The industry states “Use RAW”. Camera magazines now state “Use RAW”. The photographer stood next to you will no doubt say “Use RAW”.
I’m very under-impressed.
The day trip to the beach gave me a chance to see just what this much-heralded raw format can actually do. So, for starters, have some photos…
I know for a fact, if I’d have taken a bit more time to ensure the camera was actually focussed on the subject matter, and that all possibilities of camera-shake were removed, I wouldn’t have had to spend an evening ‘pushing pixels’ on just 5 photos. And I’m talking of spending maybe 5 minutes… if that… just before the shutter’s fired!
I’m sure there’s some mathematical forumla or ratio just waiting to be unearthed. Something like “time spent at camera is equivalent to time spent at computer”. Just as there should be a mathematical formula or ratio for the number of photos rattled off, and the number of photos that might actually be useable. For instance, I ended up with 96 files from that one 30 minute session. Half that number, due to the camera being set for “JPG + RAW”… 48… slightly more than one photo a minute. Then there’s a number that were used for exposure bracketing, so there’s a good number of photos that look identical to 2 others. Then there’s the time spent in front of the computer afterwards to take into consideration… 4… 5 hours. Hmm… it’s pretty unimpressive really, considering I’ve ended up with about 5 slightly useable photos.
1 photo taken per minute, 1 resulting photo produced per hour. Am I doing something wrong..? I know… blame the ‘workflow’!
I’ve seen a good number of requests from and to other people… “What’s your RAW workflow?” It’s interesting to see the number of replies that are along the lines of “Thanks, that’s helped me tremendously”. Unless there’s a conspiracy going on, or the thanks are being conveyed via private messages or emails, I’ve seen none.
I’ve yet to see any benefits from using the raw format. And I don’t buy the “You can recover blown highlights” arguement, as blown highlights is essentially lost data. The only possible use I’d have for raw is to have the ability for repositioning the camera after the photo’s taken. But that’s not possible… so raw is being consigned to the “Mistake” bin. I’ll spend an extra 5 minutes just before the shutter’s fired, thanks very much.
Did I mention the amount of time taken to actually set up the 48 photos..?
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