Please share your camera settings

[sunnyVan]

Ken Rockwell claims that he doesn't need to shoot RAW and he said if you know what you are doing JPEG is fine. He also said the smallest size JPEG is good enough.

well I think I know what I'm doing but I need RAW. Anyway, my real question is
1. what size of RAW and JPEG do you normally use?
2. do you use camera NR at all? or do you use LR?
3. what settings would you advise against and for?

 

[Loswr]

RAW only. No in-camera NR (except long exposure NR as needed).

 

[Skywise]

RAW + JPG and I think the minimalist setting for NR with high ISO (which should only affect JPG I think?)

I take a lot of family vacation photos so it's easier to just dump the JPGs onto a USB for friends/family rather than post process all the RAW images. But, when I've got the time, I like to go back to post-process the RAWs of the "good" images.

 

[RGF]

Raw only. If I need a JPG I extract the embedded JPG (in the raw file).

No noise reduction, but I seldom shoot over 1 second.

 

[RLPhoto]

RAW + Small Fine Jpeg - Raw for edits, Jpeg for a carrier file or Instant needs.

Low NR in-camera and no long exposure NR.

 

[filo64]

Raw only. If I need a JPG I extract the embedded JPG (in the raw file).

RGF, have you found a convenient way of extracting the JPGs? I have only ever done it in a pinch on my android device - not on my Win7 PC - and it was a hassle.

 

[comsense]

Ken Rockwell claims that he doesn't need to shoot RAW and he said if you know what you are doing JPEG is fine. He also said the smallest size JPEG is good enough.

well I think I know what I'm doing but I need RAW. Anyway, my real question is
1. what size of RAW and JPEG do you normally use?
2. do you use camera NR at all? or do you use LR?
3. what settings would you advise against and for?

> "he doesn't need to shoot RAW"
Fair enough. Everyone has different needs!
I have some photos that were unusable as in camera JPEG and turned out decent processed from RAW (maybe he would say I don't know what I am doing).
But,
unless you are lunatic as hell,
I know what I am doing well,
super busy shooting children who run around and yell,
the greatest and only, Ken Rockwell.

modern cameras allows you best of both worlds. Recording RAW as well as JPEG!!!

> "if you know what you are doing JPEG is fine"
Right answer is it depends on the shooting conditions and histogram. Does he know what he is doing?

> "smallest size JPEG is good enough"
Again it depends? Good enough for what? For iphone?

Answers to your question:
1) RAW on CF card, Med-Low JPEG on SDHC card for quick review (SDHC goes into my laptop or ipad (with adaptor) for instant review).
2) Photoshop only for printing
3) See #1, you can record Med-High JPEG on SDHC card for quick web uploading if you prefer.

 

[RGF]

Raw only. If I need a JPG I extract the embedded JPG (in the raw file).

RGF, have you found a convenient way of extracting the JPGs? I have only ever done it in a pinch on my android device - not on my Win7 PC - and it was a hassle.

Breezebrowser Pro (www.breezsys.com) - at least my old version of the program extracts embedded jpgs

 

[Mr Bean]

Large RAW only for me. I used to shoot L RAW + S JPEG but since I've started using Lightroom, its way more convenient to run the JPEG's out of the Export process in LR (easy to nominate the image size, quality, etc, which I usually ended up doing with the S JPEG's from the camera anyway).

NR in LR.

 

[Click]

Large RAW or Large JPEG.

NR in LR.

 

[gary]

I only shoot RAW and convert out of Lightroom which I use for noise reduction, also use NIK for noise reduction if needed.

 

[Drizzt321]

I agree it somewhat depends on your needs and skills at getting the right exposure. However, there are some circumstances where it really does make a big difference. Such as the shoot I'm doing tonight, which is an inside dance/burlesque performance which will undoubtedly have some poor to really bad lighting. So RAW lets me push the exposure a bit and fix the white balance which is undoubtedly screwed up because multiple lights with different gels on them, and use what I believe is superior LR4 noise reduction as opposed to camera NR. I'll try out the Nik Dfine2 that I go through the Google Nik Collection deal.

So, long way of saying, I pretty much always shoot full-sized RAW with long exposure NR (which does darkslide exposure to subtract noise), and otherwise low or no in camera NR. And then after I sort through what I'm keeping, I delete the rest generally to save on storage space.

 

[Lgrant]

I shoot jpg 95% of the time and I have learned to get it right on the camera. I use neutral grey for white balance calabration for the current lighting. Gary Fong and David Ziser are jpg shooters.

 

[sunnyVan]

I agree it somewhat depends on your needs and skills at getting the right exposure. However, there are some circumstances where it really does make a big difference. Such as the shoot I'm doing tonight, which is an inside dance/burlesque performance which will undoubtedly have some poor to really bad lighting. So RAW lets me push the exposure a bit and fix the white balance which is undoubtedly screwed up because multiple lights with different gels on them, and use what I believe is superior LR4 noise reduction as opposed to camera NR. I'll try out the Nik Dfine2 that I go through the Google Nik Collection deal.

So, long way of saying, I pretty much always shoot full-sized RAW with long exposure NR (which does darkslide exposure to subtract noise), and otherwise low or no in camera NR. And then after I sort through what I'm keeping, I delete the rest generally to save on storage space.

There was a period of time when I made myself shoot JPEG only because I thought to myself an excellent photographer must be able to get composition, exposure, color balance, and everything else perfect on the spot. The I was introduced to what LR4 could do and I became a convert to RAW shooting.

The reason I asked about size is because large RAW is just too big for storage. I don't know if small is high enough for printing wedding photo sized canvas, which I think is the largest print size I would ever need.

I heard that LR DNG format is smaller than CR2. I never convert format when I import. And I don't know if I should.

 

[Canon-F1]

Ken Rockwell claims that he doesn't need to shoot RAW and he said if you know what you are doing JPEG is fine. He also said the smallest size JPEG is good enough.

well look at his kid shots.. would you waste time on them?
and for all his other shots it´s saturation all the way up and don´t care about the rest.

KR is a mediocre photographer at best.
all he does well, and that makes him kind of (in)famous, is polarizing opinions.

he even writes on his website that he makes things up.
or in other words he is lying about stuff. you take such a guy serious?

I enjoy making things up for fun, as does The Onion, and I publish them here — even on this page.

RAW gives you the best quality.. period.
why would you spend thousands of dollars on the latest and greatest gear only to diminish the returns by shooting JPG?

JPG make only sense when you need the images immediately.
journalism comes to my mind.

 

[RGF]

Ken Rockwell claims that he doesn't need to shoot RAW and he said if you know what you are doing JPEG is fine. He also said the smallest size JPEG is good enough.

well look at his kid shots.. would you waste time on them?
and for all his other shots it´s saturation all the way up and don´t care about the rest.

RAW gives you the best quality.. period.
why would you spend thousands of dollars on the latest and greatest gear only to diminish the returns by shooting JPG?

If you get a really good exposure, low constrat, no large adjustments - then JPG works well. However if you need larger adjustments then RAW is the way to go.

 

[Canon-F1]

If you get a really good exposure, low constrat, no large adjustments - then JPG works well. However if you need larger adjustments then RAW is the way to go.

works well.. yes. but even when you nail it 100%... a RAW will look better.

and how many settle for well here?
the canon sensors do well... now look at the discussions here.

there is so much talk about color rendition, DR, sharpness etc. and then shooting JPG... makes no sense if you ask me.

 

[sunnyVan]

Ken Rockwell claims that he doesn't need to shoot RAW and he said if you know what you are doing JPEG is fine. He also said the smallest size JPEG is good enough.

well look at his kid shots.. would you waste time on them?
and for all his other shots it´s saturation all the way up and don´t care about the rest.

KR is a mediocre photographer at best.
all he does well, and that makes him kind of (in)famous, is polarizing opinions.

he even wites on his website that he makes things up.
or in other words he is lying about stuff. you take such a guy serious?

I enjoy making things up for fun, as does The Onion, and I publish them here — even on this page.

RAW gives you the best quality.. period.
why would you spend thousands of dollars on the latest and greatest gear only to diminish the returns by shooting JPG?

JPG make only sense when you need the images immediately.
journalism comes to my mind.

I totally agree. KR is too opinionated and very subjective.

 

[Dylan777]

L-raw, NR off, everything set @ 0.

PP through LR

 

[Drizzt321]

I agree it somewhat depends on your needs and skills at getting the right exposure. However, there are some circumstances where it really does make a big difference. Such as the shoot I'm doing tonight, which is an inside dance/burlesque performance which will undoubtedly have some poor to really bad lighting. So RAW lets me push the exposure a bit and fix the white balance which is undoubtedly screwed up because multiple lights with different gels on them, and use what I believe is superior LR4 noise reduction as opposed to camera NR. I'll try out the Nik Dfine2 that I go through the Google Nik Collection deal.

So, long way of saying, I pretty much always shoot full-sized RAW with long exposure NR (which does darkslide exposure to subtract noise), and otherwise low or no in camera NR. And then after I sort through what I'm keeping, I delete the rest generally to save on storage space.

There was a period of time when I made myself shoot JPEG only because I thought to myself an excellent photographer must be able to get composition, exposure, color balance, and everything else perfect on the spot. The I was introduced to what LR4 could do and I became a convert to RAW shooting.

The reason I asked about size is because large RAW is just too big for storage. I don't know if small is high enough for printing wedding photo sized canvas, which I think is the largest print size I would ever need.

I heard that LR DNG format is smaller than CR2. I never convert format when I import. And I don't know if I should.

Hmm...well, I'd say it depends on the resolution of your S/M/Full RAW sizes. In general, S probably will give you most smaller print sizes. Take the resolution and divide by 300dpi to get how big a high quality print you can make.

Personally, the other use for full size RAW is if you find you need to crop to get framing/fix horizon/etc the extra resolution can be helpful. Then of course output at the size you need. You're right though, full sized RAW is very big, however my solution is to delete the ones that I decide are crap or aren't good enough to use. And then store them all on my ZFS NAS with CrashPlan backup.