Leo my Great Pyrenees at extreme ISO

The subject of shooting in RAW mode keeps coming up at computer club meetings, on photo sharing websites and in talking with other photographers. Now, I am always TOLD how much better shooting in RAW is but I'm never shown that fact.


I have tried both ways and admit I hate shooting in RAW. It's a resources hog, shooting in RAW requires I process each file twice. Once in Camera Raw and then a second time in Photoshop. Bah humbug! That sucks.


THEN that marvel of marvels, the RAW image becomes a JPG anyway.


Now, OK for those of you that cater to the print industry or do custom printing, perhaps RAW is a bit better if you don't convert it to JPG that is.


Me? I'm sticking to JPG until someone shows with pictures, that RAW is better.


I photographed Leo today at the insane ISO of 6400 in JPG fine mode.


The following image was shot at f/9 at 1/20th with tungsten and daylight for lighting. I set the white balance on Leo, since he's a white dog. I used my Nikon D5000 because it has that flexible LCD, so I just set the camera on the floor, flipped out the LCD and shot in live mode.

Click on image for a full view

Next came some noise reduction using Imagenomic's Noiseware. Just google Imagenomic for more information on their product. Since I shoot with Nikons I don't use noise reduction a whole lot, and in the case of the photo below I set it on a very minimum of reduction. No matter how you slice it or what the marketing folks tell you, there is a price to pay for noise reduction. You also reduce details in the photos.

                                       

Click on image for a full view

In the following picture I have my usual amount of noise reduction, it's a bit higher than for the picture above.

                                       

Click on image for a full view

There is some loss of detail, mostly seen in Leo's fur, so there is always that compromise between noise reduction and image details. A lot depends on the purpose of the picture. If you are going to send it to a publisher then it better be in it's best possible condition and you should not have shot at ISO 6400 unless it's a news or sports photo. For showing to friends and family, perhaps printing a 4 X 6 picture, then a quick snap at high ISO makes sense.

From my experience, properly setting the white balance makes more of a difference then anything else. Be sure to get that right and don't just set your wb to AUTO and forget about it.

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