$499 for the 100-400!

Alastair Norcross wrote:

Mike Engles wrote:

Alastair Norcross wrote:

Mike Engles wrote:

Wry smile!

Hmm. OK then. If that's the only response you have when I take the trouble to explain things in detail, I suppose I shouldn't have bothered.

Wry smile, because using any free image viewer that can extract the embedded jpeg in the RAW file, means that you can post a file straight out of the camera, obviously subject to what ever settings you have as a Picture style. DPP uses these settings as a basis

Also I imagine ALL RAW processors have a minimum setting that does almost nothing at all,

What on earth do you mean by "does almost nothing at all"? All RAW converters do lots of stuff. It seems that you prefer the ones that do lots of stuff with the result that the images look soft. That's not doing less than other ones, it's just doing different things. You seem to be assuming that's there's such a thing as how the image looks without processing. As I've tried to explain, that's simply nonsense. There's just different kinds of processing. You're trying to make out that your preferences are somehow 'purer' or closer to how the image 'really looks', whatever that might mean (nothing at all, actually).

as well as export the jpeg. No one is really confident or brave enough to post basic RAW images,

How many times do I have to tell you, there's no such thing as 'basic RAW images'. RAW data is always processed to make images. There's nothing inherently more basic about one way of processing than another.

so they make all sorts of excuses for not doing so.

No, you seem to be asking people to process their images the way you like them to look, rather than the way they like them to look. Why would anyone do that? You can process your own images whatever way you want to, but don't demand that we share your preferences, and don't pretend that your preferences somehow correspond to the 'real' or 'unprocessed' image. There is no such thing.

It is pretty much like going to see your favourite band live on stage and finding out that they cannot play and their records are studio trickery.

Most images posted nowadays are trickery, I'm sorry to say.

No, it's me who's sorry for engaging in this inane debate. You're welcome to your own preferences. Why are you trying to justify them with ridiculous claims about what images look like 'unprocessed'?

Agreed. The thing that many seem to confuse is the difference between “trickery” like sky replacement or cloning objects in or out vs simple processing preferences.

We can use various sharpening and noise reduction settings at capture. We can even customize various white balance or Canon presets (which are really just the preferences of Canon engineers. We can custom build picture styles and load them on to our cameras (I like Autumn Hues from Canons Picture Style Editor software this time of year). Then all this supposed trickery is done at capture. I can bump the contrast at capture as well.

I don’t think doing any of that before I click the shutter is more or less pure than after I click the shutter.

Curious if Mike would consider black and white processing “trickery”? Would it matter if it were a picture style choice at capture or when post processing? Black and white predates color processing. Doesn’t get much more pure than that, no?