Settings for RAW

ST13 wrote:

Hi there! I have a question that may appear silly but has been in my mind for some time now: I have a Lumix GX7 and I shoot always in RAW and predominantly in A priority. The camera has various settings in the menus (e.g. noise reduction setting, various color settings etc.) Given, as I said that I always shoot RAW and subsequently do some post processing in Lightroom, should I bather about these setting? Do they affect the picture(s) I take?

Thanks in advance

While most settings (besides ISO, shutter, and fstop) don't affect RAW, some do directly or indirectly.

Long Shutter Noise Reduction takes a second closed shutter image and bakes it into the original photo, RAW or jpeg, to reduce noise.

Color and WB don't affect the RAW image itself, but do affect the thumbnail image.

Some stuff like HDR or ETC disable RAW (and RAW disables them).

iDynamic decreases the exposure (usually shorter shutter) to preserve highlights. And while only the jpeg gets the boost in the shadows, since the exposure is less, this setting does affect RAWs.

Extended ISO (125 and 160 in the GX7) adds another ISO below the base 200. This affect the auto and semi-auto exposures by 2/3 a stop, and reduces the highlight head room.

The aspect ratio does apply to the RAW with the GX7. I think all panasonics before the GX8 clipped the RAW files, while GX8 and later don't, but I only have the GX7.