Raw or jpeg

Having a float around the web and came across this,perhaps over simplistic and very basic but it may show something to give beginners an idea of why most of us shoot raw.

Here's a Crazy Comparison Between RAW and JPEG

mikew said:

Having a float around the web and came across this,perhaps over simplistic and very basic but it may show something to give beginners an idea of why most of us shoot raw.

Here's a Crazy Comparison Between RAW and JPEG

Click to expand...

It really does make the difference very clear. Good find.

Food for thought

That was a surprise. I knew you lost content. I did not realize how much.

I find this a bit nonsensical. What should have been done was a second image that was equally underexposed where you saw features in the RAW and the same damn thing in the JPEG.

OK, so I was PM'd and politely asked if I could demonstrate what I mean.

Here's are two very underexposed shots taken with my D610 (no scientifically determined under-exposure - the meter was just pinned hard '-'):

RAW


JPEG



In Lightroom I set the Exposure adjustment on each of these images to +5 yielding these results:

RAW


JPEG



Here are the same images SOOC with the exposure adjusted in the camera for the same +5 EV:

RAW


JPEG

(Note: I had Active D-Lighting set to high, accounting for the difference in RAW v. JPEG. Like I said, it was unscientific.)

As you can see, the RAW files appear nearly identical regardless of whether shot at +5EV or adjusted to that value. The same cannot be said for the JPEG. Moral of the story, a perfectly exposed JPEG is almost always enough for most photographers, but RAW will save your booty when something goes wrong.

I should also note that I attempted to replicate the blog post by creating two severely under-exposed images. After boosting each +5EV they both still looked completely black (honest - don't make me post them). What this tells me is that the original photos is "perfectly exposed black", meaning that all they're doing is amplifying a correctly exposed image and what you're seeing is the difference in noise generation and not recovered details.

I thought this horse was dead already? If you do a search, this "topic" has been discussed ad nauseam. Photography is not "one size fits all", but you should certainly know the pros & cons of certain aspects.

AC016 said:

I thought this horse was dead already? If you do a search, this "topic" has been discussed ad nauseam. Photography is not "one size fits all", but you should certainly know the pros & cons of certain aspects.

Click to expand...

Chill. Mike posted a link to a blog post. My comments deal with the blog content, as do I suspect the others, not with the "nauseum". Careful reading leads to careful criticism.

BackdoorHippie said:

Chill. Mike posted a link to a blog post. My comments deal with the blog content, as do I suspect the others, not with the "nauseum". Careful reading leads to careful criticism.

Click to expand...

Don't tell me to Chill when i am perfectly calm (coming from you is funny). I was not criticizing Mike, but rather the subject matter, which has been hashed over many times. "Careful reading.....", yeah, something you may want to do as well.

Whatever.

I prefer using these images to compare the two:

Well I for one enjoy this kind of input , if someone has something to say , get it on here
ok there are people who seem to think they are above trivial matters , but there are some that find all information
helpful , as I do and enjoy all your input , if it's been gone over before , so what , I look forward each day to seeing
you guys giving opinions or information and solutions to problems members may have and I've been helped out a few times
let's stop bitching and take interest in others thoughts

The jpeg vs raw subject keeps coming up because it is confusing to beginners, and there are so many opinions regarding why some shoot one way versus another way or both. Sometimes one article will give you the "aha" moment, when others didn't. "Link away" is my philosophy. There is nothing wrong with linking an article that might be beneficial to a beginner.
What topic hasn't been discussed to death on here?

I kinda-sorta get it, but it didn't stop me from clicking on the link to read about it some more.

I have a question regarding the article's image comparison. Was the author trying to show that Raw files are more uniform, and the jpeg file looks more "artifacty" (Yes, I know that isn't a real word. :shame

Dawg Pics said:

The jpeg vs raw subject keeps coming up because it is confusing to beginners, ........

Click to expand...

It's confusing because 98.12583% of shooters will adamately state you only need to shoot one or the other, like it's a legal requirement or something.

Let me clarify it for anyone reading this thread: JPEG is a tool, and raw is a tool. Just like a 5-lb sledgehammer and a 16-oz. claw hammer are tools. You wouldn't drive stakes with a 16-oz. hammer, and you wouldn't nail two 2x4s together with a 5-lb sledge.

You use the tool you need to do the job. If JPEGs get the job done, then shoot JPEG. If raw is what you need to get the results you want, then shoot raw.

There will be times you'll need to shoot raw, and sometimes you'll need to shoot JPEGS. Sometimes you'll need to shoot both.

Use whichever (or both) you need to accomplish your desired results.

I will add my opinion here for anyone that might be interested.

A brand new photographer just starting outwith a basic DSLR who has never even heard of post processing and it only planning to shoot family and friends and post on Facebook needs to shoot JPEG only. That and put it in Program mode and Auto ISO. Let them have some fun and get some pretty good photos. As they get used to the camera and decide they want to learn more then and only then should they move away from JPEG and Program. I have seen to many new programmers get so frustrated because they were told that they should only shoot Manual because that is the the way "Pros" do it. They end up with terrible photos because that friend is in the wind when it comes to guiding them an training them. They end up sitting that camera on the shelf and not shooting anymore. I have a friend that was that way. The first time I went out shooting with him I looked over and her was fumbling with his camera and not really shooting at all. I offered to help him and when I looked at his shots they were unrecognizable and we were shooting the same thing. He was shooting in manual and had everything so out of whack that it was impossible to get a good photo. I asked permission to reset his camera and then set it to Program, and exposure compensation to 0 and ISO to 100 since it was night but we were shooting with tripods. I then told him to just shoot. His result were perfect. Since then we have shot together so many times and he has progressed way past that point. He was barely shooting when we started but now he has bought a new D7200 and had Adobe CC.

You have to let a new photographer have some success in the beginning in order for them to get the love of photography we all have now

Dawg Pics said:

I have a question regarding the article's image comparison. Was the author trying to show that Raw files are more uniform, and the jpeg file looks more "artifacty" (Yes, I know that isn't a real word. :shame

Click to expand...

I truly don't know what they were trying to show.

Rereading the article I believe this is what they did, even if it was unintentional...

Both images were shot at ISO 3200 with just the body cap on the camera. Native ISO on the Canon they used is 200. So, what they recorded in each case was a pure black image that had ISO amplification applied to it, and in the case of the 70D they used, ISO amplification at the top end of the camera's usable range.

(You see, when you increase your ISO you are doing nothing more than turning up the light volume on your camera making it easier to "see" things in the dark. Like on an amplifier, when you turn up the volume you introduce some level of distortion (i.e. "noise"), and the more you amplify the more you distort - how bad it gets depends on how good the camera/amplifier.)

Now they have two overamplified photos of nothing that they decided to amplify again by applying 5 stops of exposure to them. This made the noise visible while further distorting it. What you see is how much more the noise distorts on a JPEG than on a RAW file. I don't know what that really shows, or what conclusions can be drawn by it, but there you have it.

In my example above I shot my original images in my D610's native ISO of 100. This meant I had zero noise/distortion in my original so when I amplified it the result was still fairly clean on both ends, even there was an extreme loss of detail in the JPEG. I tried it again using ISO 6400 on my D610 and here are the results with the "black" image amplified by +5EV, and this time I remembered to turn off all in-camera JPEG functions...

RAW


JPEG



(shrugging my shoulders)

I'm still not sure it does anything to further any argument about RAW vs. JPEG. Perhaps it says more about what may have been applied in-camera via the Canon JPEG processing than anything else (the author never mentions what camera profiles may have been used).

Again, I think the original blog post is more confusing than anything else and presents nothing but what could very well have been a drunken experiment one night on the couch.

I tell you what, I'm done for the day and still have my brother's Canon stuff sitting around. Maybe I'll pour myself a whiskey and do the experiment exactly like they did and compare the D7100 to a 7D or something?

Nah. By the time I sip the whiskey this Friday evening I will no longer care. LOL

(you know it'll be up here some time tomorrow)

OK, the Whiskey can wait, at least for a minute.

I took a D7100 and shot at 1/60s at ISO 6400 with just the body cap on and absolutely no JPEG adjustments on. Here are the results...

RAW


JPEG Fine


JPEG Normal


JPEG Basic



Once again, I have no idea what this proves beside I really need that whiskey.

I really suspect that there were some other JPEG-specific processes going on in the camera and if I were to play with different settings that add NR or Active D-Lighting I might be able to get the colors to vary. But I'm again stuck thinking that the original post is rubbish. Did I say that yet?

BackdoorHippie said:

OK, so I was PM'd and politely asked if I could demonstrate what I mean.

Here's are two very underexposed shots taken with my D610 (no scientifically determined under-exposure - the meter was just pinned hard '-'):

RAW
View attachment 197718

JPEG
View attachment 197719


In Lightroom I set the Exposure adjustment on each of these images to +5 yielding these results:

RAW
View attachment 197720

JPEG
View attachment 197721


Here are the same images SOOC with the exposure adjusted in the camera for the same +5 EV:

RAW
View attachment 197722

JPEG
View attachment 197723
(Note: I had Active D-Lighting set to high, accounting for the difference in RAW v. JPEG. Like I said, it was unscientific.)

As you can see, the RAW files appear nearly identical regardless of whether shot at +5EV or adjusted to that value. The same cannot be said for the JPEG. Moral of the story, a perfectly exposed JPEG is almost always enough for most photographers, but RAW will save your booty when something goes wrong.

I should also note that I attempted to replicate the blog post by creating two severely under-exposed images. After boosting each +5EV they both still looked completely black (honest - don't make me post them). What this tells me is that the original photos is "perfectly exposed black", meaning that all they're doing is amplifying a correctly exposed image and what you're seeing is the difference in noise generation and not recovered details.

Click to expand...

Now THIS is a much better example than what was used in the blog. It's amazing to see the latitude of RAW files.

AC016 said:

I thought this horse was dead already? If you do a search, this "topic" has been discussed ad nauseam. Photography is not "one size fits all", but you should certainly know the pros & cons of certain aspects.

Click to expand...

A lot of topics get discussed repeatedly for more than one reason. Some people don't bother to use the search feature--which is fine--IMHO, I think it gives the person asking a more personal response and fosters a sense of community. And in cases like this where the blog suddenly appears (which it did in my Facebook news feed), it just offers more support for shooting RAW and opens up a new dialogue like we have here.

Since you obviously aren't interested in reading more discussions about the topic, the mature thing to do is to simply move on to a different thread.

Can't disagree with any of what y'all have said.

I started out with jpeg. Now I am shooting both, but I am finding that I am process the RAW file and not opening the jpegs much. Of course, I need the RAW processing capabilities with the errors I have been making now that I a trying to use the camera in manual.

I had a helluva time convincing a buddy of mine that post-processing is necessary. Even if it is just a tweak. I still don't know that she is convinced.