20D Musings.. Raw, Noise Reduction...

[drisley]

Today I decided to check out Steve's Digicams (http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_reviews/20d.html) for an updated 20D review with a production camera. I wanted to see if they had any new sample pictures. Well, I was pleasantly surprised to see that was the case...

I had always wondered when/if I should use the 20D long exposure noise reduction (NR) feature, and it was kewl to see that Steve had two 30 second exposures, one with, and one without NR.
Is it just me, or does the image *without* NR look slightly cleaner? :shock:
I'm starting to think that the NR feature may well be for very long bulb exposures to help eliminate hot pixels.

In addition, there is a comparison between a similar Raw and JPG image (IMG_1226 and IMG_1230).
I find the JPG image to be much more pleasing... sharper, better colour, and better detail in the highlights. There is no detail on the Raw conversion settings, but this is almost making me rethink shooting Raw.
My main reasons for shooting Raw was the abiltiy to remove worrying about white balance while shooting, and to improve dynamic range.
However, the 20D does such an awesome job with white balance, that point may now be moot (well not totally, but almost).

Anyway, these are just some of my thoughts I wished to share, and I just wondered what others thought of these "musings".

[PekkaM]

In addition, there is a comparison between a similar Raw and JPG image (IMG_1226 and IMG_1230).
I find the JPG image to be much more pleasing... sharper, better colour, and better detail in the highlights. There is no detail on the Raw conversion settings, but this is almost making me rethink shooting Raw.

Both straight out of camera? Isn't there additional in-camera sharpening and color adjustment for jpeg on by default?

[drisley]

Both straight out of camera? Isn't there additional in-camera sharpening and color adjustment for jpeg on by default?

Yes, but I wonder how the Raw conversion was handled.
I can understand the difference in sharpness and colour, but the difference in detail, especially in the highlights is what surprised me.

[alan sh]

Also may depend on which s/w was used to convert the raw. I use PS CS and get very nice results.

But I have to say that for most of my pics, I stay with JPEG and Param 1 - no need for raw.

Alan

[Chris1le]

drisley wrote:

In addition, there is a comparison between a similar Raw and JPG image (IMG_1226 and IMG_1230).
I find the JPG image to be much more pleasing... sharper, better colour, and better detail in the highlights. There is no detail on the Raw conversion settings, but this is almost making me rethink shooting Raw.

This has been my feeling in the RAW vs JPEG debate for awhile. Canon spent a lot of time designing the DIGIC processor to convert RAW to JPEG and apply various levels of processing. Unless one really knows their way around the RAW conversion process one can often do more harm than good. Not to mention all the different RAW converters that give different results. I shoot both RAW and JPEG myself. It just depends on the situation.