jpeg for travel photos?

[stuny]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I've largely given up on RAW since the jpegs are so good from the D2 and the DMR, plus the processing after a holiday is otherwise a huge task. We just spent a long weekend in New Orleans and I have over 300 images to sort through. I'm glad they're not RAW. Have a look at our Falkland Islands and northern Chile photos to see a RAW-less vacation.

[bybrett]

I've largely given up on RAW since the jpegs are so good from the D2 and the DMR, plus the processing after a holiday is otherwise a huge task. We just spent a long weekend in New Orleans and I have over 300 images to sort through. I'm glad they're not RAW. Have a look at our Falkland Islands and northern Chile photos to see a RAW-less vacation.

 

Fair play and respect from me to you. I'm learning that we all have our needs and there are valid reasons behind them. It's easier to be a photographer choosing which settings to use, than a camera manufacturer deciding which to offer. Cheers Brett.

[@bumac]

Raw or film, never jpeg.

[bybrett]

if film = raw

prints = jpg

[sm23221]

Try printing an in-camera processed jpeg and a RAW processed one with a M9. You won't see any difference as long as the file is exposed correctly.

[pop]

JPEG with the D2; I can't possibly improve those by myself.

 

RAW with everything else I have because I want the full colour depth and don't want the artifacts inherent in JPEG. Most of the time, I can cope with the longer time it takes to write the picture to the card.

 

(The chap from the age of broken eggs )

[LuxBob]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

In my case I enjoy the PP and the ability to perfect or manipulate in whatever way I can. While the Forum is, of course, orientated towards the camera, which I also enjoy, in many cases the image is just the start of the process. Thus, having images where one can do the maximum is important for me and that means RAW.

Over winter my photo taking is more restricted and that is when I go back over the last year with a more thoughtful and considered approach looking for images where I can do more.

[andybarton]

While the Forum is, of course, orientated towards the camera....

 

Don't forget that there is a whole sub-section of the Forum which is dedicated to photographs...

 

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/photo-forum/

[lars_bergquist]

All right, all right. There is a place for JPG and a place for DNG. But until this thread started, we all heard repetedly that this was not the case: JPG was for the point-and-shoot hoi polloi only

 

If this thread -- and my provocative posting -- has led to a more techno-tolerant, líve-and-let-live attitude, then we have advanced in civility. I am all for civilization.

 

The old man from the Age of Unscrambled Eggs

[tobey bilek]

A JPEG is compressed with significant portions of the data lost. The incamera algorithims used to make the compression have to have data entered by you such as contrast and sharpness and color saturation. Difficult to change later.

 

If you set the camera for more vivid color, it is difficult to get rid of later.

 

Sharpness requirement is dependent on final print size, large prints requiring more and multiple sharpening steps. This is a whole books worth of reading. Get Real World Sharpening by Fraser and Schewe.

 

Since the image is compressed. when you open it to edit, it must be uncompressed and then recompressed eventually creating artifacts.

 

Conversion in Photoshop raw takes but seconds and you can open 50 files at once, make one conversion, and tell it to do the same thing to the other 49. Wait about 60 sec.

 

Lightroom is even faster.

 

Color balance is best changed from a raw file with complete data.

 

Storage is cheap, so unless you are running out of storage in the middle of Africa, save the data, all of it.

[Ed_K]

Jpegs most of the time and quite happy with the way D-lux4 delivers, unless the condition is a tricky one (say, with difficult lighting) then Jpegs+Raws. However i look forward to more Raws+Jpegs, when my M9 delivers this summer.

[LuxBob]

Jpegs most of the time and quite happy with the way D-lux4 delivers, unless the condition is a tricky one (say, with difficult lighting) then Jpegs+Raws. However i look forward to more Raws+Jpegs, when my M9 delivers this summer.

I don't understand the need for both Raw and Jpeg to be recorded. Besides taking up valuable space on the card, it takes additional battery power, which might be critical at some time. When it comes to storage, one has to have a system and I am stuck to think of a system, as I still can't see the need and then there is a selection problem. Finally when it comes to working on an image why would you wnat to start with a jpeg when you have the Raw?

[250swb]

When ever I hear the cry that processing a card of RAW images takes time I often think of friends and relatives holiday slideshows in 'the days of Kodachrome', where all 200 photographs were 'keepers'. Has nobody else wanted to slit their wrist during such an ordeal? And so in my days in the darkroom I never printed all 36 exposures, other than as contact sheets, not because of cost, but because there soon developed a critical awareness that not all were going to be 'keepers'.

 

So why do people assume that a card with 200 dng images on all need processing? It was once possible to have some critical censorship of ones own work (or your friends) in the days of film. So it baffles me that the thumbnails of your .dng's are so difficult to asses that you switch to JPEG for ease? If there is any slowness in using .dng (and as has been said, it only takes two seconds) then it should be seen as an advantage, the split second where you say to yourself 'great/banal/reject'.

 

Steve

[cidereye]

Personally I think it totally depends on what camera you are using and of course what you are shooting.

 

In my Nikon DSLR day's I stopped shooting RAW and shot JPEG all the time come the end. Why? Because the colour that came straight out of the camera (D200) was spot on for my tastes and after experimenting with different menu settings and getting my preferred saturation/contrast levels all I ever had to do was a small amount of sharpening in batch mode for my editing.

 

Now, shooting a Leica M8 I would not consider doing the above for one single minute after trying in shooting jpeg's in my first ever week of using it and realising quickly how much extra detail was being lost compared to using RAW. Also with the M8 shooting .dng/.jpg at the same time is pretty pointless, time consuming on the camera buffer and in filling the SD card even quicker especially as Jaap so correctly points out how easy and quickly conversion is using C-1 5.1, also ideal for viewing the DNG files too.

 

So my answer in short = Horses for Courses.

[jaapv]

I agree. Note that I was talking about the M8/9. For instance I shoot the Digilux2 in JPG nearly all the way. And I prefer the JPG for the M9 for ISO 2500.(but still add the DNG)

[stuny]

Steve -

 

When I stated above that I had 300 jpeg images form a long weekend, the 300 was after deleting images along the way, ridding the SD cards of most that I would not later keep. Therefore, 300 images to process, and very few remaining to delete. Far fewer will make it onto our site. Similarly, with our recent trip to the Falklands and northern Chile I returned home with about 1600 images, having deleted many along the way. Once home I only had to delete a relatively few, still leaving me with a lot of work to do. I did do RAW shooting and processing for two or three trips but found the return on invested time not to be high enough for me vs. the quality of the jpegs from the D2 and DMR.

 

As many say in the US, different strokes for different folks.

[sm23221]

Stuart;

 

Your point is well taken. If your goal was to display your photos on your website only, there is no need to shoot RAW with its attendant processing labor. If you were using a M9 or any other camera you could have just shot in basic jpeg. Jpeg is all that is needed.

 

I wonder how many folks on this forum actually print their travel photos that require RAW quality? It seems most are displaying them online only. This is why I asked my question in the first place.

[250swb]

Therefore the logic would seem to be only shoot at the JPEG resolution needed for web quality if thats the only use the images get, or is that to reductive a conclusion?

 

Of course nobody knows now what they might want the images for in the future, perhaps wall size enlargements, or high quality advertising, or press and media reproduction. The only thing that is sure is that setting 'JPEG' in the menu irrespective of resolution is a sure way to play Russian Roulette with a potential legacy.

 

Steve

[stuny]

Steve -

 

You're no doubt correct. Perhaps after I retire I'll have more time for RAW.

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[thinkfloyd]

Which is why I love the "RAW" button on my Pentax. Shoot jpeg for snapshots, but when something comes along that you intend to process further and/or print, just press the button, you get RAW... press again after, back to snapshot/jpeg mode. I wish the M8 had this button too