Using jpeg files

[Latecomer]

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Is anyone out there using jpegs on the M8?. I understand the advantages that RAW shooting gives, but I wonder if anyone finds the advantages of the jpeg outway its disadvantagesw, and if so for what purposes?

[Cruewell]

I don't have my M8 yet, but I can tell you what I've used JPEGs for so far: shooting my cats for showing them in the website or emailing the pictures to potential buyers. And maybe the occassional nephew birthday I hate to photograph.

 

Take a look at the website if you're curious, but don't judge my potential by those pictures, please. Purrumao Maine Coons

[marknorton]

I shoot DNG + JPEG fine all the time and for the most part the JPEGs are fine if I can get the WB correct. The DNG is there to fall back on if I need to but mostly that's to handle pilot error.

 

The purists amongst us (and I do not count myself among them) will not contemplate anything other than being a slave to the computer because they want to chase ultimate image quality.

 

I think it's wrong to either ignore the potential of DNGs or to deny that in some circumstances, JPEGs are fine too.

 

Do you really want that good an image of your mother in law?

[Eoin]

Jpeg's, jpegs... that's a sore point at the moment. I always have tended to shoot raw, but there are times when Jpeg's are enough. My first experience of the M8 was trying to get Jpegs and tiffs off the camera with WinXP. Not much joy there, after investing in a good card reader and back on my trusty Mac downloading was not a problem but the WB was inconsistent to say the least.

 

So while I'm waiting for Leica to fix the issue around AWB I shoot only DNGs and correct in post later if needed. I could not be bothered shooting white balance cards and setting it as the custom white balance as my light or subject changes at a whim.

[Jager]

I agree with Mark - the DNG + JPEG option gives us the best of both worlds. The jpeg's thus-produced are fine for quick and casual use - quick perusal, emailing, posting to the web, that sort of thing. And the DNG is there as a resource for any truly critical work (fine art printing, etc.).

 

Jeff

[Cruewell]

An example of fast, no frills, no worries, 100% discardable image I shoot in JPEG:

 

[wparsonsgisnet]

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John, I always shoot both, a raw and a hi-def jpeg. This gives me 2 things:

 

1. A backup shot in case there's a write problem with the SD card. This has happened once since the M8 arrived: I have the jpeg but not raw.

 

In addition, if a disk problem and a file becomes corrupted, I'll have the same protection (let's ignore the fact that I already have 3 copies of 2 versions of the same image)

 

2. A convenient viewing set. I always copy my image files to the pc (windoze) manually. Then I review the shots, using jpegs and ACDSee (came with the D2). I delete the junk and them backup the surviving shots onto two more external hard drives, one of which goes offsite.

 

I find it very friendly to use ACDSee to review shots, even when looking over old shoots. It's very handy software.

 

Regards,

[carstenw]

A quick warning: there are problems with the sharpening with JPGs at the moment. martinb has a thread on that here:

 

http://www.leica-camera-user.com/digital-forum/13602-m8-high-contrast-sharpening-issues-jpeg.html

[mike prevette]

A quick warning: there are problems with the sharpening with JPGs at the moment. martinb has a thread on that here:

 

http://www.leica-camera-user.com/digital-forum/13602-m8-high-contrast-sharpening-issues-jpeg.html

 

 

To be a little more specific it seems to have something to do with the edges around small blown out highlights. They have a very sharp fall off, and an almost negative ring around them. Similar and probably related to electron bleed and the fringing it causes. I have seen this in a bunch of files.

 

_mike

[cnguyen]

I'm very satisfied with jpegs from my M8. Popular Photography had a review of the M8 on their latest issue and claimed M8 got some excellent jpegs they've seen.

[j. borger]

Last jpeg i ever shot was about six years ago with a Nikon Coolpix 990 ....

I do not see any valid reason to use jpegs ...... memory cards are cheap and C1/PS are fast.

[Giulio Zanni]

I only shoot jpeg for the moment. I know the arguments of raw vs jpeg and I have been shooting raw in the past but I simply don't have the time and the resources to shoot raw now. Maybe when Aperture will manage the M8 files I will go back to raw. My experience is that, if you have enough megapixels to "stretch" a bit your file in the editing process, the final result is good enough for even most of the magazines. IMHO There might be something "more" in the same raw file, but measured against time and resources, I simply don't find it justified shooting raw for the moment.

 

My 2 cents, Giulio

[Latecomer]

I've learned from this discussion. Thanks folks.

 

After reading the parallel thread on jpg artefacts at points of high contrast I inspected some recent shots of mine to find many ugly edges sometimes with magenta fringing. I don't remember this on the D200, so I am a bit disappointed. However, with another few gigs of SD memory I can shoot to my hearts content using raw.

 

Thanks again.

[martinb]

If you want to shoot JPEG, set the sharpening to OFF and not LOW or any other setting. It makes things way better, allthough not perfect.

Leica's got to reduce the compression in the JPEG files. I'm sure this would improve the files a lot.

[woodyspedden]

I've learned from this discussion. Thanks folks.

 

After reading the parallel thread on jpg artefacts at points of high contrast I inspected some recent shots of mine to find many ugly edges sometimes with magenta fringing. I don't remember this on the D200, so I am a bit disappointed. However, with another few gigs of SD memory I can shoot to my hearts content using raw.

 

Thanks again.

 

The magenta edges are common but are not a function of JPEG. It is due to severe overexposure. Thee curreent becomes so severe in these cases that it "bleeds" into adjacent pixels causing the magenta bloom. This happens in my M8, D2X AND 1DSMKII. Digital sensors do not like overexposure.

 

Woody Spedden

[Jamie Roberts]

The magenta edges are common but are not a function of JPEG. It is due to severe overexposure. Thee curreent becomes so severe in these cases that it "bleeds" into adjacent pixels causing the magenta bloom. This happens in my M8, D2X AND 1DSMKII. Digital sensors do not like overexposure.

 

Woody Spedden

 

Woody, in this particular case, though, the JPEGs are terribly aliased, chroma-noised and magenta fringed. If you turn sharpening off and shoot JPEG, you don't get these artifacts. If you shoot RAW, you don't get the artifacts.

 

So it's a JPEG processing problem. One thing that hasn't been suggested is that since the M8 is capturing 14+bpp per image, you may be seeing the results of a bad down conversion, and not just sharpening. In other words, it may not be normal compression problems but the way the camera throws away color data in processing from RAW.

 

And truth to tell, the M8, shooting RAW, has less over-exposure artifacts (with Leica lenses, that is) than any small digicam I've seen to date except the DMR. I've never seen sensor bloom with this camera.

 

I've shot the M8 wide open and directly into the sun severely overexposing; there are very few--if any--artifacts, even around the sun (where I'd expect banding) or in reflections of the sun (where I'd expect blooming or fringing).

 

It's quite amazing actually; the 5d / 1ds2 would have purple and green fringing all over the place (birefringance on the Canons, actually--not sensor bloom; the CMOS sensors don't do that very easily at all. Can be fixed usually with a lens change. I know cos I regularly bolt Leicas and Olys onto the Canon bodies They're different... same sensor... no fringing!).