[BruceBanner]

Youtu.be

Youtu.be

[biz-engineer]

What's the relationship between the dunning-kruger effect and shooting in auto, jpeg or raw?
Are you saying that people who refuse to shoot in auto-jpeg are being arrogant?
- unless they shoot raw because they took on the lazy habit of not pre-processing their images before pressing the shutter button
- or unless they want to produce multiple versions of rendered jpegs files from a single exposure raw
- and other things.

Qualifying people of being arrogant would require the judge to be sufficiently qualified. Most the times, people who dare to qualify others as being arrogant, do so as a reaction to protect their own insecure ego.

[Sir Nameless]

What's the relationship between the dunning-kruger effect and shooting in auto, jpeg or raw?Are you saying that people who refuse to shoot in auto-jpeg are being arrogant?

The guy in the video more or less confessed to being arrogant in his own attitude about people who shoot jpeg. I think his overall message was, "Don't dismiss jpeg or auto modes out of hand--they can be useful."

[gatorguy]

What's the relationship between the dunning-kruger effect and shooting in auto, jpeg or raw?
Are you saying that people who refuse to shoot in auto-jpeg are being arrogant?
- unless they shoot raw because they took on the lazy habit of not pre-processing their images before pressing the shutter button
- or unless they want to produce multiple versions of rendered jpegs files from a single exposure raw
- and other things.

Qualifying people of being arrogant would require the judge to be sufficiently qualified. Most the times, people who dare to qualify others as being arrogant, do so as a reaction to protect their own insecure ego.

No windmill will pass unchallenged by your lance, eh?

[gatorguy]

This video link is perfect timing for something that's been in my head the past several hours. I think Eddy makes some excellent points, and one of which I'm pondering today after a shoot last evening: Is Auto Mode professionally acceptable? I'm leaning towards YES it is.

There were two things that came up last night, one being a difficult and quickly changing light level and the other a lens (Sigma Art 35) that was being... well the most polite description is inconsistent. Being a bit frustrated I went to the extreme step of, oh the Horrors!, flipping over to frowned upon Auto aka Green mode. I don't remember that last time I did that for paid stuff, heck other than an instance here or there I truly don't recall using it in the last few years at all, but one turn of the dial everything changed.

For some totally inexplicable reason a lens that was oh so slightly front focusing way too often during the session went to spot on crisp. Every. Single. Shot. And I've not a single clue why. The lighting? Pretty darn good, better than I was capturing with TAv. Oh but the Big Bonus: I was a far happier photographer, finally relaxing and concentrating on the timing and the composition and worrying far less about settings. The keeper rate shot WAY up and my confidence in the session along with it.

I remember I used to use Auto a LOT on my K50 when I returned to photography after a very long absence. But the Meetup groups I shot with, and there were a lot of 'em, always said my photos were very good overall, well-conceived and captured, and there was always a few gems from every event. Not every photographer there could say that.

I of course gravitated away from Auto and into being a "real photographer" since my old K50. "REAL photographer"... Huh. About that later.

I typically shoot TAv, sometimes full manual or Av, and never JPEGS. Last night taught me not to be so hard-headed about Auto. It has its uses, particularly if the shoot is becoming frustrating and no longer fun, but the opportunities are there and I'm not getting 'em..

And what about raw? Well yeah, PP for me is a pleasure. I love the journey, finding good photos where at first I wasn't seeing one, images within images, and looks that come to me in the moment. I'll be a raw shooter for a very long time, still no interest in JPEG unless there's not an option. But I can totally respect those who see post-processing as a chore best avoided if they can get that special look they want straight from the camera.

[Rondec]

Maybe people who shoot RAW (like me) look down on people who shoot jpegs. I think it is more likely that they started shooting a long time ago and have seen too many situations where shooting RAW helped them fix a situation that might not have been savable if they had been shooting jpegs.

I don't know that there is an arrogance there or an overconfidence in my own knowledge -- in fact, shooting RAW is more an admission that there times that I can save in post the stupid mistakes I made along the way.

I have felt a bit of arrogance from the jpeg shooters and the SOOC folks. We don't need no stinking post processing software. We get it right in-camera...

I do shoot in Program mode a lot and Av mode a fair amount too. The thing about green mode from Pentax is that it locks you into jpegs, which can be OK, but often isn't what I am looking for.

[BigMackCam]

I haven't watched the video, however... Any mode, feature, file format etc. is as valid as any other if it gets you the photo you want. That said, I wonder... Does the photographer gets the same satisfaction from using Auto and SooC JPEG vs manual or semi-manual modes and conversion / post-processing of raw files? I guess that's down to the individual. Personally, I enjoy grappling with the exposure triangle, the camera's features, and working on a raw file to produce the image I wanted. I enjoy the sense of control, the satisfaction of my successes and the lessons from my failures. I don't judge anyone who does it differently than me, and I certainly don't feel superior for doing things the way I do them. I definitely don't over-estimate my abilities (indeed, I'm all too aware of my own limitations).

So, if folks want to use full Auto and produce JPEG files, that's great. Whatever works for them. The only real downside I can see to that approach is over-reliance on the camera rather than practising the technical aspects of photography - but whether that matters or not is, again, a matter for the individual photographer. I would at least encourage those who use Auto to learn how to use the other modes (even just Programme mode, for starters), and use them occasionally so they understand and remember what the camera is doing (or what it did) and why...

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Last edited by BigMackCam; 06-24-2022 at 10:12 AM.

[gatorguy]

I haven't watched the video, however... Any mode, feature, file format etc. is as valid as any other if it gets you the photo you want. That said, I wonder... Does the photographer gets the same satisfaction from using Auto and SooC JPEG vs manual or semi-manual modes and conversion / post-processing of raw files? I guess that's down to the individual. Personally, I enjoy grappling with the exposure triangle, the camera's features, and working on a raw file to produce the image I wanted. I enjoy the sense of control, along with the successes and failures of my decisions. I don't judge anyone who does it differently than me, and I certainly don't feel superior for doing things the way I do them. I definitely don't over-estimate my abilities.

So, if folks want to use full Auto and produce JPEG files, that's great. Whatever works for them. The only real downside I can see to that approach is over-reliance on the camera rather than practising the technical aspects of photography - but whether that matters or not is, again, a matter for the individual photographer. I would at least encourage those who use Auto to learn how to use the other modes (even just Programme mode, for starters), and use them occasionally so they understand and remember what the camera is doing (or what it did) and why...

You should watch the first 5 or 6 minutes of this one Mike.

In general tho you and I agree. Auto will not be a big part of my photography work, not even semi-regular. I enjoy the personal control, the challenges, and the satisfaction when it all comes together. But going forward I won't be so pig-headed as to discount flippin' the dial over to Green if a shoot is going south but there's pressure to get it righted to sail North.

...and that sudden perfect and consistent focus is still a mystery to me. Seriously, last evening I'd get two spot-on then one or two slightly front-focused. No pattern to it, and it was the only wider lens I had with me (my bad, left the 15-50 PLM on the desk by the door heading out). Auto made it all better. Any clue why?

[BigMackCam]

that sudden perfect and consistent focus is still a mystery to me. Seriously, last evening I'd get two spot-on then one or two slightly front-focused. No pattern to it, and it was the only wider lens I had with me (my bad, left the 15-50 PLM on the desk by the door heading out). Auto made it all better. Any clue why?

Was this with the K-3III? If so, @Kobie seems to have noticed similar behaviour - i.e. AF accuracy in Auto mode but not in others (if I remember correctly, he alludes to this in comments to his recent PF article). Reading the K-3III AF-related threads, I get the sense that certain aspects of its new, more-advanced AF system aren't fully sorted yet - but since it's so configurable and there's no official tutorial documentation from Ricoh to explain exactly how it works and how to leverage it, it's difficult to conclude that... especially for me, since I don't own and haven't used the camera

[house]

I think several Pentax cameras are supposed to do more "clever" things including af when in modes that use the scene functionality. Better af is not an impossibility. It's an odd way of configuring things though.

[biz-engineer]

There is a trick in the video. Every Pentax DNG contains a Jpeg image, you cannot not shoot Jpeg, actually.

---------- Post added 24-06-22 at 20:07 ----------

Personally, I enjoy grappling with the exposure triangle

Fair enough. Some people think they can beat Pentax AE meter within +-0.001 ev using the sunny f16 rule, and beat Pentax AF accuracy looking by focusing a Takumar manually looking thru the EVF, that's the Dunning Kruger effect in action.

[BigMackCam]

Some people think they can beat Pentax AE meter within +-0.001 ev using the sunny f16 rule, and beat Pentax AF accuracy looking by focusing a Takumar manually looking thru the EVF, that's the Dunning Kruger effect in action.

It has nothing to do with thinking they can beat the camera's AE meter, biz... It's not an ego thing, not a test or competition against the camera... nor is it simply about metering. It's the enjoyment of applying personal judgement and practising one's technical skills to achieve accurate exposure in the given lighting conditions whilst dealing with subject motion and depth of field as required. I don't care whether the camera will do a better or worse job than me in full Auto mode, and I doubt many other folks do either. I enjoy controlling the camera in an attempt to achieve the best results I can based on my own decisions. Again, I don't judge folks who do it differently... I do what I do to please myself.

For what it's worth, whilst I can't recall a time when I last used full Auto, I certainly will use Programme mode on occasion, and find it very handy in certain situations...

[gatorguy]

It has nothing to do with thinking they can beat the camera's AE meter, biz... It's not an ego thing, not a test or competition against the camera... nor is it simply about metering. It's the enjoyment of applying personal judgement and practising one's technical skills to achieve accurate exposure in the given lighting conditions whilst dealing with subject motion and depth of field as required. I don't care whether the camera will do a better or worse job than me in full Auto mode, and I doubt many other folks do either. I enjoy controlling the camera in an attempt to achieve the best results I can based on my own decisions. Again, I don't judge folks who do it differently... I do what I do to please myself.

For what it's worth, whilst I can't recall a time when I last used full Auto, I certainly will use Programme mode on occasion, and find it very handy in certain situations...

I suspect he already knows all of that.

[biz-engineer]

The guy in the video more or less confessed to being arrogant in his own attitude about people who shoot jpeg. I think his overall message was, "Don't dismiss jpeg or auto modes out of hand--they can be useful."

The choice of raw vs jpeg may vary depending on stages in the photographic journey. When I first used digital cameras I shot JPEG only. Then I discovered RAW and I shot only RAW for years but I didn't like the time spent to transfer the file and process them on computer. Then I discovered the idea of pre-processing an image, i.e perfecting everything before pressing the shutter button, I shot JPEG again but I had some issues such as unwanted burned highlights and not being able to correct for lenses, white balance and color styles. I switched again to RAW but now with the idea of pre-processing the shots based on the latitude offered by the RAW (*), such that I'd have a primary color or b&w style envisioned before the exposure, and still the flexibility to generate alternate jpeg exports and keep the best.


(*) like Ansel Adams was tweaking his exposures based on how much headroom he had with his print process.

---------- Post added 24-06-22 at 20:32 ----------

t has nothing to do with thinking they can beat the camera's AE meter, biz... It's not an ego thing, not a test or competition against the camera... nor is it simply about metering. It's the enjoyment of applying personal judgement and practising one's technical skills to achieve accurate exposure in the given lighting conditions whilst dealing with subject motion and depth of field as required. I don't care whether the camera will do a better or worse job than me in full Auto mode, and I doubt many other folks do either. I enjoy controlling the camera in an attempt to achieve the best results I can based on my own decisions. Again, I don't judge folks who do it differently... I do what I do to please myself.

I wrote "some people", not you specifically

Long ago, I read some photographers saying that they can focus track moving subjects manually. I tried myself and failed miserably.

[BigMackCam]

I wrote "some people", not you specifically

The first part of my reply...

It has nothing to do with thinking they can beat the camera's AE meter, biz... It's not an ego thing, not a test or competition against the camera... nor is it simply about metering. It's the enjoyment of applying personal judgement and practising one's technical skills to achieve accurate exposure in the given lighting conditions whilst dealing with subject motion and depth of field as required.

... wasn't specific to me either, biz

I believe most folks who typically shoot either fully manual or using partial automation are doing so for the benefits it brings in terms of creative control in the given use-case - not as some ego-boosting challenge to "beat the camera", like some kid's electronic game