How useful is RAW to the lazy/unskilled?

[Geoff_H]

Perfect illustration wisnu! Two can play at that game, here is an example from my G9 (no strobe) in Palau last year

RAW before auto white balance correction

The same image after auto white balance correction

Pictures really do tell a thousand words. Personally I can't be arsed with a white board when I can get equally good results without faffing around with a card, resetting it at different depths and when the sun goes behind a cloud.

 

[Bubbletrubble]

Those are beautiful pics of a mantis shrimp and a school of barracuda.

Thus far, people have given the following reasons to shoot in RAW:

• You can white balance in post-processing.
• People who shoot in JPG have to carry a cumbersome white slate and use it to manually set the white balance during the dive.
• Digital media is cheap, so you're better off saving more picture info just in case you want to go back and work with the files at some later date.

None of these are convincing arguments. In fact, I find the comments generally misleading:

• One can just as easily apply a custom white balance to JPGs in post-processing using Photoshop, Aperture, etc.
• I agree that it's annoying to white balance every couple of minutes on the dive; that's why I prefer to white balance JPGs in post-processing. My advice is very different for movie clips, though. For movies, I would recommend doing the manual white balance song-and-dance with a white board. White balancing a video clip in post-processing can be tedious and costly.
• I agree that digital media is cheap...and getting cheaper, but it's still not a reason to squirrel away a bunch of data in a proprietary format that you'll never use.

Thus far, no one has explicitly stated that RAW enables one to correct slight over- or underexposure in a photo. Moreover, with my gear, I find that there's slightly more detail in RAW images in shadows and subtle highlights...once the photo is viewed under magnification. Nevertheless, these subtle differences are barely discernible in RAW vs. JPG comparisons under normal magnification.

For an enlightening treatise on why most photographers should shoot in JPG rather than RAW, please read Ken Rockwell's online essay.

Full disclosure: I'm not a professional photographer, and I haven't logged a zillion dives. I've been taking pictures underwater for about 3.5 years now. Currently I use a Canon A570 and have been shooting in RAW for only about a year. I process the images in Aperture 2 on a Macbook Pro. For additional fine-tuning, I work in Photoshop.

The Canon A-series cameras take stunning pics. AFAIK, most of the older models (including the A620) provide access to manual features (Av, Tv, M modes), giving the user a lot of creative control. I can't think of a camera that is a better value for the included feature set. If your goal is to take great UW pics, then you already have the right equipment.

[rant]
My advice for taking impressive UW pics with your A620 is:

• Read the instruction booklet.
• Learn how to use the manual features of the camera.
• Always use the half-press technique to lock in the focus for a picture. This will really minimize blurry shots.
• For macro shots, use the "Macro" setting + the internal flash and get close to the subject. For wide-angle shots, turn off the flash.
• For UW movies, bring along a slate to white balance at depth prior to filming. This is also a handy method to white balance for no-flash wide-angle still shots.
• Hold off on buying a strobe for now. Instead of splurging on a strobe that may/may not "grow" with you when you upgrade to a DSLR, spend the money on an UW Naturalist class with a good instructor or take a solid Peak Performance Buoyancy class. Learning about the critters and their behavior will significantly improve your pics. Not squashing the critters will ensure that they'll be around for you to photograph another day.
• Work on your buoyancy and buddy skills BEFORE taking the camera diving. In the hands of an inexperienced diver, a camera can be a danger to the reef, his buddy, and himself. (If your diving party consists of 3 newbies with UW cameras, please consider having at least one person dive without a camera and play "spotter.") You'll get frustrated very quickly if you don't know how to prevent silting out a site. Also, work on your backwards kick.
• Practice using the camera in its housing topside...while you're not racking up a nitrogen load and not breathing a limited supply of gas. The UW housing often obscures the button labeling.

[/rant]

Answering the following questions might help you make the decision to shoot in RAW:

1. Do you like spending time on your computer? And I'm not just talking about surfing the web.
2. Are you a detail-oriented person?
3. Do you spend a lot of time "tweaking" photos that you've taken?
4. Do you look forward to spending lots of time learning how to use powerful software that can be quite complicated to use (Lightroom, Aperture, etc.)?
5. Do you like spending a lot of money on your hobbies? (RAW will likely necessitate buying larger memory cards, additional external hard drives for your computer, and additional computer software.)

The more "YES" answers you have, the stronger the case to shoot in RAW.

The take-home message here is:
Shooting in RAW requires more memory, more time dedicated to image processing, and generally more hassle than shooting in JPEG. If you're a point-and-shoot, auto-everything kind of guy, chances are that you shouldn't bother with shooting in RAW. It will be a waste of time and money.

If you want to experiment with RAW, do it for free. Simply load up a CHDK build on your Canon A620. For UW shooting, set up the camera to autoload the CHDK hack on start up. (Many Canon UW housings lack a button to depress the "PRINT" button, a.k.a. "ALT" button, which allows access to CHDK menus and permits manual loading of the CHDK firmware. Without access to the "PRINT" button underwater, your only recourse is to set CHDK to autoload.) Google's Picasa is a free software program that will allow you to work with the RAW images you generated. Adobe Lightroom and Apple Aperture are nice choices, too, but they aren't cheap.

I don't know the OP, but I think I understand what he wants to achieve with his UW photography: something between documenting critters for field ID and capturing UW memories of a glorious week of diving in Bonaire. For now, I think shooting in JPG format is the best solution for him.

Good luck with the pics...and have a great time on the island!

 

[RonFrank]

If you CARE about the final image, and your photography, do everything you can to get the best possible results.

IMO RAW is not an option, it is the ONLY option... (OK RAW+JPG is handy! )

This is not to put down those that can not shoot raw, but IMO RAW give one the best ability to make the one adjustment that is almost always necessary when shooting UW, and that is WB. If you shoot flash only macro, this is less important, but still worth doing.

 

[under water]

Hi:
..... were getting quite a few blurry and washed out shots ....
Richard.

RAW gives you the option to fix exposure, contrast, color, etc after the fact, and not relying on the camera's best guess at the moment.
HOWEVER. It will not help with a blurry image.
For that you will need to experiment to make sure you have the correct settings or/and enough light.
Get as close as possible, especially with flash pictures.
RAW will also not fix every exposure and color issue. Sometimes there isn't enough light or you are deep enough that there really is no red light to reflect off of red objects unless you add it with a stobe.
Bottom line.. Buy an 8GB card and shoot RAW+JPG. You may not need it at all, but if you do, you're gonna love it.

 

[maged_mmh]

Perfect illustration wisnu! Two can play at that game, here is an example from my G9 (no strobe) in Palau last year

RAW before auto white balance correction

The same image after auto white balance correction

Pictures really do tell a thousand words. Personally I can't be arsed with a white board when I can get equally good results without faffing around with a card, resetting it at different depths and when the sun goes behind a cloud.

that was EXCEPTIONAL result! would you share the how-to? thanks in advance.

 

[Peter Guy]

A question I've had for quite some time now when post-processing is, how do we know what "reality" is for color? When you "correct" in RAW, what are you "correcting?" How does one know the color temp is the "correct" one?

Just for kicks, I downloaded the two unprocessed pics (above) and processed them in Elements using the "Underwater" filter that someone (can't remember who) made for PhotoShop. here is what I got:

and

Now I KNOW these are someone's guestimates of what the colors would be like if all the light was there, but how "real" are any of them because the light, in fact, was NOT present?

 

[under water]

A question I've had for quite some time now when post-processing is, how do we know what "reality" is for color? When you "correct" in RAW, what are you "correcting?" How does one know the color temp is the "correct" one?

Now I KNOW these are someone's guestimates of what the colors would be like if all the light was there, but how "real" are any of them because the light, in fact, was NOT present?

Exactly what I was thinking Peter. Which of those barracuda pix actually best represents what it looks like when you see them at depth. My guess is the former, more cyan one.
What RAW does is allow you to produce the closest to the "ideal" picture if there really was gin clear water with no red light absorption.
This is the same phenomena that Kodak used in their print processing. Their dyes and sensitometry were tuned so that what was in reality a cyan sky would come out 'blue'. People liked that even though it was not accurate.

.

 

[AbyssalPlains]

Sweet and simple: For what you describe, no need for RAW.

 

[AbyssalPlains]

If you CARE about the final image, and your photography, do everything you can to get the best possible results.

IMO RAW is not an option, it is the ONLY option... (OK RAW+JPG is handy! )

This is not to put down those that can not shoot raw, but IMO RAW give one the best ability to make the one adjustment that is almost always necessary when shooting UW, and that is WB. If you shoot flash only macro, this is less important, but still worth doing.

All correct and I wholeheartedly agree, but did you read the OP's post? He is looking for jpgs out of cam and end of story. To me, worrying about RAW in that case would be similar to agonizing over what wine goes best with a TV dinner.

 

[RonFrank]

Photography is all about color, unless one is shooting B&W!

We know what sand looks like. We know what color a lot of fish are as we purchase them for a local meal, or catch them. If one is in 15 feet of water, that is also a clue. The ocean filters out red light. That does not mean that everything should be shades of blue!

Rather than asking what image is right, maybe a better question is which image LOOKS best. Looking at either of the images presented before and after, there is NO question.

One is all Blue, one is all green, the end results LOOK natural, and even if the ocean eats up color, that does not make the things in it shades of green or Blue. Adding a red filter while shooting would do something similar, but would cost a couple stops of light, and why bother when one can just post process.

Sorry that this has gone a bit off topic, but I think it's still worthwhile reading!