After reading an article about how far better images could be produced from a 950 using RAW, I become quite interested in what was possible with processing RAW files on my PC. I thought that some of the image quality 'issues' of compact digital cameras could be fixed (things like purple fringing with the chromatic abberation adjustments).
Modifying tmy Coolpix 950 or 990 seemed to be more effort than I felt like doing, and as I had been wanting a new compact camera anyway, I bought a second hand Coolpix 5000 and gave it a free firmware update to give it NEF (Nikons RAW format), I began testing it, and found that I was getting images that were nearly as good as what I was getting with my 20D. I was impressed as this was a camera generations older, and with a much smaller sensor.
When I was comparing the images with those taken with a much newer camera, I found that while high ISO images looked better there was odd "red speckles" in my pictures, like in the grass and on the balcony in the RGB segment below.
I soon noticed that some of the 'noise' that I found in images was not present in the RAW generated images. This is an example of what I mean from the RED channel of one image hover your mouse over the image in the RED channel to see the differences.
| RGB image | red channel |
|---|---|
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I have put together a page on what I found in exploring and understanding those artifacts here. So have a read of that too if you'd like to understand that more.
Interestinlgy I have also done this comparison with my 20D, and found that while the artifacts had less dominance in the image that channel saturation can significantly alter images outside of your control. If you personally want to get that look, great, you can blow the channel out yourself, but why have the camera do it for you without asking?
This means that I can obtain even more natural colour rendition without (particularly) the RED channel blocking up and making the reds look 'plastic' when using all my digital cameras in RAW.
So, aside from those dicsussions I thought I'd also try to demonstrate what kind of control over the image that a RAW can give you, that even a little image curves manipulation can't give you with the JPG
In this image, I took 3 exposures of this scene.
So ... lets look at the pictures. Below is the scene photographed by the Coolpix 5000, and as you can see I moved the camera between shots as the film camera was on the tripod. Hover your mouse over the picture to see the NEF sourced image.
The next thing you'll spot is that the colour balance is different. I imported it with the "as shot" settings, but as it happens I think I prefer the colours of the NEF colour balance. (nice one Adobe)
There was quite strong (though diffuse) window light comming from the right, which has resulted in the edges of the hat being blown out in both NEF and JPG. However on closer examination below, you can see that the way in which the JPG has blown out is not as 'elegant' as the way that the JPG has. Also the NEF image has a much nicer rendition of the shadow details.
| JPG (*mouse over to RAW) | curves applied JPG (*mouse over to same old RAW) |
|---|---|
Looking at the image on the right, you can see that using some curves tool I can get some more shadow detail from the JPG, but its starting to show the colour distortion artifacts that I mention in my other pages. Try holding your mouse over the left image (to see the NEF) while looking at the curves adjusted image on the right. Even applying some curves to bring up the JPG image (and colour correct it a little) doesn't really bring as good an appearance to the image as NEF has.
Lastly I thought I'd place a segment from a film scan and the NEF file. Especially if youre one of the many new photographers that hasn't seen scanned film. I think that this provides an interesting reference.
The film exposure was in Av mode I used a 50mm lens @ f5.6 (sorry, I didn't bother to note the exposure duration). The film was scanned at 2700dpi then downsized by 50% for this segment. I also downsized the NEF image by 50% just to keep things even for the side by side compare. The downsizing provides a closer approximation of what you'd see on a full sized print from either image.
The first thing that you spot is just how much sharper and more detailed the film image is. Now, perhaps the 'focal plane' was just back of that bike, say on the truck there ... while on the film scan, the focal plane is really right there on the handle bar
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