Working in Raw, Why?

Many times I have been asked, what format do you process your photos in? Steve and I use the Nikon RAW format. To us this makes taking photos similar to using film in the old days. Where you took an image and then processed it in a dark room. Working in RAW is similar. You take a photo which records all the data of an image which produces a somewhat flat looking file. It then takes time to process the image in an image editor.

I think the biggest benefit I have found in shooting in shooting in RAW is I capture all the data from the camera image sensor. This gives the highest quality files and when it comes to my awesome images, I want high quality.

When a camera processes in JPEG, it only has 256 levels of brightness to work with. A RAW image has between 4,096 and 16,384 levels to utilise. This is what is called the “bit”. So JPEG is 8bit where RAW can be 12bit or 14bit.

RAW also allows me to correct the image without a drastic reduction in quality. I can also recover more blown highlights and clipped shadows.

Another important part of an image capture is the white balance. It can make the colours pop! Shooting in RAW lets you make the adjustments easier and faster, with better results.

The last benefit I enjoy so much in using RAW is the amount of detail retained in a photo. It gives a crispness second to none. But enough about the theory, let’s see an extreme example of RAW superiority against JPEG.

Raw-Conversion-Example

Day 190 – 8 September 2015 to Day 191 – 9 September 2015

Tuesday

Travelled to Port Gregory this morning stopping at Linger Longer Station and the pink lake along the way.

Linga_Longa_Station_Stay-1 Linga_Longa_Station_Stay-4 Linga_Longa_Station_Stay-3

Linger Longer Old Tools

The rest of the day was spent soaking up the 30 degrees warmth on the beach chatting to locals. First day in a long time for shorts and does it feel good! YES!

Pink Lake Port Gregory

Wednesday

Woke to the sounds of the beach today. About 4am you could hear the fishing boats warming up for the day of cray fishing. The tide was at its highest about 7am. The natural harbour here protects the beach nicely from large waves.

Port_Gregory-1 Port_Gregory-2 Port_Gregory_Sunset-1 Port Gregory Fishing Port_Gregory_Sunset-2