Photography - equipment, help hints

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

I think it does. Just don't use it for shooting action shots. the camera will only fire once every two and half to three seconds and you'll miss some good shots. The processor is just not quick enough. I shoot my aircraft action shots on the step above RAW which is high quality Jpeg. Still slow in the action shot dept. but not to bad.

 

[ontos]

Maybe I'll try it at the next car show or some other still shots 8) I see you can set the camera for RAW+jpg, don't know how it works but interesting just to play with.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

I use the RAW Jpeg most of the time. That's what all of my shots posted here have been.

 

[ontos]

Thanks Aaron for the info, I'll give it a try and see how much memory I use up. Might have to get a larger memory card

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

Shooting in the RAW Jpeg I get over 700 photos on 4 gig card. In RAW, under 300.

 

[evangilder]

I used to shoot RAW and JPG, but found the RAW, while it give you larger files and more information to edit, is overkill for almost all of my photos. Having well over 100,000 photos now, I can't archive the RAW and the JPGs, and since I almost never use the RAW files, I stopped using them altogether and have gotten rid of my RAW files to save space. I know a lot of people swear by RAW files, but I have sold photos that are 8' x 5' (Yes FEET, not inches) as a JPG and they loved it. If the settings are right, the lighting is good and your hand is steady, you won't need to do much editing, which is what photography is all about.

One more thing, multishot bursts. I know many, many photographers that rapid-fire on each and every pass and I find that to be like the shotgun approach. I believe in composing the shot, then taking it. Even when an airplane is coming at me at 400+ MPH, I still compose it in my mind as it is careening toward me and hit the shutter at the right time. While I miss some, or have soft ones, I don't choke my hard drive with 25 shots of the same exact thing. I don't have the time to go through that many shots and my drive capacity is not unlimited. I will typically shoot 1500-2000 shots per show, which seems like a lot to me. But I know guys that shoot 10 times that amount (15,000-20,000) shots per show. If you can't get a few good shots outta 15-20,000 shots, maybe you need to take up golf!

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

Oh, and Merv, Windows cannot show RAW photos in Windows Pictures. You need to download a free app to get it to show them. You can find them on line. The one a friend had me download does not work. Go figure. I have not looked for another yet but I will.

 

[Gnomey]

I used to shoot RAW and JPG, but found the RAW, while it give you larger files and more information to edit, is overkill for almost all of my photos. Having well over 100,000 photos now, I can't archive the RAW and the JPGs, and since I almost never use the RAW files, I stopped using them altogether and have gotten rid of my RAW files to save space. I know a lot of people swear by RAW files, but I have sold photos that are 8' x 5' (Yes FEET, not inches) as a JPG and they loved it. If the settings are right, the lighting is good and your hand is steady, you won't need to do much editing, which is what photography is all about.

One more thing, multishot bursts. I know many, many photographers that rapid-fire on each and every pass and I find that to be like the shotgun approach. I believe in composing the shot, then taking it. Even when an airplane is coming at me at 400+ MPH, I still compose it in my mind as it is careening toward me and hit the shutter at the right time. While I miss some, or have soft ones, I don't choke my hard drive with 25 shots of the same exact thing. I don't have the time to go through that many shots and my drive capacity is not unlimited. I will typically shoot 1500-2000 shots per show, which seems like a lot to me. But I know guys that shoot 10 times that amount (15,000-20,000) shots per show. If you can't get a few good shots outta 15-20,000 shots, maybe you need to take up golf!

Agree Eric. I have played around with RAW in the past (and probably will again in the future - getting a Dell Ultrasharp photo PC monitor soon so will need to test it out). But it just uses too much HDD space and I never really do anything with them. High Quality JPEG covers most aspect for the most part and with a decent photo editing program it is still possible to make any adjustments needed despite the file limitations. 95% of the shots I've shown here on the site and elsewhere are High Quality JPEG and not RAW converts. I know people like to use RAW but for me it isn't really worth the extra effort and space it requires.

When shooting a moving object I normally compose the shot like you Eric but normally shot a 2-5 shot burst of it and then delete 2/3 of them immediately (ones that I don't like - if the choice is hard I'll skip this step for the next one) after reviewing the shots and then remove the other duplicates on the computer once I've looked at them.

Oh, and Merv, Windows cannot show RAW photos in Windows Pictures. You need to download a free app to get it to show them. You can find them on line. The one a friend had me download does not work. Go figure. I have not looked for another yet but I will.

Yep, need some photo editing software or otherwise. You should try Irfanview Aaron if you need to view RAW files but not edit them, to edit you'll need Paintshop Pro or Photoshop or something similar.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

I have PS 7 and it does fine. Just can't view images in Windows pictures if it's a RAW file.

 

[ontos]

Such great information guys. I agree with Eric and Gnomey, it does seem like a lot of bother when you get great shots with jpg. I have Photoshop CS5 which will work with RAW files, maybe just try one or two to play with

I agree with you on the rapid shooting Eric, I tried it that Saturday and it is easy to forget to take your finger off the trigger, like shooting a nice weapon 8)

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

Sounds like your having fun Merv.

 

[evangilder]

Yeah Merv, standing in the media pit on Saturday, I was the only one doing single shot. One of the pros standing next to me reminded me to lower my shutter speed after the jet passes. I looked at him and matter of factly stated "I didn't raise it for the jets.". He looked at me like a had two heads and said "ballsy". Well, I got the shots I wanted anyway.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

I want to make a comment sooooooooo bad.

 

[evangilder]

Oh behave.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

Amateurs.

 

[evangilder]

I understand everyone has their own way of doing things, and I'm okay with that, but I'm still an artist at heart. Compose and shoot, not spray and pray.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

I am nothing but an amateur. That's why I felt like I shouldn't say anything but we are amongst friends here so.

 

[GrauGeist]

As for me, I shoot in Pentax RAW (.PEF) and save it to a special Seagate Tb Freeagent, then extract the .JPG files to my other external drive. I rarely edit any of my photos...just eliminate the occasional dust-mote and sometimes try and save a blown-shot :/

I agree with Eric, I shoot single frame and compose each shot...if I screw up the shot, then I work harder not to miss it the next time

 

[evangilder]

Most of my editing is resizing and watermarking. Of course, dust spots are an ever present issue, especially where I shoot. But sometimes, I play around with older photos as a way of enhancing my photoshop knowledge. I had a bad glare on one of my recent shoots, and I figured out how to get rid of it, but it was not a quick edit, but it did look much better.

The key is to get a good shot. Everyone has a different way of going about it.

 

[evangilder]

On that note, post processing is an art, not a science. If I am editing for the website, I am a little less picky as reducing the size of the image can hide some of the imperfections. But when getting things ready for print, even the smallest dust spots stick out like spotlights (well, to me anyway). Plus if you are setting up a product to see, you want to make it the best value for your customer. Here is an example of what you can do in post processing. One is as it came out of the camera and only reduced with a watermark. The second is a smaller version of the 11x14 print size. Getting rid of the glare took some time, but I think it was worth it for printing. Since I was in there, I did a little color enhancing to make the best of it for printing.