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Panasonic G1: Why bother with RAW?

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Thanks for taking the time to comment. I trust DVDs about as much as I trust being able to read RW2 10 years from now. I have 3 copies on disk (alas, all in my house) and am considering putting a copy online. I can't trust those online storage companies either, but it would be my 4th copy.

Putting it off until there is a potential problem is what we do for media issues. Before I got rid of my last Zip drive, I copied everything. So maybe it's the right answer for raw files as well. I'll check if there is any size benefit to DNG or TIF.
Jeanadriane said:
Judy, if you wanna be a 100% certain of your files being accessable in the future, I think uncompressed 16 bits TIFF is the way to go, and just burn them on dvd. Of course JPG will hold equally strong, but with that format you just loose way too much. Only thing you loose with TIFF is shelf space for the dvd-wallets. :-)

BUT you could make it your habit to save your RAW files from LR as "original", thus making LR add a tiny XMP-file to the RAW's. For quite a while you'll have programs at hand that can read your RAWs . Now when somewhere in the faraway future you fear your RAWs will become unreadable, you take your (then) old LR-version, batch convert all your old RAWs+XMPs into TIFFs or whatever at that mo the standard will be, and you're done.

Only, don't delete your RAWs, not even if you decide to keep your JPGs. In a few years your skills may have developed beyond what you now think is your limit, and then you may wanna go back to old pics and do them better. Remember, along with your skills, your critical senses develop!
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Interesting. Could you clarify why adding the xmp file would help?

let's say I have a bunch of raws and then i find out that Lightroom 6.0 wil stop supporting them. Before installng it, couldn't i just get Lightroom 5.0 to convert them to Tiff or even the newer raw format of the time?
The problem with tiffs is the space they consume.
--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/photoanalysis/
 
The XMPs keep your settings. Say, you have developed a pic in LR and you want to keep what you've just done. Saving as an "original" writes your LR settings in a tiny XMP file that you store with your RAW. That way that you can go back to it anytime, either to change something or to save the file in a different format, like TIFF. All you need to to then, is to dig up the dvd, and load both the RAW and the XMP, and presto, everything's there again, at your disposal. Of course you can as well store on external disk or whatever.

Judy, 3 copies is really enough I think! Don't overdo it on the worrying. :-) I just cleaned out a big part of my digital archive on cd and dvd, and all my stuff from 5 or 6 years ago was still totally OK.
 
Anthony said:
Let's say I take a picture in RAW, with the G1 in "Vibrant" mode. Afterwards, I realize that the picture would have been nicer in "standard" mode. I would like to be able to switch between camera settings in the software. Basically, all the raw paramaters become useless, because, SilkyPix has its own names for its different color settings, and it becomes a guessing game.
Click to expand...
Ah, now I understand what you are saying. Yeah, there is no coordination between the JPG engine (what the in camera adjustments effect) and the RAW converter settings. This is pretty typical, although perhaps Nikon supports this more directly. I know Canon for awhile had two RAW processors, one that matched the JPG engine and one that had more controls. They got rid of the first and then came up with some loose (but not identical) coordination on the second one (DPP).

Anyway, no you aren't missing some hidden feature that will do that. Much like when you bring a RAW file into any 3rd party app you use that RAW converters presets (or your own) to find a starting point and then move on from there. White-balance and lens corrections I think are the only things that tend to match the camera settings.

I guess I can see some appeal to having such a feature, but I never used it with my Canon cameras and I have a hard time imagining being a critical feature most users would use. I've always gotten the impression, at least on the Canon side, that the vast majority of "pros" as it were tended to use things other than DPP.

Of course in any RAW converter you can come up with your own presets that closely match the camera JPG engine - of course this can be a bit of work. I believe for some Canon and Nikon cameras that ACR actually provides some presets of this form.
--
Ken W

Rebel XT, XTi, Pany G1, LX3, FZ28, Fuji F30, and a lot of 35mm and 4x5 sitting in the closet...
 
It is nice when the camera provides access to its image filters on the pc. You can shoot raw, then selectively apply camera settings later. If you shoot jpg and apply the effects in-camera, you are stuck with that effect.
 
Jeanadriane said:
Judy, 3 copies is really enough I think! Don't overdo it on the worrying. :-) I just cleaned out a big part of my digital archive on cd and dvd, and all my stuff from 5 or 6 years ago was still totally OK.
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No, 3 copies is not enough because they are all in my house. There are several ways to get an offsite copy, and one of them is online storage. 2 copies here and a reliable offline copy would be enough.

People have had trouble reading CDs and DVDs. I try to buy a good brand, but it is also a management hassle because you have so many "things". With a large disk drive, you have one thing. If it starts having errors you either copy everything off of it or use one of your other copies to make a copy on a new disk. With hundreds of CDs/DVDs, there is no reasonable way to check their health.
 
DougRight said:
It is nice when the camera provides access to its image filters on the pc. You can shoot raw, then selectively apply camera settings later. If you shoot jpg and apply the effects in-camera, you are stuck with that effect.
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I guess that's what I want.

I have it that way with Nikon
 
The OP's issue is that Adobe (and others who make RAW converters) should implement mimics of every cockamamie tone curve, color sat adjustment, yoiu name it that all the dozen plus camera manufacturers implement in their in-camera image processing to JPG.

The other extreme is for everyone to do away with all this proprietary stuff from the git-go and adopt an open RAW standard, just the way the industry got together and adopted the JPG standard. Simple is beautiful. When are we ever going to realize this?
--
http://www.pbase.com/morepix
 
JudyN said:
People have had trouble reading CDs and DVDs. I try to buy a good brand, but it is also a management hassle because you have so many "things". With a large disk drive, you have one thing. If it starts having errors you either copy everything off of it or use one of your other copies to make a copy on a new disk. With hundreds of CDs/DVDs, there is no reasonable way to check their health.
Click to expand...
I think 2 to 3 copies are enough, just buy a NAS with at least two disks, put it in raid 1, and you have a very redundant solution. Keep one copy on DVD in some dark sealed place and you're set.

--
Digifan
 
Trevor G said:
Anthony said:
I've ALWAYS shot raw with all my cameras.

If I shoot RAW using my G1, I see absolutely no way to alter the camera parameters in either Slkypix or Panasonic studio.
Click to expand...
You aren't missing something. You are missing everything.

--
Cheers

Trevor G
Click to expand...
Ok, since you've come to that conclusion, please take a moment and explain "everything".

I'd like to hear everything you have to say.
 
Anthony said:
Are we all saying that when shooting RAW, the camera is NOT applying any parameters to the image?
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This is correct and is how RAW works on all essentially all cameras. The pixel values from the CCD or CMOS sensor are written "RAW" to the file completely unmolested by any camera settings. There are just a few caveats to this:
  • Many cameras for very long exposures will do a dark frame subtraction (a second photo taken with the shutter closed and then subtracted from the intended exposure to remove hot pixels). So this does effect the raw pixel data, but in away that is identical to how JPGs are processed.
  • Some cameras do apply noise reduction to the RAW data although this is usually considered an annoying and bad idea.
  • Some cameras (some Nikons) actually do use a slightly lossy compression algorithm for the RAW data - so while not strictly what the exact pixel values are from the CCD/CMOS imager it is for all intents and purposes close enough.
Now then, along side this data the camera may store a bunch of metadata that the RAW converter may or may not read and apply to its "default" conversion:
  • The white balance - essentially all RAW converters will read the WB metadata and allow you to use it (often called "As Shot" or "Camera") or set the WB in the RAW converter.
  • For m43 cameras metadata regarding lens aberration corrections are in the metadata and all commercial RAW converters apply this in a manner identical to what the camera's JPG engine does.
  • Some camera systems have proprietary metadata of other camera settings (such as "picture modes", like Standard, Nature, Portrait, etc.) that their proprietary RAW converters might recognize and apply to some degree but which most any other RAW converter will ignore.
Anthony14707 said:
In other words, if I take a picture in vibrant mode / Raw, I'm not getting a vibrant image, I'm getting a basic "what I see is what I got" image?
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Well, yes and no. There really is no such thing as a "what I see is what I got" image since no camera sees anything at all like a person does. But yes, I think you are on the right track. A more accurate way to state it is that whether you shoot in Vibrant mode or not (or even a B&W mode) the RAW data never changes - you are deferring the decision of what kind of color/contrast/sharpness settings to use until you get to the RAW conversion step. If there is a particular "look" you frequently use then you can save those settings in your RAW converter and make them the default - or you can develop a few different "looks" store them as different presets and try them all out on any image quickly and easily. The basic idea though is that when you shoot RAW pretty much all the film modes, contrast, color and sharpening settings are essentially ignored.
Anthony14707 said:
I need to test this.
Click to expand...
Definitely. Nothing enhances understanding more than doing it yourself! And there are subtle differences between different cameras and RAW converters as to what metadata actually gets applied so it is always worth understanding your workflow.

--
Ken W

Rebel XT, XTi, Pany G1, LX3, FZ28, Fuji F30, and a lot of 35mm and 4x5 sitting in the closet...
 
I really appreciate you taking the time to answer this. You would think, that after using a Nikon / Canon DSLR for 10 years, I would have a better understanding of the raw process. :)
kenw said:
Anthony said:
Are we all saying that when shooting RAW, the camera is NOT applying any parameters to the image?
Click to expand...
This is correct and is how RAW works on all essentially all cameras. The pixel values from the CCD or CMOS sensor are written "RAW" to the file completely unmolested by any camera settings. There are just a few caveats to this:
  • Many cameras for very long exposures will do a dark frame subtraction (a second photo taken with the shutter closed and then subtracted from the intended exposure to remove hot pixels). So this does effect the raw pixel data, but in away that is identical to how JPGs are processed.
  • Some cameras do apply noise reduction to the RAW data although this is usually considered an annoying and bad idea.
  • Some cameras (some Nikons) actually do use a slightly lossy compression algorithm for the RAW data - so while not strictly what the exact pixel values are from the CCD/CMOS imager it is for all intents and purposes close enough.
Now then, along side this data the camera may store a bunch of metadata that the RAW converter may or may not read and apply to its "default" conversion:
  • The white balance - essentially all RAW converters will read the WB metadata and allow you to use it (often called "As Shot" or "Camera") or set the WB in the RAW converter.
  • For m43 cameras metadata regarding lens aberration corrections are in the metadata and all commercial RAW converters apply this in a manner identical to what the camera's JPG engine does.
  • Some camera systems have proprietary metadata of other camera settings (such as "picture modes", like Standard, Nature, Portrait, etc.) that their proprietary RAW converters might recognize and apply to some degree but which most any other RAW converter will ignore.
kenw said:
In other words, if I take a picture in vibrant mode / Raw, I'm not getting a vibrant image, I'm getting a basic "what I see is what I got" image?
Click to expand...
Well, yes and no. There really is no such thing as a "what I see is what I got" image since no camera sees anything at all like a person does. But yes, I think you are on the right track. A more accurate way to state it is that whether you shoot in Vibrant mode or not (or even a B&W mode) the RAW data never changes - you are deferring the decision of what kind of color/contrast/sharpness settings to use until you get to the RAW conversion step. If there is a particular "look" you frequently use then you can save those settings in your RAW converter and make them the default - or you can develop a few different "looks" store them as different presets and try them all out on any image quickly and easily. The basic idea though is that when you shoot RAW pretty much all the film modes, contrast, color and sharpening settings are essentially ignored.
kenw said:
I need to test this.
Click to expand...
Definitely. Nothing enhances understanding more than doing it yourself! And there are subtle differences between different cameras and RAW converters as to what metadata actually gets applied so it is always worth understanding your workflow.

--
Ken W

Rebel XT, XTi, Pany G1, LX3, FZ28, Fuji F30, and a lot of 35mm and 4x5 sitting in the closet...
Click to expand...
 
I just took a test shot using RAW, in Dynamic B&W mode. When I opened the image in Silkypix, the picture reverted to color.

Where the heck is the image the way I shot it? I liked the way Dynamic B&W looked.
Now Silkypix does not have a mode such as "As shot"
I would at least like to have the RAW image open as I took it.

I'm still missing something. :)
 
Anthony,

I understand your frustration. I shoot RAW+JPG. Most of the time I just use the JPGs, but I appreciate having the digital "negative" in case I ever want to change it, even though it take more disk space.

I had not noticed the lack of settings-transfer from cameraa to SilkyPix because I haven't had time to process any of my RAW images yet. I got frustrated with teh Panasonic Photo-NOT-fun_Studio and deleted it from my system.

I think, having read many of the comments, that we're going to have to wait until one of the third-party RAW software packages offers a direct plug-in for the G1/GH1/GF1. Until then, you'll have to stick with either using the JPG or trying to tweak the RAW file to match the JPG image you like.

Tony
 
digifan said:
I think 2 to 3 copies are enough, just buy a NAS with at least two disks, put it in raid 1, and you have a very redundant solution. Keep one copy on DVD in some dark sealed place and you're set.
Click to expand...
One copy needs to be in a location that is different from the other copies. Fire, theft, whatever. One copy has to be offsite. The advantage of online is you can do the copy from home and it is not at home. The disk in a safe deposit box is a recipe for not keeping it up to date. I don't want a bunch of DVDs anywhere...
 
kenw said:
kenw wrote:

Nikon and Canon offerings for software are garbage compared to the third party alternatives, why on earth would a smaller company like Panasonic waste resources on yet another also ran piece of junk proprietary software?
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Panasonic is a bigger company than Nikon and Canon combined. Still smaller in cameras, but they have the resources and patience to be a long-term threat.
 
Anthony said:
I just took a test shot using RAW, in Dynamic B&W mode. When I opened the image in Silkypix, the picture reverted to color.
Click to expand...
That's normal. Someone has already explained that to you.
Anthony14707 said:
Where the heck is the image the way I shot it? I liked the way Dynamic B&W looked.
Click to expand...
It's in the jpeg you were advised to shoot at the same time. RAW + jpeg. It actually looks like a stack of hay bales, but that is the symbol used for jpeg. RAW + jpeg.
Anthony14707 said:
Now Silkypix does not have a mode such as "As shot"
I would at least like to have the RAW image open as I took it.
Click to expand...
Tsk tsk - silly boy. You were warned... ;-)
Anthony14707 said:
I'm still missing something. :)
Click to expand...
You are indeed.

Indeed.

Now if you buy a Pentax DSLR the version of Sillypix shipped with that gives you a number of in-camera settings as the default. The version supplied with Panasonic cams also does, but not as many - they are:

-- Colour effects ( the * symbol, although it is more of a gear wheel)

-- Auto white balance.

I'm not trying to be patronising when I say that you would be well served to:

1) Read the manual

2) Read some reviews such as dpreview's version.

That way you will get a good idea before you need ask the same questions several times because you just don't believe what we tell you.

--
Cheers

Trevor G

http://www.computerwyse.com/photo.html
 
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