Do you shoot in RAW mode (for people that have it on their camera). I have TIFF mode (wich is VERY different than Raw mode, i know!!!) on mine but never use it. Too much time and memory consuming and, it could be my monitor, my eyes or both but i can't see the difference.
I haven't even used RAW yet- it scares me. That and I only have 2 128MB cards, and I normally need to take lots more photos that what I could get on them with RAW. The options sound wonderful, but I'm just not at that point yet. Before going to Europe in April I'm getting a 512MB card, so probably sometime before then I will start experimenting with it.
1) I shoot in RAW 100% of the time.
2) Mostly because of Capture One DSLR. A more direct answer is because of C1's ability to adjust exposure by +/-2.5 EV, change the color temperature and tone balance to anything I want, etc. after the picture is taken. Plus, C1 lets me do almost all of my standard post-processing (curves, levels, cropping, saturation, sharpening, resizing, etc.) at the "RAW" level. The adjustments are all previewed in real-time, and "developing" (conversion of RAW to JPG or TIFF) happens in the background while you are tweaking other pictures.
What Eddy said.
Plus, with the Sigma, that's the only capture option. But as a special compensation, it provides the best raw conversion program out there, PhotoPro.
If I had the choice, I'd never use tiff or jpeg for the capture mode.
Ahaze have you also looked into digital wallets. They hold Gbs of pictures so you would end of with 1000's of pictures. I would've love to have one when I was in Chicago. Only took about 300, but would've love to have taken more.
Quite a bit of information if you search the forums. Just make sure you post some when you get back.
Not very often although I'd like to do more of that.
I didn't know how to convert the raw files to jpeg and the software that came with 300D isn't impressive in terms of converting on-the-fly. With Photoshop CS, the adjustments are done very easily in one screen by adjusting the sliders of whatever adjustment you're doing, you can see the results right away. It's sweet.
I almost always shoot RAW if there's a chance I may be printing. Like Eddy infers, there's way more margin for error while shooting (like when dipsh** me forgets to set the white balance or something), plus no loss in the quality during compression (jpeg).
but you're correct nick, it's unlikely you'd notice the difference on a monitor.
I also use CS for converting the now - the best feature is the batch application of settings for a series of pictures (applies same setting to any number of photos you select, yet still allows tweaking of each individual one if you want).
I use TIFF all the time only bc I dont have the RAW plug in for PS &, otherwise I would use raw all the time.
If you have a 5.0 or higher mp camera it is harder to see the difference but there really are huge differences especially in the resulting quality after post processing.
Ahaze have you also looked into digital wallets. They hold Gbs of pictures so you would end of with 1000's of pictures. I would've love to have one when I was in Chicago. Only took about 300, but would've love to have taken more.
Quite a bit of information if you search the forums. Just make sure you post some when you get back.
Which digital wallet would you recommend? And is it better to get that than to get a 1GB compact flash card? I guess it's cheaper.
Only aperture, ISO, shutter speed, focal length... at least those are the ones I found in the window bar when CS opens a raw file. They could be there somewhere I just don't know where.
Which digital wallet would you recommend? And is it better to get that than to get a 1GB compact flash card? I guess it's cheaper.
I got a small one in an eBay auction for $70 less than retail. It's the Sima ImageBank 2.0 GB, and it has worked well for me. If I were buying new, I would like to get one of the ones with a little view screen.
But y'know, it just seems like a fancier toy. The basic item works fine - it's taken me some time to trust it. You load your files on it and you don't see them on there, so you have to erase your memory card based on faith in the ImageBank. (I'm talking myself into a more expensive model here.)
A more direct answer is because of C1's ability to adjust exposure by +/-2.5 EV, change the color temperature and tone balance to anything I want, etc. after the picture is taken
About the only two things you should worry about when shooting RAW are proper exposure and ISO. Just because C1 or Adobe CR (or any RAW converter) let's you adjust exposure doesn't mean you should. Bumping up your exposure using a raw converter will certainly introduce noise and you should avoid any raw exposure adjustments of plus/minus 1. On the 10D I'd guess that getting extra stops by changing your ISO (at least up to 800) would be better. When in doubt, I think bracketing (AEB) is a cheaper (and better) way to get the right exposure (or combination of them).
Besides, you still have to avoid clipping and it's not that difficult to clip one of your colour channels (most likely red or blue at the high end, green on the low end) and not even know it: The luminosity histogram does not actually give you enough information.
Originally posted by EddyG:
Plus, C1 lets me do almost all of my standard post-processing (curves, levels, cropping, saturation, sharpening, resizing, etc.) at the "RAW" level.
There's nothing special about the data at the RAW level, except that it isn't gamma adjusted (yet), i.e. it's still linear. I'm not sure there's any real advantage to doing edits (curves, levels, cropping) in C1 as opposed to converting to 16-bit tiff (and adobe rgb or wider colour space) and doing your edits in a 16-bit capable (and icc aware) editor. The real issue here might be the order of gamma adjustment and there's no guarantee that C1 is doing the edits on linear data (though I'd guess they are). Certainly one could adopt a linear workflow and achieve the same benefit, but C1 is so much easier (and better and cheaper and ...).
My only issue right now with C1 is that you have to buy the outrageously expensive pro version to get unlimited batch conversions.
Which digital wallet would you recommend? And is it better to get that than to get a 1GB compact flash card? I guess it's cheaper.
See this thread where I've listed a bunch of wallets and the one I chose (the Tripper). If all you're looking for is something to meet your daily shooting needs, then a bigger (or multiple) memory card(s) is probably what you want. If you're doing field work and won't have access to larger storage, a digital wallet will fill this gap nicely. Others might suggest picking up a laptop to do the job, but it certainly wasn't the right choice for me.
