[wildman]

"Much ado about nothing"

The flawed premise in all this is that we are all seeing the same thing and that all that is left is our own subjective opinion.

Really?

Given all the differences in the gear that allows us to see the image to that degree we are all seeing different images never mind it's the same file.
For instance just the difference between the same file I see in photoshop and after I post that same file on this forum is obvious.

[stevebrot]

Personally, I think buying an espresso machine to make coffee without using your own grinder is a waste.

I am picky about grinders...


Steve

[ChristianRock]

Well, some manufacturers, I think, are catering to the Ken Rockwell fans who like supersaturated colors, and I'm glad Pentax isn't one of them. I don't like Pentax's Bright setting at all, but I also think the Natural and Portrait is often a bit too bland. So I fiddle with the JPEG settings every once in a while and currently I have it set on Portrait with +1 on Saturation, +1 on High/Low, and +2 on Contrast. And that's it.

The images below are all taken as JPEGs from my K-S1. I have even better JPEGs from my K10D but that's kinda cheating (CCD just gives better colors and contrast right off the bat). These pictures below only had +1 on Saturation and +1 on Contrast, if I remember correctly. I might have been using +1 on sharpness at the time, now I don't anymore.

By the way, I will shoot RAW usually, if it's just me shooting for my pleasure. Whenever it's a family thing, I have to shoot JPEG - the wife demands it so she can share it on facebook at a second's notice Even then, if I do take a picture I might want to work on, I always hit the "Save as RAW" option.

[UncleVanya]

An interesting future follow up would be to shoot each camera using each of the standard JPG settings (Vivid, Natural, etc.) and then have those picked to see how the images worked Straight Out of The Camera (with minimal adjustment). Many users are savvy enough to swap the jpg style but not to customize it.

All in all it was interesting. I was particularly surprised by the skin tone test since I find Pentax rather lacklustre there but the ratings placed it third.

[danielchtong]

Re the raw vs jpg argument. I think the advantage is little if not insignificant compared with that of quality (prime) lenses vs zoom . I shoot mainly jpg as I have too much on my plate already.

[danielchtong]

When we shoot, we do have 20k things to worry about. The diff of using Jpg or raw is relatively insignificant.

[sunCrm]

When we shoot, we do have 20k things to worry about. The diff of using Jpg or raw is relatively insignificant.

I would not totally agree with this.
As there are 20k things to worry about when you shoot - you`d better do it in RAW and then take your time and adjust in PP. It has limitless possibilities.
You can make day out of night and so on.

[victormeldrew]

When we shoot, we do have 20k things to worry about. The diff of using Jpg or raw is relatively insignificant.

Personally I would completely disagree. It is very significant indeed...it is as significant as choosing to send your film to a minilab or to process it in your own darkroom. One is to hand over the process to a dumb machine, the other is to take full control yourself.

[Doundounba]

You can make day out of night and so on.

Once you reach that point, you pretty much no longer need a camera. Just open a new blank document in Photoshop and make it into what you want to see. You have become a digital artist.

But I do agree that shooting RAW can mean less pressure to make good decisions at the time of shooting, since there's more leeway to recover errors in post...

[WPRESTO]

Some statements that are not really correct:
1) only RAW is worth shooting with a DSLR.
2) If you're not using HDR auto all the time, you might as well be using film.
3) If you're not using pixel shift all the time, you might as well be using a soft-focus lens.
4) if you're not using a tripod and cable release all the time, you might as well be using a soft-focus lens.
5) if you're not using f5.6 to f8 all the time, you might as well be using a soft-focus lens.
6) If you're using a zoom lens instead of a prime, there's no point in using RAW, or pixel-shift, or a tripod, or a sensor with more than 12mp.

What nonsense. There are no such rules in photography. The only "rule" is doing what works for and satisfies the person tripping the shutter.

[goatsNdonkey]

I would not totally agree with this.
As there are 20k things to worry about when you shoot - you`d better do it in RAW and then take your time and adjust in PP. It has limitless possibilities.
You can make day out of night and so on.

As I said before, this sure sounds like the argument between slide shooters and negative shooters in the old film days.

* The slide shooter's main aim is to capture the picture properly -- IN THE CAMERA. And if you do that any good slide lab will prove that you did it.

* The negative film shooter wants to capture all the tonal latitude the film can record, but additionally wants all the possibilities of improving the print from that negative that are possible in the darkroom.

This is an argument between two artistic mind-sets, and is not at all entirely about which method can produce a better final image.

[WPRESTO]

There have been endless arguments between schools of thought in photography. When I was starting, there was still widespread dismissal of "miniature" 35mm cameras by people using 4X5 or larger press and view cameras. When I got my first Pentax (Asahi Pentax S with f2,2 preset Takumar) I was criticized for not purchasing a "good" German-made SLR, specifically an Exacta. I also heard deriding of all color photography as a gimmicky substitute for composition (among photographers who thought color was a crutch: Ansel Adams).

When my mother-in-law passed away years back, the last of that generation in our family, I made albums of pictures taken by her and by myself of my wife and her sister. There were some fine family pictures taken by my mother-in-law, well composed and lovely to look at when printed up to 8X10 for some. She worked with a Brownie Box camera.

[goatsNdonkey]

There have been endless arguments between schools of thought in photography. When I was starting, there was still widespread dismissal of "miniature" 35mm cameras by people using 4X5 or larger press and view cameras. When I got my first Pentax (Asahi Pentax S with f2,2 preset Takumar) I was criticized for not purchasing a "good" German-made SLR, specifically an Exacta. I also heard deriding of all color photography as a gimmicky substitute for composition (among photographers who thought color was a crutch: Ansel Adams).

When my mother-in-law passed away years back, the last of that generation in our family, I made albums of pictures taken by her and by myself of my wife and her sister. There were some fine family pictures taken by my mother-in-law, well composed and lovely to look at when printed up to 8X10 for some. She worked with a Brownie Box camera.

Wpresto, I love that family story. My mom took some very good pictures with her box Brownie, as well. I took her fishing the day after her 90th birthday, and she caught more and bigger fish with her worm and cane pole than I did with my rod and spincast reel, too!

[WPRESTO]

Wpresto, I love that family story. My mom took some very good pictures with her box Brownie, as well. I took her fishing the day after her 90th birthday, and she caught more and bigger fish with her worm and cane pole than I did with my rod and spincast reel, too!

Another BTW: Mildred for a time subscribed to "Kodakery," a Kodak publication targeted at family snap-shooters. It contains good advice on basic technique and composition. Sometimes it would have a photograph, then an analysis done with overlaid lines highlighting the major eye-leading/catching elements in the photo. I still have such of those little magazines as I found after her death. The basic advice of shoot with the sun coming over your left shoulder not only produces, on average, pleasing, natural-looking light on people, it is also an iron-clad rule for specimen photography in my field. The specimen must be illuminated from the upper left, otherwise viewers cannot correctly interpret its three-dimension shape in a single flat image (sometimes we use stereo pairs, especially for small specimens). I have taken hundreds of specimen photos, possibly over 1,000, all of them illuminated from the upper left because it is required by virtually all publications.

[surfar]

Box Brownie!....didn't we all start with them?...ha ha