New Camera Equipment and lenses? RAW vs. jpeg? Polarizer?

[Zia]

Thanks Jdemott for the info! So cameras process the picture with little adjustments beforehand? Huh, I didn't know that. I just started my hand at editing RAW images, and it is pretty time consuming. I wish I knew that before taking half of my pictures at St. Helens in RAW format only. But now I am taking pictures in both formats. I also noticed that when increasing the saturation and contrast in RAW pictures, I didn't get the grainy over sharpness in the sky that I get when editing jpeg.


I have one more question, though. I'm still a little confused on getting the right polarizer. It turns out that the purchase on amazon failed to go through, and I didn't notice it until a few days later. It is a good thing, though, because now I'm not so sure if it will fit my camera lens.

So will this filter: "Hoya 52mm Circular Polarizer HD Hardened Glass 8-layer Multi-Coated Filter" fit my lens size?

Link to the product.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001G7 ... UTF8&psc=1

Thanks!

if you have the Canon 18-55mm and the 55-250 mm lens, they both have a filter size of 58mm. Try this link:

http://www.amazon.com/Hoya-Hardened-Mul ... +polarizer

Here is the link to the canon page of lens. If you click on the lens you have and click on the specifications, you want to see the filter size, to see what size your len's are. I went off your first posting and got the 58mm.

http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/ ... ens_lineup

[jdemott]

Looks like Zia has answered your question about filter size. Happily, both of your lenses take the same size of filter. If you had lenses requiring different filter sizes, then the economical solution would be to buy a filter to fit the larger lens plus a step-up ring that would let you fit the larger filter on the smaller lens.

[jdemott]

I wish I knew that before taking half of my pictures at St. Helens in RAW format only.

This made me smile. It is a pretty good description of how I learned a lot of lessons about photography (and other things too). I wished I knew X before I did Y.

[TJ_T]

Hey Fluttershy, I did a quick comparison photo shoot today, as I am about to start shooting in raw as well. The image on the left was shot on the camera in jpg, the one on the right was shot in raw. Neither were edited, this is just straight off the camera. Thought you might like a side by side comparison to see the differences.

It's good to understand the differences that you will SEE when you are first starting to shoot in raw. When you review a raw file with your eyes for the first time you will likely be disappointed. But as John stated the differences lie in the amount of data that is collected. When your image is converted to jpg it becomes an 8-bit image which translates to 256 levels of tones. A raw image is ~14-bit and will contain ~16,384 levels of the 'tonal range'. The difference comes into play yes.. when you are editing your images.

Getting back to SEEING the differences.. here's an example for you and showing this side is something I rarely do. I created both the image on the left and the right with the same raw file (pictured in the middle). The .jpg on the left was 'processed' in 1.5 minutes IN THE FIELD in my camera and if I had used the right settings.. is the photo I would have gotten by shooting jpg. The photo on the right was processed in Photoshop. I was able to fine tune it to my liking and bring out a little more saturation and balance in my tones within the image. I am just showing you the differences in the way a raw file will look and the possibilities with that file.

If you're wondering why the raw file looks so bright it's because I always 'expose to the right'.. which is a way I shoot to ensure I'm capturing the most data in my image.

See also:
Shooting in raw: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutor ... iles.shtml
Exposing to the right: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutor ... ight.shtml



The good news is that you still have the raw data and you can process it when you gain the knowledge. You'd be surprised with what a little slider work in Lightroom can do to an image.

[sprengers4jc]

Thanks, TJ and jdemott! Great info being shared here for all of us.