Originally posted by normhead The jpeg is an interpretation, you tell the camera how you want the contrast, saturation, etc. before you take the image. The jpeg engine reads that data, tosses what it deems to be non-essential and compresses the rest. But it's still an interpretation. One that is changed by camera settings. The idea that jpeg is some kind of uninterpreted truth just isn't the case. It's a specific interpretation designed to be the best compromise for whatever image you shoot, but, it's not appropriate for every image, and probably wouldn't be even if you went into the menus before every image and adjusted the jpeg settings individually for each shot.
I understand the desire to "snap it and forget it" and there are many applications for that. The case has been made (and dismissed) that there is some kind of "purity" to jpeg images and that is lacking on more processed images. That's simply not the case. Sometimes you have to work hard to get a more realistic impression of what you saw. The jpeg thing is easy, but not necessarily the most accurate.
It is however always more convenient, and that's what jpeg shooters are going for. You can't convince me that given a choice between a dark undercarriage of a steam engine that is all back shadow as opposed to one with the undercarriage rescued from the shadows in raw, the unprocessed jpeg is the better documentary image, nor can you tell me that achieving the closest you can to the real life experience of being beside the actual train isn't the best documentary experience. "I just want an image, any image no matter how bad it is." is not an attitude most of us interested in photography encourage.
I would never claim that JPEG is pure, but it
is a consistent interpretation, which is what I want.
In the days of film, a professional photographer would show his railroad photos via a slide show, not prints hung on a wall; the organizers of the show would ask for assurance that he would use original slides only (*), so they could assure attendees that nothing had been modified .... in other words, they essentially followed the same standards followed by news and sports photographers. Today, for the Olympics at least {I've lost track of the article} they shoot JPEG and then potentially make certain limited edits, such as making photo plumb, cropping, and adjusting global levels. I choose to follow the same standards.
In the days of film, I would take several different shots of a steam loco, seeing which exposure gave me the best overall view. With slides, I might be "stuck" with a shot in which the boiler is too light; today, I read that best shot into gimp and use the "Curves" tool to darken the boiler some. You are welcome to use your artist's approach.
(*) Here is a longer version of my interest in photography:
In December 1966, I and a fellow member of the Purdue University RR Club were in downtown Lafayette IN when we noticed a really snazzy model locomotive "for the Burlington RR" in the hobby store window. I had been raised along the CB&Q {actual name of the RR}, and had never seen a locomotive like that; he was quite sure "Tyco wouldn't make it up". A few months later we had a slide show by professional Jim Boyd, and he showed several things we would have never believed if he hadn't shown us the photos; putting the two events together, I decided to start taking my own photos to record the things I saw, because they are much better evidence than memory is. Over the years I have majored on recording reality as it is - I would defeat my whole purpose if I removed a telephone pole regardless of how much it would "improve" the scene. Incidentally, I later understood the Tyco model: they had combined the silver color from the CB&Q's passenger units {which went with understated markings} with the bright markings from the CB&Q's freight units {which went with dull gray color}.