[cali92rs]

I just don't know that running an image through Snapseed --regardless of the presence of lens profiles -- is going to really give much benefit over out of camera jpegs.

Yes, and that is the problem... a simple filter, such as what is available on VSCO or instagram, gets results that are as good or almost as good as in-camera JPEGs with the swipe of a finger. With a camera, you have to create multiple JPEG profiles, with different WBs, sharpening, noise reduction etc. and it is very non-intuitive.

[Rondec]

I actually enjoy post processing. The idea of taking an image and then seeing if I can make it match what my vision of it was. There are times it works, there are times it doesn't, but it isn't something that software can do for you. And using filters on everything is a poor substitute for it.

But part of the problem is that people want things that are saturated and sharpened to the max and then a little bit. That is the modus operandi for cell phone images and I'm afraid that when folks move on to ILCs they want to continue to emulate that look, even while using a larger sensor.

[wjjstu]

I actually enjoy post processing. The idea of taking an image and then seeing if I can make it match what my vision of it was. There are times it works, there are times it doesn't, but it isn't something that software can do for you. And using filters on everything is a poor substitute for it.

Cool. Only artisans care about that. Good enough is the bar that the mass market cares about.

[cali92rs]

1) There is the cellphone crowd that are happy looking at 8" images and just want to press a single button to add a filter and share. There are billions of these people.
2) There are the new parents/kids recital/high school sports/travel photographers where a cell phone isn't cutting it and do not want to use an over sharpened, over saturated filtered. This is the group that would be best served if camera companies focused in on software development and mobile solutions. They want an easier solution than tweeking and re-tweeking the cameras JPEG engines, but dont want to come home after a long day at work and sit in front of a computer screen for processing.
3) The gear heads and the manual control guys that agonize over every pixel.

There will always be a market for the #3 group. Heck you can still by a 8x10" field camera brand new, along with sheet film, all the development chemicals and darkroom equipment.

I think the problem is that camera companies (and message board gear heads) often think that groups 1 and 2 are the same. But in reality, they are very distinct. They want better than cell phone, and better than Instagram filters. But do not have the money for a full frame camera, and do not have the patience or time to fiddle with every RAW exposure.

[Aristophanes]

An Instamatic buyer was never going to buy an LX or F1, Fx or Minolta or Contax. Still true today.

The great middle class dSLR BestBuy binge buy of the 2000's was the anomaly. We're simply returning to the late 80's-90's model wherein wealthy consumers bought ILC's and everyone else bought fixed lens pocket rangefinders (what an iPhone essentially is). Emerging developed economy demographics don't change that.

You're arguing that ILC camera companies change the entire camera architecture to appeal to a market that doesn't want an ILC at all. Actual ILC buyers can and will post-process on computer platforms or will upload RAWs to a PP online development lab. That's a service opportunity waiting for an aggregator.

ILC owners use phones for snapshots and post to FB and Instagram, but ALSO use ILC's by choice and preference. It isn't binary!

They bought a LOT of ME Supers. And K1000s. And most pros in the film days had an Instamatic, or at the very least a Rollei or Olympus XA.

And they mostly used the same labs. The real difference was film, not a massive investment in a darkroom, now a Lightroom subscription, a heavy horsepower PC and monitor, etc.

Wealthy consumers of ILCs in the film days dint invest in darkrooms. The current ILC industry has made better image control a multi-thousand $$ investment in a personal home darkroom, along with a staggering time investment.

Apple is working on that with automated sorting algorithms, as is Google. They "get it".

But Pentax, Nikon, Canon, Olympus? Their very survival now depends on it.

Actual ILC buyers have been forced down a post-processing path that requires third party outlays and learning curves that detract from the longtime success trajectory of this industry. Apple bought into this narrative at one point with Aperture and brining a Sony exec on stage with Steve Jobs.

It's not binary, but the image flow from ILC to consuming viewer should not involve what does now. If you buy a K-1 and want to "pull the shadows" substantially in poor lighting, you shouldn't need to maximize the sensor your bought by also buying the "lab", meaning Lightroom plus the hardware to run it.

They ned to get this stuff onto $500 tablets. Some of the video editing I've done on tablet now rocks! It does 80% of "pro" software, covering the basics of trim, levels, cuts, markers, tracked, etc.

But for a still photo...it's a wasteland. You can't address core sensor and lens issues on anything other than a PC.

So in a way, yes, it's binary. It's either a PC or in-camera, while the entire rest of the photo industry is going mobile OS. Talk about missing the on-ramp.

Thom Hogan shows how out of touch the ILC industry is here:

A Different View of the Numbers | DSLRBodies | Thom Hogan

I concur wit him that few industries have seen such evisceration of their bread and butter.

[Rondec]

1) There is the cellphone crowd that are happy looking at 8" images and just want to press a single button to add a filter and share. There are billions of these people.
2) There are the new parents/kids recital/high school sports/travel photographers where a cell phone isn't cutting it and do not want to use an over sharpened, over saturated filtered. This is the group that would be best served if camera companies focused in on software development and mobile solutions. They want an easier solution than tweeking and re-tweeking the cameras JPEG engines, but dont want to come home after a long day at work and sit in front of a computer screen for processing.
3) The gear heads and the manual control guys that agonize over every pixel.

There will always be a market for the #3 group. Heck you can still by a 8x10" field camera brand new, along with sheet film, all the development chemicals and darkroom equipment.

I think the problem is that camera companies (and message board gear heads) often think that groups 1 and 2 are the same. But in reality, they are very distinct. They want better than cell phone, and better than Instagram filters. But do not have the money for a full frame camera, and do not have the patience or time to fiddle with every RAW exposure.

I've been impressed with the output I have seen from the K70 and KP cameras. While they aren't full frame, they certainly have pretty clean iso up to about 6400. I think camera jpeg engines have gotten an awfully harsh knock. For recitals and high school sports, they are more than adequate. It is not infrequent that I shoot jpegs when I'm on vacation and the output from both the K-1 and K3 is very nice. The times where I see a difference are mainly when I'm trying to maximize dynamic range, shoot higher iso than I know I really should or plan to print pretty big -- something like that.

I just think people here are way over estimating the number of people who are both dissatisfied with out of camera jpegs and aren't satisfied with digital filters, but who aren't willing to invest in software to do heavy duty processing of RAW images. My brother shoots with an SLR -- D7200 now -- and he shoots out of camera jpegs. Mostly he just drops them on facebook, sometimes with a filter and he's happy -- no reason that he shouldn't be if it works for him. You don't need to post process much if web size is your goal. You certainly don't need a full frame camera for that.

[cali92rs]

I've been impressed with the output I have seen from the K70 and KP cameras. While they aren't full frame, they certainly have pretty clean iso up to about 6400. I think camera jpeg engines have gotten an awfully harsh knock. For recitals and high school sports, they are more than adequate. It is not infrequent that I shoot jpegs when I'm on vacation and the output from both the K-1 and K3 is very nice. The times where I see a difference are mainly when I'm trying to maximize dynamic range, shoot higher iso than I know I really should or plan to print pretty big -- something like that.

I just think people here are way over estimating the number of people who are both dissatisfied with out of camera jpegs and aren't satisfied with digital filters, but who aren't willing to invest in software to do heavy duty processing of RAW images. My brother shoots with an SLR -- D7200 now -- and he shoots out of camera jpegs. Mostly he just drops them on facebook, sometimes with a filter and he's happy -- no reason that he shouldn't be if it works for him. You don't need to post process much if web size is your goal. You certainly don't need a full frame camera for that.

I am not arguing that in-camera JPEGs are not adequate for the majority of photos out there. This is the problem though:
- I want to shoot in a museum, so I have to alter the camera's WB settings, sharpening and NR settings.
- I go outside to the museums flower garden, so I have to re-change the WB settings, and reduce NR and perhaps change the sharpening, then chimp and tweek.
- After that, I go to dimly lit restaurant. Rinse, wash, repeat.

The quality of the JPEGs are fine, it is the camera's interface that makes it frustrating for a lot of first time DSLR owners. There is a reason why a lot of new DSLR owners complain that they are actually getting better results from their cell phone than their new camera.
There is no reason (besides lack of vision and resources) why a camera company could not create a user friendly, intuitive samsung galaxy/apple i-phone interface for developing RAWs.

[monochrome]

They bought a LOT of ME Supers. And K1000s. And most pros in the film days had an Instamatic, or at the very least a Rollei or Olympus XA.

And they mostly used the same labs. The real difference was film, not a massive investment in a darkroom, now a Lightroom subscription, a heavy horsepower PC and monitor, etc.

Wealthy consumers of ILCs in the film days dint invest in darkrooms. The current ILC industry has made better image control a multi-thousand $$ investment in a personal home darkroom, along with a staggering time investment.

Apple is working on that with automated sorting algorithms, as is Google. They "get it".

But Pentax, Nikon, Canon, Olympus? Their very survival now depends on it.

Actual ILC buyers have been forced down a post-processing path that requires third party outlays and learning curves that detract from the longtime success trajectory of this industry. Apple bought into this narrative at one point with Aperture and brining a Sony exec on stage with Steve Jobs.

It's not binary, but the image flow from ILC to consuming viewer should not involve what does now. If you buy a K-1 and want to "pull the shadows" substantially in poor lighting, you shouldn't need to maximize the sensor your bought by also buying the "lab", meaning Lightroom plus the hardware to run it.

They ned to get this stuff onto $500 tablets. Some of the video editing I've done on tablet now rocks! It does 80% of "pro" software, covering the basics of trim, levels, cuts, markers, tracked, etc.

But for a still photo...it's a wasteland. You can't address core sensor and lens issues on anything other than a PC.

So in a way, yes, it's binary. It's either a PC or in-camera, while the entire rest of the photo industry is going mobile OS. Talk about missing the on-ramp.

Thom Hogan shows how out of touch the ILC industry is here:

A Different View of the Numbers | DSLRBodies | Thom Hogan

I concur wit him that few industries have seen such evisceration of their bread and butter.

Everyone I grew up with had a darkroom. I had a darkroom. I still have a darkroom - I just don't use it. My daughter used it though.

Everyone I know has a powerful laptop. Everyone has software. Everyone has at least a BestBuy photo printer. I don't think you know the right people.

I started on a Spotmatic. My father started on an Argus C3 (low brow camera for the masses). MESupers and K1000's were 70's and early 80's cameras. People bought a lot of Spotmatics - those were the glory days. I still have my MESuper and KX. I still have my father's XA and SX-70. My brother had (has) an OM-1. They were and are rich boys' toys.

My upper middle class friends had a Nikon F or F1 Photomic or Canon F1 and I always felt inadequate. They had better toys. Wouldn't be caught using Flashcubes.

In the 90's the body of choice was an FM2N, then 2000's an FM3A. Those went on the shelf starting in 2004! Regular people still used fixed lens cameras with auto wind. Film was developed at a parking lot 1-Hour kiosk. Actual custom labs were for people who had ILC's and wanted custom printing - the same enthusiasts you don't think have a PC and Adobe subscription.

Again, you don't know who you don't know.

[reh321]

They bought a LOT of ME Supers. And K1000s. And most pros in the film days had an Instamatic, or at the very least a Rollei or Olympus XA.

And they mostly used the same labs. The real difference was film, not a massive investment in a darkroom, now a Lightroom subscription, a heavy horsepower PC and monitor, etc.

Wealthy consumers of ILCs in the film days dint invest in darkrooms. The current ILC industry has made better image control a multi-thousand $$ investment in a personal home darkroom, along with a staggering time investment.

Apple is working on that with automated sorting algorithms, as is Google. They "get it".

But Pentax, Nikon, Canon, Olympus? Their very survival now depends on it.

Actual ILC buyers have been forced down a post-processing path that requires third party outlays and learning curves that detract from the longtime success trajectory of this industry. Apple bought into this narrative at one point with Aperture and brining a Sony exec on stage with Steve Jobs.

It's not binary, but the image flow from ILC to consuming viewer should not involve what does now. If you buy a K-1 and want to "pull the shadows" substantially in poor lighting, you shouldn't need to maximize the sensor your bought by also buying the "lab", meaning Lightroom plus the hardware to run it.

They ned to get this stuff onto $500 tablets. Some of the video editing I've done on tablet now rocks! It does 80% of "pro" software, covering the basics of trim, levels, cuts, markers, tracked, etc.

But for a still photo...it's a wasteland. You can't address core sensor and lens issues on anything other than a PC.

So in a way, yes, it's binary. It's either a PC or in-camera, while the entire rest of the photo industry is going mobile OS. Talk about missing the on-ramp.

Thom Hogan shows how out of touch the ILC industry is here:

A Different View of the Numbers | DSLRBodies | Thom Hogan

I concur wit him that few industries have seen such evisceration of their bread and butter.

You need to re-explore the facts. I don't know you; I don't know what involvement you might have had in photography thirty years ago, but here is what I saw. Thirty years ago, towards the end of the film era, there were three groups of people who owned cameras:

(1) Inspired by Ansel Adams, these people spent many hours in a DR {DarkRoom} completing the process of turning their dream into a print.

(2) These people used slide film, often Kodachrome; once we pressed the shutter button, automation took over and produced a slide in a predictable manner

(3) These people simply wanted a print that resembled the scene they had photographed, so they took their film to a 1-hour place

Most people at discussion forums seem to have come from group (1), and assume that group was much larger than it actually was. Only some SLR owners were members of group (1); many of us were members of group (2) or (3). I can think of six acquaintances / relatives who owned an SLR; one of these was a member of a photo club which gave her access to DR. Four of us were members of group (2), and my mother was a member of group (3). In fact, my mother is an interesting example; she had a Canon and I had a Pentax, but independently we acquired similar lenses: 50mm kit lens, 28mm lens, Vivitar telephoto zoom lens {roughly 80mm-200mm}; we had related hardware and genes, but my film was mailed to Kodak and hers was dropped off at local supermarket's 1-hr kiosk on her way in the door.

And here is where your analysis breaks down - people with these leanings will approach processing differently.

Group (1), the group heavily represented here, is all gung-ho about PP, but will do it on a desktop computer with special hardware.

Group (2) is much more interested in advances, such as the special processor Pentax put into the K-70 and KP, which will improve what SOOC can do for us

Group (3) is basically satisfied with what the cameras are doing right now. This is the group that is all enamored with smart phones, so advances in smart phones will affect camera makers only to the extent that these people totally give up on separate cameras ... and that ship may have largely sailed already, which shows how out-of-touch you are ... and why there is no point to this discussion.

[clackers]

The idea that a prosumer ILC purchaser is going to also fork out $1,500+ for a PC, and then walk their photos back via an SD card (look at the Nikon D850 for their take on this) and plug it into same PC for "post" is archaic..

But they do.

I don't know any ILC owners who don't have a laptop or desktop - young, old or Asian. Especially the gamers!

Do you have statistics, or is this all in your head?

[Rondec]

But they do.

I don't know any ILC owners who don't have a laptop or desktop - young, old or Asian. Especially the gamers!

Do you have statistics, or is this all in your head?

It does seem like there would be a significant overlap...

[monochrome]

Thank you for explaining much better than I did.

and for giving me an organizing framework for using a K-1 and a KP

"Group (2) is much more interested in advances, such as the special processor Pentax put into the K-70 and KP, which will improve what SOOC can do for us"

I was already using the KP for casual purposes and transferring images to my phone using a card reader that has a lightning connector (much faster than WiFi), while using K-1 much more intentionally and deliberately, shooting RAW+, mostly with MF lenses. Perhaps I should just shoot K-1 RAW and KP jpeg.

You need to re-explore the facts. I don't know you; I don't know what involvement you might have had in photography thirty years ago, but here is what I saw. Thirty years ago, towards the end of the film era, there were three groups of people who owned cameras:

(1) Inspired by Ansel Adams, these people spent many hours in a DR {DarkRoom} completing the process of turning their dream into a print.

(2) These people used slide film, often Kodachrome; once we pressed the shutter button, automation took over and produced a slide in a predictable manner

(3) These people simply wanted a print that resembled the scene they had photographed, so they took their film to a 1-hour place

Most people at discussion forums seem to have come from group (1), and assume that group was much larger than it actually was. Only some SLR owners were members of group (1); many of us were members of group (2) or (3). I can think of six acquaintances / relatives who owned an SLR; one of these was a member of a photo club which gave her access to DR. Four of us were members of group (2), and my mother was a member of group (3). In fact, my mother is an interesting example; she had a Canon and I had a Pentax, but independently we acquired similar lenses: 50mm kit lens, 28mm lens, Vivitar telephoto zoom lens {roughly 80mm-200mm}; we had related hardware and genes, but my film was mailed to Kodak and hers was dropped off at local supermarket's 1-hr kiosk on her way in the door.

And here is where your analysis breaks down - people with these leanings will approach processing differently.

Group (1), the group heavily represented here, is all gung-ho about PP, but will do it on a desktop computer with special hardware.

Group (2) is much more interested in advances, such as the special processor Pentax put into the K-70 and KP, which will improve what SOOC can do for us

Group (3) is basically satisfied with what the cameras are doing right now. This is the group that is all enamored with smart phones, so advances in smart phones will affect camera makers only to the extent that these people totally give up on separate cameras ... and that ship may have largely sailed already, which shows how out-of-touch you are ... and why there is no point to this discussion.

[Rondec]

The enemy of good is better, while the enemy of better is "good enough."

Camera companies are constantly releasing better cameras, while many consumers are looking for solutions that are priced right and are good enough for their purposes.

[Winder]

I know a couple of people who are in the "Fuji JPEGs are awesome" camp. They have their film presets and they shoot them for weddings and portraits. There are advantages to this if the JPEG quality is good enough. When you look at their portfolios one of the first things you notice is how uniform it is. Because they are using the same film simulation all the time their portfolio doesn't look like a bag a Skittles. A lot of times when I look at a portfolio it is pretty obvious that I'm looking at a random collection of the photographers best photographs taken over the years. You can see the style change, the processing change, and you know your not really looking at real portfolio. Sometimes you open one up and it become obvious that the photographer recently bought Topaz Adjust.

Its extremely rare for me to shoot JPEG, but I have setup presets in LR that basically keep my work uniform. I would love to be able to create a profile in LR (or any software) and be able to upload that to my camera. I would also like to be able to create a color profile for the camera like the X-rite Passport does and have that apply to the JPEGs. I would probably shoot JPEGs more if these features were available. It has become common for us to need to put images on social media during the event or even a shoot. I have done shoots for bands where their manager blasted 5-6 images out to social media while we were shooting and encouraged fans to come watch the shoot. There is a definite need for high quality JPEGs.

For people who's goal is fine art and each image is unique and stands on its own, post processing is a skill that must be mastered.

[Rondec]

I am not arguing that in-camera JPEGs are not adequate for the majority of photos out there. This is the problem though:
- I want to shoot in a museum, so I have to alter the camera's WB settings, sharpening and NR settings.
- I go outside to the museums flower garden, so I have to re-change the WB settings, and reduce NR and perhaps change the sharpening, then chimp and tweek.
- After that, I go to dimly lit restaurant. Rinse, wash, repeat.

The quality of the JPEGs are fine, it is the camera's interface that makes it frustrating for a lot of first time DSLR owners. There is a reason why a lot of new DSLR owners complain that they are actually getting better results from their cell phone than their new camera.
There is no reason (besides lack of vision and resources) why a camera company could not create a user friendly, intuitive samsung galaxy/apple i-phone interface for developing RAWs.

Have you shot jpegs with auto WB and auto iso? Because a lot of that is built in. You set up your camera for iso range, how fast for the iso to go up, and when noise reduction kicks in.

The camera takes care of all these things for you, which to me is the point of jpeg shooting -- and it has come a long ways. The K5 was terrible with regard to auto white balance, but the K-1 is excellent and only has issues with really tricky lighting situations.

On the other hand, if you really are adjusting your jpeg settings all the time then you probably would be just as well to shoot RAW.