Straight Out Of the Camera

Was asked by a work colleague if I knew of any published photographers who in this age of digital photography did absolutely nothing to the images that were downloaded from their camera? No fixing exposure, retouching, white balance etc.

I couldn't but was wondering if anyone here knew of any and maybe had links to his/her work?

casp3r wrote in post #16623281
I couldn't but was wondering if anyone here knew of any and maybe had links to his/her work?

I do not know of any. But, back in the day of film shooting, I didn't know of any that presented prints shot with film that were SOOC, either... Unless they are/were photojournalists.

Most folk talk about post processing as if it were a new or inappropriate thing. It's been going on as long as there have been darkrooms (now Lightroom and Photoshop, etc.).

And truly, even if you are just shooting Jpegs, as long as there is some interpretation of the light striking the sensor, there is no such thing as SOOC.

True SOOC shots are typically murky, soft and uninteresting due to the AA filters and other physical attributes of the digital camera.

Thanks Dwain and fully understand what you are saying. I did mention to my colleague about some of the 'editing' that went on with film.

casp3r wrote in post #16623281
Was asked by a work colleague if I knew of any published photographers who in this age of digital photography did absolutely nothing to the images that were downloaded from their camera? No fixing exposure, retouching, white balance etc.

I couldn't but was wondering if anyone here knew of any and maybe had links to his/her work?

When I was submitting images to magazines, the editors made it very clear that all they needed was clean JPEGS from the camera, they wanted no toning or adjustments performed and that the magazine's page and graphics designers would handle that.

Newspaper photographers I've known have been required to perform only basic toning in the field on a Macbook. In all cases, retouching or image alteration by photographers is not wanted. And especially for newspapers, any retouching that alters the content of an image, such as removing elements from the image, is strictly banned. Violating this rule leads to major scandal.


For these publications, getting an image right in the camera with no manipulation is a part of the job.

I think nothing is really straight out of camera. Even the camera processes the JPEG file some. Best you could ever get would be to shoot JPEG with the Faithful picture style.

I think even most photojournalists accept a little color, WB, or exposure correction. All of these things are really things the camera does any through its processing algorithms.

To be honest my colleague isn't interested in what goes on in-camera. To him SOOC is an image that is taken from the camera and not touched after that in any way. Then either printed or used in publications. I think what he means is are there any pro, semi-pro or any other photographers that sell their work, using SOOC files.

casp3r wrote in post #16623904
To be honest my colleague isn't interested in what goes on in-camera. To him SOOC is an image that is taken from the camera and not touched after that in any way. Then either printed or used in publications. I think what he means is are there any pro, semi-pro or any other photographers that sell their work, using SOOC files.

Still doubtful, but even then, for JPGs, the user can customize the picture style, or at least pick a canned picture style. That's still editing.

casp3r wrote in post #16623904
To be honest my colleague isn't interested in what goes on in-camera. To him SOOC is an image that is taken from the camera and not touched after that in any way. Then either printed or used in publications. I think what he means is are there any pro, semi-pro or any other photographers that sell their work, using SOOC files.

Oh, you're interested in something different.

Of course, that happens all the time. When I have an on-demand photo sales setup at certain events, I'll pull actual examples from the weekend and previous events and put them in binders to give potential customers an idea of what they can expect. Since the trick of dealing with real people in an instant gratification era is handling things quickly, the photo setup is arranged so lighting and printer settings mad so images out of the camera are ready to go immediately. When dealing with actual customers who have other things to do at a busy event, even the two minutes to print an image can be a long time.If the wait is any longer, the customers will lose interest and that means lost sales. This is a situation where customers' reaction controls the operation and not what a photographer wants.

casp3r wrote in post #16623904
To be honest my colleague isn't interested in what goes on in-camera. To him SOOC is an image that is taken from the camera and not touched after that in any way. Then either printed or used in publications. I think what he means is are there any pro, semi-pro or any other photographers that sell their work, using SOOC files.

There are some wedding photographers who shoot .jpg and some sports photographer and photojournalists who do because of the need to provide images quickly for deadlines. I think the problem some people have is the many sins committed via photoshop that all modifications are equal. I shoot raw and process simply because I can make more reasonable decisions in front of the PC even though I'm making decisions that could have been made in the camera. But that would mean stopping before each shot and deciding how much sharpness, saturation, and contrast I want on each shot. Not practical.

casp3r wrote in post #16623281
Was asked by a work colleague if I knew of any published photographers who in this age of digital photography did absolutely nothing to the images that were downloaded from their camera? No fixing exposure, retouching, white balance etc.

I couldn't but was wondering if anyone here knew of any and maybe had links to his/her work?

I do know one very highly respected, published, professional who shoots in .JPG and does his best to avoid any post processing on the bulk of his images. That said, he's a rarity. I know that was his process in 2005, as I hired him to shoot my wedding and I found the fact that he shot in .JPG at the time alarming. He and I actually spent a bit of time discussing his process and workflow. I had a hard time swallowing that he didn't shoot RAW or do much post. The photos were stunning. I had nothing to worry about.

Converting RAW to JPG in camera changes things anyway (sharpening, nr, etc.). Providing one has fine tuned his/her picture styles (told the camera what changes to make in the conversion process) it could be possible to skip post processing. Something has still been done to the image, however.

Developing a raw file is a lot like developing a negative. You can't do "absolutely nothing" to them. Simply converting a RAW file to a JPG in PS makes changes to the image, the same as converting the RAW to JPG in camera.

Having spent a lot of time in a darkroom . . . creating prints can be pretty subjective. Even if the film has been properly developed, there is still some latitude in exposing photographic paper and judgement has to be used.

My response to your colleague might be something like "Why would anyone do something as silly as that?" Taking the photograph is only a part of the process, IMO. Developing it is very important.

Tell your colleague that he is being illogical and obtuse. Every camera maker supplies or sells a Raw converter that is an adaption for computers of the Raw conversion software (firmware) in the camera. For Canon it is called Digital Photo Professional and its default processing is identical to the in-camera processing. If I were to open a Raw file in DPP and immediately, without changing a single default setting, generate a jpg, would that jpg be SOOC? Presumably not, it is the product of processing done outside the camera. But it is identical to a jpg from the camera, so what's not SOOC about it? The entire concept of "SOOC" is meaningless and based on ignorance.

And presumably not resized and resharpened to fit a page layout or a desired print size, either, since it can't be touched in any way.

The digital camera has electronic photodetectors that generate electron hole pairs that can then be used to store information in memory. The photographic film has photochemical reactions that are triggered by the photons. Neither of them is remotely similar to how the eye works. So, if your colleague is intending to SOOC as meaning "just the way the eye sees it," then he is way off the mark.

tzalman wrote in post #16625046
Tell your colleague that he is being illogical and obtuse. The entire concept of "SOOC" is meaningless and based on ignorance.

Based on ignorance? Of course it is. Illogical and obtuse? Certainly not. He's probably better educated than most but he's not a photographer, he happened to see me editing some images and asked what I thought was a reasonable question.

For the majority many thanks for the replies.

Yes, 'Straight out of the camera' is a bit misleading, as a digital camera isn't just a camera, it is a complex system of processes that data is collected and passed through. Analogue information is gathered at the sensor, which is then converted to digital. However this information isn't a picture, it is unprocessed data, just a pile of numbers which you usually can't just assign directly to pixel values and get an image.

If you want to argue any virtue of "Straight out of Camera" as a good thing, then I could counter that with a custom built 'camera' that just happens to be powerful enough to run photoshop directly. Because that is all a digital camera really is: An optical sensor with a dedicated computer connected to it.