RAW file format

[Pea-n-Me]

I have also found that a CP is helpful.

light room 2 has a nd filter

I guess I have to add filters to the things I need to learn more about.

I did use a CP (that someone gave me for my bday last month) on 5, 6, and 9 since it was so bright out, which is why those seem dark.

Maybe an ND would have worked better (of course, because I don't have one! ) Jan, you're saying that the software will apply the filter?

I'm going to have to play with the images a little more when I have time, and I might even go back for another shoot in different light.

 

[Groucho]

they look good to me..the light room 2 has a nd filter ( not that i have figured out how to use it yet ) that i think will come in handy ( like for yesterday when husband drove down the road with my bag in the car while i was out of the car taking photos and hadn't taken my nd filter and needed it.... )
i like the root one and you probably would fix the little over exposed few areas with the brush feature.

What I usually do in LR if the photo is starting to get washed out (like if you're doing a bunch of brightening) is bring up the black levels... that removes the washed-out look in the majority of situations.

 

[jann1033]

I guess I have to add filters to the things I need to learn more about.

I did use a CP (that someone gave me for my bday last month) on 5, 6, and 9 since it was so bright out, which is why those seem dark.

Maybe an ND would have worked better (of course, because I don't have one! ) Jan, you're saying that the software will apply the filter?

I'm going to have to play with the images a little more when I have time, and I might even go back for another shoot in different light.

yeah. it's up by the crop/ redeye/ nd filter/ brush in the basic develop module .it looks like a bunch of parallel lines that when you space them out lightens areas but when i've tried to use it i keep lightening the wrong areas with it

 

[Pea-n-Me]

What I usually do in LR if the photo is starting to get washed out (like if you're doing a bunch of brightening) is bring up the black levels... that removes the washed-out look in the majority of situations.

How does this differ from contrast?

 

[jann1033]

How does this differ from contrast?

to set the black point you hold alt and put your mouse on the black slider arrow( the top section in develop with exposure recovery ect). then move the slider till the page turns white then back it again just till it starts to have a tiny bit of color show again then i back it up a tiny bit again just so they disappear. you can do that with exposure as well for the white point( but it wiil be black page ) . from what i understand it finds the blackest and whitest points so basically it would be setting the max contrast but i think it works best with things that are contrasty, ie not a photo of a blizzard or fog or midnight

 

[Donald is #1]

Hi! Do you shoot in RAW mode? I have been considering switching over to RAW mode on my Nikon D300 to have more flexibility in post processing mostly for light balancing and exposure. However, I just changed the settings on my camera with a blank 4G card and the size of the files is giving me a heart attack. So what are your opinions? Also, if you shoot raw, do you just by lots of memory cards, do you download each night to your lap top or do you have another solution?

 

[YesDear]

I would HIGHLY recommend you use RAW. I shoot loseless RAW on my D300 and each picture is 25+mb large. With the cheap nature of cards today, I have no problem using it for the latitude it gives me at the end of the day. I always take a laptop and burn DVD's at night. I now also have a wolverine photo hard drive that I backup to as well. I have several friends that use two hard drives to backup to.

You have a high quality piece of equipment and you are not taking advantage of it's capabilities. I have a good friend that has a D40 and she keeps it set on the lowest quality jpeg because she wants as many pictures as possible from a card. What a waste!

 

[Quicklabs]

I just switched to shooting RAW with my D80 a few months ago. I'll never go back to JPEG. The flexibility in processing is light years ahead of JPEG. I just buy lots of memory cards, since i don't have a laptop.

 

[Donald is #1]

I would HIGHLY recommend you use RAW. I shoot loseless RAW on my D300 and each picture is 25+mb large. With the cheap nature of cards today, I have no problem using it for the latitude it gives me at the end of the day. I always take a laptop and burn DVD's at night. I now also have a wolverine photo hard drive that I backup to as well. I have several friends that use two hard drives to backup to.

You have a high quality piece of equipment and you are not taking advantage of it's capabilities. I have a good friend that has a D40 and she keeps it set on the lowest quality jpeg because she wants as many pictures as possible from a card. What a waste!

Thanks! I may look into one of those hard drives.

I acutally use 2 external hard drives on my desktop so that I have a backup of my photos.

I just switched to shooting RAW with my D80 a few months ago. I'll never go back to JPEG. The flexibility in processing is light years ahead of JPEG. I just buy lots of memory cards, since i don't have a laptop.

Thanks! I thought that I had lots of memory cards until I saw the size of the RAW files!

 

[Donald is #1]

Has anyone tried the Digital Foci Photo Safe 2? Apparently it copies your memory cards directly and then you can connect it to your PC later.

 

[Chikabowa]

I shoot RAW when doing paid work or client work. Only because my graphic designer likes more information to work with when doing post-processing, album layouts and large prints (I shoot Nikon D3). The RAW files work with his workflow.

When doing personal work, snapshots, etc., I shoot JPEG. I'm not the greatest post-processer in the world and usually just tweak actions for my own personal stuff. I post my own pics on my blog and do my own album layouts for my family stuff. My exposure and white balance is usually dead on, so I don't need to tweak those items (I shoot 100% manual exposure). Anyway, JPEG works for my own personal workflow.

Before the black friday sales I had 48GB of memory cards, spread out over a series of 10 cards. I just picked up another 28GB of cards today (over 8 cards). So yeah, I have lots of memory.

As for traveling... yes I took my laptop with me to Disney. But only so I could keep in communication with clients, check e-mail, dink around on the internet at night, etc. I didn't download any of my cards during my time there, but the last picture on my last memory card was taken right as we were leaving the parks to head to the airport!
I home I have a 1TB external hard drive that I store all personal work. Then we have 3 1TB drives which have all my client work on it.

 

[Donald is #1]

Chikabowa, excellent perspective thanks! I'm like you and not a great post-processor. I do it when I have to but do I really want to do it on all my pictures?

I think that I am going to have to think about this some more. The more I think about it, I will probably have to calculate how much memory I would need for storage at home also. I currrently have a 250G and a 500G external drive, but I think that I will need to do some calculations since even with film I took a lot of pictures while on vacation. Since I switched to digital 5 years ago or so, it has just gotten worse since "digital is free".

 

[pointandshoot]

Hi,

Memory cards are cheap and getting cheaper. So is storage. Why not shoot RAW and JPEG. Your camera has that option.

That is what I do. Print the JPEGs I like and post process the few images in RAW that I think need some extra adjustment. The nice thing about having the RAW images is that even if you do not post process now, you might later and want to have that extra data. That said, you can do alot of editing with a good JPEG.

I find organizing the images to be the more of a chore that downloading and storing my images.

Chuck

 

[jfinke]

I went from JPEG -> Raw/JPEG -> RAW.

On the PC, I use DPP to process. My Mac recognizes RAW files automatically.

Ordered Lightroom today from Amazon for $120.

 

[boBQuincy]

I shoot RAW (usually RAW + JPG). This is not as much for the latitude in processing as it is for making my own decisions instead of letting the camera make them for me.

Here is a good explanation of RAW:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/u-raw-files.shtml

 

[jann1033]

i shoot raw only. for me the raw jpg is a waste since i rarely email etc and only convert the raw photos i really like to put on my website and i want to have the ability to tweak those if i want. the rest i just store as raw and i try to be really strict with myself and try to be objective, so i delete anything i don't like , didn't turn out the way i wanted it to etc and only keep the ones i think i would really use sometime. even though it's hard to delete photos of my granddaughter, do i really need to keep it if she has her eyes closed etc? for me it's not so much due to lack of space,rather not wanting to sort through 1000 stinko photos to find the one i really want.

 

[Golf4food]

I believe the saying is "Once you go RAW you never go back." Maybe I'm thinking something else... ;-)

Either way, RAW is great. If you aren't adept at getting perfect exposures or your camera sometimes gets confused doing it for you, RAW can save a shot that would have been useless in straight JPEG, especially in high contrast situations where you have bright areas and shaded areas in the same image. Try it out and see how you like it. More work in post processing, but I'll take that any day over losing a shot because the camera processed it incorrectly (remember, when converting to JPEG in camera it is only guessing what you want based on pre-programed ideas - you might have had something completely different in mind but the camera thought A and you wanted B but you wind up with A in the end - RAW gives you the chance to try to still achieve B in post processing).

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Yes, I've made the leap and I doubt I'll go back. I usually download pictures after each time or two I shoot. I seem to get quite a few RAW images out of each of my 2GB cards, and I just picked up a 4gig so I should be in good shape. The only things I need to do now are find a better processing program and figure out how to store these images while on the road (currently without a laptop, but am thinking about picking up an 8" Netbook - from what I've seen they're about the same cost as the portable hard drive storage units, and would be otherwise handy on the road for internet capability). Janet, I think you have the right idea about becoming selective about what you save.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I shoot RAW because all the cool photographers are doing it and I want people to think I'm cool.

 

[handicap18]

I switched to shooting RAW on my D50 2 years ago. Now I'm using a D300 and have only shot JPEG for maybe 10 images. I mostly use 12-Bit Lossless compressed and the file sizes are about 11-12MB each. With 14-Bit Lossless compressed they are about 14-15MB each.

Don't look at the initial # of images when you first switch over. That is just an estimate and it is way off. When I put a 4GB card in my D300 it says 194 images left. In reality I get around 300 images when shooting 12-Bit lossless compressed on a 4GB card.

I just picked up another 8GB card at amazon for $21 shipped.

Remember, its still a HECK of a lot cheeper than buying and developing rolls of 24 exposure film.