Sony tells DSLR shooters they're idiots

On Sat, 1 Dec 2012 10:23:56 -0500, "Gary Eickmeier"
wrote:


"Eric Stevens" wrote in message
.. .
On Sat, 1 Dec 2012 00:45:05 -0500, "Gary Eickmeier"
wrote:


"Trevor" wrote in message
...

"Gary Eickmeier" wrote in message
...
"PeterN" wrote in message
One major advantage of RAW, in addition to the previously mentioned
ones, is that you can easily edit the RAW image, non-destructively.

You can edit anything non-destructively.

Right, but you can't save it back to Jpeg non destructively, so why
start
with a lossy Jpeg in the first place?
I can't see the point myself since you can easily set up PS or LR to
automaticly apply your camera settings when you open a RAW file if
that's
all you want to do. If I really needed to print direct from the camera I
can save RAW+Jpeg, never do though.

I know what they mean by "non destructively" - that all of the edits are
saved in layers and can be undone at all times. But all I am saying is
that
I do not edit on my JPGs and then save it back to the same JPG file I
started with - I save it as a new file, a TIFF, so that the original is
still there.

I'm sorry Gary, but the original was the raw file. It is inherent in
the nature of JPEGs that as soon as you save in that format you lose
image data.

http://zatz.com/connectedphotographe...n-jpeg-images/
explains it reasonably well but only recognizes the existence of RAW
files of up to 12 bits. For several years there have been cameras of
up to 14 bits.

It is correct that as described in the article there are 16 bit JPEG
files. The only problem is that only a very limited range of software
is capable of reading them.

In short, if you have a good camera you are restricting its
capabilities by using JPEG.

OK OK, I understand the theory of it all, but if I were fired up again about
RAW and went out and took a few shots in moth RAW and JPG and tried to show
myself this superiority, I would once again come up empty.

You haven't yet said how you are displaying these files for
evaluation. If it's on an ordinary low-priced monitor which won't even
cope with sRGB, then I agree with you: you won't see a significant
difference. If you have a 'good' monitor but don't look very hard, you
may still not see a difference. If you have a top-quality
colour-calibrated monitor and look carefully at the image you will see
differences, particularly in colour transitions etc.

Similarly with printing. If you are using the office laser printer
your results will be uniformly awful. If you are using a top quality
ten-colour ink jet to produce a large image you will be fussing around
like a mother hen trying to get the best out of it. The last thing you
will want are the artifacts which accompany JPGs.

Then there is the question of what it is that you are photographing.
Family snaps, scenic, architectural - or what?

Can someone out there who has such an illustrative example of the VISIBLE
superiority of RAW please post a link?

You might be interested in
http://www.slrlounge.com/raw-vs-jpeg...e-visual-guide

--

Regards,

Eric Stevens

In article , Alfred
Molon wrote:

My experience is that with some cameras, if you set them up properly,
you end up using 60-90% of the JPEGs.

In the past I would start processing all RAWs, then when comparing them
to the camera JPEGs would notice that the converted RAWs in many cases
were not better than the JPEGs, despite all effort put into converting
the RAWs, optimising them, choosing the best possible combination of
parameters etc.

At 1 or 2 minutes per RAW conversion,

what in the world are you doing?

processing raw takes no more time than for a jpeg. the difference is
you get better results with raw.

if you process 200 RAW images,
it's 3-6 hours of work to process 200 images. It's a tedious time,
because you are in front of a computer screen playing around with the
sliders, wondering how much you should increase or decrease this or that
parameter.

worst case, click 'auto' which will get you about what you'd get
compared to jpeg out of the camera, and with no additional time.

"George Kerby" wrote in message
...



On 11/30/12 11:52 PM, in article , "Gary
Eickmeier" wrote:

You're kidding, right? I am ignorant, but you are shooting digital 6
stops
off?

Gary Eickmeier



And *you* have never misread a meter? Never accidently set the shutter
speed
incorrectly? The aperture always correct? Forgot to set the correct ISO?

Oh, WAIT: I forgot that doesn't happen when shooting in auto-eveything
mode

We're talking digital here. You see your results as soon as you press the
button.

Gary Eickmeier

"Savageduck" wrote in message
news:2012120107303786126-savageduck1@REMOVESPAMmecom...
On 2012-12-01 07:00:16 -0800, Alfred Molon said:

In article , Alan Browne
says...
The in-camera JPEG conversion, however, is straight-jacketed and cannot
be corrected very much whereas the raw offers much more latitude to
correction, saturation, blackpoint setting and much, much more. The JPG
has thrown away too much info to allow very much correction (or for that
matter liberal manipulation).

And of course when you open the raw (say in ACR) you can open it "per
camera settings" so as a minimum you get a starting point similar to
what the in-camera JPG provides but without the limitations of the JPG.

I'm not disagreeing with what you or Savageduck are writing, but it
seems that we are talking past each other.

My point is that some cameras have very good JPEG engines, i.e. produce
very good JPEG output which needs no further optimisation in many cases.
Not in all cases obviously, which is why you should shoot RAW+JPEG.

I think that most of us recognize that, and your work demonstrates that
you are aware of what it takes to deal with problematic images. However, I
believe what most of what all of us have said in this sub-thread has been
for the benefit of "Gary Eickmeier", who is complaining about the "time
consuming RAW workflow, but is prepared to add steps such as conversion of
JPEG to TIFF and then returning to ACR where he does not have the full
benefit of a RAW file. Now if there was ever a waste of time he using it.
I would wager that if he actually did a study of the two
processes/workflows, the RAW workflow would waste less time than the one
he is currently employing.

Note that he is still processing his image files in PSE rather than
depending on the product of the camera JPEG engine. So any benefit of time
savings he would have had from taking his SD or CF card to a printing
service has evaporated.

He is just not thinking from the mindset held by a darkroom photographer,
be it the wet darkroom or the digital darkroom. In another time he would
have been using an Instamatic, 110, or Polaroid, maybe even a decent 35mm,
and would have been very happy with the result he had been presented with
from the processing service.
...and there is nothing wrong with that.

Dear Savage,

I didn't say that I was "employing " a procedure of going from JPG to RAW
and back again. I said that I noticed one time that there was such a
function, isn't that interesting.

Nor have I ever used an "instamatic."

I think you know who I am.

Gary Eickmeier

"Alfred Molon" wrote in message
...
My experience is that with some cameras, if you set them up properly,
you end up using 60-90% of the JPEGs.

In the past I would start processing all RAWs, then when comparing them
to the camera JPEGs would notice that the converted RAWs in many cases
were not better than the JPEGs, despite all effort put into converting
the RAWs, optimising them, choosing the best possible combination of
parameters etc.

At 1 or 2 minutes per RAW conversion, if you process 200 RAW images,
it's 3-6 hours of work to process 200 images. It's a tedious time,
because you are in front of a computer screen playing around with the
sliders, wondering how much you should increase or decrease this or that
parameter.

All this painful work, and in 60-90% of cases you end up with an image
which is not better than the camera JPEG (this percentage of course
depends on the scene - there are scenes with difficult lighting
conditions, where less camera JPEGs will be usable).

In any case the workflow is as follows:

1. Check the JPEGs and determine which need RAW processing
2. Process the RAW images you have identified in step 1.
--

Alfred Molon

I think you are the only intelligent one here. As you have pointed out, it
has to go back to 8 bit before it becomes a useful image anyway, in which
case it would be indistinguishable from th RAW processed image.

Perhaps a good analogy would be in the film days advocating always shooting
color negative because of the increased latitude you have. Most wedding guys
did that of course. But I sometimes shot slides on a vacation and had no
problem with exposure if I knew my camera, and to tell me I was crazy not to
shoot negative and have it processed to a slide would be the equivalent
argument.

Gary Eickmeier

Alan Browne wrote:
On 2012.12.01 10:53 , Gary Eickmeier wrote:

So shooting in RAW and processing in 16 bit etc is kind of like
recording audio at the higher bitrates and manipulating everything
with greater precision before converting back down to the 16/44
format for distribution on CD.

More like multichannel studio recording then mixed (each channel first
appropriately leveled and otherwise adjusted) to stereo for
production. (As opposed to making a stereo recording of many
instruments and voices).
Your newsreader is not doing quotes correctly. eg: it looks like
everything I wrote prior is yours.

Sorry. How is this? There is a neat fix for this problem with Outlook
Express, and I found it, but don't always use the correct icon to open the
program. So last time, I simply converted it to rich test so I could bold my
response to show the difference.

Multichannel? Well OK, that's fine, but the 24/96 vs 16/44 is directly
comparable and adequate.

Anyway, I tried one recording at the higher bitrate and it didn't sound any
better even played from the recorder's output directly playing the larger
file. Some of these things are audible or visible, some are not.

Gary Eickmeier

In article , Gary Eickmeier
wrote:

I didn't say that I was "employing " a procedure of going from JPG to RAW
and back again. I said that I noticed one time that there was such a
function, isn't that interesting.

there was *never* a function to go back to raw. it's not possible.

there is a function to process jpegs in camera raw, the same way you
would process raws, however.

In article , Gary Eickmeier
wrote:

I think you are the only intelligent one here. As you have pointed out, it
has to go back to 8 bit before it becomes a useful image anyway, in which
case it would be indistinguishable from th RAW processed image.

it does not have to go to 8 bit, ever.

Perhaps a good analogy would be in the film days advocating always shooting
color negative because of the increased latitude you have. Most wedding guys
did that of course. But I sometimes shot slides on a vacation and had no
problem with exposure if I knew my camera, and to tell me I was crazy not to
shoot negative and have it processed to a slide would be the equivalent
argument.

not a good analogy at all.

a better one would be shooting standard negative film versus shooting
polaroid and making copies of the prints, which is all you can do since
there is no negative with polaroid.

On Fri, 30 Nov 2012 22:58:31 -0500, "Gary Eickmeier"
wrote:


wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 30 Nov 2012 10:24:39 -0500, "Gary Eickmeier"

wrote:


I have never EVER seen an improvement in RAW compared to JPG. Do you have
an
example?


Then you never shot with a Sony a100!!

It had wonderful RAW files to convert to beautiful jpegs, but the
camera-produced jpegs were total crap. I got tired of having to process
every
single pic I took...

My Nikons on the other hand produce very good jpegs, and the only
advantage to
using RAW is when you aren't taking a simple snapshot, and need to play
with the
extra light range that RAW gives you.

The secret to that, BTW, is in the software. The software that comes with
the
camera is barely adequate, you need Adobe Camera Raw or Raw Therapy or
something
to take advantage of the extra bits. Jpegs are 8 bit (256 graduations) Raw
can
be 14 bits (16,000 graduations).

Another thing you may need to know is that it seems to be better to
over-expose
digital rather than under expose, because of the noise factor. But if you
don't
shoot raw, you can't do either.

I have used the a100 for over 5 years now, and now the a35. I use both the
Photoshop Elements RAW programs and ACR and Lightroom. But if I ever could
discern any big improvement with RAW, I would shudder at the thought of
going through all that processing for each and every image I shot at a
wedding. I do process all of the JPGs, but it is a lot easier than going
through all that RAW rigamarole.

Gary Eickmeier


You say you process all the images? I find no difference in time in processing
either RAW or jpegs, but the RAW are far superior. Did you use the Sony
software? It's excellent on curves.

I don't know why you see no difference between RAW and jpeg... I couldn't stand
the a100 jpegs!

On Sat, 1 Dec 2012 00:50:15 -0500, "Gary Eickmeier"
wrote:


OK, so I am iggerant. But you guys haven't been able to show me an example
of a RAW image vs a JPG shot at the same time that demonstrates this
superiority of image.

Gary Eickmeier


I have a few thousand photos, I'll see if I can find something for you and post
it on Pbase...