Advice please on poor shots with RAW. (1 Viewer)

senatore · Nov 8, 2010

On Saturday I was out in sunny weather trying to get shots of a GG Shrike.I took loads of shots using both RAW and JPEG.

The JPEG shots when seen on the computer were sharp and bright but the RAW shots appeared dull and grainy even when taken in the same conditions.I wondered if I'd done something wrong regarding settings etc.

Here is an example not edited except for a crop.It's been converted of course into a JPEG so I can post it.

Any help would be appreciated.

Max.

Bill Atwood · Nov 8, 2010

The short answer is that JPGs are processed in the camera. RAW shots need to be processed (levels, curves, sharpening etc.) manually using a computer.

Marcus Conway - ebirder · Nov 8, 2010

It may also depend on how you bring the RAW files into the computer some packages are known to affect the quality.

This is particularly noticeable with a 7D - though you don't state what you use?

Roy C · Nov 8, 2010

Max , As Bill has already stated, Jpeg's will always look more sharp and vibrant out of the Camera as RAW's need to be processed. RAW is just that, Raw data that has not had any sharpening, contrast, colour, noise reductions etc whereas jpegs have already had this done in Camera.
With some careful processing this shot could be improved no end.
Having said that the shot is underexposed which probably accounts for the noise - At ISO 400 the 7D is virtually noise free if you expose correctly. I see you have used spot metering ! this can be very hit or miss depending on where the spot is metering from and how much of the target is covered by the spot.
Is this a big crop?

p.s. I see you have edited in Element - did you convert the RAW in ACR or some other program?

Roy C · Nov 8, 2010

Max, I took the liberty of having a very quick and crude play with the shot and this is what I came up with after a few minutes. With the original RAW should you should be able to do much better.

p.s. if you want me to remove this then please say.

Cheers
Roy

pe'rigin · Nov 8, 2010

Max,

Basically as Roy has written.

Don't give up with this image though. The noise does looks bad because it's in the sky.
Remove the Strike and wire completely, colour the sky to a light blue or any sky that suits, then change your highlight on the bird, you'll get a rather good image.

The noise isn't as apparent then.

It's a bit of work, but worth it for this bird.

senatore · Nov 9, 2010

Thanks for the advice everyone.

Marcus : Yes I have the 7D

Roy : Yes it was a big crop.

: I am a RAW novice and use elements 7. I have to use Adobe DGN converter before
I can edit the shots in elements.

It was that I was very disappointed to see all the shots I'd taken in RAW were all dull and grainy but the JPEG's were fine.It seemed I was starting the RAW editing with an inferior shot as compared with the JPEG,s editing.The best shots were all from the JPEG,s.

This could of course be down to me being a RAW novice.Should I wind up the exposure next time I have a go with RAW?

Max.

stevo · Nov 9, 2010

With RAW shooting try exposing to the right(slight overexposure)then recover the highlights in your computer software.

Steve.

Roy C · Nov 9, 2010

senatore said:
It was that I was very disappointed to see all the shots I'd taken in RAW were all dull and grainy but the JPEG's were fine.It seemed I was starting the RAW editing with an inferior shot as compared with the JPEG,s editing.The best shots were all from the JPEG,s.

This could of course be down to me being a RAW novice.Should I wind up the exposure next time I have a go with RAW?

Max.

Hi Max, I suspect that you did take an inferior shot as an example. If you were underexposed and then took a hefty crop then the noise would also have show a bit on the jpeg as well as the RAW.

As for exposure this is probably the most difficult thing to get right, especially for distance birds with a bright background - it is not just a case of winding up the exposure as much as getting it right in the circumstance. For most BIF shots you will need to dial-in some exposure compensation to suit the situation if you are shooting in an auto mode like AV (I always shoot BIF in manual mode but that is another subject for another day).

EDIT: just seen Steve's post above and fully agree with the 'shooting to the right' principles. not only do you avoid lots of noise but you also get the maximum dynamic range.

Musoman · Nov 9, 2010

Max - most of your Exif data seems ok apart from the shutter speed. 1/4000th was too fast, as you can now see from the under exposure... as for noise, ISO 400 is fine, and you should still be ok with ISO 800. RAWS at 100% look a bit nasty , and as already stated, will need processing, so they look pretty awful at first. You used spot metering. Spot metering is a funny thing, but i use it more than anything else.
You max aperture is f5.6, and you shot with f6.7, which is a good thing, as a lot of lenses are not at their best IQ when shooting at their max aperture.

Processing RAW is just as tricky as taking good shots IMO, and using software is just as much an art these days. Its a learning curve all by itself, but running alongside your photography learning curve

I had a pop at processing the .jpg you posted, and like Roy C, came up with similar finish. You will of course get a better end result than us, as you have the RAW file and we have only tweaked the .jpg

Boy George · Nov 9, 2010

Roy C said:
Max , As Bill has already stated, Jpeg's will always look more sharp and vibrant out of the Camera as RAW's need to be processed. RAW is just that, Raw data that has not had any sharpening, contrast, colour, noise reductions etc whereas jpegs have already had this done in Camera.

Roy,

You've set me thinking with what you have said here. I, like Max, have struggled with RAW and now shoot large JPEG on my 40D. However, having selected "Faithful" as the Picture Style, I have "zeroed" all four defineable items (sharpness, contrast, saturation & colour tone) in the belief that the camera would not therefore apply any processing leaving me free to process these in PS Elements. Am I then wrong in this assumption and there is indeed in-camera processing going on?

Regards

Adrian

Roy C · Nov 9, 2010

Boy George said:
Roy,

You've set me thinking with what you have said here. I, like Max, have struggled with RAW and now shoot large JPEG on my 40D. However, having selected "Faithful" as the Picture Style, I have "zeroed" all four defineable items (sharpness, contrast, saturation & colour tone) in the belief that the camera would not therefore apply any processing leaving me free to process these in PS Elements. Am I then wrong in this assumption and there is indeed in-camera processing going on?

Regards

Adrian

Hi Adrian, if you have zeroed all the 'Faithful' style options in the Camera picture style editor and shoot in Faithful then the Camera will not apply any processing in these areas as as far as I know (other than compressing to a jpeg). But if you are going to do this then you may as well shoot in RAW as the resultant jpeg would need a lot of editing in this case. If you shoot in RAW then a lot of the editing can be done non-destructively.
I cannot see any reason or advantage to shooting in jpeg if you are going to negate all the in-camera processing (other than a smaller file size).

BTW if you are going to modify an in-camera picture style I would set-up one of the user defined styles (if your camera supports them) rather than mess around with one of the pre-set styles.

Musoman · Nov 9, 2010

The Canon 40D will still apply Noise Reduction to any .jpgs, whether you've turned NR off or not.

Roy C · Nov 9, 2010

This talk of pictures styles takes me onto another subject when shooting RAW and that is the accuracy of the in-camera histogram which is produces from a jpeg based on the selected picture style (even when shooting RAW).
If you are using DPP for your RAW's then the in-camera histogram will be fairly accurate as DPP recognises the picture style but for some RAW converters the in-camera histogram could be well out, especially in relationship to 'blinkies' (highlight clipping). One way overcome this is to use a user defined picture style with modified values - I use:
Sharpness 0
Contrast -3
Saturation -3
Colour tone 0

I am not saying this will suit your preferred RAW software but it is a good starting point to play around with.

BTW ADRIAN these sort of values would be more representative of minimal in-camera processing than just zeroing everything In my experience.

mjmw · Nov 9, 2010

The camera always processes the RAW file when creating the JPEG, the picture styles and settings just influence the way the camera does it. Also consider that this in-camera processing 'throws away' data to create the JPEG which you can never get back (if you don't keep the RAW file).

Each RAW converter application reads the RAW file and applies it's own process to create the image you see on screen. This will generally be different to how the camera interprets the image and will normally involve less automatic noise reduction and sharpening. This is why the DNG converter looks vastly different to the in-camera produced JPGs.

Also, it is not uncommon for JPEGs to look brighter than the equivalent RAW file because the 'brightness' of the photo is not really fixed in the RAW file - the converter will use it's default settings and expect you to tweak them.

These differences are most apparent when using a generic converter, such as Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) or Lightroom, whereas Canon's own converter (DPP) knows how your Canon camera would convert the RAW file and does pretty much the same job without much tweaking.

Steve's advice to expose to the right whilst with using Roy's settings for contrast and saturation (so you get a good histogram in-camera) will normally give you the best possible RAW data to convert...but you will need to apply settings yourself in the converter (DPP, DNG, ACR, Lightroom etc).

senatore · Nov 10, 2010

Thanks again all for the advice.

Max

kristoffer · Nov 10, 2010

mjmw said:
These differences are most apparent when using a generic converter, such as Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) or Lightroom, whereas Canon's own converter (DPP) knows how your Canon camera would convert the RAW file and does pretty much the same job without much tweaking.

I have a 7D and use Lightroom 3 for my images. Would I benefit from using DPP to convert the .cr2 image into some other type of file and then process that file in LR3 in order to get some standard settings fixed so I don´t have to do that my self all the time?

Roy C · Nov 10, 2010

kristoffer said:
I have a 7D and use Lightroom 3 for my images. Would I benefit from using DPP to convert the .cr2 image into some other type of file and then process that file in LR3 in order to get some standard settings fixed so I don´t have to do that my self all the time?

Hi Kristoffer, I believe the differences Mark was talking about was the accuracy of the in-camera histogram against what you see when you open the RAW file.

If you are bothered by the inaccuracy of your in-camera histogram then you can just shoot with a modified picture style like already outlined (and still do your conversions in LR).

As far as I know LR3 uses ACR to convert the RAW's the same as CS5. I used DPP up till recently because I did not like the ACR conversions but now I have CS5 and the very latest ACR version I have stopped using DPP. The one thing that ACR has always been better at than DPP is highlight recovery IMO (I know DPP has now got a highlight recovery slider but I do not rate it myself).

kristoffer · Nov 10, 2010

Roy C said:
Hi Kristoffer, I believe the differences Mark was talking about was the accuracy of the in-camera histogram against what you see when you open the RAW file.

If you are bothered by the inaccuracy of your in-camera histogram then you can just shoot with a modified picture style like already outlined (and still do your conversions in LR).

As far as I know LR3 uses ACR to convert the RAW's the same as CS5. I used DPP up till recently because I did not like the ACR conversions but now I have CS5 and the very latest ACR version I have stopped using DPP. The one thing that ACR has always been better at than DPP is highlight recovery IMO (I know DPP has now got a highlight recovery slider but I do not rate it myself).

Oh, I misunderstood then. So you like the way LR converts the raw images? Is it the way that the program interpret the cr2 file that differ? Because as I understand it Lightroom just imports a file from the memory card, it does not convert it to some other file type right?

Roy C · Nov 10, 2010

kristoffer said:
Oh, I misunderstood then. So you like the way LR converts the raw images? Is it the way that the program interpret the cr2 file that differ? Because as I understand it Lightroom just imports a file from the memory card, it does not convert it to some other file type right?

Lightroom (and all other RAW converters) imports the RAW's and then converts to whatever you like (jpeg, tiff ....) RAW files themselves are not usable.

Just to clarify the picture style thing:
For instance when you check your in-camera histogram after you have taken a shot you may see 'blinkies' which indicates that some highlights are clipped BUT when you import that same RAW file into your RAW converter (LR in your case) the highlights may not be clipped at all !!!!! this is the difference we are talking about. The in-camera histogram is not representative of the RAW you are seeing (depending on which In-camera picture style you are using). To overcome this discrepancy you can change your in camera picture style to suit.

Advice please on poor shots with RAW. (1 Viewer)

Well-known member

Attachments

Registered User

Well-known member

Occasional bird snapper

Occasional bird snapper

Attachments

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Occasional bird snapper

PETE - Nikon/Sony Shooter

Attachments

Well-known member

Occasional bird snapper

PETE - Nikon/Sony Shooter

Occasional bird snapper

formally known as mw_aurora

Well-known member

Used Register

Occasional bird snapper

Used Register

Occasional bird snapper

Similar threads

Users who are viewing this thread