<Steve Orrell> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...
| Well, that's it, I've been and gone and done it, I've
| bought meself a veritable brick with the styling of a
| caravan site!
|
| I've swapped <cough> my superb Sony V1, with its elegant
| looks, superb results and wonderful size and weight for a
| Canon G5 which has the aesthetic appeal of a fire brick
| and the weight to match!! ;-) Hmm, it was a move I chose
| to make but as the saying goes "Must Grrrumble!!"
Can't believe you swapped, you're almost in tears here! ;-)
| Admittedly the Can[n]on has the better spec, I hate to say
| this because of the prentions it suggests, for the "more
| serious" photographer; I went for it because of the filter
| option(s) and this RAW thingummy.
I've got a Cokin filter holder, and use A series Cokin
filters. To be honest, whilst the ND filters can save many
shots, I can never be bothered to get them out my bag and
use them! :-) ...not for snaps anyway! ;-) ;-) ;-)
| And there's the rub!!
|
| Now I've got RAW... what do I do with it?? I mean
| Photoshop has a nice new window thing to twiddle about
| with "things" but I'm supposed to be past the "twiddley"
| stage, no? :-) How best can I maximise the advantages that
| RAW gives me in terms of maintaining the integrity (ie
| minimising degradation) ot t'ut' original image? Anything
| else I should be aware of / practices I should adopt?
For the Canon G5 (which is what I've got), you can save the
file as a 16bit TIF file, which is the highest quality, with
no degraduation. Using the RAW file converter, you can also
adjust the white balance, the sharpening, the colour
saturation, and the contrast. Personally, I just tend to
convert them as a 16 bit TIF file, adjust the white balance
to what looks best in the preview window, then leave the
other settings alone.
| and, and what do I use to look at the files on the camera;
| using the Sony was eeee-asy; the file browser recognised
| the Sony's memory as another "drive". With this Can[n]on I
| have no such luxury ;-) Sure there's a file manager thingy
| bundled with it, but I need yet another piece of software
| like an ole in the head; is there a way around this
| browsing situation... or a beter piece of software to do
| it with?
I don't actually use the Canon File Viewer to convert or
view my images. I thought it worked too slow, and the
previews were too slow. After reading through Luminious
Landscapes, I noticed that BreezeBrowser got a good review,
with Michael Reichmann saying that "if you are a Canon
digital SLR owner this is the program for viewing and
converting your files:": luminous-luminous-Open ↗
landscape.com/reviews/breezebrowser.shtml
Anyway, you can download the full version from here:
breezesys.comindex.htmOpen ↗ It's a full
working version, except you are limited to reviewing a
certain number of images. But if you download and install
it, go to the Help menu, click Register, and then enter your
registration details (email me! ;-) ), you can use it as a
full version with no limits.
For generally viewing files, I use IrfanView, which is also
a free program: irfanview.comirfanview.comOpen ↗ There's a plugin
that's either included or available from the website (sorry,
i can't remember), and it lets you view Canon RAW files
using this. You can adjust the file viewing options so you
can see a quick preview of the image extremtly quickly, or
you can see a full resolution preview if you don't mind
waiting for 10 seconds (on my slow computer anyway).
Compared to using JPEG's, this is all a pain in the [censored], I
must admit, and I took my first 4,500 images as JPEG's! But
I wish I hadn't know, as when you want to go back to an
image and adjust it, it's nice to have the best possible
quality version of that image to work with, as well as being
able to adjust things with the RAW file when converting.
| As my topic title says, sorry this post is OT.. and it
| might well be WG ;-) but at least I didn't mention Wales
| !!! <doh!> that's torn it!! /me ducks and runs ;-)
Nahh, there's more photography talked about than walking in
this group! ;-) But I guess that it's kept on-topic because
it doesn't matter whether people walk to take photos, or
walk and take photos, it's all part of the same subject.
(IMVHO) :-)
| cheors
|
| SteveO
Ste