Shooting RAW without a strobe

[Puffer Fish]

Which brings up what to me has always been an interesting "ethical" question -- should photographic images show what we saw or what we wanted to see?

IF there is very little red, undetectable red let's say, is it "right" to bring it back in the final image?

Me, I shoot jpeg (I'm very lazy) with a strobe and almost always shooting macro and I've never been convinced that, when shooting macro with a strobe, it makes much difference if you shoot RAW or JPEG.

Peter, I think it is more of a question of "Should we photograph images to show what we saw or what it actually looks like?"

Keep in mind, our eyes (actually the electronic system the eyes feed into, are constantly adjusting the information they get to make it look reasonable. Most of use do not have a very sensitive red channel... most, but a few do.. roughly 17% of women have two red sensors, that means twice the sensitivity and a wider range of reds...and lots of fish have excellent red, even when we see zero red.

I think there is a place for both.

 

[Fota]

The main discussion here should not be RAW vs JPG, but natural light vs flash.
Yes, it's easier to take pictures in natural light with RAW than JPG but, as many has written, very possible to do it in JPG.

There are uw-photographers that never uses a flash, but I'm not one of them. I do think that there are several situation when natural light is as good or even better than using a flash.

There are several advantages but also disadvantages using natural light.
I think a very good introduction is given by Alex Mustard in his video about his Magic Filter. There are some example shots on their site, but in their DVD you get a much more detailed description of how to shoot in natural light.
M A G I C - F I L T E R S

Magic Filter is mainly for tropical waters though. If you plan to shoot in green muddy waters, then you can still get several tips from the DVD but you wont be able to get those kind of pictures.

One problem with not using a flash, is that you will get loong exposure times. If you shoot objects that are not moving and there is quite a bit of light and you either shoot fisheye or you can fixate your camera, you will get nice shots. If you are shooting moving objects, it will require alot of light and slow moving objects, a very fast lens and high ISO.

 

[Hotpuppy]

Okay, a few things:

1 - You are talking about going from a $700 kit which by the way takes decent photos, to a $3000 kit which depends on you to know what you are doing. Consider something like a Canon G9,G10, G11, or G12. It's a mid point. To give you an example, a EOS 40D with a lens is around $1200. The ikelite Case is $1500, the port and dome are another $500 or so, a good strobe is $1000 and the arms, cables, chargers, etc are $200 ish. Needless to say, the pain level of a mistake is higher.

2- Equipment enables capability, it doesn't fix bad photography. Take a basic photography class and master aperature, exposure, shutter speed, and lighting. Nothing in Lightroom is going to fix crap exposure, blur, bad composition, etc. Your 3 photos are pretty good from a composition standpoint.

3- Revisit your goal. Do you want to document your adventure? or do you want to get published? If you only want to document your adventure, then consider something like a Nikon L22. It shoots raw, uses 2 AA batteries (cheap and easy to replace or charge), a quality ikelite case is only $250 or so. The camera itself is $89 at WalMart. So if you screw up the o-ring it's an $89 penalty. It's a 10 or 12 MP camera. Is it going to take dSLR pics? lol, no. Lens and Sensor size have a profound impact on image quality. However, it does take publishable photos. One of the images I took with my L22 was accepted to a stock photo site. I have a few G9 photos that were accepted for stock photo as well.

3 - What RAW really is. JPG is processed. When you process you discard data that is deemed unimportant. RAW is simply that. It's the raw data from the sensor. The camera records it's suggested settings to develop the image. You can then change these without discarding any data in case you have a better idea for white balance, color, etc. That is all raw is.

4 - Why would I shoot raw? Well, for starters, I'm willing to spend the time editing each photo. But mainly, I am willing to color correct each photo. If you don't want to do alot of editing, think twice about raw. Raw is a format intended for editing. JPG is a format intended for use with minimal editing. If you are printing large format (24x36) posters, then RAW is probably a good tool. If you are posting JPGs of your trip to facebook, then JPG is simpler and will work just fine.

5- Strobes: A strobe is simply a underwater flash. It is not a miracle and will not "fix" otherwise bad photos. It works primarily at close range. A strobe arm is useful to move the lightsource away from the camera. This helps avoid backscatter and can give a better lighting angle with the light from the side as opposed to "mugshot mode". When you are in the dark more light is your friend.

 

[BHB ScubaTroll]

Which brings up what to me has always been an interesting "ethical" question -- should photographic images show what we saw or what we wanted to see?

IF there is very little red, undetectable red let's say, is it "right" to bring it back in the final image?

Me, I shoot jpeg (I'm very lazy) with a strobe and almost always shooting macro and I've never been convinced that, when shooting macro with a strobe, it makes much difference if you shoot RAW or JPEG.

One of the first things to happen after the invention of the camera and film was to create a flash strobe to help take a better picture.

I can get as much light as I can from the DSLR by shooting Apature Mode and turning the f-stop up and down until I get the best exposure (or at least the image I want), or I can add a focus light with a filter to soften the light, or I can use my TTL strobes and work the f-stops and sometimes get a picture I am proud to show.

I say, "If you got 'em, use 'em! If you don't got 'em, figure out how to get what you want without 'em"

 

[Christian]

Shooting RAW does not automatically give better images. But it's always a better starting point.
A RAW image is an unadjusted, uncompressed image--all of that the work is left for the photographer to do, whereas when shooting Jpeg the camera do all the work (color adjustments, white balance).

 

[Bubble_Boy]

What you should know about RAW format is that it is the raw information directly from your camera sensor that is stored in memory. When your camera converts your raw data into JPEG, you will loose some of the tone ranges in the whites and in the blacks. So yes, in raw you can lighten your picture a little more than you could in JPEG and still retain the information that is in the extremities of your histogram. And no, it is no substitute for a flash… your flash will greatly enhance your mid-range tones and that's what you ultimately want to take great pictures. I would go for JPEG + flash instead of RAW and no flash.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

And no, "raw" is no substitute for a flash… your flash will greatly enhance your mid-range tones and that's what you ultimately want to take great pictures.

But if your subject is 10' or more away from the flash/strobe, wouldn't you still want to take great pictures? And wouldn't the flash/strobe in that situation "only" be able to negatively affect the image?

Shooting in raw is time consuming.

Most cameras take significantly longer to record a raw image than to record a jpg, so it consumes time during the dive.

Then when processing the image files there are extra steps necessary to produce a final product, so it consumes time on the computer.

Some divers might very well be happy with a non strobe camera that shoots raw, but most of those divers would not be happy unless the camera also has great glass and a relatively large sensor.

In the digital p&s underwater photography world, the last decade's benchmark for glass is the Olympus super bright f1.8 multi-element aspherical glass 3x zoom lens, first announced in late 2000 /early 2001 with the releases of the C-2040Z & C-3040Z (not exactly sure which came first). These were 2.1 and 3.34 megapixel cameras, with different image sensors. In July of 2001, the C-4040Z was released, finding 4.1 megapixels in the same 1/1.8 inch CCD solid-state image sensor as the C-3040Z. The C-4040Z was perhaps the first p&s to allow one touch White Balance.

August of 2002 brought us the first raw file option in this Oly line, the C-5050Z, crowding 5 megapixels on that same 1/1.8 inch CCD. Adding CF & xD memory cards, 7 customized MyModes, ISO 64, Super Macro and there's an AF-assist lamp, located just to the right of the flash. In low light, it fires an orange light on your subject, helping the camera focus. But wait, there's more. Below the assist lamp is a passive AF sensor, which not only aids in low light focusing, but it speeds up focusing in good lighting too. Way to go, Olympus! These features (and more) led to the C-5050Z becoming the cult camera of underwater p&s photography.

Take a look at these two photo galleries, taken with the C-5050Z in the Olympus PT-015 housing; no strobe, no wide angle lens, all images shot in raw and in full Auto.

GreaterUluaFlash - halemano's Photos | SmugMug

Carthaginian 007 - halemano's Photos | SmugMug

Here are a couple teaser ambient images from the Carthaginian gallery;

This is ~110 fsw


This is ~80 fsw​

If the desire is to show what it looked like to my naked eye, I believe shooting in raw with Auto WB and then adjusting WB/color on the computer at home gives the closest to true results.

 

[craracer]

Most cameras take significantly longer to record a raw image than to record a jpg, so it consumes time during the dive.

My Canon shoots 3.4 fps with a 9 shot burst when shooting RAW. I've never had a complaint about write speeds.

 

[Fota]

My Canon shoots 3.4 fps with a 9 shot burst when shooting RAW. I've never had a complaint about write speeds.

Any D-SLR will record RAW more or less instantly (and always has). The problem has been with compact cameras, but my Canon S95 records JPG+RAW, just as fast as it records JPG (about half a second). I'm sure there are other compacts that do that too.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

My Canon shoots 3.4 fps with a 9 shot burst when shooting RAW. I've never had a complaint about write speeds.

You are right; the OP stated a dSLR is the intended purchase so raw right speed is not an issue. With a dSLR the only "extra" raw time consumption is computer processing time. My "extra" raw write time comment would only apply to p&s cameras.

Any D-SLR will record RAW more or less instantly (and always has). The problem has been with compact cameras, but my Canon S95 records JPG+RAW, just as fast as it records JPG (about half a second). I'm sure there are other compacts that do that too.

According to digitalcamerareview's review of the S95 write times, they did not measure raw write times. Do you have any raw write time data to link for comparison?

Canon PowerShot S95: Performance

Continuous Shooting

Camera........................................Frames............................................Framerate*

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX7.................10...................................................11.2 fps
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX75................3......................................................2.6 fps
Nikon Coolpix S8000.........................10.....................................................1.2 fps
Canon PowerShot S95........................∞...................................................0.9 fps

*Note: Continuous shooting framerates are based on the camera's fastest full-resolution JPEG continuous shooting mode, using the fastest media type available (300x CF, SDHC, etc.). "Frames" notes the number of captures recorded per burst before the camera stops/slows to clear the buffer.

According to this review, the S95 is even slower than reported in the above review...

Canon PowerShot S95 Review - Watch CNET's Video Review

The S95's performance improves over the S90's in some respects; unfortunately, it falls behind it in others. With a time of 2 seconds, it takes about 0.2 longer to power on and shoot. It's about 0.1 second faster at focusing and shooting in bright light, but the same duration slower in dim: 0.4 and 0.7 second, respectively. For two sequential JPEG and flash shots, it's slower by at least 0.5 second, running 2.3 seconds for JPEG and 3.3 seconds for flash, compared with 1.8 and 2.5 seconds for the S90. That's flipped for raw shooting, however, with the S95 clocking at 2.6 seconds shot-to-shot vs. 3.4 seconds for the S90. Burst shooting rises to 1.9 frames per second, but at low speeds like that it's immaterial. I don't yet have performance data for the S95's competing models, but aside from the one exception of daylight shooting, the S95 feels like it operates at a leisurely but not overly frustrating pace. The image stabilization works well, but the fact remains that the battery life is pretty short.

Is that "Burst shooting rises to 1.9 frames per second, but at low speeds like that it's immaterial" speaking of jpg or raw? Is it + flash or not?

If this review is just measuring continuous raw without flash (1.9 fps) and if the previous review is just measuring continuous jpg without flash (.9 fps) then it kind of appears that raw write time of the S95 is more than twice as long as jpg write time (in continuous without flash).

2.6 seconds shot to shot for raw without flash (non sequential) and with jpg the flash added a second so I'm interpolating 3.6 seconds shot to shot, raw + flash.

But the jpg time is only .3 sec slower (with no flash) so no significant difference, except from half a second for both.

I will at least try to record my raw write times, on my S95. Since I never shoot in jpg it will be hard to measure jpg write times.