First RAW photo

shamus

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I did a test today, took two photo's one in "RAW" and the other Normal, here they both are. Which one is the best -- your choice.Oh, which is the RAW photo.?
Shamus
60.jpg

61.jpg

 

jkristia

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This one is difficult.

First, none of the pictures are RAW anymore, the have both been resized and converted to JPG :)

I think it is impossible to say which one was the RAW picture. The bottom one seems to have a little more detail of the background, but it could simply be because of changed camera angle/position or changed focus. Also, the bottom one has more saturated colors, but again that could be due to the cameras automatic white balance adjustment.

Either way, both pictures are great and sharp and I like the color level in both of them, but I would guess (pure guess) that the bottom one was the RAW picture.


Jesper
 

jon-monon

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It's going to be tough to tell any difference here, matey at 640 X 480 Max. You can use a sub mega pixel camera and get a decent shot at 640 X 480. But I'll take a jab at it and say the top one is RAW, because I see a little more wood grain on the top front piece, under the roof and a little more on the logs, but this could just be the focus, or the adjustments made manually or during conversion (contrast, brightness and colors). I like the bottom photo better, because of the warmer light.

Now a better test would be to take the two, then rather than resizing, crop out a 640 X 480 piece to post. You still have to convert to jpg, but it would be more telling. Also you would want to attempt to make all the adjustments the same or as close as possible.

Now a real real test would be to have both images professionally printed. That's where you would see a difference.

Now, how is the software to do the conversion? If there is a benifit, would it be worth the effort? From all I've read and my understanding, the only time it would be worhtthe effort of shooting RAW would be if you want to do enlargements. Now, shooting in the raw is a seperate topic.

Interesting test, matey :)
 

Dan Vincent

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I have no idea which one is RAW because you have too many variables to adjust.

The bottom picture appeals to me because the grass is greener and the background trees can be seen.

Most tall-tree country does not have the bright sunlight of the top picture, it's usually in a rainy area with darker skies.

I live in Florida, which is f-16 most of the time so I'm used to a lot of light. The top picture is brighter than Florida.
 

jon-monon

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Originally posted by Pitchwife
I guess that it would depend on the definition of "RAW" and "normal." My vote would be the top one is RAW.

Clark, he's talking about the RAW file format, which is a way to store the photo's on camera without any compression, conversion, or compensation for lighting, contrast, sharpness etc. Conversion software is needed to bring it into being a viewable image, then they can be saved as other formats from within that software.
 

CarlFidy

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I vote...

I think the bottom one is raw-no mods from camera.

I'm guessing for the top photo, the camera's light metering may have been set to center metering and thrown off by the bright headlight in the center of the frame.

Only guesses here...don't have digital camera to play with:(
 

shamus

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Hi All,
The top photo did start life as a RAW photo inside the camera. As Jon stated about the RAW file format, it is a way to store a photo on a digital camera without any compression, afterwards it was saved as a Bitmap, - re-sized and saved as a Jpeg. to show here.
If I were to printout the RAW photo from the camera, the quality would be excellent.
Shamus
 

shamus

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Well Jon, you did ask so here goes.
Depending on the camera quality and how big the RAW photo will be inside the camera I would have to say yes it is slightly better and I would use it with the camera I have for any future publications.(They need Tiff files anyway) As far as taking RAW photos for WEB use, hell no, standard format jpg is fine. Apart from anything else, it is very difficult to tell the difference between the two formats when placing them in the-gauge or any other website. Printouts of RAW against normal formats, now thats another story. I printed out a RAW photo without changes to it and took the same photo again in standard format and printed that out. OH YES, there was a hugh difference in quality. The standard photo was brilliant to say the least but the RAW photo was"Unbelievably" better in sharpness and colour Saturation. There was however very very slight "Noise" in the large printout, so I put the RAW photo into a Bitmap and "De-speckled" it and printed it out again (Still in Bitmap with no changes) -- this time it was perfect. You ask is RAW worth it in a camera, yes it is, but for 99% of what we all use the camera for I would have to sat NO.

Shamus