RAW files for photography where I want the utmost in quality and can afford the time needed."

Cheers.

[mwinog2777]

thanks for killing the thread.

[aravet]

RFMSports wrote:
Ya know what? Then don't shoot RAW. ...
The rest of us will go for quality photos, thank you very much.

Whow.
Please show me that it's really worth to spend 8 times the space, forever, on your HD and CD. It's a genuine question. I'm here to learn.
Enlight me with your experience, show me an example, teach me when and where RAW is the only way to go, and not JPEG.
Or are you just repeating what you read somewhere else?

In a few years, I guess I'll need 100+ CDs to backup all my pictures. In JPEG. Is it worth buying, burning, handling, labellling, storing 800+CDs, or is it just the easy way? If it is, I'll do it.

As I said in the original post, I plan buying an Epson-2100-like printer later but I'm sure it will take me a few years to master the art of fine printing. Till then, I simply ask people who know from their experience, who learned the hard way - not the parrots - to share the info.

Less noise, more info.

[PaulB]

OK - I'm a freelance shooting lots of motorsport with a 10D.
I use highest quality JPEGs, not RAW.
Why?
Well - I can't, and customers can't - tell the difference!
Certainly not after the RAW files are converted to JPEG to burn on a CD and send off,or to e-mail.

If I do prints on my Epson 1290 then I still can't see the difference between a RAW file with all the conversions done to optimise it and the highest quality JPEG.

RAW files will not only eat up more CF card space but will take over the rest of your life converting them into a condition that you can see on the screen and print ot to hang on the wall.

Maybe a RAW file is better if you want the ultimate quality but I would contend that there are few of us with the need, passion, conviction, time or obsession to use them for more than a fraction of our shots.

If anyone out there needs better quality than the 10D will deliver in JPEG, then try RAW files all the time - otherwise how about a 1Ds?

[Jorge]

aravet wrote:
I don't feel like using 8 times (see previous msg) the space, just because "you never know", and "raw is better; should be; must be".

If RAW "betterness" will only show in 20x30 prints, I want to know, because I won't print this big.
If RAW "betterness"will never show in mid-day shots of cows on green grass, I want to know, because 90% of my pics are of cows on a green background.

You’re asking a lot here. And you’ve got a lot of answers. Photographers have given you their opinions based on their technical knowledge and practical experience. I think these statements are of great value and that it can be neither expected or demanded that people prove their statements in a scientific matter before they can be recognized as useful!

What you want is someone to put forward general laws of photographic nature suited to your very specific photographic needs.

In the end of the day it will be your judgement whether RAW or JPEG will do for any particular shot or print. I suggest that you do some serious testing of your own to find out what suits your particular needs the best.

I’ll be looking forward to read about your results.

[defordphoto]

aravet wrote:
Till then, I simply ask people who know from their experience, who learned the hard way - not the parrots - to share the info.


That's exactly what everyone has been doing here. You don't seem to be listening, though I do give you credit for purchasing a larger digital wallet. I could not imagine the thought of being out in the field and running out of storage space.

And yes, as we shoot more photos we all have the challenge of storing and cataloging those photos. It all becomes part of the hobby. It's all part of the process of photography, no matter whether you shoot film or digital. Personally, I'd much rather deal with storing digital than film/slides. Much easier to organize, search, if you put the effort into it.

The beautiful thing about the cameras we use now is we have so many options to fit our personal needs. You have to make that decision of what works best for you. You have had a lot of good people offer a lot of good solutions on both sides of the coin and now it's your decision on how you handle your photo collection.

For the majority of us out here using these awesome Canon cameras, we prefer shooting RAW. Because it gives your such a huge variety of options for post processing. And you get the best of both worlds: An attached JPEG that can be extracted very easily and quickly for viewing and/or print.

To me (here's yet another analogy) shooting JPEG over RAW is similar to selecting bargain, 99-cent-a-roll film over the more expensive, professional film.

And for post processing time, you will spend much, much more time fixing an over/under exposed, wrong white-balance, etc, JPEG photo than you would a RAW photo that has problems. There are no real tools out there for tweaking JPEGs. You will throw away alot more JPEGs than you would RAWs For RAW, there are MANY tools out there that make post-processing a real breeze and a lot of it can be batched. Press a button and go. It doesn't get any easier than that.

RAW also ensures that we have the absolute best photo possible from our camera. Each and every freaking pixel is perfect. That's what most of use strive for out here: The Perfect Photo. Just like a racecar driver searches for The Perfect Lap. Constantly striving for that very last pixel and making it as beautiful and pleasing as humanly possible. For those of us out here that strive for that, JPEG artifacting is just simply not acceptable. And with JPEG you CANNOT go back. With RAW, you really can go back in time and make many, many changes to your photos and STILL come out with The Perfect Photo, even if it originally was not shot that way out in the field. That is awesome technology and I will NOT miss out on that. Use the camera for all it's worth. Use all the options you can to strive for that Perfect Photo. I don't (and the majority of us out feel the same way) see how you could NOT use this camera for all it's worth. Why would you not?

And for storage we have so many options: Hard drives, CD's and DVD's. And they are ALL very inexpensive. You can cut down your number of discs by going to DVD.

But, yes, this all takes time. It takes time and effort to post process and then store and catalog all your photos. Again, how you do that is also whatever fits your needs. And (yet) again, the options are many.

What you really need to do, IMHO, is to get out in the field and experiment in the real-world rather than spending time here. Practice shooting RAW and JPEG and then compare and decide what fits your needs out on the Serenghetti.

I wish you much luck and look forward to seeing your photos. I just think of the marvelous things I could do in Africa for two weeks with a 10D...All in RAW, of course.

As a caveat: It's sure a good thing you don't have a 1Ds. Your head would surely explode! ;)

[aravet]

That's bothering me :

RFMSports wrote:
To me (here's yet another analogy) shooting JPEG over RAW is similar to selecting bargain, 99-cent-a-roll film over the more expensive, professional film.

On one side
(all info gathered in this thread, I'm glad I asked this hot question)
there are FACTS :
*1 - SOME pros who say " I shoot JPEG because neither I nor my clients can see the difference"
*2 - SOME magazine articles that say : JPEG is really close to RAW. You won't notice the difference.
*3 - SOME links to experiments made by people who tested side by side RAW & JPEG, and didn't see any noticable difference.

On the other side,
you have MANY people who say, in many various ways: "Do what you want, it's your hobby, your photographs, but if you want quality, no option, believe me, shoot RAW; even if it takes 8 times as much space as JPEG".
Why should I believe that, if they can't tell why they believe it? This is not a religion: no place for dogmas or faith. Only facts (see *1, *2, *3 above) matter.

Why am I asking? Because
- I'd like to know.
- I don't want my backup to use 400 CDs when 50 is good enough. If the difference is not noticeable by human eyes, it's good enough.
(BTW, You don't need more than "Good enough". If you do, it was not "good enough", so, all you need is "Good enough". Nothing more).

[nsxpower]

The issue of space is really not important these days and will be even less so in a few years. Remembers the 80s? We all had 30Mb HDs and thought it was plenty, now the OS normally uses 70x what out entire HDs used to be. We have freaking 4Gb CF cards now days (although expensive)!!! I imagine that in a few years we'll have HDs that are several times what we have now ... and people will still be bitching that space is scarce.

HDs keep getting larger and cheaper every day. Optical media is advancing as well 650Mb CD-Rs, 700Mb CD-Rs, 4.7Gb DVD-Rs ... soon we'll have blue-laser 27Gb DVD-Rs.

Curently, my setup look like this:

PowerBook G4 1Ghz w/ 60Gb HD w/ SuperDrive, so I can easily make DVD backups etc. In adition to that I also have a 120Gb LaCie d2 external FW400 HD w/ is used for archived photos as well as daily backup of my Home directiry. I also have a 30Gb FireLite bus-powered FW400 HD, which is a size of a small calculator to take w/ me on the road (LaCie is HUGE and has to be plugged in). For my camera I have a 1Gb CF card + 3 x 128Mb CF cards + 3 x 64Mb/32Mb CF cards, which is OK. I also have an old PII setup as a server, so I can log in from a hotel/cafe and upload my photos there if space really becomes an issue.

Bottom line: Lets assume that RAW may not offer any advantage over JPEG for 70% of the photos you are going to take. Why should you *risk* pulling your hair out over shooting JPEG just to save a little space? You can never know which one is going to end up being the "one"! I've taken photos that I though were not going to end up in the trash, but later dicovered that the composition at *that* moment was perfect and the only problems are w/ colors, slight exposure and sharpness. You should try playing with Adobe Camera RAW plug-in. You will be surprised just how much control and how much you can *fix* before you even import it into PS. You upscale RAW from the plugin for larger prints (yes I know you are not looking to print 20x30s today, but you may want to do that tomorrow). Canon's own File Viewer Utility does not do RAW files justice.

[Pekka]

aravet wrote:
That's bothering me :

RFMSports wrote:
To me (here's yet another analogy) shooting JPEG over RAW is similar to selecting bargain, 99-cent-a-roll film over the more expensive, professional film.

On one side
(all info gathered in this thread, I'm glad I asked this hot question)
there are FACTS :
*1 - SOME pros who say " I shoot JPEG because neither I nor my clients can see the difference"
*2 - SOME magazine articles that say : JPEG is really close to RAW. You won't notice the difference.
*3 - SOME links to experiments made by people who tested side by side RAW & JPEG, and didn't see any noticable difference.

On the other side,
you have MANY people who say, in many various ways: "Do what you want, it's your hobby, your photographs, but if you want quality, no option, believe me, shoot RAW; even if it takes 8 times as much space as JPEG".
Why should I believe that, if they can't tell why they believe it? This is not a religion: no place for dogmas or faith. Only facts (see *1, *2, *3 above) matter.

Why am I asking? Because
- I'd like to know.
- I don't want my backup to use 400 CDs when 50 is good enough. If the difference is not noticeable by human eyes, it's good enough.
(BTW, You don't need more than "Good enough". If you do, it was not "good enough", so, all you need is "Good enough". Nothing more).



With Canon conversion the difference is not too big. With other converters it's like night and day.

Here is why:

10D saves images in digital format from sensor which needs interpolation to produce RGB color. Because photos are viewed on screen and are intended to be printed in up to A3 size interpolation has been coded to produce pixel antialiasing which smooths "ladder effect" on e.g. diagonal lines. This step looks soft as there is no sharpening added at all.

Sharpening essentially increases edge contrast to simulate acutance which in turn brings back the dreaded "ladder effect" antialiasing succesfully removed.

As many want JPEG right out of the camera Canon needed to add sharpening step in JPEG saving . They tried to preserve ability to print big (at lower dpi) and view photos on normal monitor (at lower dpi) so they adjusted sharpening so that even the strongest in-camera setting would not produce "ladder effect". Ladder effects, a.k.a jaggies, will make images look "digital" and bring down review points.

Canon conversion uses that same principal: it matches strongest sharpening setting to their interpolation algorithm so that jaggies are not produced.

Too bad the interpolation Canon uses is not the best there is, and this restricts use of stronger sharpening.

But 10D lets you save RAW - the format image is at BEFORE interpolation. It opens some new opportunies: you can design better interpolation code into your own conversion software and thus make sharpening stronger (without jaggies). This is exactly what PowerShowel does. And this is what Capture One from PhaseOne does wery well. They bypass Canon's conversion code and so they can use e.g. interpolation which is tied to sharpening settings to achieve best possible quality -- quality that is not possible with anything you do in Photoshop.

[aravet]

nsxpower wrote:
The issue of space is really not important these days and will be even less so in a few years. Remembers the 80s?


Really? I keep hearing that a lot (I've been in the computer business for 15 years), but I can't keep doing the maths myself :

one 10D photograph takes (approx)
- JPEG : 2.8 meg
- RAW (archiving) + TIFF (using and processing) = 24 M, 8 times more

8 times more space, but also 8 (6) times more time to transfer, read or write the file.
At 24M/photograph, 1 Gb = 40 photographs. How long does it take you to shoot 40 photographs.

You will maybe tell me that you edit, and don't keep everything.
Except for the obvious exposure/framing/shooting errors, I'll ask "why"? If space doesn't matter, why take the risk to delete a picture you'll may need in 6 months, 1, 2, 10 years. If space really doesn't matter, why take that risk, that would, for sure, BE noticeable. With PhotoShop, you never know : maybe you'll need that left ear of you little nephew, or that one-legged ostrich for a photo-montage. You don't do photo-montage?! Well, now maybe, but in 5 years? Who knows? Why take that risk.

Bottom line: Lets assume that RAW may not offer any advantage over JPEG for 70% of the photos you are going to take.
Excuse me for asking, but - 70% - where does this number come from? You're own experience? Do you mean that for 30% of your photographs, you had to use the RAW file to get the best of it. That's the info I'm looking for. Why, and was there a common pattern in those 30%?

BTW I'd consider that even 1% is enough of a reason to shoot everything in RAW.



: Why should you *risk* pulling your hair out over shooting JPEG just to save a little space?

A little !! 7 times more space! An extra 21 Meg/photograph. I don't call that a little;

[nsxpower]

S=Statement, O=Opinion

S: Some pros shoot JPEG over RAW because they nor their clients notice the difference.

O: - These people are pros for a reason. First of all they know what they are doing really well. Secondly, a lot of them work in studios, which is a controlled environment where you do not have to worry about lighting, WB, odd reflections etc. They shoot 1000 frames, through away 900 and 100 go to the clients. If the print is less the 8x10 the clients, not the pro who shot, will not notice the difference.

> You and me don't have a luxury of a perfectly controlled light etc. Hence our WB, colors and exposures get messed up due to photographer or camera error. I am sure that some of the photos you are going to take on your trip will have unsual color bias and exposure problems, because shooting during a trip and on the go does not constitute a controlled environment.

- Similarly, the pros that shoot in not so controlled environments take 1000s of photos filling more then one 1Gb CF in a hour! Because they know that sometimes they and/or the camera f*ck up. Obviously when shooting in such volume you want to cut down on PP time.

> When you have 1000s of photos of the same/similar object it is *easier* to discard a 100 of them because they have a stupid JPEG artifact or something.

- Clients such as a small newspaper that does B&W prints. Do you know that the "photos" in old-school newspapers are not exactly photos and are more of an optical illusion? Shooting JPEG/RAW, 2MP/11MP is not likely to make a huge impact on the quality of the final product.

> Again, you may only be printing 8x10 today, but you do not want to deny yourself the opportunity to make larger prints tomorrow.

S: Magazines say that and that

O: - Magazines say a lot of things ... do you believe it all? Magazines are know for having a bias towards a certain product/manufacturer. There is no such thing as *independent* press, never was and never will be.

S: Independent tests of individual photographers show little advantage of RAW over JPEG.

O: This is by far the most valid argument of the three. I have looked at those tests myself and in majority of situations I can hardly tell the difference between a RAW and a JPEG, but however small the difference it is visible in 50% if the cases w/o looking really hard. And thats on the computer screen, when printing things jump out a lot more IMHO. The authors also admit that in some cases RAW did provide a better image, but more importantly increased the margin for photographer error by allowing them to fix the photo in PP w/o degrading the quality of the final product in any significant manner!

=> A little off-topic:

If you pick up an average P&S camera manual and read the section on memory card capacity/image quality you will most likely see the following recommendations:

E-Mail/Web: 640x480 @ Normal

4x6 Print: 800x600 @ Fine

5x7 Print: 1024x768 @ Fine

8x10 Print: Blah by Blah @ Fine

Would you follow these recommnedations even if you only needed these photos for web? Of couse, NO! You would still shoot the highest size at Fine/Normal compressing JPEG, then PP, resize and USM. Why would you do that even when a 640x480 @ Normal would suffice for 75% of cases? Because in the end you want absolute superior quality at the cost of time, CF card space and HD space local/web! I think the same reasoning can be used for using RAW: It is not absolutely nessesary for 75% of cases, but you want to achive maximum quality possible (thats why you are using a D-SLR and not a P&S camera w/ a huge CF card, thats why you bought those "L" lenses ...) and RAW will save your ass in that small percentage of cases when you **** up.

[nsxpower]

You will maybe tell me that you edit, and don't keep everything.



Excuse me for asking, but - 70% - where does this number come from? You're own experience

Actually, I rarely delete a photograph. Out of a batch of 300 I may delete 3-5, but only 20-30 will ever be seen by anyone but me. I still have every single photo from my first digital ever: Kodak mc3 640x480 baby! JPEGs/PSD (I don't use TIFF) come and go, since I go back an reconvert from RAW to achive a different result/qulity etc. I also have 99.9% of all RAW files I took. In total my photos are taking up ~30Gb HD space + 4 DVDs = ~ 60Gb give or take a few.

Yes, I am pulling the numbers out of my ass (aka my personal experience). Your milege may vary. I suppose you are a better photographer then I am, but thats highly subjective as well.

All-in-all I feel that you've set your mind on shooting JPEG and are just now arguing for the hell of it (hell, it is fun!). Since you have all the space in the world now, you should be able to take a lot of photos - I'd like to see you post them, since I've never had a chance to visit Africa myself (Egypt does not count).

[aravet]

nsxpower wrote:
All-in-all I feel that you've set your mind on shooting JPEG and are just now arguing for the hell of it.

No, in fact, that's the problem. I'm leaving in 10 days, and I still don't know. BTW, If I had made my mind, I wouldn't have ordered a 40Gb XS-Drive.

If you re-read my original post, I gave details about me, the kind of pictures I'm gonna take, and what I'm gonna do with them.

Between the lines, I'm really asking
- "Is this whole RAW conversion stuff for people like me, taking picture like that, and using them this way".
- "Should non-pro but motivated amateurs like me consider it, or should they rather refine their PhotoShop and printing skills, where they would see - notice - more difference?


Pekka wrote:
With Canon conversion the difference is not too big. With other converters it's like night and day.
Here is why:


Thanks for the info Pekka:
I rapidly checked PhaseOne and co here :
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/1ds/capture-one.shtml
http://www.outbackphoto.com/artofraw/raw_02/essay.html
http://www.outbackphoto.com/artofraw/index.html

But, , it only brings more questions . Is a 600$, 12M Raw converter for my league. I won't quit my day job to try, learn and master this tool. I'm already deep into PhotoShop colour and contrast correction.
I'm not a pro, just a motivated amateur. Is this product/workflow (Raw conversion) for me?

I've made my mind :
I'll take all my African pictures in RAW. Just in case. After that, I'll see..
I'll keep my eyes open for more Raw/JPeg experiments, articles....

[nsxpower]

Between the lines, I'm really asking
- "Is this whole RAW conversion stuff for people like me, taking picture like that, and using them this way".
- "Should non-pro but motivated amateurs like me consider it, or should they rather refine their PhotoShop and printing skills, where they would see - notice - more difference?

I re-read your original post to get myself back on track.

I feel that motivated amateurs should be using RAW because we are amateurs and RAW format gives us a higher margin for error. Besides making up for our lack of skill or unluckiness (sometimes I flick the wrong button or forget that the camera is in the wrong mode for a particular photo), it also lets us build upon an already good photo - to make it excellent.

The only way I can demonstrate is by using an example. Following is a photo I took last weekend (please look at original sized one):

http://www.pbase.com/image/16671339

I shoot it in RAW mode, but I had my camera stuck in the wrong mode since I was taking photo in REALLY bring sunlight right before that. Of course, I did not realise that until I got home and downloaded the photos to the computer. The orginal photo looked like crap: exposure, white balance and colors were all wrong, plus a lot of noise (I will post the original Monday, since I am going away for the weekend. I will post a full-size/fine (PS level 12) JPEG of it and you can take your time bringing it to the same level (yes, it is not perfect) as the *fixed* photo). This brings me to your second point:

With Canon conversion the difference is not too big. With other converters it's like night and day.

Canon's conversion sucks ass, for lack of a better description. The program is more limited in options and is slower then 3rd party alternatives!

I took the above photo through Adobe Camera Raw plg-in and did everything I could do there ... exported 16-bit to PS7 and did further color/brightness/saturation corrections ... used FM's actions to reduce noise ... resize for web ... USM ... and done!

Yes, the photo is not perfect by any means, but I am sure that when you see the original on monday --- you will be convinced, if you still care? How much time did I spend? Probably, 10 minutes if that. The original was not worthy of print or even web space, but now it is acceptable. While I can go back to retake this photo over and over again, sometimes you can't do that ... thats what you really appreciate it.

Should you spend $600 for Capture One D-SLR Special Edition, I didn't. Because ACR plug-in fits better into my workflow, cheaper and I feel that it fits my skills much better. Maybe ina year there will be a RAW converion tool that is better then Capture One ... I will always be able to go back and work on my favorites with it to achieve even a better result. With JPEG you are kind of stuck.

I've made my mind :
I'll take all my African pictures in RAW. Just in case. After that, I'll see..
I'll keep my eyes open for more Raw/JPeg experiments, articles....

I think that is a very sensible thing to do. I am sure you will have enough space on you XS-Drive + CF cards to shoot all the pictures you want on your trip. If later you decide you do not want RAW ... batch conver to TIFF or high-quality JPEG and delete the RAW files.

[Pekka]

aravet wrote:
Thanks for the info Pekka:
I rapidly checked PhaseOne and co here :
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/1ds/capture-one.shtml
http://www.outbackphoto.com/artofraw/raw_02/essay.html
http://www.outbackphoto.com/artofraw/index.html

But, , it only brings more questions . Is a 600$, 12M Raw converter for my league. I won't quit my day job to try, learn and master this tool. I'm already deep into PhotoShop colour and contrast correction.
I'm not a pro, just a motivated amateur. Is this product/workflow (Raw conversion) for me?


They have a LE version which is the safe software with 20 photo limit for one batch and it's 99 bucks.

I also have Adobe RAW plugin and it does not compare to C1LE.

If you start using RAW, you need to have SOME converter - and quality of that converter makes it either better or much better than JPEG.

[henkbos]

Allez, Alain, bon voyage, goede reis, veel plezier.
Shot 200 RAW today on a desert trip. Luckily in RAW as I accidentally shot about 15 with 2 stops underexposure.

[aravet]

henkbos wrote:
Shot 200 RAW today on a desert trip. Luckily in RAW as I accidentally shot about 15 with 2 stops underexposure.


Great Henk. Now you can use PhaseOne, the Raw Converter.

Raw Converter : a professional tool used by advanced amateurs to correct their beginners mistakes.

:)

[defordphoto]

One last thing I will add and then I'm done, cause you've finally made the decision (good thing, because this horse has been beaten dead) to shoot RAW -- You will not be storing both RAW and TIFF versions of each and every photo. There is no reason to. You only need to store the TIFFs of the ones you actually run through the post process procedure, so that alone will save you quite a bit of disk space.

Take care, good luck and have a safe trip.

-Jim
Vancouver, Washington

[Kevin Connery]

Whew.

I just read the entire thread, and noticed that nobody actually did answer the question about when RAW is sufficiently better than JPEG to warrant its use, given the time/space tradeoffs.

The answer is: when the image scene is too contrasty to capture both the shadows and highlights. That happens often in the field, especially with strong, direct sunlight. (That's where the Zone System is most commonly used, and there's a reason for it.) A RAW file CAN capture more shadow and highlight detail and

[defordphoto]

Kevin Connery wrote:
Whew.

I just read the entire thread, and noticed that nobody actually did answer the question about when RAW is sufficiently better than JPEG to warrant its use, given the time/space tradeoffs.


Whew is right, but we did answer the question right off the bat: It's always the 'right time' to shoot RAW. ;)

Have a good day!

[aravet]

Kevin Connery wrote:
The answer is: when the image scene is too contrasty to capture both the shadows and highlights.



Thanks Kevin. That's the kind of answer I was looking for.


An in-studio easy-to-reproduce Raw-JPEG-comparison test case would be nice to have.
It would allow us to compare different camera JPEG algorithms, and identify individual weaknesses.
"Thou shalt know your enemy"

[CyberDyneSystems]

CyberDyneSystems wrote:

Any shots with the sky or sunsets in them shoot raw. It is too easy to mess up the exposure,. especially in partial cloudy weather. (do they get clouds in Africa? :) )

Likewise If the composition will have strong differences in lighting from dark shaded areas to well lit,. this is another area where raw will help.


Part of a larger answer,.. but come on,. and I wasn't the first to say it either....

[SteveCliff]

I enjoy taking pictures. I take a lot of them, and slowly bit by bit I'm getting better.

But I still shoot only in RAW.

My pictures are not important. I am not (at the moment) making any money from them, but I want them to look the best. So when I screw up and take a shot with underexposure still set from the last shot, or pop indoors and forget to switch White Balance back, or one of many other silly "user" mistakes, I have a chance to salvage a good picture.

I took a picture of a duck the other day - I got it completely wrong. In focus yes, but virtually everything else was wrong! That'll stop me playing around in manual mode ;-).
Because it was RAW, I managed to salvage the picture - which now sits nicely framed on my wall.

Most likely I couldn't have done that with JPEG no matter *how* hard I tried in Photoshop.

It comes down to a personal decision - how much do you want to be able to make sure your pictures are going to come out great. If you are an excellent photographer, unlikely to make mistakes, I would say go shoot JPEG (High).
If you're like me, a "serious" amateur, I would say shoot RAW, and have that extra bit of safety.

It's not a disk space issue (just buy some extra space and get on with it - the overdraft can only get bigger!). It's a safety issue! I don't want to miss that big picture that will be my best yet .......

Good luck whichever way you decide though!

[defordphoto]

Steve - Well said, but it doesn't necessarily have to be a photographer screw-up that necessitates extra post processing in our photos.

As advanced as these cameras are, they are not perfect. There are many situations where they can be fooled into incorrect exposures. And that can only be fixed in a RAW file. Sure you can putz with it in JPEG, but it will never look right.

I always say to people when they are asking what type of camera to buy: Canon. Always Canon. And I say to people who ask what mode to shoot in: RAW. Always RAW.

[CyberDyneSystems]

RFMSports wrote:

As advanced as these cameras are, they are not perfect. There are many situations where they can be fooled into incorrect exposures. And that can only be fixed in a RAW file.

....for instance, .. I am a total newbie at using raw files. I have a lot to leanr and don't have the best tools (software) for manipulating raw files.

For that reason I still shoot a lot of jpegs. So here is an example;

Last week for three days running here in Providence we had the most brilliant beautifull cloud cover with patches of blue sky and sunlight pouring through. Three straight days of these Heavenly skies.

Now as I say, I am new to the 10D and SLR photography in general. I had the worst trouble trying to get an exposure of these skies that looked anything like the "real thing" Allways too dark or too light. I tried all the auto settings,. I tried manual exposures. I tried exposure bracketing and white balance bracketeing,.. on and on for three days using fine jpeg.

I tweeked a few of the closer jpegs in Photoshop 6.1..

.... all to no avail. I never got one of these jpegs to look like the sky outside.

The first RAW file (coverted to tiff as I have 6.1) I opened in photoshop I was able to get the right look with a few minutes tweeking. Now lets talk hard drive space. about 26 jpegs compared to 1 raw file. None of the jpegs were wholely satisfactory.

This is where raw is the way.

The best anaolgy is this.

If you send your film to be processed at the one hour photo and are satisfied with the prints. That is Jpeg.

If you are looking to get the kind of satisfaction that you can only get from from working in a darkroom. That is RAW.

[aravet]

I reread most of the thread, and I'm puzzled. Sorry if I bite, but I can't believe what I re-read.

All - but 1 or 2 - of you guys, when asked for a good scientific reason for shooting raw, could only come with one single motivation : "Exposure-Airbag: I need an exposure-airbag to rescue my best shot, because there is a non trivial chance that, even if it's an important shot, I'm going to mess up its exposure so badly that it will be beyond repair".
I can't believe that people investing thousands of dollars in hardware, and so many hours in a hobby/passion can't expose correctly/decently a photograph, especially when it's important to them.

There is a great feature on the 10D: the exposure histogram. I'm learning further, because of it's direct feedback. After most shots, I check the histogram. I rarely have to erase the picture. When I can't make my mind about the exposure, I take a quick shot, just to check the histogram.


What did you do when you were only shooting on film, a few years ago? Did you throw 20% of your pictures because they were so badly exposed. I can't believe that. I'm an amateur, with only a few years of practice, but I rarely mess up an exposure. I learned the "hard" way, in the darkroom, and the first thing I learned was that a film had to be correctly exposed if I ever wanted to make a nice print.
I shoot 99% of my pictures in Aperture priority mode, and take a spot measure on a medium zone. Easy and safe. When the light is homogeous, I even trust my camera to handle the light measure in evaluation mode. No problems. I won't say there is never an accident, but it's so rare I can live with that.

For 176 years (Niepce, 1827) people have been taking pictures on film. How could they produce all those great shots without a raw converter to correct 3-stops over-exposure? Don't you wonder?

Before flaming me, reread the message : I didn't say that shooting Raw is useless. I only said that justifying all the Raw associated hassle and extra cost with a "I need it to save my best-sellers pics that are sooo badly exposed. All professionals do." is a weak reason. You can do better than that.

[defordphoto]

Exactly CyberDyne! Back in the days of film (I say that with tongue firmly implanted in cheek) not very many of us had the use of a real-live color darkroom, so we just had to settle for what we got out of the local developer and that was it. When attempting to shoot The Shot, we bracket-shot several as we hoped and prayed they would turn out. Many times they did, but countless others the pictures were tossers and then we'd hope for another day.

But now, we have the digital darkroom at our fingerstips and it's incredible what we can do now with these photos that in a previous life (read: Film) would probably be tossers. Not only that, but you tweak with any shot (if shot in RAW) until you get it just the way you want it. You can tweak white balance, kick it up or down a stop or two, tone, brightness, contrast, sharpness, color temp, etc, etc, etc.

There's many times that I have at least as much fun in the digital darkroom as I do out on a shoot and the creative juices flow (also) on both sides of that fence.

I do shoot some JPEG, but not really too much. Some stuff I shoot for work, in which I need to save the filespace size for sending via email, and also the photos are not photographically important and the point gets across just fine with small JPEGs. Other than that, and a few other instances, it's all RAW for me.

[CyberDyneSystems]

This is the last thing I have to offer in this thread.

I refer again to my previous post like the so many others that you either refuse to read or refuse to understand.

aravet wrote:

What did you do when you were only shooting on film, a few years ago? .

They used a dark room to develop the film in ways that a one hour photo never could.

That is what RAW is for.

Again if you shoot only jpeg,. that is fine. But it is the same as dropping off your pics at the one hour photomat when compared to the work that people are doing in there digital darkrooms.

If you have no need or intention of undertaking such a task,.. then shoot in jpeg.

For the time being,. as I have said before I am shooting primarily in jpeg. That is because I have yet to learn the ins and outs of my camera. It is however my intention to learn this "Raw" thing, and take as much advantage of it as I can. I like using my equipments full potential as much as I enjoy pushing myself to my full potential.

I have been an Audio engineer for years, and an enthusiast most of my life. There are those that either can not or refuse to hear the difference between a pair of $12,000.00 Martin Logan monolith electrostatics hooked to a Krell Power Amp Vs. a Pioneer receiver driving a bunch of Cerwin Vega floor rattlers.

The difference can not be explained very easily,. it can be if the listener is willing to listen and understand. But someone who refuses to listen,. there is nothing that can be said to convince them.

If you want to learn the differnce,. stop arguing with evryone on this forum,. and do some research. Look at the people who we should be looking up to's work. Look at Roger Cavanaughs work. Pekka's work. Fred Miranda's work. See if any of this stuff is something that you may aspire to. If it is,. then don't you wonder what tools they use to acheive such lofty standards?

[CyberDyneSystems]

I apologize if it sounds like I lost my cool,. I just no longer follow the point of this grilling. :)

[defordphoto]

CyberDyneSystems wrote:
I apologize if it sounds like I lost my cool,. I just no longer follow the point of this grilling. :)

Personally, I thought it was quite appropriate, that's why I was following the conversation to other places. ;)

[CyberDyneSystems]

RFM,...

I wish I had read your reply first! :D

I think it would have settled me down a bit :)

I too am having a great time "tweeking" images. There are quite a few that the timing for them can only occur by accident,. so if fate left me with the wrong camera setting,. then I would have been doomed to lose the final picture if it were a film camera. I'm learning as I go with the Camera end of things,. so I am more apt to make a mistake taking the picture.

Fortunately, I know my way around photoshop enough to make some of my mistakes presentable. :)

[defordphoto]

CyberDyne-

Well, it's a lifelong learning process and as you know, sometimes you just have to learn by experience to really learn. And we learn through real-life experience much better than from a book or other means.

We can sit around here and yap about RAW and JPEG till we're blue in the face -- Oh wait. We already did that -- but we'll never learn the real why's and where's till we get off our butts and out into the field and shoot.

We had an awesome day today and my wife and I headed down to Salem (Oregon) and spent the day shooting at a couple of iris gardens down there. Got some absolutely fabulous stuff. Early morning dew and all that. Shot all RAW of course. The majority will not need much post-processing, if any at all, but I have a few that need some minor adjusting that will transform them from a mediocre shot, to a wall-hanger.

And we're looking forward to next weekend too for a full day shoot on Saturday that's still in the planning stages.

[defordphoto]

Well now here's a good one! Perfect for this thread. My wife is still learning the D60 she inherited from me when I bought the 10D. She has been shooting JPEG as she only has a couple of 256meg cards, and even though I said that RAW was better she still chose to shoot JPEG. Okay fine I said.

In messing with the various settings on the camera she inadvertently switched exposure comp to -2 stops and shot the entire day (only 80 shots or so) at 2 stops under!

Actually some don't look all that bad. Most are wasted. Sure you can lighten them up through Photoshop and they would be okay (at best), but the real data needed for truly repairing these photos is not available in the JPEG file. It would be available if these were RAW files and we could fix them and make them perfect, just as if she had shot them that way out in the field. But, since they are JPEGs, all we can do is patch them up to make the best of them. They will never be suitable for print.

But, there is a good lesson learned for her as some of the shots actually turned out quite outstanding! And now she has learned what you can do by kicking the f-stop down a bit. Maybe 2 stops was overkill, but she now knows and she has also been converted to RAW from here on out. She now knows that if she does want to adjust the exposure settings that she can do in the lab and not even worry about it out in the field.

Fortunately we will be going back down to these flower farms again next weekend and one of the owners kinda hinted that she needed someone with experience to shoot some of her flowers, so hey, we may have found a little side job there! ;)

[aravet]

Seems like my previous message made some noise.

Yesterday, I read all I could find about RAW conversion. and I found this little gem :

"Raw images improve over time, because better algorithms will be developped."

Duh. I'm a software developper, and I didn't think about it. Shame on me.

When I started this thread, I expected answers like this one, and also like


(I'm just making those up, so they must be false)

- RAW will allow more sharpenning in giant prints
- RAW will add details to maximun white, because it's using 12 bits
- RAW will give you more details in super-contrasty photographs

[v]PS[/b]:
-BTW, RAW will allow you to save some of those shots where you inadvertently messed up the exposure by 1 or 2 stops.



For some reason, it didn't happen. The PostScriptum took over the place, and the thread cycled. Around message 50, Pekka and Kevin (sorry if I forget somebody) finally brough some technical info, and that's what kept me in the thread.

[henkbos]

Quote from your initial post:

Questions :
--------------
In what kind of
- shooting situation : lighting, image contents, colors
- processing situation : PhotoShop
- printing situation : size, ink, paper
- viewers : normal people
does the RAW mode make sense.

I think all of these issues have been addressed with various users giving their OPINION why THEY think RAW would make sense. It was not up to you to argue with them about this.

Any way, have a great trip and we expect to see a lot of RAW (couldn't resist) pictures.

[aravet]

Jim,

RFMSports wrote:
In messing with the various settings on the camera she inadvertently switched exposure comp to -2 stops and shot the entire day (only 80 shots or so) at 2 stops under!


Reviewing fresh shots on the LCD also helps. I'm sure she would have noticed a 2 stops underexposure on the very first pictures.

I just checked to see if the D60 can display histograms on the control screen, and it can :
http://www.jjmehta.com/images/canon_d60b.jpg

I display the histogram by default, and I find it a great learning/shooting help. It makes exposure errors even more noticeable.

[nsxpower]

The histogram feature is great help, but sometimes you do not have the time to go the histogram and check everything, then reshoot if over/under exposed by 2 stops!

Heh, had a productive weekend ... 400+ RAW shots @ 1.7Gb total :D I am yet to go through them all, process ... Looked over them quickly and there are a few keepers :D

[!] I can't wait for Canon to put FireWire into their cameras (like Fuji does w/ S2 Pro), because transfering a 1Gb of photos over USB 1.0 is SLOOOOOW. I really need to find a FW CF card reader, any recommendations?

[gandini]

aravet: you compare the JPg at 2.8Mb to the RAW (6.3Mb) plus the associated TIF (18Mb), but you'd never save/archive the TIF, since it is always recoverable from the RAW file. While I have done, and published my own RAW v. JPG comparison, and so far I can't find anything superior about the RAW image, I still expose to RAW since it's the digital equivalent of a negative, except better since I can adjust parameters. I *am* in the camp that thinks keeping the original data is important, and I hope to benefit from possible improvements in the future in processing algorithms and workflow. I think this is more likely with a RAW file than with a JPG.

Good luck,

[aravet]

nsxpower wrote:
The histogram feature is great help, but sometimes you do not have the time to go the histogram and check everything, then reshoot if over/under exposed by 2 stops!
You don't have to go to the histogram, it can shop up by default on the LCD, just after taking the picture. It takes no time to check. The more you do it, the less time it takes. Becomes a reflex.

Heh, had a productive weekend ... 400+ RAW shots ..
Confession time (you had it coming) : how many will require you go to the RAW version to correct the exposure error?


nsxpower wrote:
.. transfering a 1Gb of photos over USB 1.0 is SLOOOOOW. I really need to find a FW CF card reader, any recommendations?
Lexar WA cards are advertised as 40x
x' = 150 KB/sec.
a 40x card should be capable of 6 M/sec, 360 M/minute

They ship with a little USB card reader, and some software on the card (for Mac/Windows, to check, undelete or secure erase files)

[aravet]

Philip,

gandini wrote:
..While I have done, and published my own RAW v. JPG comparison, and so far I can't find anything superior about the RAW image, I still expose to RAW ..

Where can I find your comparison?

[nsxpower]

aravet wrote:
Confession time (you had it coming) : how many will require you go to the RAW version to correct the exposure error?

Been really busy lately so I am yet to go through all of them in detail and delete the obvious OOF and poorly framed shots, quite a few of those :).

I know that "keepers" will require work, since I was going from REALLY SUNNY conditions outdoors w/ sharp shadows/highlights (I am in Barcelona (Spain) after all) -> "covered" aread w/ a lof of ambient light and reflections from water/metallic/glass surfaces -> underground situations w/ poor artificial lighting (terrarium/aquarium w/ no tripod available) -> later shoot in the evening w/ very nice, soft and red runlight. I know I screwed up a few times (the "artsy" ones). I was walking the whole way (prolly walked a good marathon or two in the two days).

There are also a few other problems that I've identified w/ a lot of shots, which will force me to through away more:

- lens flare :( I don't have a lens hood and when shooting vertically somewhat towards the sun this really becomes a problem.

- Shooting moving objects (fish) in murkyish water through thick glass while on a moving walkway w/ bad lighting w/ flash use prohibited, handheld ... yeah, I think I made my point here.

- photographer error after a few beers in nice 27ºC sunny weather ... :D

aravet wrote:
Lexar WA cards are advertised as 40x
x' = 150 KB/sec.
a 40x card should be capable of 6 M/sec, 360 M/minute....

- From what I've heard Canons can't wake full advatage of WA (Write Access) technology that those card use (I may be wrong on this one). Also, those cards mostly help writing to card speed after the picture is taken less so when tranfering from camera to computer, because ...

- USB 1.1 bus is slow and doesn't even sustain max theoretical 12Mbit/sec rate in the best scenarios. USB 2.0 is capable of theoretical maximum of 480Mbit/sec, but that speed is not sustainable and is rarely reached.

I have a Lexar or Transcend (can't remeber since I rarely take it out) Professioanl 16x 1Gb CFII card ... which is nice as far a write speed is concerned (much better then PNY cards I've been using before).

[aravet]

nsxpower wrote:
- From what I've heard Canons can't wake full advatage of WA (Write Access) technology that those card use (I may be wrong on this one). Also, those cards mostly help writing to card speed after the picture is taken less so when tranfering from camera to computer, because ...

True, but your question was about speeding the transfer from the camera to the PC. This link does benefits from the added speed.

I have a Lexar or Transcend (can't remeber since I rarely take it out)
Don't you take it out to transfer the pictures? What is your camera?

[nsxpower]

Perhaps it does, like I said I am not an expert on WA technology, however I doubt it is a significant improvement over regular high-speed CF cards. Regardless, being a Mac user I've been spoiled by Firewire for too long :)

I don't have to take the card out since I am using a Canon G3, which I can connect directly to the computer using the USB cable supplied w/ it. I have a SanDisk USB card reader somewhere, but I didn't notice the difference in speed when using it.

My camera + a couple of lenses got nicked a few years ago in Antigua (Note to everybidy: It is a bad idea to carry a nice camera bag that says "Canon EOS" in HUGE white on dark blue letters in 2 1/2 world countries w/o having it stapled to your balls). Thats what got me into serious digital in the first place and I am somewhat glad that had happened (I just wish they returned the lenses). Recently I was thinking about picking up an EOS 33 or 300V or even a Nikon 65N (since I don't have the problem of having lenses) to get back into SLR field, but the thought of having to go through the film workflow ... so I am looking hard into D-SLRs. I love the G3, the interface and I'm familiar w/ EOS film SLRs so Canon seems to be the obvious choice. I've tried using Nikon D100, but didn't really enjoy the experience of using it. I can hardly contain my urge to go out a buy a 10D now. But I've decided to wait till Fall ... 2-gen 10D w/o alleged back focusing issues should be out. I also want to see if Fuji will launch a replacement for S2 Pro, which is my second choice. I love the saturated colors, sharpness and dynamic range of Fuji cameras - the only draw-back is having to use Nikon lenses, which I am not a fan off. May be they got better over the last few years (I would not know). Lastly, I want to see the Pentax *ist D ... from what I've seen it should be the "first" compact D-SLR w/ some very nice features. The only problem is being tied down to Pentax line of lenses, which are not bad but I like to have choice and EOS mount offers a lot of it (Canon, Sigma, Tamron ... to name a few). Ok time to get back to work.

[kjsulli]

I just returned from 3 weeks touring Italy. I used my EOS-1Ds w/ 2x 1GB microdrives and a 30GB eFilm Picture Pad.
I found that it was a very workable solution.
I mostly shot fine jpegs and in some cases was sorry that the camera wasn't set for RAW. When possible, I switched to RAW and continued shooting.

During printing, I found a very big difference in the fine detail between the RAW and the fine JPG.

Here are a few examples: Ponte Vecchio bridge shot from 1 kilometer away, 70-200mm IS EF-L, the jpeg is great, but the people on the bridge show compression artifacts. The RAW image keeps the detail, I see faces, I can identify types of cars 3 KM away whereas in the jpeg you just know it's a car, probably.

Positano, Italy: shot from the boat as we are about to dock. It's a shot of the beach, the sun bathers, the colorful houses glued to the hillside. In the RAW image, I can pick out the red heads under the canopies at the far end of the beach. with the JPEG, I don't know if they're even female.

The JPEG is great for 70% of the "I was here" photos, but for the blow-your-socks-off photos, shoot RAW.

Check out the Delkin eFilm Picture Pad, very simple operation, lot's of storage, built-in color LCD and slide-show capability makes initial-cut editing easy.

my 2 rappen..

KJ Sullivan

[aravet]

Yesterday, I received my XS-Drive II, 40 meg in the mail.
The interface is very simple : 2 buttons, for 2 action (power on/off and transfer Card => XSdrive)
- push the power button
- insert the card
- push the copy button, and wait till it beeps (transfer complete).

No menu, no fancy interface, like the Digital Wallet. No way, either, to check the space left, nor delete previously transfered pictures. You may like it or not, but I feel it will be fine.

I ran some tests :
Results : transfer CF => XS-drive
speed = 1M/sec

So, with RAW+ JPEG, it's gonna be 8 seconds/picture, 8 pictures/minute; or 4 minutes for 256M .

As the device is rather small, I'll keep it in my backpack, and empty my CF many times a day, to avoid longuish transfers.

[lovingdigital]

Dude,

I am not an expert, just a serious hobbyist. I shoot with a 10D (love it). I only shoot in jpeg mode, but I can still answer your question, because you have the answer - in you.

When I shoot, it is because the image is worth capturing, if it is not, then I don't shoot.

The only other question that is important in terms of output, is my personal opinion at the time of shooting (Is this shot a 8x10 or a stunning poster?).
Let's face it, just because a shot is worth shooting doesn't make it worth making a poster out of it. AND THAT IS WHERE YOUR PERSONAL OPINION WILL MATTER! (Not someone else's).

Not to be harsh, but it is you that were taking the easy way out, by not trusting yourself, and letting others make your decision for you.

Now with the practical:
Switching back and forth between JPEG and Raw will be
a bit of a pain, but not as much of a pain as having to convert 1000 raw images! So my friend.
You really have a very easy decision to make, you just had to think about it a little.

Hope your trip turns out great, please share a few photos with us when you get back.

[Jud Dagnall]

gandini wrote:
aravet: you compare the JPg at 2.8Mb to the RAW (6.3Mb) plus the associated TIF (18Mb), but you'd never save/archive the TIF, since it is always recoverable from the RAW file.


In addition to the RAW file, I archive 16-bit tiffs of any keepers for the future. In 20 years, I don't know if I'll be able to find software to read canon RAW, but I'm certain that I'll be able to read both jpeg and tiff (or at least find a good coverter). And considering that the resolution of both cameras and printers will continue to increase, I'll want every pixel from my "tiny" 6MP shots.

I also plan to transfer all my photos from CD to DVD, and then to next format so that I will always be able to access the old stuff.

A final though on the "archive" process is that not only will technology progress, but my photographic vision and image enhancing skills should also improve over time. I recently discovered an overlooked gem from my 2001 trip to Iceland. I'd done a levels fix, and saved it as a medium jpg. At the time I though it was valuable to conserve space, and so I did that to all my images, but now I notice the pixelation that the quick treatment caused. If I had a RAW file, I could go back and undo the damage that my simplistic workflow caused.

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=1348085

[sweepiedog]

Sounds to me like you are doing your best to spoil your trip to africa. You have shot down most attempts at explaining that RAW can (in most cases) prove to be an advantage. Who knows what the future will bring. Twenty years ago PS and digital was spaceman stuff. RAW will give you the ability to explore the possibilities in the future.
Perhaps you should go to Africa with a film camera and maybe you would return home with a new sense of what is best.
Enjoy yourself.

[lovingdigital]

Dude,

Let's face it, it really is a boon to those of us who are well, let's say under experienced. It's a bit of a cheater if you will. Where does the real skill come in if we always rely on technology to think for us?

Nobody shot down raw, or its benefits. We're talking about practicality here. Converting all images? He wants to take 1K? Get real.

[Kevin Connery]

It's not so much a 'cheater' as added dynamic range. (Or at least it is for me.)

I shoot stuff outside, with a Sunpak 544 as a fill-flash. Direct sunlight vs the shadows in the eyes is often outside the range of the camera--sometimes even the range of RAW and dual conversions. Sure, I keep my Sunpak 544 on the camera at all times, but there are some situations where that's not enough--the shutter sync limit of around 1/200th vs power in the flash sometimes can't bring the existing light into a usable range. And if I have to get the shot...

Sure, a "better" solution is to not shoot in direct sunlight with deep shadows. Is it a practical one?

RAW is a tool. It takes more work to use (less now with ACR and CaptureOne, but still more than JPEG), and takes more space. If the choice is between getting a shot that I know will require more postprocessing or not getting it, I know which way I'll go.

[nsxpower]

Off topic, but a very interesting fact.

I was flipping through the latest National Geographic the other day (Everest Issue) and notices an very interesting fact about the photographer that shoot the "water flies" section. All in all he shot 550 rolls of film over 2 weeks or something !!!

550 rolls * 24 exposures = 13200 photos !!!

* ~4Mb RAW File > ~52800 Mb = ~52.8Gb

* ~400K SF-JPEG > ~5280 Mb = ~5.28 Gb

Damn!

Of course, only 20-30 photos made it into the magazine. This is something to think about.

[George]

I went through this thread and didn't see one important fact mentioned... loss of data. (My apologies if I missed it.) JPEG uses lossy compression, while RAW and TIFF use lossless compression. Each time you edit a jpeg file and store it, you lose data. (And the reason why Photoshop asks you all those questions when saving a modified jpeg.) RAW and tiff files don't suffer this data loss.

Correlating this to film... RAW would seem like the equivalent of medium and/or large format (depending on resolution) and jpeg would be the equivalent of 35mm. (I know that film has more data on it, but that's a discussion for another day.) Storing large and medium format negatives takes more room to store, but will give you more detailed pictures. If all you're going to print is 4x5, or maybe an occasional 8x10 with no cropping, then 35 mm might suite you fine. Editing a jpeg file and saving it, would then be the equivalent of making another generation copy of the 35mm picture. Each time it's done, there is additional data loss. This loss could become visible. How long that takes will depend on how many times you've edited it and how big the print.

Hope that helps.

[PaulB]

Something else which came to mind the other day - as usual I didn't quite get all my ideas together in my earlier post on this matter.

How do we know that we will be able to retrieve information from Canon RAW files in the next few (2, 5, 10, 20 +) years?

I remember seeing an article on another forum a while back in which the guy who wrote a preview of the 10D pointed this out. His argument was that a couple of years ago he bought a very early Canon D-SLR - pre the DCS2000 - and he was now unable to read the proprietry filetype it saved as the software didn't run on his newish computer (I think he used a Mac and it would only work on versions using an earlier OS than 9 or 8).

We can assume that the support for Canon .CRW will likewise change over the years (after all the 10D RAW files cannot be read by the standard Adobe RAW Converter - and that is only really just released): are we all to keep 10 or 20 year old PCs and OS/software in order to access these files in the future? - at least JPEG and TIFF are industry standard filetypes (at the moment anyway)
Come to think of it, what will happen to CDs/DVDs? Will we be able to even read from them into the future, look what happened to 360K 5.25" floppy discs........Things always change faster than you would believe.

[PaulB]

Something else which came to mind the other day - as usual I didn't quite get all my ideas together in my earlier post on this matter.

How do we know that we will be able to retrieve information from Canon RAW files in the next few (2, 5, 10, 20 +) years?

I remember seeing an article on another forum a while back in which the guy who wrote a preview of the 10D pointed this out. His argument was that a couple of years ago he bought a very early Canon D-SLR - pre the DCS2000 - and he was now unable to read the proprietry filetype it saved as the software didn't run on his newish computer (I think he used a Mac and it would only work on versions using an earlier OS than 9 or 8).

We can assume that the support for Canon .CRW will likewise change over the years (after all the 10D RAW files cannot be read by the standard Adobe RAW Converter - and that is only really just released): are we all to keep 10 or 20 year old PCs and OS/software in order to access these files in the future? - at least JPEG and TIFF are industry standard filetypes (at the moment anyway)
Come to think of it, what will happen to CDs/DVDs? Will we be able to even read from them into the future, look what happened to 360K 5.25" floppy discs........Things always change faster than you would believe.

[PaulB]

Something else which came to mind the other day - as usual I didn't quite get all my ideas together in my earlier post on this matter.

How do we know that we will be able to retrieve information from Canon RAW files in the next few (2, 5, 10, 20 +) years?

I remember seeing an article on another forum a while back in which the guy who wrote a preview of the 10D pointed this out. His argument was that a couple of years ago he bought a very early Canon D-SLR - pre the DCS2000 - and he was now unable to read the proprietry filetype it saved as the software didn't run on his newish computer (I think he used a Mac and it would only work on versions using an earlier OS than 9 or 8).

We can assume that the support for Canon .CRW will likewise change over the years (after all the 10D RAW files cannot be read by the standard Adobe RAW Converter - and that is only really just released): are we all to keep 10 or 20 year old PCs and OS/software in order to access these files in the future? - at least JPEG and TIFF are industry standard filetypes (at the moment anyway)
Come to think of it, what will happen to CDs/DVDs? Will we be able to even read from them into the future, look what happened to 360K 5.25" floppy discs........Things always change faster than you would believe.

[George]

I don't think supporting older file formats is a legitimate concern. I started with a G1 and then went to G2. I took my microdrive from the G1 and put it into the G2 and lo and behold, the G2 saw all the raw pics that were on the drive. (And this was inspite of the fact that the G1 is 3mp and the G2 is 4mp.) A new format always takes some time for the software to support. Once it's supported, it usually lives forever. (Does Microsoft XP still support floppy software formats from 10 years ago... yep!)

The fact of the matter is, the stored image is probably going to last a shorter period of time than any format. CD/RW only has a life of 10 years. Magnetic media is even less. The format won't be the issue, but the media it's stored on is.

(BTW... there are already third parties supporting the Canon format... so we don't even need to rely on Canon to support it.)

[defordphoto]

The RAW format is now a standard. It's also accepted by the legal authorities for submitting digital photos in court cases and I don't see where that will change in the foreseeable future.

CD's and DVD's of course will have a limited lifespan, but I wouldn't let all that interfere with your photographic intellect and skills. When that time comes, we'll just deal with it.

[PaulB]

RAW may be a standard of sorts, and accepted in law but that does not alter the fact that each manufacturer, even different cameras by the same manufacturer, have different ways of interpreting RAW files - they are not compatable.
Look at the Adobe RAW converter. It appears on the market as a $99 plugin and cannot - without hacking = read EOS10D RAW files - because the 10D 'standard' had not been seen by Adobe at that time.
Even the D60 RAW 'standard' is not the same as the 10D and that uses basically the same sensor as the D60, and the 1D and 1Ds are different again.

Anyway life is too short for me to be explaining to a client that:
a/ he can't see the pics I just shot because they are in a format incompatible with anything we have on hand without converting.
b/ he can't have the CD this afternoon because I have to convert everything from RAW to JPEG/TIFF or whatever and then tweak it to be suitable for whatever use he is going to put the pics to and
life is just too short sometimes...............

Don't get me wrong I love the idea of RAW as a digital original which I can go back to and tweak everywhich way whenever I feel an artistic streak coming on.
But it is just too time-consuming and slow for many of my needs.

I feel that many of the exponants of RAW on this thread appear to be coming froming looking at RAW files as equivilant to colour negatives, where lots of printing techniques can save or enhance a picture.
If you look on digital images as colour transparencies then the arguments in favour of RAW are diminished.
We were always told that trannies were the favoured medium for long term archiving of photos, prefered by libraries etc.
What after tweaking can you do to a tranny?

Moral - if there is one - learn to get all your exposures right first time (as trannies had to be) and then there are no excuses for having to tweak the picture to 'save' it.

This does obviously mean that you have to know your equipment inside out and have learnt at least the basics of exposure, composition. lens choice and the like. This comes from TAKING pictures, not tweaking them on the computer.
Read lots of books, look at lots of photos by people whose style you like, (and those you don't) and go take pictures. lots of pictures.

I do think that many people coming into digital imaging somehow think that because the technology is computer based it takes away the need to have any 'photographic' skills and all can be resolved whilst sat in front of the computer. Or are used to compact cameras where not a lot of thought needs to go into the why factor of most pictures

By the time you have pressed the shutter, it is too late. The picture you have just taken should ideally have been planned, thought about and setup and should show what you envisaged the picture to be.

Sorry, this seems to be another thread we could start.

My advice on that African trip is to shoot lots and lots of pictures, review them all the time on a laptop in the hotel or wherever (easier with JPEGs) and learn, learn learn by the ones which got away. You'll still have loads of satisfying stuff to work with.

[defordphoto]

Paul: You're putting the cart about 5 miles before the horse. You may as well dump all your equipment now and go back to film quickly before CD's, DVD's and PC's themselves become useless and your customers (and you) explode because the Canon RAW format is no longer supported. Heck, the JPEG format itself may become obsolete in 20 years. We do have JPEG2000 mode now ya know! I'm surely not going to wring my hands over a future I cannot control.

For the most part I do shoot RAW because I don't want any JPEG artifacts. I want THE best quality photo that I can produce out of this camera. RAW is the way to do it.

On the other hand, these cameras produce stunning JPEGs (Thank you Canon!) that are hard to tell the difference between RAW and JPEG and that's a HUGE advantage for when we don't need that pristene (yes, almost anal) quality.

And yes, it takes field experience to learn this. To learn the capabilities of the camera, the lens and yes, the photographer's abilities to anticipate the outcome of a particular shot. For most of us the anticipation will be correct and I know at least for the majority of my shots, very little post processing is needed. That's just plain experience. Nothing can take the place of experience.

But, the beautiful thing about the equipment we have chosen to purchase, is that it gives us all choices for what fits our styles and workflow. For some of us. the JPEG mode is just fine and produces the quality photos we need. Quick and easy. Right out of the box.

For some of us, RAW is the only way to go and we love sitting for hours post-processing. Tweaking each and every photo into an award winning (hopefully) example of our art.

And we can sit here and yak (yes, and argue) about it with people all over the planet. Cool, ain't it?

Have a good day...

[PaulB]

Some my points exactly.
I don't worry about what I can't control either, I have been in this field too long.
CDs will be replaced I know that, so will DVDs and other things we haven't even dreamt of yet. And JPEG2000 is not accepted as a standard yet and for various reasons is unlikely to be.

What do most people out there do with their digital images?

(I'll start a new thread on that I think).

How many A3 prints are done off each of your CF cards?

I used to think that if I got 1 image which pleased me out of each 36 exposure film (and no I haven't quite abandoned film yet) and 1 image from a months shooting which I would like to hang on the wall then I was doing well.
What the client thinks is something else entirely.

RFMSports wrote "For some of us, RAW is the only way to go and we love sitting for hours post-processing. Tweaking each and every photo into an award winning (hopefully) example of our art."

Perhaps you were/are a darkroom expert as well?
Fine, I have done my share, and sometimes enjoyed it; but the point I was making was a commercial one - time.
Time = money = client satisfaction.

If you only have to satisfy your own standards and those of competition judges then you are very lucky indeed. But then why shoot digital - go out a but a 5"x4" or 10"x8" camera and produce some really stunning shots.
Digital has made my life easier and using RAW all the time just reintroduces the very things I went digital to avoid.

[daveh]

aravet wrote:
In a few years, I guess I'll need 100+ CDs to backup all my pictures.

I don't understand all this stuff about CDs. It's 2003. 100 CDs fit on ~7 dual-sided DVD-Rs. In a few years, you won't be using DVD-Rs. You'll be using whatever is current then. Sony started selling a blue laser DVD-R in Japan a few months ago which holds ~ 10 times as much data. If that's not enough, there are far larger backup systems available TODAY. Why worry about the space required in the FUTURE as measured by a media type of the PAST?

The entire data and all my software from my first computer (1975 vintage) can fit on a standard floppy today and accessed orders of magnitude faster. My 1975 computer wasn't nearly large enough to hold a single 10D jpeg - fortunately I was shooting on film so I didn't have to squeeze my images down to fit the current computer technology.

If you find jpegs to be "good enough", shoot them. Otherwise shoot raws and don't worry about computer technology keeping up with your storage requirements.

[defordphoto]

PaulB: I definitely get more bang for my buck with digital than with film. Probably a lot of that has to do with experience and knowing the camera, but I have been super pleased with both my D60 and 10D. My wife uses the D60 now and has been producing some astounding photos.

I also went digital to reduce time spent on processing photos. I hated scanning film/slides. Talk about a slow and painful process.

I am far from being a darkroom expert, but I do enjoy the darkroom almost as much as shooting in the field. You can be as artistic and productive there as you can behind the lens, and sometimes moreso.

That's why I love having these choices. And with my experince with the camera(s) I have, and knowing what they produce, I really do not spend that much time processing RAW photos. For the most part I have a set routine that produces the quality I demand. But, sometimes there is a shot that demands a lot of work, but that's just one more challenge that I enjoy.

Almost as much fun as producing the perfect photo from behind the lens with one shot is processing an otherwise lost photo into the perfect photo in the darkroom. It's just as pleasing an experience and many time moreso if that photo was an irreplaceable one-off.

As a sidenote regarding storage options, it was recently announced by Hitachi, I believe, that they are developing a DVD that has the capability to store 200 complete, full-run movies on one disk. That's gotta work out to what? 1-3 terrabytes of data per disc?

[dougsturgess]

Just from my limited experience, RAW is the only way to go if you're going to be doing underwater photography due to it's ability to allow you to custom white balance after the fact. Jpeg just won't let you do that and you can't get the true colors without RAW underwater. You probably won't be doing underwater, but you can check out some taken in RAW with the G2 at www.pbase.com/dougsturgess Just click on the Underwater photo thumbnails.

[Jorge]

Fantastic shots - both in and out of the water!

[mrgumdrop]

I returned from a 4-month trip to Africa & shot about 2,700 raw images. I had a notebook computer that had a CD burner and 40-gig hard-drive. I used a 1 gig microdrive in my D60.

I am not a professional photographer and ended up deleting large number of my photos.

In the beginning, I spent much time downloading shots to my notebook. I picked up a ScanDisk ImageMate in Namibia. This made the process much faster. Note that it was better to copy then erase/format the MicroDrive (avoids picture lose). This does not take very long to copy the 1 gig drive.

I used BreezeBrowser to convert raw images into jpegs. This took lots of time, but the computer did all the work. I merely started a batch job. Total time impact of using raw images was nil in human terms, but it kept my computer busy.


The question I have is now that I have all these raw images, how to process my favorites to a high quality large print? (how big it too big?)

www.pbase.com/mrgumdrop