Minor Preamble: If you're expecting to find a discussion here about shooting
in the raw, I'm sorry to disappoint...but I'm not judging you or your lifestyle... :wink: I think there are other forums for that, tho.
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Technically / mechanically, this subject deserves more attention that I'm going to give it here. This isn't meant to be a tutorial, but just a cracking of the door to another aspect of what your camera can do. Maybe something to make you curious about it...
Almost all DSLRs can record pictures as .jpgs or in RAW mode (or both). To absolutely oversimplify, RAW mode records just about all the data (lightwriting) that the camera takes in (at the settings you/it have specified). In .jpg mode, the computer in the camera processes the data and saves the processed information to a .jpg file. In brief, you lose a
lot of data when you shoot to .jpg only - it's a "lossy" format. For you old-schoolers out there, think of a RAW file as a digital negative - and the .jpg file as a fixed print.
One of the main advantages of shooting in RAW mode is that you have a LOT more chance to fix things when you process (develop?) the shot in Photoshop, Lightroom, Paint.net, or whatever you use.
Heretofore, I haven't shot in RAW mode much because my camera is a bit slower writing to the card (the RAW files are larger) and I often shoot on continuous mode - so I get fewer shots in the same amount of time. But for the past couple of days, I've been trying some pretty silly macro techniques and
polluting a bee thread with my results. Some of these techniques have required me to be in full manual mode and an inch or so away from the subject and I've been having a really hard time controlling the exposure...so today I shot a series in RAW mode.
And I DO mean I've been having a hard time controlling the exposure. Here are two examples:
So...and here's the reason for this quick, incomplete post: You can see that the first picture is woefully underexposed - to the point of being useless...while the second is not quite a washout, but disappointing at least. But...enter RAW mode processing.
I loaded both pictures into the Pentax Digital Camera Utility (stupid Paint.net doesn't have a plugin that works with either of Pentax' brand of RAW files) and only made ONE adjustment to each. On the first, I increased the EV (exposure value) two steps, while on the second, I backed off the EV 1 step. I did nothing else to process the photos. Have a look:
So...while the discussion of RAW files and how to process them/use them is a whole lot bigger than what's in this post, maybe the takeaway here is that if your camera will shoot both file types concurrently/simultaneously (and you have the card/hard drive space), it wouldn't be a bad thing to do. I'm guessing that you might even thank me later.
