Shooting in the RAW

No, that doesn't mean I'm going to be doing a photography shoot in my birthday suite. :P

I'm going to be shooting for Gail again tonight at her Wine Event, but this time, I'm going to be shooting it in RAW format (ok fine, along with an L sized .jpg file as a backup in case I screw up in post-processing). You see, I decided to really take these events as serious practice sessions - in previous events, I would merely focus on getting the right composition and lighting. Now I've decided to really treat it super seriously even from a post-processing standpoint.

I always thought that shooting in the RAW just meant a fantastically large file with absolutely no benefit - then I started expermenting. You see, shooting in RAW format (.cr2) means that the camera processor doesn't do any processing and compression (hence the large file size) as it writes the image to the memory card. It writes the image as it sees it, which allows for better flexibility in post-processing. You get to apply and fine-tune your WB settings, your RGB settings, and even color saturation.

Hopefully, this *should* make my pictures look so much better, as I'll be relying on my judgment in post-processing as opposed to just letting the camera do all the work. This will involve more effort on my part, but hey, I *did* promise myself I'd take this as a serious hobby.

A thousand thanks to Gail for letting me moonlight as a photographer in her events! W00t! :D



4 reaction(s). Add yours!:

Anonymous said...

(enter tech talk mode)
wow, i never knew that you could get THAT from cameras. now im also curious... of course, the common thought would be, that manual processing of the photos *should* make better pictures, but it *might* take an uber-expert to do just that. @_@

camera processed photos make our lives easier, but do we actually compromise *some* qualities? *nuninuu*

(enter bangag talk mode)
pina-pa-sweldo ka ba ni elaigh sa pagiging photographer mo? lololol XD

Anonymous said...

Kflores: Ssssssshhh!!! Extra Service!

Chad said...

Kathy:

Yeah, shooting in RAW does make post-processing easier - but since I'm not an expert in Photoshop (and I refuse to do any more editing beyond the basics - I think that modifying pics to add curves or remove flabs is...well, cheating!), I think I can trust the camera's on-board processing to do the trick for me. :)

Meenu @ RAW conversion said...

I shoot hundreds of photographs in single session and as far as RAW images are concerned I use contenta converter for image conversion and processing