I do the same thing as what_next. If I want to keep a picture, I store the original. If it’s RAW, then I store the RAW and a JPEG I created from it. I never use RAWs for simple viewing, that’s what the JPEGs are for. It’s similar to music. As to the backup, I have multiple mirrored arrays (independent computers in different locations) – officially, they’re for work but I don’t need that much space for work and disks are huge these days. I also sometimes use M-Discs.
While I am very fond of my F2 with a 28mm 3.5, my Coolpix A saves to RAW and JPEG simultaneously. It came with a software from Nikon (Nex2?) which automatically saves two versions.
Have never gone beyond snapshot, despite the second hand F2, hence a 28mm on both cameras. The Coolpix has a DX sensor so an 18mm which is 28mm equivalent. Quality is better than the ipad or phone, but the wide angle is not useful for aerial shots.
…and yes on the F2 I use friends’ old expired film stock – de rating the ASA by around 30% usually works.
So nobody uses raw files as the primary viewing material. Interesting. I too could not see how it would be practical. For a start it ties you to the one viewer for ever.
Peter wrote:
So nobody uses raw files as the primary viewing material.
I don’t think RAW was ever intended for that. It indeed is the digital equivalent of negative. Imagine the headache when you want to view your photos on multiple platforms. It’s up to you whether you archive negatives or throw them into the bin. But you normally view positives.
I disposed of my old F2 tank (not a great ‘investment’) but my Coolpix A appears to be sought after despite being discontinued some years ago. I have a junk shop (€50) Nikon SLR which I use with expired film, but would like to get more utility out of my Coolpix A. Also try and understand why they are so sought after? (ed mint condition selling around 7x 2013 new price) Am guessing it is a compact (size of an old Rollei 35) but with DSLR processing?
What software are people using to edit electronic files these days, if any? The Coolpix A has a 28mm equivalent fixed lens, RAW can crop but obviously can’t digitally zoom. I think a RAW file comes in around 20MB (ed. 16.2 MB) so not quite a full frame DSLR. The quality of the lens and processor seems very good, with dare I say a Kodachrome feel?
I shoot everything in RAW and export them to the right size JPEG for the preferred application. That could be anything from third-party aircraft sales sites to my own Instagram. Most things like IG/Facebook etc are very harsh on how oversized JPEGS are resized by them. It’s best to have the correct output size from the start.
8/10 RAW files I shoot I will never look back at again only passing through in Lightroom.
The Nikon Coolpix A is probaby one of the classic pocket cameras, like the Canon G7X which I recently sold for a pretty good price. These cameras have not been developed in years so even though they should be vastly better than smartphones, they are only a little better. But obviously they have better controls and many other advantages. I can see a “cult following” developing for these pocket cameras…
Like William I shoot everything in RAW and process it with Lightroom and just keep the jpegs. As soon as the jpegs are saved (on two different network drives) the RAWs are deleted.
For processing, I have an old copy of LR which predates Adobe’s dumb software-rental policy. The workflow is batch based and one needs to get one’s head around the “paradigm” but it is far less labour intensive than individual editing with Photoshop etc.
Kodachrome 25 was excellent (though hard to use in practice due to the low sensitivity) but otherwise any digital camera made in the last 10-15 years way surpasses any 35mm film.
I come at this from the opposite side to most of you IT wizards.
What I am going to do with the images in the future and budget colours what I am going to use as a camera, lens, recording medium and workflow.
@Peter there is only one or 2 digital cameras which can outperform a half way decent camera shooting on 35mm film.
One of those is the 100MB Hasselblad at a cost (I believe sans lens) of some £30,000.
All film/video/ photography produced to a high standard is time consuming.
Even when using digital equipment,I follow the same principles as I did before I retired.
1/Shoot on the best format you can afford to shoot on and then store the original, rarely to be touched once one has moved on to the next stage in the process.
So as others have said I would always hang on to any negative/reversal film that is worth hanging onto.
If RAW is the best quality I can get digitally then I store the original files.
I am very critical in what is worth keeping and what is not.
2/ A good scanner capable of retaining nearly all the information on a 35mm frame costs a lot of money. Last time I looked they were over £100,000.
If using one of these I do not batch scan ( batch scanning is only really useful in the same way as taking a roll of film to the chemists was useful) .
Each photograph/slide or individual scene of a film needs to be graded (UK) colourized (USA).
But as most of us don’t have £100,000 spare to spend on a scanner for our store of 35mm slides and negs why not use your camera or smartphone. Copy in RAW if you so wish and grade electronically.
Image manipulation is slightly different. If you need to manipulate an image then you need, again, to start with the best quality original. That doesn’t mean you can’t save computer power by working at a lower resolution and then returning to the RAW for the final image rendering.
My advice to anyone before spending lots of money on all this equipment and software is to learn how to compose an image properly. No amount of software or equipment can make a badly composed image, a good one. ( Other than a well constructed manipulated image.
Learn what your lenses do and the differences in the use of the wider angles as opposed to longer lenses.
Also there is no point in buying a load of 4K or 8K digital camera and edit equipment if the result is only intended for You Tube or similar.
Remember the old SVHS which was used for many corporate videos was only 2MB per second (approx).
Just my 2c having been born into a family of photography nuts and working for some well known names in photography before spending 40 odd years in film and television production.
I agree with
Also there is no point in buying a load of 4K or 8K digital camera and edit equipment if the result is only intended for You Tube or similar.
Not with
there is only one or 2 digital cameras which can outperform a half way decent camera shooting on 35mm film.
since it is trivial to demonstrate with any 5000dpi slide scanner that once you go past roughly 4k x 4k pixels resolution, you are just amplifying the film grain to an ever greater accuracy and there is no more detail to be found – with any film other than Kodachrome 25. Scanning with a drum scanner at say 20k x 20k just produces a fantastically detailed image of the film grain, a multi-100MB RAW image or a 20MB jpeg of which about 90% is the film grain, and applying just a tiny amount of noise reduction (in LR etc) gets rid of this useless data.
DSLRs basically surpassed film in straight “imaging accuracy” 10-15 years ago. I am sure @172driver has a view on this too
It reminds me of the LP (vinyl) versus CD debate. Sure film has a “film look” and some people like that, same as some people like the “vinyl sound” even though scientifically the accuracy (relative to the original 15 ips audio tape master) is worse on the LP system than coming off the CD in 16 bit linear PCB packets. Plus whoever did the CD would have spent time processing the stuff, and probably worked off 24 bit copies anyway.
Back to RAW, some people have good reasons for keeping RAM but this is my “Stills” directory
and it is all jpegs. If it was RAW it would be about 5x the size. That’s technically ok of course – I have a 10TB nework drive, plus backups offsite – but I can guarantee that myself and most people will never revisit the RAW files. Especially if the jpegs were done to say (what adobe calls) 95% quality level, and 5-10MB size.
Peter wrote:
I have an old copy of LR which predates Adobe’s dumb software-rental policy.
For this reason alone I’m using darktable. Wouldn’t be against paying but I hate having additional subscriptions (which are going to be used every other month, or even not for six months). I know they make sense (you get constant updates etc.), I just hate them.
As for keeping the RAWs, my (modest newcomer’s) take on it is that it’s a good idea to keep RAWs from a couple of batches ago (let it mature a bit and make sure the images are as you want them). After that period (prob a couple of months MAX), just like any piece of art, you have to “release” it and stop going back on it. It won’t be perfect, but it will be what it is and bear the mark of its time.
For a deeper dive in this topic (releasing vs revisiting forever), there’s a whole video essay about movie directors’ cuts which tackles exactly this
(EDIT: the YT tumbnail is disproportionate towards the thread topic, sorry about that ^^)
