So, two noob DSLR questions... (File format and anti-shake)

NeilF · 10 Dec 2007 at 10:45

File format
Do you find that you capture all photos as RAW and then when putting them on your PC you then process them all to JPG? Do you even convert them to JPG or just leave them RAW? Or do you instead find for the majority of pics you just capture them in JPG on the camera and shove them straight onto the PC unprocessed?

Anti-Shake
I'm trying to work out how useful the anti-shake built into cameras such as the A100 is. If I was to connect say a Sigma 70-300 APO Macro lens to a camera like a Nikon D80 (without a tripod etc), how much would it suffer from not having anti-shake for typical outdoor shooting?

33L · 10 Dec 2007 at 11:07

it is easier to process from RAW rather than jpg and its harder to share with raw then jpeg due to size mainly and not many photo hosting taking raw pictures anyway.

image stbilization is better if its on the lens the A100 may not be effective thoughout all focal lengths. Generally the sigma lens is good but not as good as the lenses with IS, weather it be Sigma, nikon, canon etc..

NeilF · 10 Dec 2007 at 11:36

33L said:
it is easier to process from RAW rather than jpg and its harder to share with raw then jpeg due to size mainly and not many photo hosting taking raw pictures anyway.

image stbilization is better if its on the lens the A100 may not be effective thoughout all focal lengths. Generally the sigma lens is good but not as good as the lenses with IS, weather it be Sigma, nikon, canon etc..

But how important is IS on general hand-held day light photography? If you're using the longer reaches of that 70-300 lens (standard or Macro) hand-held, is it going to be OK, or is IS basically a must?

MichaelHo · 10 Dec 2007 at 11:42

File format:
After transferring the files to my computer I store then as RAW files. I use Lightroom to process them as RAW files and then once I'm done and want to share them I would resize and convert to jpeg.

Anti shake:
I think it depends on the shutter speed you are using. If for example on a sunny day where you have lots of light then you will be able to get away with a shutter speed of 1/125 and above. This speed is generally fine to take photos hand held. However if you are shooting towards the 300 end of the telephoto lens then you would need a faster shutter speed to prevent camera shake in the photo. People say its 1/zoom length e.g. if you are shooting at 250mm then the shutter speed you will need to be able to take a photo hand held with no camera shake is 1/250 sec.

IS helps compensate camera shake and enables to be able to take hand held photos at a slower shutter speed. I think you get 2 or 3 stops compensation?

33L · 10 Dec 2007 at 11:53

to continue - IS helps but does not solve the shake problem. If you are needing to shoot at long focal lengths hand held just try and prop your self against a tree or wall.

Scam · 10 Dec 2007 at 12:11

33L said:
it is easier to process from RAW rather than jpg

I disagree. RAW is exactly what the name suggests. It requires a lot more processing know-how to get right. I switch between JPG and RAW quite a lot. If i think it's a shot i might not be able to expose correctly, or is a tricky one for another reason i might use RAW. If it's easy shooting conditions and i'm getting good results then there really isnt much advantage to using RAW. I also read somewhere that the D50 has a nice default curve for JPEG, so much that D80 users that can have custom curves load it up

When using either format, i process the shot, save a fullsize TIFF, and save a web-sized JPEG for my website. I dont think you'll find many people here that simply shoot JPEG and take that as the finished article.

If you're starting off with a DSLR, unless you are really into your processing and quite confident in Photoshop (i mean using curves/levels and understanding what they actually do) then i'd suggest sticking with JPEGs to start with.

As for IS, i dont know much about it but as far as i can gather all it does is allow you to use slightly longer shutter speeds than you can without. Making it useful in dark/grey conditions.

For example the rule is to shoot at 1/focal length to stop camera shake. If you were shooting at 150mm you'd make sure you shot at 1/150th or faster to ensure you dont get any shake. If it's a grey day you might have to bump up the ISO which isnt always ideal. If you had IS perhaps you could get away with shooting at 1/100th (?) instead, and you would still have no camera shake. Meaning there is no need to up the ISO.

neodude · 10 Dec 2007 at 12:19

Another point with the IS. IS will only work if what you are taking a photo of is stationary, i.e. it won't work for portrait or people shots.

33L · 10 Dec 2007 at 12:25

Scam said:
I disagree. RAW is exactly what the name suggests. It requires a lot more processing know-how to get right. I switch between JPG and RAW quite a lot. If i think it's a shot i might not be able to expose correctly, or is a tricky one for another reason i might use RAW. If it's easy shooting conditions and i'm getting good results then there really isnt much advantage to using RAW.

i think what i meant didnt come out right - RAW is more versatile to get a finished result so i agree with what you are saying. I use jpg my self purely as it is easier to manage the file sizes on my not so hot pc!

NeilF · 10 Dec 2007 at 12:35

As far as IS goes then, there are two different paths then:-
1) Say an A100 with something like the Sigma 70-300 APO Macro lense.
2) A D80 with the 50-200mm VR DX lens, or the 70-300 VR ED lense.

The thing is of course you could get the A100 with the kit lens and a Sigma 70-300 APO for less money that the D80 with its 18-70mm kit lens, yet alone start talking about (for the Nikon) another £150 for the DX, or £300 for the ED telephoto lenses!

Likewise the Olympus 510 with its kit lenses (14-40 & 40-150) work out about the same as the D80 with just its 18-70mm lens!

I suppose being new to all this I'm wondering how much I have to be consider IS. I mean if I extended to the D80 with the 17-70mm lens and later wanted to put on the Sigma 70-300 APO Macro, is that a usable lense with that camera without IS/tripod (say upto 200mm)?

SDK^ · 10 Dec 2007 at 12:47

IS helps reduce blur from camera shake. It's more effective on longer focal length lenses because it enables the user to shoot with a shutter speed 2-3 stops slower than the 1/focal length rule.

e.g. - 400mm lens
Without IS you ideally need to use a shutter speed of a least 1/400
With IS you could take the shot at 1/100 at still get sharp results, this obviously helps when light levels are low (most of the time in UK)

To answer your anti-shake question.
IS built into cameras gets less effective as the lens get longer because the sensor on the camera cannot move the distance required quick enough to counter the movement. IS elements built into lenses can

neoduder said:
Another point with the IS. IS will only work if what you are taking a photo of is stationary, i.e. it won't work for portrait or people shots.

Not 100% accurate
1: If you are taking people or portrait shots with a long focal lens then IS will still be effective in reducing camera shake.
2. Enabling IS panning mode reduces shake on one axis - useful for motorsports.

33L said:
it is easier to process from RAW rather than jpg

Scam said:
I disagree. RAW is exactly what the name suggests. It requires a lot more processing.

Scam - The post from 33L is correct.
It is easier to process a RAW file over JPEG - try and change the white balance on a JPEG

He didn't say RAW required less processing

neodude · 10 Dec 2007 at 13:04

CS3 allows the opening of JPGs in ACR. You won't get the same quality though.

Scam · 10 Dec 2007 at 13:36

SDK^ said:
Scam - The post from 33L is correct.
It is easier to process a RAW file over JPEG - try and change the white balance on a JPEG He didn't say RAW required less processing

He didn't, but he did say RAWs are easier, which i disagree with. You're assuming that everyone needs to change the white balance for every shot, every time! Assuming you've captured a shot well; correct exposure, correct white balance and all it needs is a bit of easy levels and sharpening.. it'd take you longer to get a RAW file of that shot to a finished state than it would to get a JPEG to that finished state. If you see what i mean.

aztechnology · 10 Dec 2007 at 13:49

personally I shoot RAW, import into lightroom and drop to a jpeg when needed. Lightroom lets you keep the original RAW and a history of changes so it's really really useful

IS.
People (inluding me) have shot without IS for years at all sorts of focal lengths. Digital made this even easier as we can now change ISO rating on the fly. It is really nice to have though. One thing people here are quoting is the 1/ focal length rule of thumb. I think it should be mentioned we should be quoting equivelent focal length (for the same size final print).

For me then, having or not having IS is not a show stopper. If though you can afford it, and the lens is of a good quality as a non_IS equivalent, then by all means get it.

33L · 10 Dec 2007 at 14:10

what i meant was that was that RAW gives you more options to play with without loss of quality from the get go. jpg you have to unsharpen etc where as im sure raw have no compression. But on the other side if the image is shot correctly then you dont have to mess around so much.

Shoei · 10 Dec 2007 at 14:30

I only ever shoot RAW then either save as a jpg for web or as a tiff for printing.
Nice thing about using Capture NX for processing RAW's is that its non destructive. I can have 10 versions of the same NEF file with different edits and due to the way NX works, its only 1 NEF file. With JPGs i'd end up with 10 different jpgs.
At any later date, go back to an edited NEF, remove all the edits and start again.

robmiller · 10 Dec 2007 at 17:32

Scam said:
He didn't, but he did say RAWs are easier, which i disagree with. You're assuming that everyone needs to change the white balance for every shot, every time! Assuming you've captured a shot well; correct exposure, correct white balance and all it needs is a bit of easy levels and sharpening.. it'd take you longer to get a RAW file of that shot to a finished state than it would to get a JPEG to that finished state. If you see what i mean.

With my workflow (a pretty normal Lightroom one) the only thing that takes longer with RAW is the transfer from my SD card.

BUFF · 10 Dec 2007 at 23:49

SDK^ said:
To answer your anti-shake question.
IS built into cameras gets less effective as the lens get longer because the sensor on the camera cannot move the distance required quick enough to counter the movement. IS elements built into lenses can

& IS built into the lens has a startup time (usually ~.75s) that in-body doesn't have & the extra optical elements often degrade image quality compared to the non-IS version.

At the end of the day they are 2 different solutions to the same problem, both work but have different pros & cons - & you are better with either than without if you frequently use long lenses or shoot in low light.

NeilF · 11 Dec 2007 at 08:25

BUFF said:
& IS built into the lens has a startup time (usually ~.75s) that in-body doesn't have & the extra optical elements often degrade image quality compared to the non-IS version.

At the end of the day they are 2 different solutions to the same problem, both work but have different pros & cons - & you are better with either than without if you frequently use long lenses or shoot in low light.

Well the Nikon 18-200 VR seems to produce nice quality pics

SDK^ · 11 Dec 2007 at 09:17

BUFF said:
& IS built into the lens has a startup time (usually ~.75s) that in-body doesn't have & the extra optical elements often degrade image quality compared to the non-IS version.

At the end of the day they are 2 different solutions to the same problem, both work but have different pros & cons - & you are better with either than without if you frequently use long lenses or shoot in low light.

Like you say there are advantages and disadvantages on both systems.

In lens image quality doesn't suffer much, if at all. The Canon 70-200 F2.8 IS and standard F2.8 are optically identical. I would also rather have a tiny startup time and see the IS working through the viewfinder which you can't see with Sensor IS.

Clearly the major plus with in camera IS is that all lenses effectively have the system.

BUFF · 11 Dec 2007 at 14:22

SDK^ said:
I would also rather have a tiny startup time and see the IS working through the viewfinder which you can't see with Sensor IS..

Thing is with a .75s startup time for an IS lens you might miss an unexpected shot that you would get with an in-body ...

The viewfinder 1 is subjective & I suspect comes from what you are used too - again there are pros & cons.
I have seen several posts on forums of people feeling seasick with a stabilised viewfinder & also reports from people that have come to in-body from IS lens & found that because they were getting realtime feedback from a non-stabilised screen (although you do have indicators as to how hard the IS is having to work to compensate) that they were able to improve their hold/stance etc. & gain another stop or so improvement.
Again at the end of the day I think that they are just different rather than either 1 is necessarily better .