quality /size ?

[Steve Randles]

There is lots of good reading on the subject of RAW quality compared to Jpeg on the net, I know I've already poste this link once but its certainly worth postiing again..and worth reading too. Make sure you get as far as page 3 though

 

Petteri's Pontifications

 

Steve...

[poledark]

Have to say that it is a wonder any of us ever get good pictures without using RAW....

 

How many print over 10 X 8 ? or even much bigger than 7X5?

 

Most only see them on a PC or TV and JPEG is more than adequate for that.

 

And the time it all takes to process the image on the camera...talk about aggravating

 

OK, so spend several hundred (or thousand) on a camera and you might speed things up a bit, but then you are probably a pro who SOMETIMES needs raw, but if the expensive bit of kit can record at 20mpx then why do you need RAW?

 

Maybe I have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, but surely, if you want more tiny detail then you need more pixels? Just take a couple of pics with the lowest setting and then with the highest setting and view them at full size on the PC.

 

Does RAW give you/me more pixels? not clear from my handbook..it does say the FILE size is bigger, TIFF is bigger still !

 

Changing tack slightly, did you see the results of the BBC contest? Point, shoot, and shoot some more...capture the moments, and get one stunning shot and you have a winner.

 

And the high speed flash shot of the robin coming in to land was a masterpiece. OK so he had the right equipment, but didn't he use it well?

 

 

Den

[chesters1]

Have to say that it is a wonder any of us ever get good pictures without using RAW....

 

How many print over 10 X 8 ? or even much bigger than 7X5?

 

Most only see them on a PC or TV and JPEG is more than adequate for that.

 

And the time it all takes to process the image on the camera...talk about aggravating

 

OK, so spend several hundred (or thousand) on a camera and you might speed things up a bit, but then you are probably a pro who SOMETIMES needs raw, but if the expensive bit of kit can record at 20mpx then why do you need RAW?

 

Maybe I have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, but surely, if you want more tiny detail then you need more pixels? Just take a couple of pics with the lowest setting and then with the highest setting and view them at full size on the PC.

 

Does RAW give you/me more pixels? not clear from my handbook..it does say the FILE size is bigger, TIFF is bigger still !

 

Changing tack slightly, did you see the results of the BBC contest? Point, shoot, and shoot some more...capture the moments, and get one stunning shot and you have a winner.

 

And the high speed flash shot of the robin coming in to land was a masterpiece. OK so he had the right equipment, but didn't he use it well?

Den

 

to get more detail you need far smaller pixels ,more as in the case at the moment just means larger pictures.

if we had 12 million pixels but a 10th of the size of them now just think how much detail on macro we'd have,once you can get a pixel a 10th of the size it would mean you could stuff 10 times the amount on the CCD so 120mp camera ,detail and size ,you could enlarge far closer so that strange tiny white thing on your panorama could be revealed as a fag end several hundred yards away ,hopefully soon even the name could be read

i have done a few prints at A3 without enlarging unfortunately at a crummy 1200 DPI (the best the printer will do) they didnt look as good as i hoped AND used a lot of expensive ink ,my mate printed one out on his commercial printer and it came out far better ,better camera then means better printer ,bigger printer will it end .still trying to find a cheap A3 scanner but unfortunately not many exist for home use yet ,paper for A3 printers is only just becoming affordable and i'v had one since 1999 when A3 paper raised eyebrows

 

watched a prog about a "professional" photographer ,not sure any skill exists ,if i used 30 rolls of film i would get some great shots as well its a bit like those wild life cameramen if i stayed long enough and used thousands of miles of tape i'm sure even i could edit enough to make a few programs.

Edited September 7, 2006 by chesters1

[poledark]

Not quite with you there Chesters. So if I take a pic at 3264X2448 and print it at 8X6, then Would there be more pixels than if I printed at 6X4?

 

Does my printer reduce the number of pixels to suit the final image size ?

 

Seems to me, that I get fine detail in a small pic (up to 8X6 ) with an uncropped image, but if I resize/crop and print at the same 8X6, then I get a grainier print (less pixels used to fill the same amount of space.

 

So if I get a larger amount of pixels on the same size sheet of paper, then they have to be smaller.

 

I think we are talking the same language here

 

Probably the reason that camera makers are continually increasing the number of pixels a camera can capture.

 

I have seen one for £8225 (body only) that captures at 20mpx, so it will be a while before the ordinary guy/gal can afford one......... but then look how prices have dropped as the pixels have gone up:)

 

Den

Edited September 7, 2006 by poledark

[chesters1]

Not quite with you there Chesters. So if I take a pic at 3264X2448 and print it at 8X6, then Would there be more pixels than if I printed at 6X4?

 

Does my printer reduce the number of pixels to suit the final image size ?

 

Seems to me, that I get fine detail in a small pic (up to 8X6 ) with an uncropped image, but if I resize/crop and print at the same 8X6, then I get a grainier print (less pixels used to fill the same amount of space.

 

So if I get a larger amount of pixels on the same size sheet of paper, then they have to be smaller.

 

I think we are talking the same language here

 

Probably the reason that camera makers are continually increasing the number of pixels a camera can capture.

 

I have seen one for £

if you print a smaller pic than it is you only get the resolution of the printer ink drop size ,i.e you can have as much detail as you want but its lost in the printer and its drop size and the smallest movement the print head can make.so a great picture will be ruined by a poor printer.the ink has to also dry instantly to stop the colours seeping into each other so expensive paper is needed too as well as decent ink.

i have been trying to reproduce catalogues on the very paper they used to be printed on but as there designed for "hard" inks its impossible to print on using an inkjet the ink just moves from its position and the result looks blurry whatever the DPI of the printer

if you have a 5000 dpi printer the dots will merge to make a bigger dot unless the ink dries before the next drop falls so even a high resolution printer suffers with naughty old physics and stuff .

i think ink jets are about as good as they will ever get you can only make a hole a certain size before the ink molecules refuse to go through them and the cogs that move the heads only a certain size before the slack (as in the space needed between the two cogs so they can move) becomes larger than the movement itself.hopefully something else is in the pipeline as it were

Edited September 8, 2006 by chesters1

[poledark]

You could always send your files to photobox and get them printed

Den

[chesters1]

that sounds expensive and who would know if the quality was any better than boots etc

onr day you would have a camera with small enough pixels to catch one photon? of light each, a lense that didnt interfere with them by bending them out of "true" and a printer that printed them.

i want to zoom in to microscopic size and do the same with the print if i looked at it with a powerfull lense.

its a bit like getting reading glasses from an optician ,i asked when i got mine who decided how small the smallest writing wason the test card,she said it was a "standard" and good enough for everyday use ,i found within an hour of getting home writing on a jar too small to read with my brand new glasses.

perhaps were all going about our lives (the glass wearers that is) with the sight of a poor sighted human when we could have the sight of an eagle ,who knows whoever mr "standard" is wasent partially sighted

just because i probably will never use the facility of "detail" doesent mean i dont want it ,we just get fobbed of with someone elses "standard" and that "standard" may well be very poor.

Edited September 8, 2006 by chesters1

[Colin Brett]

a compacts small lense can be slightly overcome by taking the shot at the highest res you can on the nearest zoom you can then cropping ,if you cant crop by the "rules" as far as i can see on here if you cant crop by the "rules" as far as i can see on here then only the SLR's will win on comps featuring animal or bird (for instance) shots (unless you can find tame ones ) because all the inbedded exif info disapears (somewhere).

 

Chesters,

 

Are the "rules" you mention, the rules for AN's photo challenges? If so read them again as cropping is allowed!

 

Sorry to hear you are not using Photoshop, you know you can click off and on the bits you do want to use. Stick with it.

 

Colin

[poledark]

Chesters, I am sure the camera makers are all desperate to give us smaller and smaller pixels/more detail.

 

 

They have upped the res/pix count a huge amount in the last 5 years, obviously it will get more difficult/expensive to double or treble the pixels, but it will come, maybe sooner than we think.

 

As for the magnifying glass, you can't even do that with film without the grain showing up.

 

Den

[chesters1]

heres an example ,not a very good photo i'd agree but perfect for an example of the limitations of a non dslr camera and non changeable lense disadvantage.

say i was trying to enter a wildlife comp on here then with no exif info i couldnt enter

i had to use the full pixel cabability of my camera in order so i could enlarge the bunny (or anything else) otherwise a huge picture with a little brown dot would be a great download for me plus a pretty boring picture once it arrived i then cut out the fluffy bunny and saved it as a jpeg ,no other manipulation has been done ,as you can see no exif info exists on it

yes i could spend money i havent got on a decent camera i can strap huge lenses on but unforunately the fact i cant puts me at a disadvantage ,the shot was taken on full zoom as well as i couldnt get any closer

nothing wrong with my camera for panorama's or other picture filing shots but on small things in big spaces its saddly lacking

 

if i hadent used 12mp (ok electronic 12mp) then enlarging it would have resulted in a collection of squares rather than a rather blurred bunny

another thing that eludes me is when i open the picture it says 1-6 but when i "enlarged" it it says 1-1 that little bunny is but a dot on the picture in its 55.5" x 45" (on the rulers) size ,damn this photography stuff is hard

Edited September 9, 2006 by chesters1