Okay, I'll admit it. RAW is pretty cool. I set up a small studio on the dining table yesterday. Black cloth draped as a background, potted fern as the subject, lit by on camera flash and slaved flash from the top.
Shot Jpeg and RAW. Spent a while mucking about with CS Camera RAW and I was pretty impressed with what I saw. The ability to pull back the highlight detail on the plant was definitely an improvement on the Jpeg, but that's what folk round here have been saying for a while :-) However, the Jpeg wasn't far behind. So my conclusion is that for serious landscapes, portraits, macros, all 'considered' and studious pieces, I will use RAW. But I think that such, how can I put this, picky attention to detail is not in keeping with my idea of a street snap. I think that candid grabs (what I would call 'snaps') retain the character of a sort of 'HCB moment' better with *less* attention to detail. I'm thinking of blown highlights and blocked up shadows. I'm thinking of focus and blur (Theraultian specialities). These things seem to define the essence of a snap, but not by describing individual parts of the image, but by taking in the image as a whole, the sum of the parts if you like. So for most of my work, I will continue to shoot Jpeg, like so: <http://www.cottysnaps.com/snaps/reportage/images/pic28.html> For those on-the-tripod studies, RAW is the way to go, without a doubt: <http://www.cottysnaps.com/snaps/nature/images/pic27.html> I made a 16x11 inch print of the fern from a 16 bit file for my wife and it is stunning. I'm sold. .02 Cheers, Cotty ___/\__ || (O) | People, Places, Pastiche ||=====| http://www.cottysnaps.com _____________________________
