I certainly understand the "get the shot right" approach and I'm slowly getting better at it. At the same time, what's "right" isn't exactly clear for many of us. It's partly because we're amateurs &/or relative newbies of course, but it's also because exploration and experimentation is part of the fun.

A major lesson I draw from this thread is the need to distinguish more clearly between the "production" shots (my daughter's sports and most of the travel & family photos) from the those which require or deserve special attention--as well as the "I wonder what I'd I get if I used these settings" shots.

Try forgetting about the settings and focusing (NPI) on the picture primarily. A good exercise for training the eye is to cut a rectangle out of a piece of cardboard and use it as a viewfinder frame. Take it for a walk instead of your camera and frame some shots, take a little time to see what's in the frame and identify what needs to be in there and what doesn't.

[Marc Sabatella]

Marc, sure there is no "one exposure fits all" back in film we bracketed exposures and trashed the bad ones. We didn't take the shot just to have it. We thought about each shot a lot more than we do with digital. Now it doesn't cost us anything. (You know what I mean) And if it's not perfect why we can make it so in PP. I try to keep a lot of my film techniques in my digital shooting. And then I chose the shot closest to "perfect" and spend a minute or two and that's it. Same as I would have done in the darkroom. Or had a tech do for me.

Yeah, that's pretty much my point. Whether you shoot RAW, JPEG, or film, virtually every image can benefit from some sort of "post processing" (whether in darkroom or software). How much time is worth spending on this is another matter, of course; that's something everyone has to decide for themselves.

Yeah, that's pretty much my point. Whether you shoot RAW, JPEG, or film, virtually every image can benefit from some sort of "post processing" (whether in darkroom or software). How much time is worth spending on this is another matter, of course; that's something everyone has to decide for themselves.

Hey Marc, you feeling OK? This may be the first time we've agreed right off the bat.

Try forgetting about the settings and focusing (NPI) on the picture primarily. A good exercise for training the eye is to cut a rectangle out of a piece of cardboard and use it as a viewfinder frame. Take it for a walk instead of your camera and frame some shots, take a little time to see what's in the frame and identify what needs to be in there and what doesn't.

So he should go around looking like a dork?

[Lowell Goudge]

Yeah, that's just crazy talk. If one were limited to just the particular exposures, tonal response curves, and colors that can be set up in camera, a lot of photography would hardly be worth the effort. I mean, sure, *some* pictures can be made that way, but an awful lot are improved significantly by being able to control things at a level beyond what can possibly be done in camera.

it's not about one set of cast in stone settings, that is what a roll of film was, and it was not good enough, that's why people shot different films in different situations.

what I do believe is that for most situations, it is possible to get JPEG settings that are very close for that situation, in terms of WB, contrast, saturation etc, and knowing how to make those settings in camera.

Is it perfect, no, I will admit that, but it is good for probably 95% of all situations. If you know that and also know when to recognize you need something extra, then that is when you push the RAW button.

[dadipentak]

So he should go around looking like a dork?

A dork with a piece of cardboard instead of a dork with a camera

The thing is, I'm constantly looking at things through a mental viewfinder but if I have the time to do this sort of exercise, I'm going to do them with a real live camera and check out the results on a real live computer. I think that's one of the great things about digital--you get almost immediate feedback at negligible cost.

[Eaglerapids]

I must be weird or something. I don't think of pp as work, it's time I get to spend with the images I shot and try to figure out why something worked or usually, why it didn't. And with the practice I get doing this I've worked out a flow of the things I do and would like to think I've improved in this area. By trying to get each image as good as it can be I've gotten better getting the shot in-camera when I can and I better know what I will be able to correct by reading the histogram when I take the shot. Maybe you guys who were developing your own film have already spent this time and you don't need to continue but, for me, I need to do a lot of something before I learn all the nuances of what can even be done. If a guy never tries to really optimize any of his shots, how will he learn to do it in the first place?
I think I'm beginning to understand one thing, though. A big majority of the really really great shots we see have had some really great post processing done to them. And a big majority of the pics I see where the guy says "this is straight out of the camera, no pp done" I'm seeing a bunch of things that could be done to make the picture better.
I'm not saying you can take a turd of a picture and turn it into a golden goose with post processing, but a great picture straight out of the camera can be probably be made even better with judicious processing.

[Ron Boggs]

dosdan--for leveling a grid screen has proven very helpful for me through the years. On cameras that don't have a grid screen available, I use a bubble level that fits in the flash shoe. Of course, the new K7 has a leveling feature but I haven't upgraded to try it. For sports shots with constant movement, you'll need to develop your eye as the action will preclude leveling. Also, as a coach for a preOlympic youth sports program I can assure you that you are overshooting the event (or more likely underediting). By high school, you'll only bother to look at the best half dozen shots from the previous 10 years of soccer. So I recommend working on angles, timing and perspective for a few great shots rather than taking and "fixing" lots. Btw, this summer I had half a dozen sports shots published in a variety of newspapers. Several of the shots were far more out of kilter than what you are comfortable with. Sometimes the angle implies motion and speed rather than poor technique.

marc sabatella--your perspective on PP being a part of all photography--if I'm hearing right--forgets that many pro's still shoot slides or larger transparencies which are commonly submitted directly to publishers--no chance for PP at all period! Get it right or don't sell it--end of story. I have to admit that images I feel are important I shoot on slide film and don't bother with digital at all. True, I'm no pro, but I have published around a thousand images and sell a few high dollar fine art prints too, so this method can be workable for high level imaging. Digitally adept folks tend to presume that PP and digital is the only way but Pentax's most famous shooter perhaps ever--Robert Glenn Ketchum--still uses medium format slide film for much of his work. Unretouched is more common than you think! (there are still dozens of magazines that only accept color slide transparencies for submissions and note that the contest Marc Langille scored well in last year required unretouched raw images--no PP. So getting it right in-camera is not only realistic but at the pro level it's EXPECTED!

[dosdan]

Also, as a coach for a preOlympic youth sports program I can assure you that you are overshooting the event (or more likely underediting). By high school, you'll only bother to look at the best half dozen shots from the previous 10 years of soccer. So I recommend working on angles, timing and perspective for a few great shots rather than taking and "fixing" lots.

Ron, I think I know which ones I'll be keeping, but I'm shoot all the players in both teams and I do the after-game presentations for both sides so I find I take 150-300 shoots and wittle it down to 60-140 for display at Picasa Web Albums - Dan Bridges

It's really about giving the parents something that shows their child trying hard (at this level anyway). There's not much skill yet.

My favourties are in my gallery: User Photo Gallery - Uploads Posted By dosdan

I can hardy wait for next year's season to start.

Dan.

[IowaBoy]

I never think about post processing while taking photos. I know some of what I take is simply documenting I was there, what I saw, and when I saw it. While shooting 50 -100 pictures I will see some that might approach art but the viewfinder is too small to judge everything I need to do to create something from the slice of the world I choose to photograph.

Recently I shot some snaps of of squash & I felt king of stupid arranging them (making the picture not just taking the picture). On my computer with some pp I really liked them a lot.

Besides I am a warm weather photographer & I look forward to spending a long winter pping a summers worth of pictures . So 1/3 taking and 2/3s making with post seem about right to me and I don't miss the smell of darkroom chemicals a bit.

[*isteve]

I dont ever "fix" images - I try and "enhance" them to create the look and atmosphere that I wanted - but I never try and fix mistakes. Those go in the trash.

The camera has limitations and like Ash, I shoot with that in mind. To me the capture stage is literally about providing the best "raw" material. I try and get the composition and focus spot on, and expose to preserve highlights - BUT if the DR of the scene exceeds the limits of quality recovery I wont bother - unless I plan to do HDR.

Like Wheatfield I find it takes longer to handle portraits. Not because they are more complex, but because the human brain is so tuned in to the appearance of a human face that the smallest mistakes look incredibly obvious. It takes very subtle editing to make portraits look impressive or attractive without looking fake.

I'm not sure where to post this, but...

Is there anybody else out there who has reached a point with their digital photography that they have gotten caught up in the technology of processing the image and now spend more time "fixing" images than they do "taking" images?

I think the issue is using RAW and the infinite choices and permutations of every image. I now spend a few minutes taking a shot and then hours, and I do mean hours, trying to tease the "perfect" image out of that RAW data. And of course, perfection isn't there and the process is unending. With that comes the nagging sense that the post-technology is sucking the joy out of the process and getting between me and the sometimes frustrating but ultimately more exciting creative world of photography.

If you reached this point, how did you work through it? It seems perhaps to shoot in jpeg and trust to the vagaries of the camera and your settings? This isn't a burning issue, but I'd be interested in comments,
Brian

[gwing]

Dosdan asked:

I 've got a question for you film guys. I photographed a lot of U7 Soccer matches this year. Even with a tripod, I find I spend a fair amount of time levelling shots in PP. I like to have less than 0.5 degree of tilt in the final shot, otherwise I find it distracting. How did you get on in the days of film with levelling when you where trying to follow action?

In reply:

Well, I just use to take the shot, trying to keep it level no more or less than any other shot and relying on force of habit for this - after all I would want to be concentrating on the subject not the technicalities. Chances are if it wasn't level it was because of some reason, such as the angle of players etc. subconsciously affecting your view when taking the shot so the end result could be either worse or better than actually having the camera level.

Where it wasn't level and that was something I wanted to correct there was a bit of adjustment possible in the slide mount (I used to use transparencies almost exclusively). For prints there was obviously no problem as you could crop to a level. Very few were so bad they couldn't easily be handled so it wasn't ever a major concern for me.

These days with digital PP its all much easier of course.

[Eaglerapids]

Maybe the big difference between slides and digital, in particular raw images, is that raw images straight out of the camera need to be developed in some way. Different raw converters do this in different ways, they have different defaults. The question is whether we shall be a slave to the default settings or learn what the different settings do and work them to our vision. I understand exactly the mindset of the old school slide shooter, I used to shoot them also because I was so frustrated shooting negatives and it didn't matter what EV I used, the printers always made all the prints look the same.
I'm saying that we aren't shooting slides with our digital cameras so we can lose that mindset now. We are now free to develop our own photos and do it any way we want! We just need to learn how and that takes practice. There are great reasons to still shoot film and slides and that's fine but it doesn't mean we still have to be a slave to that mindset as we move into the digital world.
BTW, I bet Ansel Adams never made a print that he didn't dodge and burn and develop to his vision. If that would have satisfied him, he could have just sent them out to a printer and he could have spent more time in the field. Why in the world would he have spent so much time printing them himself if he wasn't post processing them?

[Marc Sabatella]

what I do believe is that for most situations, it is possible to get JPEG settings that are very close for that situation, in terms of WB, contrast, saturation etc, and knowing how to make those settings in camera.

Depends on the situation and how close is "very close". For many simply lit landscapes and cityscapes, I agree the default curves are often "close enough" for my purposes. And of course, for portraits or still life where you are in control of the lighting, you can get it as perfect as you need. But for most shots taken under available artificial lighting, it's pretty rare in my experience that the scene itself is artistically ideal in the distribution of light and shadow. Similarly for outdoors shots in more complex lighting (scenes with heavy shadows & hence too much dynamic range, etc). So that even if I have the highlights exposed exactly how you want, and the overall contrast too, it's very often the case that I'll want to exercise more control over the transitions from light to shadow.

Would the picture have been usable straight out of the camera? Sure. But as someone who came to photography from landscape painting, I'm accustomed to wanting more control over the whole light-shadow continuum.

[Lowell Goudge]

Depends on the situation and how close is "very close". For many simply lit landscapes and cityscapes, I agree the default curves are often "close enough" for my purposes. And of course, for portraits or still life where you are in control of the lighting, you can get it as perfect as you need. But for most shots taken under available artificial lighting, it's pretty rare in my experience that the scene itself is artistically ideal in the distribution of light and shadow. Similarly for outdoors shots in more complex lighting (scenes with heavy shadows & hence too much dynamic range, etc). So that even if I have the highlights exposed exactly how you want, and the overall contrast too, it's very often the case that I'll want to exercise more control over the transitions from light to shadow.

Would the picture have been usable straight out of the camera? Sure. But as someone who came to photography from landscape painting, I'm accustomed to wanting more control over the whole light-shadow continuum.

Have you played with the K7D shadow correction?

It seems to add about 1 - 1.5 stops into the dynamic range in shadow areas, based upon the elevation of the greyscale value of objects that are around 20-30 greyscale for uncorrected shots, in comparison to corrected shots.

As always, I am not advocating a JPEG only but I find many shots it is good enough, and the minor treeking I might do is simple enough with JPEG, so why bother with RAW.

It is always a trade off.