[ray]

Taken in the trough of bowland last year...Ray

[JMitchell]

Very nice ray! Great lighting too. Well captured, that must have been quite testing

[ray]

Well yes or just plain lucky either way im happy with it

[Rob Barron]

Nice capture Ray. Did you take this in RAW or as a jpeg? If in RAW, I wonder if there is a bit more detail in the bright area under the left wing and also in the dark area under the right wing. It would be good to balance out the lighting a little in those areas. There might be some shadow detail even in the jpg version so worth looking.

There is little bit of blurring aling the wing leading edge and trailing feathers but I think this gives movement to the shot so isn't a problem at all. Good sharp face and even a catchlight in the eye so detail is attractive.

Good work Ray, like this
Cheers,
Rob

[ray]

As im a novice Rob i dont do raw yet is it a lot easier or what, i guess ive been a little nervous about it so i shoot in jpeg do you recommend it...Ray

[Dabhand16]

Ray - I held off using RAW for a long time because I was unsure and I knew there was more processing involved. Since I tried it, I shoot only in RAW now. The extras processing is nothing to fear, and RAW does offer more control in PP.

[Rob Barron]

Hi ray,

I entirely agree with Graham, RAW is not something to be afraid of, it gives you a lot more control and gives you greater flexibility for the final results. You can get detail in both bright and dark areas that look like there is nothing other than white or black when you look at it in a jpeg version. This is because when processing a jpg, it takes areas that are all of a very similar shade and makes them into one colour. The more compressed, the more shades all become one and detail is lost.

You can adjust the blacks, the whites, all the colours, the contrast, vibrancy, saturation, clarity, exposure and colour temperature.... and that's just the basic stuff. Just sticking to those will give you a load of control you could only dream of with your jpg pics

You haven't got your camera gear listed so I am not sure what you use, except I am pretty sure it's a Canon - just a hunch <g> so whether you are using a xxxD range or an xxD range, you can set your camera to shoot RAW + Jpg together. That does use a bit more memory but it also means you have got a jpg version as backup in case you are not confident of adjusting the RAW picture.

Like Graham, I never use anything other than RAW these days but I entirely recognise it can feel like a big step to take so using the dual route means you can confidently move forward knowing the picture is in the bag but a better one is potentially available to you

Cheers,
Rob

[Dabhand16]

Good point Rob, and I have to confess that I too went the RAW + jpeg route, but very quickly went to RAW only. I did not mention this in my post because looking back, I think it was not necessary, but having read your post I can't deny it gives you the comfort of having a jpeg to fall back on.

Only snag with RAW + jpeg with Nikon is you only get a fixed jpeg - large and normal size and compression. You cannot alter the jpeg to another size or quality. I don't know if Canon is any different in this.

[Rob Barron]

You get 6 options in which you can choose the size and quality of the jpeg on Canon Graham. You can have Large low compression, Large high compression, Medium low and high and Small low and high. On my 40D you then also get the same 6 options with SRAW which is a RAW file but much smaller, only 1936 x 1288 pixels.

The SRWA option is good if you want to shoot quickly and get pictures that you know you do not want to enlarge very much. You can enlarge to a 9" x 6" without any problem but that's about it. But of course with a much smaller file size you get a lot more shots on the card and the buffer is bigger for shooting rapidly. Having said that, it can shoot about 27 shots at 6.5 fps in large RAW so unlikely most of us would need it!

I do shoot RAW only for most stuff except if I am away from home and need to show pics to someone else who might not have a computer with the latest RAW viewer. This is the case at my work (the language college) where they sometimes need shots for brochures and the website but they don't have the facility to look at RAW shots from my 40D.

Cheers,
Rob

[Dabhand16]

If you get all of those jpeg saving options using RAW + jpeg Rob, that is good. As I said on my D70s you only get one jpeg setting using RAW + jpeg, but I dob't know if more modern Nikons have more options.