RAW vs JPEG comparison for D70

I did this study to convince myself to switch over to RAW:
http://www.edgehill.net/1/?SC=go.php&DIR=Misc/photography/raw-vs-jpg&PG=1&PIC=3
It's just a wierd ugly picture in dim yellow light but shows the
differences pretty clearly.

On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 11:09:53 -0800, paul wrote:

I did this study to convince myself to switch over to RAW:
http://www.edgehill.net/1/?SC=go.php&DIR=Misc/photography/raw-vs-jpg&PG=1&PIC=3
It's just a wierd ugly picture in dim yellow light but shows the
differences pretty clearly.

Given the big difference in file size, I see no reason to always shoot in RAW
mode... jpg is good enough for most things.

I think you need a reason to shoot in RAW... most pictures ultimately don't
benefit...

If you have to zoom in to see a difference - why bother? Unless you need a small
crop zoomed!

The differences between shooting raw/NEF and shooting jpeg with the D70 are
enormous and you are fooling yourself if you think there are no differences
or else you do not understand the differences.
If you want high quality snapshots why burden yourself with a camera as
complex, big and heavy as the D70? There are far better alternatives for
that purpose.
The difference in color fidelity, artifacts and every other technical and
aesthetic quality of the image is so enormous that the only reason to use
jpeg with the D70 is if you do not have enough room on your storage card for
anything but jpeg.

I have not used RAW until today because JPEG is pretty good & it's going
to be a pain to change. I have been dissapointed with the sharpness of
the images I'm getting though so I did this little test. I was suprised
to see much more noise in the RAW at the same settings (no sharpening or
adjustments on the JPEG (except saturation) and interestingly the RAW is
more saturated.

We'll see how I like the real results. One thing is the parallel port CF
reader in the side of my laptop slows down the system and I nearly
filled my CF card today so it's taking 22 minutes to download to an
external drive (no room on my laptop HD) and the computer is dragging
like a snail as I type.

You will notice on the test that there is shadow detail revealed after
applying a strong curve which is nearly absent in the jpeg. I think it's
fair to zoom in to 400% for the side by side comparison because you can
see the real difference. I actually did the comparison at 800% & it was
real easy to see exactly what was different... nothing subjective, you
can count the number of picels it takes to cross a sharp edge & see
highlights that were completely absent in the JPEG. Bare eyes are just
not good at picking that out but the added shadow detail is really
significant. I may want to crop macros and may want to make large prints
where it would be noticeable. Even small prints appear to have more
information like the missing shadow detail.

On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 00:42:22 GMT, "bmoag" wrote:

The differences between shooting raw/NEF and shooting jpeg with the D70 are
enormous and you are fooling yourself if you think there are no differences
or else you do not understand the differences.

Oh I know about the differences... but I have taken great shots in both.

If you want high quality snapshots why burden yourself with a camera as
complex, big and heavy as the D70?

Because it takes better pics then any of my other cameras... including my Dimage
which cost the same new... a crappy snapshot is crappy regardless of the
camera... I found I needed the dynamic range of the D70, which can come out on
the jpeg if you're lucky!

There are far better alternatives for
that purpose.

ummmm no, there aren't, actually... I've tried lots of 'snapshot' cameras,
Kodak, Olympus, Minolta... give me a big sensor!

The difference in color fidelity, artifacts and every other technical and
aesthetic quality of the image is so enormous that the only reason to use
jpeg with the D70 is if you do not have enough room on your storage card for
anything but jpeg.

Or if you want good pictures all the time, regardless of whether or not you are
taking snapshots, product shots, or ( level crossing safety reference shots for
the railway, which I do ), and don't have a 'hard' shot to take, which requires
raw. Most important shots I take end up cut down for my web site, and I only use
raw if I have a very wide light range in the photo. But I imagine some folks
would need raw all the time.

But I agree, the raw is much better for important photos (as I said in my last
post). But for everyday use, the D70 takes awesome jpegs.

On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 20:58:12 -0800, paul wrote:

I have not used RAW until today because JPEG is pretty good & it's going
to be a pain to change. I have been dissapointed with the sharpness of
the images I'm getting though so I did this little test. I was suprised
to see much more noise in the RAW at the same settings (no sharpening or
adjustments on the JPEG (except saturation) and interestingly the RAW is
more saturated.

What your are seeing I don't really call raw as the NEF does use in
camera processing such as color balance, sharpening, and even dark
frame subtraction.

It's really a tiff that has been compressed using Nikon's lossless
compression into an NEF. I just don't see the NEF as a truly RAW file.

In addition there isn't that much difference in size. NEFs run
between 5 and 6 megs with the majority running in the mid 5 range.
JPGs run just about half that. Considering the cost of the camera,
after about 400 shots a 1 gig CF card is cheaper than film.


We'll see how I like the real results. One thing is the parallel port CF
reader in the side of my laptop slows down the system and I nearly
filled my CF card today so it's taking 22 minutes to download to an
external drive (no room on my laptop HD) and the computer is dragging
like a snail as I type.

I have an old USB 1 card reader. It downloads a 1 gig card in about 10
to 12 minutes and doesn't even put a load on the computer.

I can and often do find I'm running word, Firefox, Thunderbird, Agent,
Photoshop CS, and downloading a large file all while transferring
images from the CF card.

Now it gets more complicated as this computer serves as a gateway for
my other computers so my wife may be surfing the Internet, sending and
receiving e-mail, doing searches and transferring files through this
machine in addition to what I'm doing at the same time.

The system does not slow down until running Photoshop CS AND my film
scanner. Then it's not only scanning, but processing up to 5 60
megabyte files. Then it starts page file swapping, but until that
happens the computer shows no sign of being sluggish.

It has one gig of DDR RAM and three HDs with a total capacity of about
half a terabyte as do two of the other three machines.


In its next incarnation the computer is going to have 1.5 or 2 Gigs of
ram and 3, or 4 serial 250 Gig HDs in a RAID.

snip

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 03:50:26 -0500, Roger
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 20:58:12 -0800, paul wrote:

I have not used RAW until today because JPEG is pretty good & it's going
to be a pain to change. I have been dissapointed with the sharpness of
the images I'm getting though so I did this little test. I was suprised
to see much more noise in the RAW at the same settings (no sharpening or
adjustments on the JPEG (except saturation) and interestingly the RAW is
more saturated.

What your are seeing I don't really call raw as the NEF does use in
camera processing such as color balance, sharpening, and even dark
frame subtraction.

From what I've read (e.g. Thom Hogan's eBook and other places), the NEF
itself _doesn't_ have these affects applied (expect possible the dark-frame
subtraction[**]). It _records_ the camera's settings for them at the time
the shot was taken, but you're free to use or discard these when you
process the file.

It's really a tiff that has been compressed using Nikon's lossless
compression into an NEF. I just don't see the NEF as a truly RAW file.

A D70's NEF stores the raw-ish [see below] sensor data in a TIFF wrapper,
but it isn't _really_ a TIFF image file in the sense most graphics packages
would mean by "TIFF file".

[*raw-ish] The D70's NEF storage _does_ involve some loss compared to the
ultra-raw sensor readings, though according to Nikon, none that you would
see. Roughly (according to Thom Hogan), all 12 bits are saved for shadow
and low mid-tones; high mid-tones and highlight values are split into a
number of different sized groups (i.e. a certain amount of rounding takes
places within a number of intensity bands). This is (supposedly) done in a
non-linear way that mimics the way our eyes work.

[**] and you can stop this happening (apparently) by turning the camera off
after it has taken the "real" photo but before it's taken (and subtracted)
the dark-frame.

Regards,
Graham Holden (g-holden AT dircon DOT co DOT uk)
--
There are 10 types of people in the world;
those that understand binary and those that don't.

On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 03:50:26 -0500, Roger
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 20:58:12 -0800, paul wrote:

I have not used RAW until today because JPEG is pretty good & it's going
to be a pain to change. I have been dissapointed with the sharpness of
the images I'm getting though so I did this little test. I was suprised
to see much more noise in the RAW at the same settings (no sharpening or
adjustments on the JPEG (except saturation) and interestingly the RAW is
more saturated.

What your are seeing I don't really call raw as the NEF does use in
camera processing such as color balance, sharpening, and even dark
frame subtraction.

All of which can be switched off during import, so it can't be using
in-camera processing, can it?. These settings are merely recorded into
the NEF so the importer (that truly does the processing) can apply
them if wanted. Depending on your workflow, NEF is RAW.

No dark frame subtraction is done unless you specifically request the
noise reduction feature - which slows things down considerably.

It's really a tiff that has been compressed using Nikon's lossless
compression into an NEF. I just don't see the NEF as a truly RAW file.

This isn't true at all. A NEF is a RAW that's been compressed. There
is nothing TIFF like about it. The compression isn't actually
lossless, but the differences are minor and definitely worth the
double capacity you get on the CF card. You can't say that for JPEG,
albeit half the size again, the differences are no longer minor and
permanent color balance, sharpening, exposure damage have been
built-in to these 8-bit quantized images.

In addition there isn't that much difference in size. NEFs run
between 5 and 6 megs with the majority running in the mid 5 range.
JPGs run just about half that. Considering the cost of the camera,
after about 400 shots a 1 gig CF card is cheaper than film.

I get 150 NEF to a 1 gig card. Solution - a second $69 1Gig CF card.
(oh, and I had to get a $200 portable 40Gb hard-disk gizmo with CF
reader built in for use when I go on vacation - or a laptop is an
alternative).

We'll see how I like the real results. One thing is the parallel port CF
reader in the side of my laptop slows down the system and I nearly
filled my CF card today so it's taking 22 minutes to download to an
external drive (no room on my laptop HD) and the computer is dragging
like a snail as I type.

I have an old USB 1 card reader. It downloads a 1 gig card in about 10
to 12 minutes and doesn't even put a load on the computer.

You should upgrade to USB 2.0, Just go buy a $20 card and whack it in
your PC. Delays are frustrating, add stress, and stress is what kills
people.

--
Owamanga!

On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 14:49:18 +0000, Graham Holden
wrote:

On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 03:50:26 -0500, Roger
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 20:58:12 -0800, paul wrote:

I have not used RAW until today because JPEG is pretty good & it's going
to be a pain to change. I have been dissapointed with the sharpness of
the images I'm getting though so I did this little test. I was suprised
to see much more noise in the RAW at the same settings (no sharpening or
adjustments on the JPEG (except saturation) and interestingly the RAW is
more saturated.

What your are seeing I don't really call raw as the NEF does use in
camera processing such as color balance, sharpening, and even dark
frame subtraction.

From what I've read (e.g. Thom Hogan's eBook and other places), the NEF
itself _doesn't_ have these affects applied (expect possible the dark-frame
subtraction[**]). It _records_ the camera's settings for them at the time
the shot was taken, but you're free to use or discard these when you
process the file.

It's really a tiff that has been compressed using Nikon's lossless
compression into an NEF. I just don't see the NEF as a truly RAW file.

A D70's NEF stores the raw-ish [see below] sensor data in a TIFF wrapper,
but it isn't _really_ a TIFF image file in the sense most graphics packages
would mean by "TIFF file".

[*raw-ish] The D70's NEF storage _does_ involve some loss compared to the
ultra-raw sensor readings, though according to Nikon, none that you would
see. Roughly (according to Thom Hogan), all 12 bits are saved for shadow
and low mid-tones; high mid-tones and highlight values are split into a
number of different sized groups (i.e. a certain amount of rounding takes
places within a number of intensity bands). This is (supposedly) done in a
non-linear way that mimics the way our eyes work.

[**] and you can stop this happening (apparently) by turning the camera off
after it has taken the "real" photo but before it's taken (and subtracted)
the dark-frame.

Can anyone else throw some light on this dark-frame issue?

g

From the info I can find, D70 dark frame noise reduction isn't done
unless you switch on the painfully slow noise-reduction option
(usually reserved for long-exposures).

From the sketchy info I can find, the trick above [**] is used to get
the D70 to do a slow-sensor read (as part of the noise reduction
option) but interrupt it from doing the dark-frame reduction
(something astronomers don't want it to do).

--
Owamanga!

In message ,
Bob wrote:

On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 11:09:53 -0800, paul wrote:

I did this study to convince myself to switch over to RAW:
http://www.edgehill.net/1/?SC=go.php&DIR=Misc/photography/raw-vs-jpg&PG=1&PIC=3
It's just a wierd ugly picture in dim yellow light but shows the
differences pretty clearly.

Given the big difference in file size, I see no reason to always shoot in RAW
mode... jpg is good enough for most things.

I think you need a reason to shoot in RAW... most pictures ultimately don't
benefit...

If you have to zoom in to see a difference - why bother? Unless you need a small
crop zoomed!

That is really a rather weak and incomplete demonstration of the
benefits of RAW, IMO. It is really just comparing in-camera conversion
to conversion somewhere else, and with noise-reduction.

The biggest benefits of RAW are the increased dynamic range, and the
one-step ajustment of color, contrast, brightness, etc.

With the camera that I currently use, the Canon 20D, a in-camera JPEG
taken in daylight with normal contrast literally throws away 1 stop of
green highlights, about 1.5 stops of blue highlights, and almost 2 stops
of red highlights when making the JPEG! That means that under daylight,
you could increase the exposure a stop and get twice the number of
levels representing the subject, and half the noise, for superior image
quality. Or, you could expose as normal and capture the details in
specular highlights better. When shooting red flowers, they often get
destroyed in JPEG mode because they clip almost two stops lower than
they would in a RAW file.
--


John P Sheehy