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In camera processing RAW v JPG comparison

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  #171  
Old 23-03-06, 22:49
robski robski is offline
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Default Blown Hight lights

I had a free couple of hours this morning and the light was good so I trotted of to my local lake to get some shots of tuffed ducks. The male with it's white flanks often cause me trouble with blown highlights. I had the camera set to raw + jpeg so that I could try each method. Sods law they all come out OK. Walking back home a yellow flower on the bank caught my eye in the bright sunlight. I took a quick snap as I was now running short on time. A quick look at the preview it seemed OK and I headed home.

Normally I would never take a flower shot in full sunlight as often the colour is very dull and the risk of very high reflections.

I was hoping to post this in the gallery but it's been nomimated for Don's thread.

This is an example where such blown highlights the raw version does not save the day. The first image is the raw version with the exposure in ACR set to -3 ( I assume that is -3 stops ? ) You can see the highlights are still white. Second shot is the jpeg from the camera. Both version only fit for the bin.

It's a shame I did not have time to take more shots at different levels of under exposure.
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Last edited by robski; 26-07-11 at 22:35.
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  #172  
Old 25-03-06, 09:39
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How can RAW help recovery highlight detail?

It depends. I have Bruce Frazers excelent book Real World Camera Raw, which I can strongly recommend to anyone use Adobe Raw Converter. In that he says (pp35 for anyone who has the book) If the particular pixel is clipped to white in all three channels (R/G/B) then there is no highlight detail to recover. If however a single channel (or better two) still contain some information, ACR will do its best to recover detail.

He goes on to say, in practice most camera will let you recover 1/4 stop of data/detail and some up to 1 stop. Also (at this goes against conventional digital expose wisdom) while he doesnt advocate deliberate over exposure, if you are shooting in changing lighting conditions, the linear nature of digital capture (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tu...se-right.shtml shows that 50% of your data is in the brighest 1/5th of the image) makes it preferable to err on the side of slight overexposure rather than underexposure, because underexposure will make your shaddows noiser tahn they need be. In these situation he says ACR highlight recovery provides a usefull safety net.

In the case of your flower Rob, it looks as though all 3 channels have burnt out completely
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  #173  
Old 25-03-06, 19:47
robski robski is offline
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Yes Gidders this is a classic example of no hope. I was chatting to a guy who works at Jessops and has been a keen photographer for many years. I bumped into him on our local lake getting birds shots. He said he now shoots raw and fine jpeg on his 20D. More of a case for an insurance policy especially when shooting weddings. I was interested to hear him say that many Pros shoot jpeg only because they don't want the over head of processing raw.

So in this example the insurance policy was worthless.
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  #174  
Old 27-03-06, 08:49
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Great link Gidders,

Lots to read.

This statement applied to me until we started looking at the differences discussed on this thread [ Some people think of digital imaging as solid state film. This isn't the case. ]

Trying to get my head round histograms. Very poor light here - highlight to shadow range 2 EV. So for now I will have to read up instead.

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  #175  
Old 27-03-06, 10:12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by robski
I was interested to hear him say that many Pros shoot jpeg only because they don't want the over head of processing raw.
Rob,

I was just reading of a guy who has gone back to film. Reckons going digital was the biggest mistake he had made. Anyone who was having film processed by a professional lab before a switch to digital, would probably find they had picked up lots of work they did not have before.

I think a lot of talk on the RAW v JPEG has created the an expectation that if you are a pro you have to shoot RAW.

The other day I saw this arguement elsewhere, with JPEG being refered to as the equivalent of a Polaroid. As we are starting to truely understand the differences so I believe we are starting to understand where JPEG is a perfectly acceptable format and its limitations in post processing of high contrast scenes.

In view of some pros requirement for faster processing I can see that the in camera proccessing engine on pro grade cameras will improve. Through this thread I have been doing a fair amount of net reading. For weddings I would think that within the Nikon range for example, a D2HSs equivalent at 6 mp, with the D2X processing engine will give great out of camera JPEGS. Again its horses for courses. Fine for a lot of press work as well, but absolutly no good for what Stephen shoots.

Don
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  #176  
Old 28-03-06, 09:39
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Default File size

I posed a question in the darkroom thread about file size that Rob very kindly answered. As it also has relavence here I am posting a link.

Copy a comment I made in reply [ Now as mr. average ( no specialist knowledge of the workings of computers ) I would assume that in digital photography, bigger file size = more available actual image information in that file. Obviously now an incorrect assumption. ]

This begs the question as to how much of what we read on the net is based on incorrect assumptions wrapped up as fact.

I am posting a link here
http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...=6703#post6703 If you go to post 77 for Robs explanation.

Don
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  #177  
Old 08-06-09, 19:57
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Jim visited today, and this subject and others within the thread reared their head.
I am bumping this so he can have a quiet read when his brain has relaxed.

Don
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  #178  
Old 28-10-09, 08:39
djbrown djbrown is offline  
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For me micrometer it is obvious the raw image has had more sharpening.
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  #179  
Old 02-11-09, 18:03
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Quote:
Originally Posted by djbrown View Post
For me micrometer it is obvious the raw image has had more sharpening.
Well a lot of water has flowed under the bridge in terms technology advances in respect of In Camera Processing of Jpegs since Feb 06 when I started this thread. For those using or considering buying secondhand older cameras this thread still has relavence.

Firstly let me say that NO SHARPENING was added to the RAW file.

The whole purpose of the thread was to highlight that with some of the cameras available at the time this was an issue. At the time with Nikon the D100 was affected by soft jpegs whereas the D50 was known to have a good jpeg processing engine. So obviously not all cameras from any manufacturer would suffer from soft jpegs. It was Foxy that twisted my arm to try raw and my amazement at the difference inspired the thread. Needless to say this whole episode cost me a beefier pc in order to be able to do everyting in RAW.

Your comment that it is OBVIOUS the raw image has had more sharpening suggests that what you are seeing in terms of sharpness/resolution here is not comparable with the results you are seeing from your own camera WITHOUT SHARPENING. That is a seperate issue, and you are free to start a thread on that as there are a number of variables involved, lens quality being the primary one.

In fact anyone with access to a Nikon D100 and 55mm f2.8 Ais Micro Nikkor lens or a lens of comparable quality could exactly replicate the results from post #1 or any of my other image attached posts in this thread.

To exactly replicate the results in this thread here is the kit used :
Nikon D100 camera ( 6mp ).
55mm f2.8 Ais Micro Nikkor lens.
Cable or other remote release.
Slik Professional Tripod ( Weight with head 6kg. ). I would not expect you to have similar, but none the less your tripod should be more stable than a lot of what is around.
Nikon SB80-DX and Multiblitz252 flash - but any other flashguns would do.
Raw taken at default settings and a straight conversion using Nikon Capture 4.4, but the more up to date NX1 or 2 will give the same result. Note that other raw processors DO NOT give the same result as Nikons software with this camera or my D2X.
In camera Jpeg was set to Jpeg fine, with all other options set to default.
ISO was at base, so for the D100 that is ISO200.

Don
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