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#1
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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. |
#2
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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! |
#3
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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. |
#4
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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. |
#5
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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. |
#6
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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 |
#7
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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. |
#8
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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! |
#9
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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! |
#10
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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 |
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