Camera settings

[Peter Kesternich]

Hey everybody,
Maybe I can get some advice here. I am using a KonicaMinolta Dynax 5D and would like to know which quality setting I should use on the camera for best results when cropping the pictures. So far I have been using "Quality: Fine" which gives quite reasonable results and a lot of pictures on a 1GB cf card. Will using "Extra Fine" or "Raw" bring a major improvement? Thanks a lot in advance for any input.
Peter

[Top_Gun]

RAW will allow the most work to be done during the edit process, but it also eats up your memory quick!

I use RAW+Jpg, this allows me to use the jpgs to view what the raw file would look like without opening them up. Then I can just go and delete the bad ones.

I always used just fine prior to making the move to RAW, if you are just messing around with your shots the fine should be all you need. If you want to do more, pick up a 1 GB card.

[Peter Kesternich]

thanks for the reply, Dave...
well - I DO have three 1GB cards... but a day out spotting can quickly eat those up if raw mode is used... and it's not really convenient to scan the pics on the scene... sometimes what looks crappy on the display can turn out pretty nicely if re-worked just right. The question I really have here is: what means "wanting to do more"? I won't go pro - that's for sure. I'm just aiming to get what are really GOOD pictures for the internet, my private website and maybe an occasional poster.

[Moose135]

Never use RAW, haven't see a need for it. I shoot on the highest quality JPEG setting (Canon 30D), and have gotten great results. It's mostly for on-line use, but I've printed a number of photos at 11x14, and even a couple larger then that, and haven't had any qualitity issues.

I work at a major daily newspaper (no, not as a photographer) and I have a couple of go-to guys when it comes to photography - the head of the "photo lab" (still called that even though it's all digital) who shot Kodachrome slides for 30+ years, and the editorial director of our specialty magazine group (he shoots many of the photos for several glossy magazines we produce). Both said they never shoot RAW, said unless it was a horrible shot you can't do anything to a JPEG that you can't do to a RAW shot.

[Diezel]

...you can't do anything to a JPEG that you can't do to a RAW shot.

Not true.

I can name at least 2 major issues:

1) There is the quality issue.

A JPEG is a compressed image. The JPEG compression algoritm shrinks the image at the cost of image quality. This loss of quality might be visible in some images and then you might regret you did not shoot raw.

2) The setting of for example sharpness

A JPEG image is more or less processed in the camera in a way you only have limited control over. If you set your camera to a specific sharpness (i.e. extra sharp) and you shoot JPEG and find out at home that the picture you took is too sharp because jaggies show up, you won't be able to correct those. With a RAW image it would be fixable.

Roel.

[Simpleboy]

2) The setting of for example sharpness

A JPEG image is more or less processed in the camera in a way you only have limited control over. If you set your camera to a specific sharpness (i.e. extra sharp) and you shoot JPEG and find out at home that the picture you took is too sharp because jaggies show up, you won't be able to correct those. With a RAW image it would be fixable.

Roel.

I disagree here, if jaggies show up, you can 'selectively blur' the parts using the same technique as selectively sharpening, except with the blur tool, when done properly, the image will be pretty much the same as a raw shot.

Extreme manipulation appears better with raw, but honestly, in most cases JPEG does most things fine, if you find yourselves needing RAW to make a photo look good, it doesnt say much about your photographic skills.

[dvincent]

Hey everybody,
Maybe I can get some advice here. I am using a KonicaMinolta Dynax 5D and would like to know which quality setting I should use on the camera for best results when cropping the pictures. So far I have been using "Quality: Fine" which gives quite reasonable results and a lot of pictures on a 1GB cf card. Will using "Extra Fine" or "Raw" bring a major improvement? Thanks a lot in advance for any input.
Peter

Hey Peter,

I use a Maxxum 5D (same camera except the US name) and I shoot RAW about 70% of the time I use the camera. I actually happen to like Minolta's JPEG processing in most situations but I shoot RAW because of the flexibility it gives me in adjusting contrast and because I am a nerd about colorspace and other things. Plus, once you set things like white balance in a JPEG, that's it - it can't be changed. With a RAW, you can change your white balance at any time. RAW gives you much more latitude in subtle exposure adjustments as well. I aim to get my exposure right in camera, but if I need to put in a little fill light or recover some highlights, I can. Can't do that with a JPEG.

RAW images are also much better to work with to reduce things like noise - NoseNinja works much better on 16bit uncompressed images you get from RAWs as opposed from 8bit JPEGs.

The drawback to RAW is that you have to spend extra time tweaking your images in your RAW converter. I use Lightroom as my organizer/converter, and it works well (though it bugs me a bit in some interface cases). I do final edits in PS (like sharpening). I get exactly 108 RAW frames on both of my 1GB cards, by the way.

If you don't want to spend extra time processing your images, go right ahead and shoot JPEG - you'll still get the lovely Minolta colors no matter what mode you pick. When I take family snapshots, I use JPEG and get fine results. I would stick with the Fine mode as opposed to Extra Fine on the 5D - the two are almost indecipherable as far as compression goes (extra fine is probably 100%, while Fine is 90%).

The 5D is a fine camera, though I wish I could have afforded a 7D! What lenses do you use?

if you find yourselves needing RAW to make a photo look good, it doesnt say much about your photographic skills.

For me, it's a matter of control - I'd rather have my computer with its far more powerful processor doing image calculations and conversions that I can control as opposed to the camera, especially in tricky lighting. I also like fine tuning my white balance whenever I want to. There's benefits and drawbacks to using RAW, and it's something every photog has to weigh on his own. If you liked doing darkroom work (and I did) you'll probably like RAW.

[Top_Gun]

if you find yourselves needing RAW to make a photo look good, it doesnt say much about your photographic skills.

Not sure what you base this off of, all the air show photographers who do this for a living shoot RAW exclusively. When I was rooming with one of them at Oceana last year, he(Larry) was the one who switched me over to RAW+Jpg.

http://www.larrygrace.com/index.html

Raw vs Jpg thread
http://www.fencecheck.com/forums/ind...ic,6749.0.html

[Simpleboy]

I base this off all the people who use RAW because they cant be bothered learning to use their camera in the first place. If you use RAW because that allows you to fix (not adjust) your exposure and white balance in all your shots, then you really shouldnt have this as a hobby. If you got it right in the camera first place, you dont need RAW.

If i screw something up when shooting JPEG, im going to learn a lot more from my mistake than if its in RAW and i just say "I can fix it later".

[brianw999]

I base this off all the people who use RAW because they cant be bothered learning to use their camera in the first place. If you use RAW because that allows you to fix (not adjust) your exposure and white balance in all your shots, then you really shouldnt have this as a hobby. If you got it right in the camera first place, you dont need RAW.

If i screw something up when shooting JPEG, im going to learn a lot more from my mistake than if its in RAW and i just say "I can fix it later".

Your quoted post comes extremely close to possibly being considered as plain rude and arrogant !
Telling people not to have a hobby because you personally don't agree with how they go about things is a bit like telling a football manager that he shouldn't be one because he doesn't pick the same team that you would, even though he eventually gets the required result !!

I shoot RAW exclusively for aviation and sports photography because it gives me a far greater degree of control over my finished product. If I aimed for a perfect .jpg EVERY time then I would....

1./ Need an awful lot more SD cards than I can afford.

2./ Not have so many acceptable pictures to choose from

and most importantly....

3./ Not get anywhere near the amount of pleasure from my hobby that I currently enjoy.

Interestingly, one of the major digital photography magazines this month has a large feature on how good RAW imagery is for digital users who prefer to process their pictures themselves rather than let the camera do it ( sometimes badly!!)

[LX-A343]

I base this off all the people who use RAW because they cant be bothered learning to use their camera in the first place. If you use RAW because that allows you to fix (not adjust) your exposure and white balance in all your shots, then you really shouldnt have this as a hobby. If you got it right in the camera first place, you dont need RAW.

If i screw something up when shooting JPEG, im going to learn a lot more from my mistake than if its in RAW and i just say "I can fix it later".

That's silly and rude, plain and simple! It reminds me of a certain photog, who .... ah,let's drop it . If you shoot JPG, you choose the settings in the camera to get the result you want to have, i.e. color, saturation, white balance an so on. So, part of the post processing is done by the camera. With RAW I do photography with the camera and post processing in my photo editor. Where's really a difference?

A further reason why I shoot RAW is, that future RAW convertors will give me even more possibilities to get better quality, mainly for large prints. So, for me and my personal preference RAW is the way to go.

And, last but not least, each to his own. Do RAW shooters tell you, you can't handle your camera, because you shoot JPG? I don't think so.

[Simpleboy]

Before making my above post (not intended to be rude), i scanned several 'JPEG vs RAW' 'arguments/debates' and found posts like these. I can see (now) my poor wording can easily have caused a mis interpretation of what i meant and for that i apologise.

RAW is the best of anyone who is learning photography.

RAW also helps with version control… you may be tempted to save changes on your only copy of your photo to later wish you hadn’t cropped so much, with RAW you CANT permanently write over it, you can always revert so no need to keep multiple copies of the same pictures!

Thanks to all of the above, being new to dslr most of my photo’s until now have been in jpg, but….as from tomorrow i’m going “raw”……..

Just started shooting in RAW+JPEG (XTi) and getting ready to just shoot straight RAW. Why? Because it is what everyone says you should do. Shoot in RAW, that is. Hopefully I’ll really figure out the true, full benefits for myself one day.

Now to illustrate my point, When you are swapping to RAW because it is what everyone says you should do. it shows that you do not realise its advantages and disadcantages and are just doing what people say without regards to what fits your style.

When you rely on your computer not being able to write over a file to stop you from saving over it you may want to look at the save as function opposed to control S.

Particularly amusing, for me at least, is Peter’s view. Shooting jpg until you get good at it and /then/ converting to RAW is a bit like learning to swim in the deep end in order to do lengths in the kiddie pool in my opinion.

I think hes got it the wrong way around, learning the basics of the camera first then moving on to learn how to control the photo output even to more specific degrees. To me that seems like practicing in the kids pool then moving to the deep end. And that to me seems like a direct attack on a JPEG user saying "dont learn how to use your camera, mistakes can be fixed later" which i believe is the wrong attitude to have when using RAW.

Brian i disagree with your anology, see below.

To summarise my opinions,
RAW is a tool to be used for once you understand your camera, too many people claim RAW is a fix all errors type of file. That leads to many people shooting without knowing its capabilities. The huge advantage of cameras which can shooting JPEG + RAW lets a person take both types of photos, then can go through both and decide what they like opposed to someone saying "shoot RAW, you can fix exposure and white balance" with JPEG its the same, but you just just cant go as far with your manipulation. I can make my photo more blue, less blue with a JPEG, i just cant do as much manipulation before an obvious loss of quality appears. I have no problem with people using RAW, but that of people saying use RAW it solves all problems. I believe learning how to control depth of field, composition, isolating subjects, using exposure times to create effects and such is far more valuable than your ability to do minute adjustments on the computer.

Use RAW to adjust your photos if you like such control, dont use it to fix them.

Like I said above, apologies to those who found my above post offensive, it wasnt intended that way, and i can see how it can be taken a way other than how i meant it. I hope this post is more insightful to what i was trying to say.

[brianw999]

Hi Simpleboy. (I wish I knew your real name, I'd much rather use that !!)

Nice reply.

I do see your point that you are making about learning to use the camera and not just using RAW to "fix" things. There is, however, a line in your reply...

with JPEG its the same, but you just just cant go as far with your manipulation. I can make my photo more blue, less blue with a JPEG, i just cant do as much manipulation before an obvious loss of quality appears.

....that sums up why a lot of photographers use RAW. The whole point of RAW is that the photographer has a greater degree of processing control over what would otherwise be an automated in-camera function that cannot be overridden in processing without a rapid loss of quality. You obviously understand this with your comment...

RAW is a tool to be used for once you understand your camera, too many people claim RAW is a fix all errors type of file. That leads to many people shooting without knowing its capabilities.

I started out using .jpg fine when I got my first D70. I spent hours playing with settings, reading the manual, trying different methods and finally, some six months after buying the camera settled on RAW as my preferred format. I have thought about shooting RAW+.jpg but that would use up an even larger chunk of my 2gb SD cards. My D80 indicates an available 163 frames using RAW and only 109 frames using RAW+.jpgFine. I know that you actually get more frames in practise but I use those figures the camera indicates.

Thanks for the general apology. This is one of those subjects that has fans on both sides of the fence...much like the Nikon vs Canon debate...best we don't go there though.

[Simpleboy]

Hi Simpleboy. (I wish I knew your real name, I'd much rather use that !!)

Thanks for the general apology. This is one of those subjects that has fans on both sides of the fence...much like the Nikon vs Canon debate...best we don't go there though.

The names Sam, for future reference.

Honestly, RAW + JPEG (if possible) has got to be the greatest suggestion to people wanting to know its benifits, we can ramble on and on about how much more processing we can do or how much lazier we can be to get a pretty damn similar photo. Untill you try it for yourself, you dont know what its like untill you try, and when i tried, well my computer didnt like me