Why I Always Shoot RAW

Since I fully switched to digital some three years ago, I have always shoot in RAW format.  Digital medium has always been unforgiving over- and underexposure, much less forgiving than slide film.  And with ultra-megapixel-count-in-small-imaging-sensor like the GR-D, the tolerance for wrong exposure is even worse.  Consider this shot.

As you can see, the whites are pretty much blown out.  Since we are working on an 8-bit JPEG, highlight recovery is almost non-existent.

Fortunately, with the GR-D, we can shoot in RAW (The GR-D saves JPG and RAW at the same time when shooting RAW)…as you can see in that same photo, I was able to recover some of the highlights. 

In addition, I was able to control the saturation and contrast.  It is true that entailed more work, but in the end it provided a better image.

I should probably explain more like showing histograms and all that, but I’m too lazy.  I still haven’t finished my next camera review; it’s been almost two months since I announced that the next review is almost done.  Yes, I’m that lazy.  Sue me.

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 28th, 2006 at 10:39 am and is filed under Photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.