Any keen photographers attending GTG?

[zookcubr Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close zookcubr]

Re: Any keen photographers attending GTG?

I just have the mighty Nokia N95 8GB with a 5 Mega Pix camera. That will do, it texts, GPS, Video, Games, Electronic Compas, Internet Access and even makes voice calls. In fact all photos posted by me have been taken from my phone. Who needs to spend loads of $$$$$.

[Mrs Fishnut Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Mrs Fishnut]

Re: Any keen photographers attending GTG?

If only I'd have known Deb... I could have made the whole trip a tax deduction 8) I'm a freelance photographer and I teach photography. Oh well, maybe next GTG

If you have the space... (storage while on the trip that is) I would suggest shooting RAW+JPG so that you can maximise your images once you get back from the trip and learn how to process a RAW file. (RAW files take up a fair bit more space than jpgs unfortunately).

If you've got any questions I'm happy to answer them...

What a bummer that you are not coming!!!!! I'd be only asking really basic questions too.....

Ok, so first question then: The teacher said "save photos in RAW (cos they are like the negatives)", so that is what I have been doing...but NOT in JPEG as well. I deliberately took that option off. Do I need to save in both RAW and JPEG on my camera, or just RAW and convert to JPEG after I have download them? I certainly have realised that RAW takes up lots of space on my card and longer to download....

Cheers,
Deb

[jeff s Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close jeff s]

Re: Any keen photographers attending GTG?

I cant remember exactly what was said, but the salesman was saying something like.

"raw (or Twain?) images can be taken, and then blown up to the size of the side of a bus, and be clear.

Is that correct?
I have never done anything in raw yet. But have some wonderful pics of the kids at Monkey mia with some pelicans. Got them blown up and they look fantastic.
They would only have been done on large/ fine setting. This raw setting must be insanely high in clarity.

Jeff.

(you've done it now Snaga, you will have to give up your job just to answer questions from here... )

[Snaga Wishing I was lost Find all posts View Profile Close Snaga]

Re: Any keen photographers attending GTG?

Out and about at the moment so i'll be brief.

RAW is an uncompressed, unprocessed format so in that sence it is like a negative. It needs to be processes on a computer before it looks at all nice.
If someone isn't used to processing a raw file that's when I say to shoot both. Processing a raw file correctly can be an art in it's self.
The camera is still limited to its native resolution and enlargements can be limited by that. BUT... Having a RAW file greatly increases your post processing options.

[HGMonaro Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close HGMonaro]

Re: Any keen photographers attending GTG?

RAW has some benefits (ability to alter white balance, fine tune colour, recover bad exposure) and some drawbacks (size of files and need to process them although that can be automated*) but it is not the answer to all things photographic. I hate when salesmen/technophotographers spout that. Unless you change it (not recommended unless you have a reason) your camera will produce the same number of pixels in RAW and JPG, which can then be printed at the same sizes (so Jeff, no, that is not correct)

For anyone new to dSLRs, I suggest you read up and learn about histograms. Even RAW needs correctly exposed shots to get the best out of your camera.

Cheers, Nige

[D4D Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close D4D]

Re: Any keen photographers attending GTG?

Unless you change it (not recommended unless you have a reason) your camera will produce the same number of pixels in RAW and JPG, which can then be printed at the same sizes (so Jeff, no, that is not correct)

Yes the pixels will be the same but the resulting jpg image will be compressed and lossy. If you do any editing of the jpg image you will further add to the loss. Hence why it's preferable to shoot raw.

[Snaga Wishing I was lost Find all posts View Profile Close Snaga]

Re: Any keen photographers attending GTG?

Totally agree Nige... get it right in camera!!!!!
That's the best place to start.

I'm only suggesting shooting with RAW+JPG as the subject matter will be amazing and 6 months down the track, once Deb has learnt how to process a RAW file she can revisit all the RAW files from the trip and the difference between a processed RAW file and a jpg out of camera can be huge...

[HGMonaro Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close HGMonaro]

Re: Any keen photographers attending GTG?

I have 'processed' a few RAW's and they end up looking just like my jpgs! Maybe that's because what I saw at the time was represented by the jpg and now I can't get away from that (I aim for a as seen representation usually). What I do is shoot jpg and hit the RAW button (which shoots RAW + JPG) just for that one frame when I see something that I think deserves it (not everything does!!) then I have them if I want and also get a good number of shots on a card. A balancing act I guess.

Cheers, Nige

[Mrs Fishnut Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Mrs Fishnut]

Re: Any keen photographers attending GTG?

Totally agree Nige... get it right in camera!!!!!
That's the best place to start.

I'm only suggesting shooting with RAW+JPG as the subject matter will be amazing and 6 months down the track, once Deb has learnt how to process a RAW file she can revisit all the RAW files from the trip and the difference between a processed RAW file and a jpg out of camera can be huge...

The teacher has definitely emphasised getting it right in the camera in the first place - that's the main reason I am attending lessons. I think I might choose both for now to give me options later. Learning how the process RAW sounds like it is going to be an interesting learning experience too :shock: I have opened my RAW images (from our practical session) using the software that comes with my camera but am quite daunted by doing anything with them for now... :shock:

Second question: It looks like I only lose the capacity to take a few extra pictures when I choose both RAW+JPG, instead of just RAW. It went from about 326 to 294 pics on an empty card...does this seem right? I presume it doesn't use double the space chosing both options..... :?

I still have so much to learn in just understanding manually controlling 'exposure' (aperture and shutter speed).......so there might be plenty of more question about this.....

Thanks,
Deb

[mav Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close mav]

Re: Any keen photographers attending GTG?

When it comes to post processing your photos you have the choice of purchasing a package like Photo Shop which you would be able to get at student price or using a free processor package like Picasa3 I use both as my PC is not the fastest machine around and PS is a very resource hungry program. I use Picasa3 when I am doing quick uploads with minimal post processing. It works well I have found.

[HGMonaro Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close HGMonaro]

Re: Any keen photographers attending GTG?

Second question: It looks like I only lose the capacity to take a few extra pictures when I choose both RAW+JPG, instead of just RAW. It went from about 326 to 294 pics on an empty card...does this seem right? I presume it doesn't use double the space chosing both options..... :?

Thanks,
Deb

sounds a little off but your right it doesn't double the space used. My 10MP camera takes 8-10MB RAW files (using the Pentax PEF format which is a non lossy compressed format) and 2-4MB JPGs. Remember that the picture content will mean files will be different sizes and the camera probably (mines does) uses a number one the large end of the scale to make that calculation so you get more pictures than it initially reports. Changing my camera from JPG to RAW+JPG changes the shots remaining display from 827 to 188 (which sorta matches the RAW vs JPG sizes). You could do an experiment to see what the different file sizes your camera produces by taking a few RAW+JPG's and checking the file sizes. Try to capture a generic scene, not a plain white wall!

Nige.

[Snaga Wishing I was lost Find all posts View Profile Close Snaga]

Re: Any keen photographers attending GTG?

Jpeg's are a compressed format... ie some data is thrown away to save space. As Nige has mentioned if you get it right in camera then it doesn't matter that this info is lost and the up side is you can fit more images onto a memory card. The downside is if you do plan on having a play in photoshop or another 'post production' program then the RAW file retains ALL the data for use when processing but it'll be a larger file.

The frame count on the camera is a 'worst case scenario' count...
If you take all, highly detailed scenes (like a forest with lots of trees, shadow, dirt etc...) then it'll take up more room for each shot and the initial count will be pretty close... BUT a shot of a big sandy outback shot with a clear blue sky will compress further and take up less space on the card.

[gwatts21 Member Find all posts View Profile Close gwatts21]

Re: Any keen photographers attending GTG?

Anyone bringing any Minolta / Sony SLR gear to the GTG? I would certainly be interested in comapring / trying lenses if anyone else was interested.

Lenses that may be of interest to other Minolta / Sony users:

Sigma 50-500mm (aka Bigma)
Minolta 100mm Macro

Cheers

Gaz