How accurate is Ken Rockwell?

[AlanKlein]

KR's main point is that people and manufacturers and blogs overate the technical importance of cameras. Rockwell's point is that digital has progressed to the point that if you can't shoot a meaningful and technically proficient picture, then it's you not the camera. He constantly reminds people it is the photographer, not the gear. The rest of what he says is just conversation. Focus on the first part of his advice and just entertain yourself with the rest of his stuff. Your Camera Doesn't Matter

 

[480sparky]

......And I cant tell the difference between raw and jpeg images the majority of the time. They look near identical........

The reason is simple: Your brain doesn't have the ability to see the difference.

The reason JPEGs are 8-bit images is because there's more information in a simple 8-bit image than the human brain can differentiate. To give you an example, try this:

One side of this green rectangle is darker than then other side. Just by looking at it, can you tell which side is darker? One side is 0:183:0 and the other side is 0:184:0.

This is why JPEGs are, by design, 8-bit images. The difference in colors at this bit level are imperceptible to the vast majority of people. Any more visual data is a waste.

This, and most computer monitors are incapable of displaying any more than 8-bit color depth images anyway. A 12- or 14- bit raw file is rendered on the monitor by the video card as 8-bit.



However, when it comes to editing, having as much data as possible makes extreme, heavy-handed edits far more easier.


A few years ago, I posted a challenge for TPF members to alter a JPEG image that was taken with the incorrect white balance to make it more in line to one take with the correct WB. If memory serves, only one member succeeded, with great difficulty, and with mediocre results.

 

[Scatterbrained]

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......................................................... I cant tell the difference between raw and jpeg images the majority of the time. They look near identical.

I am curious as to know the amount of dynamic range difference as well. seems if I take one of each in post and purposely try to blow out the highlights there isn't really a ton of difference. (I just tried it).
would you guys at least agree, that in ninety percent of the images people shoot jpeg is perfectly fine?

You won't be able to tell the difference until you open them up in a raw converter and start to push and pull the file. For example, I know that when my camera starts to show clipped highlights on the histogram (as well as the "blinkies) that I still have about a stop of headroom in the raw file. In the jpeg the highlights are blown (the preview image and histogram are rendered from the jpeg) but with the raw file the data is still there. The same is true for shadows (even more so for exmor sensor equipped Sony and Nikon cameras); barely visible detail in the jpeg can be lifted to render a properly exposed area, but only if you have the raw file. This comes in quite useful in challenging lighting situations. The differences aren't just going to "show themselves" to you, so to speak. To view the image it has to be rendered into an 8 bit jpeg with a tone curve applied. That is what you see. That doesn't have to be the final image.

As far as being happy with jpegs, there are a lot of simple situations where raw is better even when you don't plan on doing extensive editing. For example, you can't apply a custom color profile to your images if they're shot in jpeg, but you can if you shoot in raw. This can be quite helpful when accurate color renditions are needed but the light source had spectral deficiencies (think doing product or copy work on the cheap with LEDs or CFLs). You can simply create a color profile for the light source using a color checker, then batch that to all the images. What if you want to apply a specific tone curve that isn't one of the standard curves applied to jpegs? For example, in this series of images, I decided with tone curve I wanted to use, and then just batched that and all the other global edits to the whole set of images. If the tone curve had been baked into the jpeg I wouldn't have been able to get that result.

Amelia and Natasha: Before the First Recital by tltichy, on Flickr​

The tone curve looks like this, and is a variant of what I do to a lot of my portraits:


Sure I could make an in-camera jpeg preset with this tone curve, but it's primarily for high key B&W and portraits; am I going to make 5 different B&W and portrait presets and then keep changing back and forth as I go? No, it's too easy to forget to change a setting that way. Shooting in raw lets me fine tune these things to get the optimal result, rather than getting "close enough", I can get exactly what I want. To drag out a tired cliche, it's like the Ansel Adams way of looking at photography. You want quality, not quantity. Every image deserves to be looked over carefully until you get exactly what you want. Even with something as basic as dodging and burning, you can kill a jpeg pretty quick due to banding.

Of course, if you're on the sidelines of an NFL game and you are shooting images off to the editor in between plays by all means throw that baby in jpeg and fire away.

 

[robbins.photo]

. I followed his advice which means all my photos from when I first got a DSLR were shot in JPEG basic instead of RAW which just about killed any post processing potential.


Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

I started digital just doing jpeg. Some of my cameras only shoot jpeg. I still shoot jpeg. If I am using a camera with jpeg plus raw I will shoot jpeg with raw. Even with that, im more likely to just shoot jpeg.

Most of my photos, don't need a raw file.
I didn't get that from Rockwell. Another old timer told me that. There are benefits to shooting raw, but you don't HAVE to shoot raw. In fact if you have to shoot raw for everything there might be a problem.
Don't they all get transformed to jpegs or tif anyway? jpeg is convenient and quicker as well. jmo
sure, you have more options for processing raw. But why, do you need more options on the majority of your images?

In two words, white balance. Yes, the final image will end up in jpg format, but by shooting raw I have all the color information the camera captures available when I go to post process. This gives my editing software a lot more to work with when it comes to things like adjusting the white balance.

I still do shoot jpg on occasion when being able to fire a longer continuous burst becomes important, but I prefer raw when I can for more choices in post.

Sent from my LG-LG730 using Tapatalk

 

[tecboy]

Oh no, we got another Ken Rockwell!

 

[robbins.photo]

Oh no, we got another Ken Rockwell!

Would that then not make him a Rockette?

Step kick jpg - step kick jpg.. lol

 

[robbins.photo]

Trying to edit a JPG to their specifications would be like trying to poke warm butter up a wildcat's anus with a red-hot ice pick.

Sparky my friend, stunning imagery - as always. You know I think you may have missed your true calling. You might really want to consider a career in poetry.

 

[tecboy]

Trying to edit a JPG to their specifications would be like trying to poke warm butter up a wildcat's anus with a red-hot ice pick.

Sparky my friend, stunning imagery - as always. You know I think you may have missed your true calling. You might really want to consider a career in poetry.

You just cracked me up! Leave Sparky alone, he is a cool guy.

 

[robbins.photo]

Trying to edit a JPG to their specifications would be like trying to poke warm butter up a wildcat's anus with a red-hot ice pick.

Sparky my friend, stunning imagery - as always. You know I think you may have missed your true calling. You might really want to consider a career in poetry.

You just cracked me up! Leave Sparky alone, he is a cool guy.

Ya, your right. Probably not to many things that rhyme with "anus" anyway.. lol

 

[AR76]

Ya, your right. Probably not to many things that rhyme with "anus" anyway.. lol

Something to help you with 'anal poetry':

7 Double ryhmes
2083 Last syllable ryhmes

 

[robbins.photo]

Ya, your right. Probably not to many things that rhyme with "anus" anyway.. lol

Something to help you with 'anal poetry':

7 Double ryhmes
2083 Last syllable ryhmes

Well heinous was the only one I could come up with off the top of my head but i'll check out that link.. lol

Sent from my LG-LG730 using Tapatalk

 

[Derrel]

The last really GREAT JPEG camera I owned was the Fuji S2 Pro d-slr. Fuji had a unique, very simplified control panel on the rear LCD of the S1 and S2 models. It had three main ways to control the JPEG result. Color Saturation, Tone Curve; and Sharpening. C-T-S, for Color, Tone Curve, Sharpening

Here is a link to a dPreview review, that shows the simple, easy to access method Fuji used to make one of the best JPEG shooters ever. rearcontrols-001.jpg

Currently, the Fuji X- line of cameras have gained notoriety as being capable of exceptionally good SOOC JPEG capture, at least according to people like Zack Arias and David Hobby, who have shot numerous professional assignments using nothing but SOOC Fuji X-series JPEG images. But Fuji has a different history and a different approach to color and to images than say, Sony, or Nikon, or Canon. FujiFIlm had decades' worth of experience as a film and color-printing paper manufacturer, and they have approached picture-making with a different set of knowledge than the plain ol' camera makers.

One thing I noticed when I was shooting the Fuji S2, against the Nikon D1h, and then later the Canon 20D...the Fuji JPEGs had more room for editing than the rather flimsy JPEGs older Nikons and Canons created. ANd the other thing is that matching C and T, color saturation and vibrance levels, and Tone Curve, to the subject matter and lighting, was really important. The Fuji S2 Pro made those critical adjustments EASY, because frankly, there were so few buttons, and the system recognized that those two controls are really important to take command of. On today's 10-years-newer d-slrs, there are many dozens of control options, so the options are more or less buried in menus; the Fuji S2 Pro had "hard buttons", dedicated exclusively to controlling the way the images would be processed by the camera. The S2 Pro was, in most ways, really a fine, fine SOOC d-slr, built at a time when RAW image processing was slow, one-file-at-a-time, and really rather clunky and primitive. Controls such as highlight recovery, digital fill light, shadow/highlights, and so on were really NOT available, but were just around the corner, in the future of software.

 

[Vince.1551]

I use DXoMark as a guide for the technical side of things. On the practical side, I'm opined that actual test is the best presuming you can rent or borrow what ever equipment you are keen in comparing or to buy.

 

[astroNikon]

.........I occasionally weave fiction and satire into my stories ..............

Here's the proof (NSFW!!!!!!!)

that reading really ruined my day :thumbdown:

 

[astroNikon]

Sparky my friend, stunning imagery - as always. You know I think you may have missed your true calling. You might really want to consider a career in poetry.

You just cracked me up! Leave Sparky alone, he is a cool guy.

Ya, your right. Probably not to many things that rhyme with "anus" anyway.. lol

Famous Anus ...