raw vs jpeg with the P7100

Some guys here are wondering if it's really worth shooting raw with the P7100.
I've done a quick "test". Nothing scientific.
I took a photo using raw + jpeg.

Unfortunately, the jpeg was shot at 2048*1236 (it's because I was testing the low light mode just before, and I wanted to see if lowering the resolution would yield faster speeds).

That's not really a problem here, as we're not looking at resolution, but trying to see if we can recover blown highlights. I reduced the raw file to 2048*1236, to match the jpeg.
I've chosen an overexposed image, to see what could be recovered when using raw.
These pictures are 100% crops.
Here is the original jpeg :



At default settings, the raw file, opened in NX2, looks exactly the same,

Here is the jpeg file post processed with NX2: I tried my best to recover highlights. Even when lowering the luminosity at the maximum, the white house is almost completely white, or turns grey, but you can't see any details.



The raw file processed with NX2:



I agree that those pictures are poor, jpeg or raw (remember they are 100% crops)

But you can see that the raw file allows recovering some highlights, where the jpeg doesn't.
Remember we're talking about P7100 files, not about a DSLR or another camera.
André

andrbar said:

I've chosen an overexposed image, to see what could be recovered when using raw. These pictures are 100% crops.

Click to expand...

André BARELIER said:

Here is the original jpeg :

Click to expand...

André BARELIER said:

Click to expand...

André BARELIER said:

Here is the jpeg file PP'd with NX2

Click to expand...

I think you could have done a little better with PPing the jpeg.
Maybe if you used ACR instead. I had a go with it using CS6+ACR7.1:

André BARELIER said:

The raw file processed with NX2:

Click to expand...

But I FULLY agree with you Andre that the raw end result is invariably better...

BTW, I got my new P7100 yesterday and I am on the study/learn curve... Looks good so far but I may need a few tips from you (in due course) as you've shown your knowledge on it on several occasions...

--
Best Regards
Sunshine

ps If you see someone without a smile on, give him one of yours...

Hi Sunshine,

Glad you've got your P7100. It's a great camera.

Don't hesitate to ask any question. I'd be glad to help, but I'm far from being an expert!

About the highlights recovery, of course I could have gone further, but I stopped as soon as artifacts appeared.

You recovered more highlights, but the result is full of artifacts, and the picture is, IMO, unusable. And the windows are still impossible to recover in the jpeg picture.
I know they are barely visible in the raw file, but the data is here.
Regards
André

andrbar said:

Hi Sunshine,

Glad you've got your P7100. It's a great camera.

Don't hesitate to ask any question. I'd be glad to help, but I'm far from being an expert!

About the highlights recovery, of course I could have gone further, but I stopped as soon as artifacts appeared.

You recovered more highlights, but the result is full of artifacts, and the picture is, IMO, unusable. And the windows are still impossible to recover in the jpeg picture.
I know they are barely visible in the raw file, but the data is here.
Regards
André

Click to expand...

I agree about artifacts... I went a bit overboard trying to see what can be recovered (as an exercise). I shoot raw myself (with dslr). With the P7100 I may shoot jpegs when snapping or messing around. I already did a lot of testing on Pic Controls, WB etc. So much to get into! 'Worse' than my dslr!...

Thanks for the offer to help. I'll PM you when ready.
Greetings...

--
Best Regards
Sunshine

ps If you see someone without a smile on, give him one of yours...

I've done some more tests, in good light.
I took some pictures in raw + jpeg fine, at full resolution. Iso 100. P mode.
I converted the raw file with Capture NX2.
Here are my findings:

In very good light, with a picture correctly exposed, if you look at the bright parts of the picture , the difference between raw and jpeg is indistinguishable, even at 100%.
Color and definition are exactly the same.

If you look at the dark parts of the picture, the difference is obvious, and, for ME, enough to justify shooting raw:
These are straight out of cam (100% crops, 1st jpeg, 2nd raw)





I added +40 luminosity to both images, just to see (100% crops, 1st jpeg, 2nd raw):





For me, who likes shooting interiors hand held, raw gives better results than jpegs.

If you shoot only in good light, there's no significant advantage shooting raw, except that maybe you could recover some data which could have been lost in jpegs. But this is true only if exposure is off (like in my first example). If exposure is spot on, raw and jpegs give identical results.
You can try by yourself, and see if you draw the same conclusion.
André

That's what you call taking shots in good light? Looks like just before nightfall out in your garden under the shade of some big tree (insert smiley emoticon here).

OK, here's a couple of my own tests. Mind you, I got the P7100 from the guy at the camera store, put it on P, didn't deal with any menu settings. Put my D5100 on P (that I had dialed in) and shot same/same out in a parking lot. Jpegs!

D5100



P7100



D5100



P7100



D5100



P7100



Man, it's a lot of work posting stuff like this here. No post processing, no noise reduction, some cropping and "downsizing" to 1024 pixels.

Check out the similar colors and exposure. Of course it was raining that day and a proper test, for me, is not on an untypical rainy day. And over a week of varied scenes.

andrbar said:

I've done some more tests, in good light.
I took some pictures in raw + jpeg fine, at full resolution. Iso 100. P mode.
I converted the raw file with Capture NX2.
Here are my findings:

In very good light, with a picture correctly exposed, if you look at the bright parts of the picture , the difference between raw and jpeg is indistinguishable, even at 100%.
Color and definition are exactly the same.

If you look at the dark parts of the picture, the difference is obvious, and, for ME, enough to justify shooting raw:
These are straight out of cam (100% crops, 1st jpeg, 2nd raw)





I added +40 luminosity to both images, just to see (100% crops, 1st jpeg, 2nd raw):





For me, who likes shooting interiors hand held, raw gives better results than jpegs.

If you shoot only in good light, there's no significant advantage shooting raw, except that maybe you could recover some data which could have been lost in jpegs. But this is true only if exposure is off (like in my first example). If exposure is spot on, raw and jpegs give identical results.
You can try by yourself, and see if you draw the same conclusion.
André

Click to expand...

We're not comparing a DSLR and a compact here.
We're just talking about the advantages of shooting raw with the P7100.
And I'm not trying to convince anybody.

But, since I was asked a question about the difference, I tried to do some quick tests.
The picture I used is not underexposed.
Here is the whole picture :



Yes, it's taken at sunset, but some highlights are already blown, and I cannot do better exposure wise (unless I take several pictures and blend them, but that's not the purpose of this "test"). That's why I had to brighten the shadows, to get a better looking image.

So, I'm sorry, but in the dark parts of the picture, raw gives much better results.
About recovering highlights, here is a quick test:
The whole picture (P mode, iso 100, no exposure compensation).



The picture is correctly exposed, but some highlights are blown, which can be seen at 100% magnification. These blown highlights are barely visible, even at full size, so the picture is OK.
But, let's play:
a 100% crop from the processed jpeg file:



and the same crop from the processed NRW file:



I applied exactly the same processing to both files: I used the highlight recovery slider in Capture NX2, at 60%.

Note that the blue has changed in the jpeg, while it remained correct in the NRW.

I don't say you could not do better with the jpeg file, but for me, it's much easier to recover the blown highlights in the raw file. It saves time, not the contrary.

Remember that I shot a lot of pictures indoors (monuments, churches, etc.), where almost every photo is shot in low light, but with strong highlights. See my pictures of Istanbul in another thread. That's why I use raw. But to each his own…

BTW, you can have a look at dpreview test of the P7100, and see for yourself the difference between raw and jpeg at high iso.
André

I shoot JPEG plus RAW. Most of the time I use the RAW images because the just process better, however the P7100 lens has some pretty strong distortion, especially at the wide end, that the P7100's JPEG engine corrects. I can't correct easily in my workflow, so if the distortion is noticeable or the JPEG is "good enough" I'll use that.

--
Equipment in my User Profile.

andrbar said:

Here are my findings:

In very good light, with a picture correctly exposed, if you look at the bright parts of the picture , the difference between raw and jpeg is indistinguishable, even at 100%.
Color and definition are exactly the same.

If you look at the dark parts of the picture, the difference is obvious, and, for ME, enough to justify shooting raw

Click to expand...

André: those are exactly my findings!

Despite I am raw only shooter with my DSLRs when I bought P7100 by the end of last November, I had the hope, or desire, to be a JPEG only user with this compact. It is impossible to get acceptable shadows except under a very good light. I went for an "almost" raw only user also for this little camera. I think 10% to 20% of my pictures are made on JPEG mode, otherwise raw.

My dream for a decent JPEG camera did not come true, yet...

Best regards,
--
O.Cristo - An Amateur Photographer

Opinions of men are almost as various as their faces - so many men so many minds . Franklin

Come now, Osvaldo and andrbar, are you saying "don't buy the P7100 if you intend to shoot jpegs"?

If that were indeed the case I'd never buy one. But then maybe I'm not as picky as you two!

Osvaldo Cristo said:

andrbar said:

Here are my findings:

In very good light, with a picture correctly exposed, if you look at the bright parts of the picture , the difference between raw and jpeg is indistinguishable, even at 100%.
Color and definition are exactly the same.

If you look at the dark parts of the picture, the difference is obvious, and, for ME, enough to justify shooting raw

Click to expand...

André: those are exactly my findings!

Despite I am raw only shooter with my DSLRs when I bought P7100 by the end of last November, I had the hope, or desire, to be a JPEG only user with this compact. It is impossible to get acceptable shadows except under a very good light. I went for an "almost" raw only user also for this little camera. I think 10% to 20% of my pictures are made on JPEG mode, otherwise raw.

My dream for a decent JPEG camera did not come true, yet...

Best regards,
--
O.Cristo - An Amateur Photographer

Opinions of men are almost as various as their faces - so many men so many minds . Franklin

Click to expand...

It's interesting how differently people conceive the concept of "good light." Since you shoot a lot of indoor pictures in really low light, an outdoor shot at sunset may seem like good light to you. However, based on the exposure you used, that shot is probably around an EV of 7 or 8. Shooting mostly outdoors during the times of day that tourists are typically active, I consider an EV of 12 to be pretty dim (e.g., heavy overcast), and "good light" is at least an EV of 14 (just strong enough to cast shadows).

At least based on what you posted here, I have to disagree with your statement that the raw file did better in the shadows since the jpeg shots have more detail in them. Blocked up shadows are almost as unappealing to me as blown highlights.

I'm curious about the blown highlight issues you're having with jpeg's. Have you experimented with auto d-lighting? One of the reasons I bought a P7100 was to get this feature. I haven't had much opportunity to try out my camera since getting it a couple months ago, but I've been pleased so far with just keeping it set to standard auto d-lighting, though my sample of the camera seems to most accurately render the scene when using about -0.7 exposure compensation (always a bit of a crapshoot with matrix metering, but that's what it defaults to when using auto d-lighting; I never felt a need to bracket when using spot metering, but I haven't yet figured out why matrix does what it does sometimes).

jrtrent said:

It's interesting how differently people conceive the concept of "good light." Since you shoot a lot of indoor pictures in really low light, an outdoor shot at sunset may seem like good light to you. However, based on the exposure you used, that shot is probably around an EV of 7 or 8. Shooting mostly outdoors during the times of day that tourists are typically active, I consider an EV of 12 to be pretty dim (e.g., heavy overcast), and "good light" is at least an EV of 14 (just strong enough to cast shadows).

Click to expand...

OK.

jrtrent said:

At least based on what you posted here, I have to disagree with your statement that the raw file did better in the shadows since the jpeg shots have more detail in them. Blocked up shadows are almost as unappealing to me as blown highlights.

Click to expand...

Well, I can't follow you on this one. How can you see more details in the jpeg file???

Are we speaking of the same pictures? I'm refering to the first picture I posted (the green foliage)

jrtrent said:

I'm curious about the blown highlight issues you're having with jpeg's. Have you experimented with auto d-lighting? One of the reasons I bought a P7100 was to get this feature. I haven't had much opportunity to try out my camera since getting it a couple months ago, but I've been pleased so far with just keeping it set to standard auto d-lighting, though my sample of the camera seems to most accurately render the scene when using about -0.7 exposure compensation (always a bit of a crapshoot with matrix metering, but that's what it defaults to when using auto d-lighting; I never felt a need to bracket when using spot metering, but I haven't yet figured out why matrix does what it does sometimes).

Click to expand...

I tried ADL with my D90 and wasn't convinced by it. I might follow your advice and give it a try with the P7100.

Osvaldo,

I'm glad I'm not alone. For me, shooting raw is not tiresome: I like playing with my raw files! I feel like if a was a real pro photographer, developping his own films!

toomanycanons :

I'm not saying "don't buy the P7100 if you intend to shoot jpegs". But I'm saying: based on its jpeg performance, I would not have bought the P7100, and would have kept my G11, which is much better in jpeg (at high iso). BUT, given I'm used to shoot raw, I say that, for me, the P7100 is a better camera than the G11/12. The P7100 is better due to its lens, and ergonomics, with a raw performance which is the same as the G11/12.

So, with the P7100, I have exactly the same sensor performance as the G11/12, but with a better lens, and better ergonomics.
Regards
André

toomanycanons said:

toomanycanons wrote:

Come now, Osvaldo and andrbar, are you saying "don't buy the P7100 if you intend to shoot jpegs"?

If that were indeed the case I'd never buy one. But then maybe I'm not as picky as you two!

Osvaldo Cristo said:

andrbar said:

Here are my findings:

In very good light, with a picture correctly exposed, if you look at the bright parts of the picture , the difference between raw and jpeg is indistinguishable, even at 100%.
Color and definition are exactly the same.

If you look at the dark parts of the picture, the difference is obvious, and, for ME, enough to justify shooting raw

Click to expand...

André: those are exactly my findings!

Despite I am raw only shooter with my DSLRs when I bought P7100 by the end of last November, I had the hope, or desire, to be a JPEG only user with this compact. It is impossible to get acceptable shadows except under a very good light. I went for an "almost" raw only user also for this little camera. I think 10% to 20% of my pictures are made on JPEG mode, otherwise raw.

My dream for a decent JPEG camera did not come true, yet...

Best regards,
--
O.Cristo - An Amateur Photographer

Opinions of men are almost as various as their faces - so many men so many minds . Franklin

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

andrbar said:

Well, I can't follow you on this one. How can you see more details in the jpeg file???

Are we speaking of the same pictures? I'm refering to the first picture I posted (the green foliage)

Click to expand...

In the jpeg file, I clearly see foliage all the way to the bottom of the frame; in the raw file, the bottom of frame is much blacker, making it harder to see anything down there.

Yes, but that's another story.

I noticed that exposure appears to be slightly different between jpeg and raw, and that the jpeg file reacts differently when you process them using the luminosity slider : colors are slightly modified, and the jpeg files appears more bright (or less dark). So, you have to brighten the raw image a tad more than the jpeg to get the same exposure. Then, you'll see that the raw file shows more detail than the jpeg.
André

That's a good idea. For pictures needing no post processing (or just a little), it saves times by automatically correcting the distorsion.

As I use Capture NX for converting my raw files, I have to import some images in Photoshop to correct perspective distorsion. Time consuming...

When will Nikon provide us Capture NX with perspective correction, and a cloning tool?
Thanks for the tip.
André

talmy said:

I shoot JPEG plus RAW. Most of the time I use the RAW images because the just process better, however the P7100 lens has some pretty strong distortion, especially at the wide end, that the P7100's JPEG engine corrects. I can't correct easily in my workflow, so if the distortion is noticeable or the JPEG is "good enough" I'll use that.

--
Equipment in my User Profile.

Click to expand...