Santa in the RAW (12.08.04) by Leo Charette

Leo Charette | all galleries >> Kitchen Sink >> Picture A Day Project >> PAD (Year 1) > Santa in the RAW
(12.08.04)

Santa in the RAW
(12.08.04)

(Day 63) My Notes: I read a thread recently that helped me understand benefits of increased dynamic range when shooting in RAW format. I thought I would give it a try. (Thumbs are clickable)

The image to the left is what came from the camera. It is converted from RAW but unprocessed. It was exposed for the Santa and as you can see the background is very blown. What was impressive to me was the amount of detail I could retrieve from the blown highlights (as shown above). Of course I'm using a Nikon Coolpix 5700, with a DSLR and a larger sensor even more detail could be retrieved. Also, there is much more detail and depth of color in the shadows. It almost looks three dimensional at full resolution. The real downside is the amount of time it took to write RAW to the card. On my camera it felt like 30 seconds. Another downside, seems to have been the lost of EXIF data (of course I may have missed something in the conversion).
As a comparision, I had shot this same scene about a week ago, only this time it was shot in high resolution jpeg; two images, one exposed for foreground and the other for background and the two merged. Obviously more color and detail in the background but it did take two exposures which isn't always possible in a photo shoot.
Well it's off to jury duty today ... poo.

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Photographs contained herein are copyrighted and protect by US & International copyright laws Š Leo Charette 2004-2023.

Pedro Libório		09-Dec-2004 23:53
quite beautiful santa here!!!

Karen Stuebing		09-Dec-2004 12:50
I like this Santa and you did a wonderful job with the postprocessing. Are you using CS? They have a new RAW plug in that retains the Exif. You have to download and replace the existing one.

Guest		09-Dec-2004 08:15
Nice shot!

Cliff		09-Dec-2004 07:01
I recently have begun to shoot RAW in those situations where I would bracket. I agree it is very worthwile because of the image control and correction, the only downside being a rather longer post-process time. The write speed on the D70 doesn't seem all that longer, if at all. Jury duty? Poo indeed! - although what better preparation for it than the discerning attention to detail of photography. It might even be fun.

Guest		09-Dec-2004 04:33
Very informative!!

northstar37		09-Dec-2004 02:22
Take a good book with you!

Stu		08-Dec-2004 20:56
I've been impressed with the power of RAW, and intend to get the 1Gb card that a store here is selling for 50 GBP so that I can have more than just 19 images on my CFII card!

Robin Reid		08-Dec-2004 18:41
Now I just reread the whole thing a realize that I missed your main image (blush) and you did do the processing in raw.

Robin Reid		08-Dec-2004 18:40
Well I shoot RAW only and like the power of being able get many things done. But, here your earlier jpg shot is better because of the technique you used. Did you try processing the raw to get the same effect? Good show, and thanks for raising this discussion

Jill		08-Dec-2004 15:18
How interesting, I so enjoyed reading your commentary in ref. to using RAW verses JPEG. Although I have read very little about RAW format, I shall give it a go.

Guest		08-Dec-2004 15:15
Interesting Thread Autumn, never used RAW, will give it a go

Saskia		08-Dec-2004 15:07
Indeed, quite interesting! The time Nikon (I have a 5400) takes to store a photo to the memory card is quite annoying, I can only imagine how much worse it'll get when shooting RAW... Good luck with jury duty, hope it won't take too long.

Gayle P. Clement		08-Dec-2004 14:00
Very interesting and helpful thread. I hope yourm jury duty is brief.

Steve Pepple		08-Dec-2004 14:00
I have never tried shooting in RAW and i find your observations are interesting. Still, the composite from last week has much more background detail.

(Day 63) My Notes: I read a thread recently that helped me understand benefits of increased dynamic range when shooting in RAW format. I thought I would give it a try. (Thumbs are clickable)
	The image to the left is what came from the camera. It is converted from RAW but unprocessed. It was exposed for the Santa and as you can see the background is very blown. What was impressive to me was the amount of detail I could retrieve from the blown highlights (as shown above). Of course I'm using a Nikon Coolpix 5700, with a DSLR and a larger sensor even more detail could be retrieved. Also, there is much more detail and depth of color in the shadows. It almost looks three dimensional at full resolution. The real downside is the amount of time it took to write RAW to the card. On my camera it felt like 30 seconds. Another downside, seems to have been the lost of EXIF data (of course I may have missed something in the conversion).
	As a comparision, I had shot this same scene about a week ago, only this time it was shot in high resolution jpeg; two images, one exposed for foreground and the other for background and the two merged. Obviously more color and detail in the background but it did take two exposures which isn't always possible in a photo shoot. Well it's off to jury duty today ... poo.

Santa in the RAW(12.08.04)

Santa in the RAW
(12.08.04)