Loose rivets

Thanks very much for that. Things are becoming clearer. Did I really say that?

Certainly, watching my son correct the colour temp of his test shots, was very impressive. He just seems to intuitively know how to drive applications as they come out of the box. Sadly, after teaching and working on papers, I don't like to press him to spend more time in front of the screen.

I guess that if I'm to make use of this new kit and in particular this program, I'll need to put the time in. Jet Blast stress therapy will have to be put on hold.

innuendo

Hello again Rivets,
Bushfiva's post is an excellent explanation.
Perhaps in addition it might help if a very general understanding of what your camera does in producing a jpeg will help in deciding if you want to take your photos in RAW.

Your camera takes images in RAW to start with, it is the data file that the sensor generates. It is the onboard processor in the camera produces the jpeg. Some, (not all) of the parameters that it will apply are white balance, exposure, black and white point, contrast, saturation, sharpening and noise reduction.
In addition you can select picture styles for things like portrait, Landscape, neutral and faithful colours and B & W to list just some of them.

Another function that a jpeg conversion does is to reduce the file size of the image.
As a very basic explanation of how this works, (the only kind I understand), say you have a photo where the top half is a clear blue sky of fairly uniform colour. The jpeg engine looks at it and says, there is no need for all the pixels in the file to produce that blue sky in the finished image, every third or fourth pixel can be discarded and still produce the same visual effect. This sort of thing goes on throughout the image resulting in a smaller file which has various benefits.
An example of the size reduction is a jpeg from my Canon 40D which often is around 3-4 MB while a RAW file is around 10MB. The size varies depending on how detailed the image is. The more detail, leaves, trees EG, the less opportunity for discarding data.

So back to RAW. Instead of the in camera processor deciding what sort of parameters to apply and how much data to throw out, (and it cannot be retrieved), with programs such as Adobe PSE/CS4, Light Room, Apple's Aperture, all these parameters are in your hands to adjust as you prefer.

In addition, with these programs one of the most valuable features is that the original RAW file is preserved. The adjustments that you apply in Light Room and Aperture etc., do not alter the original file. All the adjustments are attached to the original in a Sidecar file. When you view the image on screen it has those adjustments applied so what you see is what you have produced but they are not permanently applied. The original file is not changed.
It is your digital negative so to speak, you can always go back to the original state and start from scratch again.

Not so with the camera produced jpeg, It is what it is. Of course it can also be edited just that there is a lot less data to produce what you are looking for.

A small warning about processing jpegs. If you work on a jpeg and save the changes in jpeg file format, the jpeg compression does its thing and compresses the file again. Do this too many times and your file can become compressed to the point that it will start to show compression artifacts. A fancy term for pixellation or blockiness.

Having said all this there is absolutely nothing wrong with using the cameras jpeg settings. Todays cameras can produce excellent images and the range of picture styles work very well for those who do not want to put in the time and effort, (and the learning curve) to post process their photos from RAW.

Bushfiva

You may like Welcome to dxomark.com (beta), a free resource dedicated to RAW-based camera image quality. The database only considers sensor RAW image performance, and doesn't consider ergonomics, features, price and so on.

Loose rivets

Thanks again gentlemen for the work you've put into this thread.

I didn't realize that. I haven't saved any of my experimenting, so don't know yet if it will do that with the bundled offering. I'll look tomorrow.


I hadn't given this much thought. I have to say that I'd rather formed the opinion that once the jpeg was created, that was all the 'damage' done. I'll try repeated editing to one and see what happens.

I'll look at the site above tomorrow. One thing that is coming to light is the need to be very disciplined about not hanging onto poor shots. 1 gig files tend to creep up on one.

What is the best way to convey 5mb files to friends and family? e-attatchments are very limited in size. Also, is there a site that will host large files so that one can send a link to high def pictures?

Talking of which, what's happened to PhotoBucket? Went back to it recently, and just about everything had changed. Why? If it aint broke, and all that.

green granite

One worthwhile exercise is to shoot using the RAW plus JPEG setting with the scene type selector set to the subject type. Putting them both up side by side in Elements you can see the difference and you can play with the adjustments in the RAW image initially to reproduce the JPEG corrections, this will give you a better understanding of the way the camera works and also the way the program on your PC works.

Bushfiva

I'd reduce the emailed version of the file by rescaling/or reducing quality. If you reckon most screens are around 1280 x 1024, then there's no need to send anything larger than that. You should be able to get most files down to 300kB or so with no noticeable drop in quality. If someone does notice, then you send a big file :-)

Loose rivets

I noticed PhotoResizer wouldn't take RAW in any form. I suppose it would totally defeat the purpose if it did.

I'm not sure what my Yahoo e's limit is. But I'd just wondered how one did it, without a real need to do it right now. But later it would be nice to be able to host, send and receive for the new screen size of 1920 X 1080. No rush.

I usually aim for about 200k. for pprune. They seem to fit quite well. Too big and I take away the IMGs. Then it (the link) just fits! I have no idea how.

Bushfiva

One easy way is to right-click on the NEF image, select "send to", "email recipient", then a box will pop up asking you what resolution you want to send, and guesstimate the size of the file(s) you have selected. After that, your default email application opens with the jpeg files already attached to a blank email. The NEFs are unchanged.

In XP, I had to add the NEF thumbnail update, but it seems Windows 7 knows all about NEF.

Loose rivets

I'll try sending a large jpg to myself and see just how big a file it will accept. I know there's a limit, but I can't find it stated.



To make W7 simply review NEF, I had to download (From Nikon) S-NEFCDC-190WF-ALLIN.exe It requires a reboot, and from then on it treats NEF like any other picture.

W7 offered to find the link for me as I tried to access the file - which was thumbnailed as a blank sheet.

Dave Clarke Fife

Having read a lot about RAW images on the digital photography thread I thought I'd give it a try. Problem is, as well as being a bit rubbish at the moment, is that my Picasa download/album file won't open up my images. I've done a bit of reading on t'interweb and the pages I've looked at say that Picasa is no good for RAW, so the Q is, have I lost my images or can I open them in another way and transfer them to Picasa?? Up to now all my pictures have been taken as JPEG's and downloading has been no problem. As you can see I've still got a lot to learn and would appreciate your learned counsel

(I don't have any other photo application on my 'puter)

Thanks in advance

green granite

If you download irfanview (it's free) it will open .RAW files you can then convert them to whatever you want.

IrfanView - Official Homepage - one of the most popular viewers worldwide

Tosh McCaber

I have had a Kodak V570 compact camera now for over three years. Liked it so much, I bought a second one for my wife. For my purposes, one of the best cameras around at the time. Very small and pocketable, superb 23mm ultra wide angle lens- great all round performance- I use it as much, if not more than my camcorder for movie clips-fantastic low light movie performance. I could go on about the good points.

The downsides. Over the past 18 months, the main rear joystick control on my camera has loosened to a stage where it is almost inoperable. The second longer distance lens on my wife’s camera has just stopped working. Presumably, Kodak must be aware of these faults, because, shortly after I purchased them, they told me that they no longer offer a repair service on the camera- only a part replacement for a different model Kodak reconditioned camera, which does not come anywhere close to the specs on my V570.

So, after my preamble- I’m now looking for a good reliable replacement for the camera, with similar specs- ie wide angle lens, good still and video performance, reasonably priced, and compact.

Are there any suggestions out there?

Dave Clarke Fife

Worked a treat............many thanks GG

Genghis the Engineer

I've been using a Kodak Z650 for some time, and am still very happy with it - does everything you're describing except possibly the wide angle lens (personally I tend to use telephoto more), just about fits in a jacket pocket, and operates readily one-handed.

A quick web search suggests that the nearest equivalent on the market now would be the Kodak Z915, at about £110-£130, with 10x zoom and 10 Mpix, plus basically the same workings.

G

Bushfiva

Since you like 24mm, that's going to make finding a camera a lot easier. I've owned the Ricoh GX100 & GX200, but they're long in the tooth now. Lumix FX6 is 25mm and cheap. Casio Exilim EX-H10, H15 and FH100 are all 24-240mm. Sony W380, WX1 are bright f2.4 lenses.Canon 10S, 930S but I've not used them. The lightest by far would be the Sony W380, I think. Lumix LX3 is brightest at f2??

I'm sure there's other 24mm cameras out there, but I bet I've named nearly half of them. You should be sure to play with a Casio Exilim, preferably the Exilim FH100, whatever you end up buying in the end. Model numbers may be different in your part of the world.

You might also want to consider whether an optical viewfinder is important to you.

seacue

I'd want an optical viewfinder, since an LCD display washes out on our many bright days.

As far as I can find, the only small cameras with an optical finder sold today are from Canon, at least in the USA.

Genghis the Engineer

The Kodak models I mentioned have (or at-least, a small buried screen pretending to be an optical viewfinder, which works well in bright sunlight.)

G