In camera processing how many of you do it and what are your thoughts.

[mwcfarms]

I was chatting with a friend who recently attended a photography workshop but Andras Schram, he's a well know Wedding Photographer in Alberta. Not sure how brilliant he is or isn't thats not my question, but at the workshop he was teaching to increase your saturation, contrast and sharpening in camera to help cut down on PP. I am just curious how many of you do this.

I have played around with it before and prefer to do this afterwords via computer but would love to hear other opinions on why and why not.

 

[KmH]

You can only do that if you shoot JPEGs, none of those settings get applied to a Raw file.

Many, many of the top Pro wedding photographers do only shoot JPEG.

But, they know how to get it almost perfect in the camera nearly every shot, and the PP they are doing is more about graphic arts effects than about fixing fuchups.

 

[Overread36]

True, but it depends what processing they use for RAWs - some RAW software options (normally the own brand ones) do read the in-camera editing settings and will default apply them to RAWs when you first open them up (its an option you can select to be active or not in the settings for the RAW processing software). Thus you can shoot RAW and make use of the in-camera editing features if you so choose.

Myself I don't - I far prefer to remain in control over my editing and I'm not always shooting in the same lighting conditions so whilst adding contrast boosting on one situation might work in another it might totally be the wrong move. Thus I set my in-camera editing to neutral values (so that the in-camera JPEG embedded into every RAW and used to show the histogram gives me an accurate representation of the RAW histogram) and edit outside of it totally in the RAW software and then in photoshop(elements).
That way I can not only retain control over the amount of editing done on each shot, but also use the selective editing controls so that I don't have every editing change applied globally to every shot ( because sometimes its not the whole shot that needs adjustment).

I think that if you are working pro its not just a case of getting the shots right in camera, but also being able to adjust your lighting to keep it the same through the day or on the fly adjust your in-camera editing to account for larger changes in the lighting and scenes as needed.

 

[Derrel]

This issue is kind of a slippery slope, because there ARE some valid reasons to customize the in-camera image adjustment parameters, but this also "depends" to quite a large extent on the exact, specific camera one is using. Different cameras have a different degree of "pliability" or "workablility" or "malleability" to their out of camera JPEG files. Some of the newer cameras, that use "Picture Styles" to custom tailor their images allow the user to set various types of proven pre-set parameters so as to tailor the JPEG output to a specific direction. Also, if the shooting volume is high, and the time constraints are pretty great, it's sometimes easiest to shoot RAW+JPEG, and set the camera up to output a JPEG image that has some sharpening applied, and also has Noise Reduction applied, and maybe even a custom tone curve applied to the image. if you need to cull through very large takes, like 300 to 800 frames from a sporting event, it's easier if the in-camera sharpening has been cranked up pretty high, so you can spot dead-on focus from ever-so-slightly soft focus. Some of the new Nikons that use the Picture Styles concept, like the D7000, are apparently "over-developing" their images, according to Thom Hogan's articles on the D7000, meaning that that specific camera model's default tone curve and image brightness is SIGNIFICANTLY higher that than of earlier Nikon bodies.

Not sure what camera or cameras Schram has been using; it's very possible that he's been shooting something like, say the Canon 5D classic for a while. It has a pretty tame, natural, neutral-looking image at its default or baseline settings, a lot like Kodak's old VPS NC or Natural Color film...not all "wow!" or "Whoa!"; the Nikon D50 by way of contrast, had almost eye-candy-like color saturation when used on Direct Print; same with the Nikon D40 while on Vivid mode--"eye-candy" output.

The biggest drawback in jacking up the contrast is that the in-camera-generated JPEG file is what the histogram is read from, and if that JPEG's settings are massively tweaked, the histogram will show that you have exposed fully well before the wider Dynamic Range .CR2 or .NEF file has been exposed all the way "to the right". If one sets the image contrast higher than normal, the histogram will indicate overexposed "blinkies" much earlier than needed for a wide bit-depth RAW file...so,there is some rationale for not adjusting the default values. But it does depend on the camera, and how it tend to meter and expose in your hands.

 

[mwcfarms]

Thank you guys for such excellent replies and your input. As always its very much appreciated.

 

[mwcfarms]

Now I am really confused she said she was using these with raw only and having it apply to the images. Can anyone explain that. I knew you could do it in jpeg but thought it wasn't possible in raw without the proper software.

 

[Overread36]

Read up again
Some RAW processing software packages can be set to read the in-camera JPEG settings from the RAW photo and then apply them to the RAW upon processing as the default starting point for the shot.

 

[mwcfarms]

But that's software then isn't it? So which type of packages you talking about the camera specific software or camera raw for instance.

 

[Overread36]

Yes its software - so it means she is using the in-camera settings as a default for her RAW processing to help speed the process up. It might not be and if she is working with RAW its probably not (unless she is just doing a bulk RAW - JPEG conversion on most shots). However if its her typical editing style that means her in-camera editing views and histogram are at least showing her a rough idea of what her finished editing style will look like (and making sure that it fits into the histogram without blowing out problems etc...)

 

[Stradawhovious]

The only time I have processed in camera was when shooting a sports gig (shooting JPEG). The files were going right from the camera to the viewing tables for the hockey moms, and since the majority of the sales were impulse buy prints directly after the games as the parents left there wasn't any time for post processing. Hell, there was barely enough time to upload the pics to the server. The only thing I used the in camera editing or was to straighten horizons and crop.

Other than that, I usually shoot in RAW, so it doesn't make any sense for me.

 

[mwcfarms]

Ok that makes more sense now. I guess it all depends on how you like your work flow.