Camera settings and raw

[Benco]

Tinker tinker fiddle.....

What a lot of parameters there are in the shooting menu; picture control, auto distortion control, active D lighting, high ISO noise reduction and so on, what the manual doesn't tell me (that I can find anyway) is whether these in camera fixes apply just to JPG or if they also have any meaning to raw output.

I guess what I'm asking is how raw is raw? are any of these levels of processing actually being applied to the raw files and if so what is the advantage/disadvantage of that?

 

[480sparky39 38]

Raw is raw. None of the settings are applied to them in-camera. They're simply recorded in the file.

Once you get to the computer, your PP software may or may not apply them. Depends on the default settings of the program and whether you've tinkered and fiddle with them.

Personally, I turn all that stuff off: for two reasons. One, I can apply them in post. Adjust some of 'em as well. So I have no need to decide in the field whether to change sharpness or contrast or saturation. Besides, you really can't tell the difference from one setting to the next on the camera's monitor. Second, it speeds up burst shooting.

 

[Big Mike]

Read this...Why Raw -- Part I

 

[480sparky39 38]

Read this...Why Raw -- Part I

I can't......... the guy needs to learn how to create a website using colors the human eye can utilize best to read. All those fluorescent colors make my head hurt.

 

[HughGuessWho96 11]

Read this...Why Raw -- Part I

I can't......... the guy needs to learn how to create a website using colors the human eye can utilize best to read. All those fluorescent colors make my head hurt.

I agree with that. why would anyone use RED font on a GRAY background? All I see is red lines.:er:

 

[KmH]

I see a light gray font on a dark gray background.

OP. Only the camera maker supplied proprietary Raw conversion software will show those in the camera settings on a Raw file, and not all of them at that.

 

[Overread15 3]

I see a light gray font on a dark gray background.

About half way down he uses the red font for a list of things - my gods does it jar the eyes! (shockingly more than I thought it would).

But the information on that site is generally very good

 

[TCampbell]

I see a light gray font on a dark gray background.

About half way down he uses the red font for a list of things - my gods does it jar the eyes! (shockingly more than I thought it would).

But the information on that site is generally very good

A few inaccuracies...

There's no standard format for RAW... each camera can be different.

The light-sensitive points which cover the surface of the sensor are not pixels... they are photo-sites. In a typical color camera using a Bayer mask, four photo-sites are clustered together (2 green, 1 red, and 1 blue) to create 1 pixel. A monochrome camera has no Bayer mask, so no need to cluster photo-sites, but it can still cluster to use "binning" modes.

RAW files can be (and usually are) compressed. RAW does not use any "lossy" form of compression so the compression is not very high (unlike JPEG, which deliberately uses lossy algorithms.)

 

[table1349]

Read this...Why Raw -- Part I

I can't......... the guy needs to learn how to create a website using colors the human eye can utilize best to read. All those fluorescent colors make my head hurt.

If you quite sticking a screwdriver into an electrical outlet maybe your head would quite hurting.

 

[Gavjenks]

Read this...Why Raw -- Part I

Colorblind people probably don't know what they're talking about when it comes to the difference between raw and jpeg =P

Personally, I turn all that stuff off: for two reasons. One, I can apply them in post.

This is not a great strategy:

1) If you use a jpeg from your camera, then adjusting saturation or brightness or contrast in a photo editor later on adds banding. You get LESS banding if you set them the way you want in the camera, because that way its only adjusting and resaving a jpeg once, not twice. Every time you do anything to a jpeg you make it worse.

2) If you use a RAW, it doesn't get applied anyway

^Thus, you should always set them as best you can, because it either helps you or does nothing.

 

[Benco]

So with raw all that matters is the exposure triangle, none of the other in camera blah blah does anything at all?

 

[480sparky39 38]

This is not a great strategy:

1) If you use a jpeg from your camera, then adjusting saturation or brightness or contrast in a photo editor later on adds banding. You get LESS banding if you set them the way you want in the camera, because that way its only adjusting and resaving a jpeg once, not twice. Every time you do anything to a jpeg you make it worse.

"Not a great strategy"? :shock: I shoot raw, so I don't have any editing (banding, artifacts, etc.) issues because I'm not editing 8-bit JPEGs. Any editing I can do to a raw file I can always UNDO as well. I can create multiple copies of the same image without ever changing the original image. I ALWAYS have the original raw data to work with. So yours is a moot point.

2) If you use a RAW, it doesn't get applied anyway

^Thus, you should always set them as best you can, because it either helps you or does nothing.

Maybe, maybe not. As stated, depends on the software's setting. Some apply the camera settings by default, some don't.

I can always choose to apply it in post. I can change saturation, contrast, sharpness, vividness...... all those choices from the camera I can fiddle with to my heart's content. Endlessly. As much as I like. Totally reversible. No penalty.

 

[480sparky39 38]

So with raw all that matters is the exposure triangle, none of the other in camera blah blah does anything at all?

Well, things like camera blur, subject blur, missed focus, DOF issues, wrong lens, inappropriate/misused filter, etc. aren't part of the Magic Raw Formula.

 

[KmH]

A pixel (photo-site) is made up of several transistors and a photo-diode. - Active pixel sensor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

All digital cameras have an image sensor that can only 'see' in monochrome (luminosity). The Bayer Array, or the 3 layers of a Foveon image sensor in Sigma cameras, are used to interpolate the color of light falling on an area of the image sensor. Bayer filter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Foveon X3 sensor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The interpolation (demosaicing) that assigns a color value to an individual pixel is done by comparing many more than just 4 pixels - 2 green, 1 red, and 1 blue. Demosaicing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Data binning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Benco]

So with raw all that matters is the exposure triangle, none of the other in camera blah blah does anything at all?

Well, things like camera blur, subject blur, missed focus, DOF issues, wrong lens, inappropriate/misused filter, etc. aren't part of the Magic Raw Formula.

Oh yes, I'm familiar enough with those issues. I meant all the extra corrective gumph that's in the shooting menu.