PHOTOGRAPHIC THREADS: camera queries, any photo tech stuff!

[David Nicholson]

Tom, many thanks for your help.

[mark smyth]

David did you watch the Gadget Show this week? They tested bridge cameras. You can add telephoto lenses to them

Olympus Pen Lite E-PL3 £280
Samsung NX1000 £400

[David Nicholson]

No Mark didn't watch it I'm not particularly into in gadgets! Why would I need another telephoto lens anyway, as Tom says it's only to cart around. After all my camera usually only comes out to take a few pics in the garden and the greenhouse?

The review I read on the Fuji HS30EXR that I'm toying with buying mentioned something called "RAW" that it was capable of handling. I haven't a clue what "RAW" is can anyone tell me please (words should be of no more than two syllables   )

[Paddy Tobin]

David,

"Raw" is one of the file formats in which photographs may be saved on your camera and then computer. Its advantage over the more common jpeg is that it allows greater/easier manipulation of the image when you load it onto your computer.

That's the general gist at any rate.

[David Pilling]

David - cameras usually save pictures as JPEG files (.jpg, .jpeg), JPEG is a "lossy" format, to get compression some information is lost.

RAW amounts to saving exactly what comes out of the camera sensor.

In addition JPEG only saves 8 bits per pixel (256 brightness levels), RAW will save the full resolution perhaps 10 or 12 bits per pixels (10 bits equals 1024 levels). This means you have more scope for processing pictures when you get home, perhaps pulling detail out of the shadows.

Other comments. There's a lot of chat about the compact point and shoot camera being dead - killed by the improving cameras in phones.

Many of the bridge cameras have significant zoom capacity - probably as much as is sensible, you can't have massive zoom and it be any use.

DSLRs are seemingly getting lighter, the ones with no mirrors and you can use "super zoom" lenses which cover a very wide range, meaning you don't have to carry a bag full of lenses. Still a lot of trouble.

For Canon compact cameras there is a project "chdk" which via software adds loads of interesting features, including RAW - Google for more info.

[mark smyth]

If a magazine wants to buy an image they often ask for a raw file

[TC]

David

Forget about RAW unless you wish to spend time on your computer processing and tweaking your pictures.  At 16Mp, a jpeg will be more than adequate and I doubt you would see much difference.
If you take and keep your pictures in RAW, then you will probably need larger Sd cards and a larger Hard drive to store the resultant pictures.
As far as I can remember, RAW takes about three times the storage of jpegs.
I tried RAW for a while and then gave up as it was gobbling up space on my hard drive.

[Susan]

For something to be added into the mix - I have a Canon SX50HS, which is a bridge camera, and you can save images in RAW if needed.  It has a number of functions of a DSLR.  I have only had it a little while, as my other one died on me, so cannot give it a full review under all circumstances yet, but am satisfied at present.

Susan

[David Pilling]

RAW is better, just like a DSLR is better, but like a DSLR the amount gained is not in proportion to the effort.

Once I wrote programs that were less than 256 bytes long, and counted every byte. A few weeks ago I bought a 2TB drive, that's two million million bytes - I suspect people don't bother about how much space stuff takes any more.

I had a Canon Powershot A95, I am surprised to find that new Powershots don't have all the features that had, like a viewfinder and manual focus. Mine had nearly all the things you can twiddle on a DSLR.

Worse, people having seen me with the huge clutter that goes with a DSLR now don't believe that older photos were taken with such a modest camera.

[Lesley Cox]

If a magazine wants to buy an image they often ask for a raw file

RAW is all very well but they'd have to accept COOKED from me and probably BURNT as well.

[TC]

David P

I have 3 x 500Gb hard drives on my computer, 1x 2TB external hard drive, 1 x 750 Gb external hard drive and a hard drive casing which can play the hard drives from my previous computer using USB.2 ports.  Even with this, I am still running out of space !
For about a year, I have been trying to scan my slides and negatives from almost 60 years of photography.  It seemed a good idea at the time to record them as TIFF files.
I wondered why I was running out of space until I saw the TIFFS were coming in at 160 Mb from 35mm slides/negs.  I have given up that idea and now use jpegs - even they are running at 20Mb.  Thankfully the Nikon SUPERCOOLSCAN 5000ED can handle these at one per minute including the filter process to remove dust, scratches etc.
However putting them through photoshop to bring them up to a good level takes a bit of time and a lot of processing power.  I find my 8Gb of RAM just about enough.

To add to the burden by using RAW for my SLR would bring down my system!

[Anthony Darby]

RAW is all very well but they'd have to accept COOKED from me and probably BURNT as well.

Well done Lesley 

[Susan]

The Canon I have does have a viewfinder with a little wheel at the side to sharpen the view, and manual focus, although I find that a bit fiddly.  That is what I miss most  from my old pre digital SLR.

It has its own battery which means I no longer have to take a number of   AA batteries with me.  Just so long as it doesn't run out halfway through a day of garden visiting!

Susan

[David Pilling]

TC - sounds like you're making good use of the current technology. A few more TB storage would not cost much (about 40 quid per TB) and next year will be free

In the bad old days you would have been scanning your slides at lower resolution to save space.

For comparison with your TIFFs (160MB) the raw files on my 10Mpix DSLR are 8.8MB. Means film holds a lot more data.

[David Nicholson]

Thanks David, Paddy and Tom for help on the "RAW" issue. At least I know what it is now.