Hi Pentaxian friends,
If you shoot with compact digital cameras, you don't have much choice but to shoot in JPG mode, although a few compact do have a choice of using RAW as well.
If you shoot with a DSLR, you have the choice of shooting in JPG or RAW as well. Most makers have their DSLRs limited to the use of their own proprietary RAW format, except for a few. Pentax DSLRs are in the few that allows you to shoot RAW PEF (Pentax proprietary format) and RAW DNG (Adobe attempt to universal RAW format).
So what does RAW and White Balance have to do with each other?
First of all, you should use RAW all the time, as this is like the negative of the film heyday, and the original information remains on the RAW files. JPG files are post-processed directly from your DSLR, reduced is size and the information lost is never recoverable.
Now for the White Balance; There are plenty of White Balance filters, Expo-Discs, Expo-Caps, and other White-Balance gadgets and accessories, that in my opinion, are only effective if you use JPG format to begin with. In RAW format, the White Balance can be extensively manipulated in post-processing. Lightroom does an excellent job at that, but all post-processing software will do an adequate job. There are absolutely no differences in the final results with RAW format; whether the W/B is applied before or after taking the shot. So save yourself about $50.00 for these filters, shoot RAW and set your DSLR at Auto White-Balance and fix it as you please or as necessary in post-process. AWB will work just fine 90% of the time. Don’t let the manufacturer "in-camera" processor, with its limited power and with the manufacturer algorithms, do the JPG conversion for you. You will forever loose the ability to correct the W/B from the limited JPG file.
If you don’t shoot RAW yet...you will eventually. There are two types of DSLR users; the users that shoot RAW and those that will!
Thank you for reading,
Yvon Bourque
If you shoot with compact digital cameras, you don't have much choice but to shoot in JPG mode, although a few compact do have a choice of using RAW as well.
If you shoot with a DSLR, you have the choice of shooting in JPG or RAW as well. Most makers have their DSLRs limited to the use of their own proprietary RAW format, except for a few. Pentax DSLRs are in the few that allows you to shoot RAW PEF (Pentax proprietary format) and RAW DNG (Adobe attempt to universal RAW format).
So what does RAW and White Balance have to do with each other?
First of all, you should use RAW all the time, as this is like the negative of the film heyday, and the original information remains on the RAW files. JPG files are post-processed directly from your DSLR, reduced is size and the information lost is never recoverable.
Now for the White Balance; There are plenty of White Balance filters, Expo-Discs, Expo-Caps, and other White-Balance gadgets and accessories, that in my opinion, are only effective if you use JPG format to begin with. In RAW format, the White Balance can be extensively manipulated in post-processing. Lightroom does an excellent job at that, but all post-processing software will do an adequate job. There are absolutely no differences in the final results with RAW format; whether the W/B is applied before or after taking the shot. So save yourself about $50.00 for these filters, shoot RAW and set your DSLR at Auto White-Balance and fix it as you please or as necessary in post-process. AWB will work just fine 90% of the time. Don’t let the manufacturer "in-camera" processor, with its limited power and with the manufacturer algorithms, do the JPG conversion for you. You will forever loose the ability to correct the W/B from the limited JPG file.
If you don’t shoot RAW yet...you will eventually. There are two types of DSLR users; the users that shoot RAW and those that will!
Thank you for reading,
Yvon Bourque
7 comments:
I have to agree with you, Yvon. There are other reasons why I shoot RAW, but WB was certainly at the top of my list when I said goodbye to JPEGs. Many other benefits I discovered on my own as I went along.
The K10D has pretty good AWB performance as long as you're not under tungsten lights, but I do shoot a lot indoors, so RAW helps me out there. The K100D Super, however, has much worse AWB than the K10D under any lighting situation. I cannot imagine shooting the K100D Super in JPEG!
I can not agree more, I've taken more than 8500 shots with my K10D/K20D and less than 60 of them were in JPG... Of course, it takes 3 to 5 times the space on your disk but WB and even more importantly to me, the fact that you have 12 bits of colour to play with, not 8...
Excellent advice EXCEPT when shooting in continuous mode at sports events. I take an average of 800 shots at one game. It's just not practical to shoot these in RAW given the file sizes and limitations RAW places on continuous shooting. Thankfully, my K20D's AWB is great, even indoors under most flourescent, but I find that custom adjusting is still sometimes necessary indoors. Again, with a little WB manipulation in camera it is rare that I wish I could shoot RAW when shooting sports. It would just slow me down. I do notice much better AWB or custom WB with K20D compared to K10D though.
Jay
Defence 1,
If you must take 800 pictures per game, as much as I hate to say, maybe you should be shooting with Nikon or Canon. They are the champions of sport photography and fast continuous shooting. However, you create a lot of work for yourself in having to review 800 pictures. There was sport photography before digital, and not @ 800 pictures per game.
However, everyone has their preferences and needs and since that works for you, keep it up.
I can see why RAW wouldn't work for you.
No,no, no, my friend! If I were using C or N cams with double or more the frames per second that the K20D has, I'd be taking 1600 pictures or more per game. Instead of having up to 25% of my pics useable, it woud be down to 10%. I stand next to those "champions of sport photography" you reference as they "machine gun" every player move while I take my shots much more efficiently. I'll stack my shots up against theirs anytime. Nearly every accomplished sports photographer, regardless of the camera make, shoots in jpeg for the reasons I stated PLUS we have to upload our pictures to our media source FAST. I need mine posted within 24 hours of the event at the most. No time for leisurely PP. This means zero to ten minutes of WB manipulation TOPS (no expo disc type gadgets) to get the WB right before the event and only under artificial light. Believe me, it's not a big deal with the K20D. I can't say as much for the terrible WB I've seen in shots taken by Champion C and N cameras. Go Pentax! I don't know why people don't believe Pentax can do as well with sports action as C and N. I guess it's a testimony to their marketing efforts but I don't see their superiority when comparing apples to apples in cameras.
Defence 1,
That's real good news. I don't shoot sports myself and I see why you need to quickly upload your images. And I thought that Nikon and Canon were first at something other that highest prices. Now they are only champions of highest prices.
Nice post. Shooting RAW is the way to go for sure. This becomes the case even more as buffers get larger and memory cards get larger/cheaper.
In almost every situation, I'll choose to take RAW shots over JPEG. I've got some sample shots and experiences listed here on my RAW pictures blog post.
Thanks again for the great blog post.
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