Alphatracks

This will be the final post on the Sony Alpha full-frame sensor / anti-shake quandary. The first in the series outlined the full frame with anti-shake problem, while the second consisted principally of remarks by Bert Pasquale, a well-respected optical engineer.

Since several readers are sill somewhat confused, I have created some illustrations to help explain the situation.

Figure one shows the relative sizes of various sensors, They are drawn to the exact size, but since monitors and screen resolutions vary, the sizes may not be correct on your screen. The size of each sensor in relation to each other, however, is accurate.

Figure 1: Sensor sizes compared

The red rectangle represents a “full-frame” 24×36mm sensor. The green rectangle is a 17×2mm APSC sensor. The blue rectangle is 90% of a full frame.

Figure 2 shows the APS-C sensor overlaid on a circle that represents the minimum coverage of a 35mm full-frame lens. As you can see, there is plenty of “wasted coverage” as only the area inside the green rectangle will be captured. It is obvious that the sensor can move freely in any direction and still be covered by the lens.

Figure 2: Coverage of a APS-C sensor by a full-frame lens

Figure 3 is a full frame sensor contained inside the exact same coverage circle. There is no established size for the coverage area, as lenses will vary slightly. The designers only have to create a lens that will offer adequate coverage and sharpness of the 24×36mm film area, and still fit within the lens mount. Of course, the greater the lens coverage, the larger and heavier it will need to be. It will probably be more costly as well, so typically lens designers try to keep near the minimum dimension.

As Mr. Pasquale mentioned, the circle of coverage doesn’t immediately fall off to nothing. Rather, the edge of the circle gradually starts to provide lens light and become less sharp.The fall-off increases slowly until the image eventually fades away.

As you can see from Figure 3, there is little room for the sensor to move without clipping at least one of the corners. Again this will vary from lens to lens, as well as with different focal lengths of a zoom lens.

Figure 3: Coverage of a full-frame sensor by a full-frame lens

Figure 4 is an arbitrary 90% sensor. You can see that such a sensor is much larger than the APS-C size, yet still has room to float inside the coverage area. I chose this because several people “in the know” have suggested they believe this will be Sony’s answer to the problem. However, some other authorities have suggested that Sony may opt for a 1.25 crop sensor.

Figure 4: Coverage of a 1.1 crop sensor by a full-frame lens

On the other hand, Mr. Pasquale has suggested that the sensor may not actually move sufficiently enough to require a “crop” lens of any sort. That would be ideal, but until Sony announces the sensor, we really won’t know.

The final figure is one suggested by Alphatracks readers Warren Massey and LEdgars. In their comments, they suggest Sony could simply build an oversize sensor. As you can see by the rectangular outline in figure 5, such a sensor can move some distance in any direction without clipping. The idea is that the big sensor can move around and the camera can crop to a 24X36mm dimension at exposure. it’s a novel idea — but I not sure we will see it in the near future.

Figure 5: Coverage of a oversize sensor by a full-frame lens

First off, it would be expensive. As sensors increase in physical size, the manufacturing yield is less because typically there are more rejects. Even more significant however, is that an oversize sensor would most likely be confined to the Sony flagship. A full-frame sensor would be attractive to many other dSLR makers and in the past, Sony’s sensor division has profited by selling sensors to a wide range of camera makers. Would Nikon have any interest in an oversize sensor? It’s rather doubtful. Nikon uses a lens based image stabilization method, so there wouldn’t be a need for an oversize sensor.

So if Sony does produce an oversize sensor, their principal customer would be Sony — and for the time being only for the top-of-the -line, limited-production flagship. Would that justify designing and manufacturing an oversize sensor? Or would Sony prefer to invest their resources in a sensor they could sell by the truckload to other camera makers as well as their own dSLR division?

Time will tell, but I’m guessing Sony has a plan up their sleeves. It should be quite interesting!

Sony Alpha
dSLR
photography
full frame
camera

Share This

Hi! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. You can also sign up to receive e-Mail updates from the homepage at http://alphatracks.com Thanks for visiting!

Last week, I posted about the alleged difficulty of using a full-frame sensor with the Sony/Minolta anti-shake system. See the post: Can Sony build a true full frame dSLR? I made critical error in my post, when I suggested that the sensor had room to move up and down but not side to side. This is incorrect. The typical 35mm image circle only needs to cover the full-frame sensor from corner to corner, so there would be no room to move the sensor in either direction.

So I was mistaken, but sometimes mistakes can be a positive thing. My error encouraged Bert Pasquale, an optical engineer (and Sony/Minolta SLR user) to write me with his assessment of the full-frame, anti-shake situation. In addition to pointing out my little misconception, he has several innovative ideas on how Sony could deal with the problem.

I asked Mr. Pasquale for permission to reprint his comments and he readily agreed. His remarks follow:

Thanks for sharing your knowledge, Bert. This is exciting stuff! In camera, computer controlled gain? Falloff curve corrections. Sensor based warning that the stability could cause vignetting! Wonder how much of this Sony has considered — and more importantly how much they will actually implement in the Alpha flagship camera. Stick around. it looks like things are going to get really interesting. It looks like its a great time to be a Sony A-mount user!

Share This

Can Sony really make a full-frame dSLR? Not will Sony…but CAN Sony really do it?

Some months back, I wrote that I expected the so-called “flagship” Sony Alpha (possibly named the A900?) to carry a full-frame sensor. I still believe that to be true, however I’m hedging my bets a little. It will be “almost” full-frame or “close” to full-frame. It may not be the actual size of a 35mm negative, however, which is the definition of a full-frame dSLR to most photographers.

It isn’t that Sony lacks the technology to build an actual full-frame sensor. Sony has the ability to build just about any sensor they could wish.

Super Steady Shot doesn’t play well with a full frame sensor

The problem is the Super Steady Shot (anti-shake) system. Not that there is anything wrong with SSS itself, the in-body image stabilization is one of the Sony Alpha dSLR’s major advantages. However, one of the Alpha’s other major advantages is that it can use the extensive line of Minolta A-mount autofocus lenses. And thereby hangs a tale.

Twenty-some years ago, when Minolta engineers were designing the original A mount glass, there were no digital SLRs and no anti-shake systems. Thus, there was no reason to design a lens to cover anything other than the standard 35mm film image.

Thus the AF A mount lenses were designed to project a circle that would encompass a 24 X 36mm area at the camera’s film plane. There was no need to cover a larger film plane, because no Minolta SLR offered a larger negative size.

Maxxum 7D and Antishake: no worries

When Konica Minolta engineers developed the Maxxum 7D, they designed an in-body anti-shake system. The system works by moving the camera’s sensor in relation to camera movement. In essence, if there is camera vibration, the sensor stays in one place, despite the lens and body movement. The same system is used in the Maxxum 5D, the Sony Alpha A100 and the Alpha A700. All of these dSLRs use a 17 X 23mm APS-C sensor.

See the problem? If Sony develops a 24 X 36mm full frame sensor, any lens will need to cover an area larger than 36mm — at least when SSS is turned on. If vibration occurs in an up and down motion, there is room for the sensor to move in relation. If, however, the sensor moves to the left or right, it could move outside of the area covered by the lens. Update: I was in error about room for up and down motion. See these remarks by an optical engineer to understand why the image would be clipped in any direction the sensor moves.

This isn’t an issue with the current Sony/Minolta dSLRs, since the smaller APS-C sensor has plenty of room to move in any direction without moving outside of the lens coverage. When you move up to a full frame sensor, however, there isn’t nearly as much breathing room.

Lens coverage varies

Of course lenses vary. Some of the existing Sony/Minolta lenses may offer enough coverage to allow the SSS system to move — but others would probably exhibit some vignetting if the sensor moves too far to the left or right. Who wants to drop a ton of cash on a professional dSLR when many (most?) of the available lenses might display some vignetting?

How will Sony handle the full frame design?

Sony can tackle this problem in a number of ways. The first could be to drop SSS for the flagship model. That makes little sense, since Sony would then have to develop a line of image stabilized lenses. If they are going to develop an entirely new lens line, they might as well design larger coverage lenses and retain the in-body image stabilization.

Neither of these options are very credible, however. As I said, one of the Sony Alpha’s major selling points is that you can use those millions of Minolta A-mount lenses. Start redesigning the lenses and there is far less reason to choose the Alpha over the competition.

The rumor sites are suggesting that Sony could eliminate any vignetting problem by reducing the sensor size. The sensor could still be much larger than the current 1.5 crop sensor, but not exactly the size of a 35mm film negative. The figure bandied about is 1.1 crop. That would indicate a sensor of something like 21.6 X 32.4mm.

I want my super wide angle lens back!

Loosing 3mm on the width and 2.5mm on the height doesn’t seem like a lot — but it will affect the camera’s ability to display the widest angle of view with current lenses. One of the biggest problems with the APS-C sensor is that most of the original A-mount wide angle lenses aren’t very wide any longer. Cropping a 35mm lens to APS-C size yields something equivalent to the “standard” 50mm lens on a full frame camera. A 24mm lens is now closer to a 35mm. Even a 16mm fisheye is will only show what you would see with a 24mm lens on a full frame camera.

So one of the prime reasons for choosing a full frame camera is to make all those Minolta wide angles truly wide again. A 1.1 crop would be much better than a 1.5 crop in this regard — but is it enough? That 16mm would now be equivalent to 17.6. A 35mm would look like a 38.5 lens.

Those differences seem fairly insignificant, but there are times when you need the widest angle of view you can get. I hate to give up even a millimeter when I am working with an extreme wide angle.

There is one other option that Sony could adopt. Create a full frame 24mm X 36mm sensor and allow the camera to use the full sensor only when SSS is turned off. Turning on the image stabilization would automatically turn off the outer ten percent of the sensor. This would give the best of both worlds. When SSS is engaged, the sensor size is reduced so there is no chance of movement causing vignetting. Turn the image stabilization off and you get the entire full frame area and the ability to shoot at your lenses widest field of view.

Taking a page from Nikon’s book?

This isn’t as far fetched as it seems. Until recently, Nikon didn’t have any full frame cameras in it’s line up, and they sold a ton of APS-C type lenses to go with their 1.5 crop dSLRs. With their all new full-frame D3, Nikon users who owned a bag full of 1.5 crop lenses faced a big problem. “Big N” sidestepped the issue of the APS-C lenses not covering the FF sensor with a switch that reduces the sensor to APS-C size when shooting with a 1.5 crop lens.

Sony could do the exact same thing with their offering, simply reducing the sensor to 90% when SSS is turned on. Of course to be truly useful, there would need to be some way of indicating the crop area in the view finder. This would probably be in the form of engraved lines on the ground-glass to show the crop area.

Would this be worth it? I’m not sure it would be worth the trouble and cost — but it would sure be slick.

If you were on the Sony design team, how would you handle this issue?

Share This

Very interesting article on the hardwarezone.com website. Timothy Fernandez interviews Mr. Keiichi Ishizuka, Deputy Senior General Manager - AMC (Alpha Mount Camera) Division at Sony.

The article is well worth a read, if only for an insight into Sony’s plans for the near term and the future. It also provides an insider’s look into the design process behind the A700.

Although Mr. Ishizuka is somewhat careful not to reveal too much info about what is in the Sony pipeline, he does say that the flagship model ( the rumor sites are calling it the A900, but Ishizuka gives no confirmation of this ) is on track for next year. He also says that Sony is indeed developing a replacement for the A100 and hints that Sony may offer other new models — without saying when such models might be announced.

The bulk of the article discusses the new A700 and the design considerations behind it. Mr. Ishizuka cites picture quality as the top feature of the A700, and also mentions the engineering behind the Alpha A700 dSLR’s shutter and vertical grip. Ishizuka also takes Fernandez on an in-depth look at the A700’s new DRO option.

I expected the DRO to be a great feature. Having read Ishizuka’s comments, I am very excited about trying it out.

If you are a A-mount shooter (Mr. Ishizuka refers to it as the Alpha Mount), you should take the time to read the interview. Whether you are thinking of buying an A700, or you are concerned about Sony’s future plans in the dSLR arena, I think you find the interview very enlightening.

Check out the Keiichi Ishizuka interview at HardwareZone.com.

Share This

The good folks at Tamron sent word that they have partnered with an outfit called Triscape to sponsor Digital Scrapbooking Day on November 3, 2007. Top prize is one of the all new Tamron AF18-250mm Di II All-In-One Zoom Lenses. If you’re curious about Digital Scrapbooking day, you can check out www.DigitalScrapbookingDay.com.

The good news, however, is that you don’t have to actually create a scrapbooking project to win. Apparently, there will be a straight drawing to determine the winner of the lens. All you have to do is send an e-mail to Tamron between now and December 10. It doesn’t get much easier than that.

If you are interested, click on over to:
http://www.tamron.com/lenses/digital_scrapbook07.asp and fill out your name and e-mail address.

Here are the rules from the Tamron site:

• No purchase necessary.
• One entry per email address.
• Employees and family of F+W Publications and Tamron USA, Inc. are not eligible to enter.
• Entries must be received by midnight 12/10/07 to qualify. Winner will be selected randomly from all entries and notified by 12/12/07 via email. If there is no response from the winner by 12/19/07 we will choose a new winner who in turn will have 5 business days to respond.
• Open to U.S. residents only.
• Void where prohibited by law.

The Di II All-In-One Zoom Lens is designed for APSC sensor digital cameras and is available in Nikon, Canon, Pentax and Sony mounts. I didn’t see anything about winner’s choice, but I assume whoever sends in the winning entry will be able to select which lens mount they want. No mention on the Tamron site that this lens is compatible with older Minolta dSLRs (7D, 5D), but if you choose the A-mount lens, I would think it would work with Minolta as well. Check with Tamron to be sure.

The 18-250 AF lens only weighs 15oz. and lists for $499. You can read more about it at www.tamron.com/lenses/prod/18250_diII.asp. I might just be willing to give up my e-mail address for a chance at winning one of these.

If you follow through and actually win the lens, be sure to let us know. I’m sure your fellow Alphatracks readers would like to congratulate you!

Share This

This is the third installment in my series comparing RAW with JPEG. We discussed the advantages of JPEG in part one, then in a second post, I explained why I always shoot RAW. The first two posts garnered plenty of attention, some agreed, some disagreed. Everyone, it seems, has an opinion on the subject. This time, I want to go on record as saying that no digital camera can record in JPEG.

Right away, I can hear a number of compact camera owners shaking their heads. “My camera only shoots JPEG, I can’t shoot RAW!”

No, your camera records in RAW, then an on-board processor inside the camera converts the data to JPEG or TIFF. As far as I know, no digital sensor actually records in JPEG. JPEG isn’t a data acquisition format. Each sensor records in some flavor of RAW. Strangely, only the better, more expensive cameras give you access to the original RAW data, even though all cameras capture it.

Your camera against your computer

This is more than an exercise in semantics. The processor in a dSLR probably weighs less than a quarter and takes up less space than a compact flash card. The processor on my desktop Mac, however, is the size and weight of a small brick. Which do you think can do a better job at converting data into an useable image?

Of course the desktop CPU has to be able to perform a variety of tasks, while the in-camera processor pretty much just concentrates on converting images on the fly. So the camera processor is quicker and moire efficient.

Quick and efficient isn’t a true measure of quality, however. It is undoubtedly quicker and more efficient to mold a chair out of plastic than to hand build one out of oak, maple or mahogany. Yet few people would even to think to compare a plastic chair to a hand-built wooden one. The former is efficient, the latter is quality.

So I’m saying I trust my desktop computer to do a better job at transforming the data from my camera’s sensor than the tiny processor inside the dSLR..

This hardly a major concern, however. I will concede that most in-camera JPEGs are fairly good — at least as far as the JPEG format will allow. However, post production in good image editor offers a world of options not available in the camera.

The JPEG format is an efficiency expert

Let me say once again that I am not totally against the JPEG format. For use on the web or a multimedia presentation JPEG excels. Think of JEPG as one of those efficiency experts telling everyone to get rid of extra baggage. “If you don’t need it, throw it out!”

RAW is a pack rat

Meanwhile RAW is a pack rat. It knows you can’t possibly use all the data collected on the sensor. Yet, it can’t bear to part with any data. “Yeah, I know you aren’t using this data right now. But I hate to throwaway all these perfectly good pixels. I’ll just set them aside out of the way in case you want them someday.” That is why the RAW image can provide better images. It contains much more data, which that big desktop machine can process to create a superior image.

If you doubt that, turn on clipping and examine the histogram of similar RAW and JPEG images in Adobe Lightroom. If your original image us properly exposed, you will usually see clipping in the JPEG, while the RAW image will display a smooth, unclipped graph. Of course, depending on the subject and lighting, some images will display less of this clipped area and some more. The majority of the time you will see clipping in the JPEG, because the image doesn’t contain sufficient data to display a smooth histogram from one end of the scale to another.

Need more dynamic range? Shoot RAW

This is why most photographers believe thy can see more dynamic range in a RAW image. I say most, because some photographers claim to see no difference. For my part, I believe there can be no doubt that RAW images can produce better dynamic range. Once again however, there are a host of factors involved, such as lighting, subject matter, exposure and the skill of the post-processor. If the person processing the RAW files lacks the knowledge and experience to pull all the details out of the RAW file, it won’t look any better than a JPEG. In some cases it will look worse. That isn’t the RAW image’s fault. We have a wealth of tools designed to convert RAW images into useable formats. Unless the user has the know-how to get the most out of the tools, however, the tools won’t be of much help.

Are you smarter than your camera’s internal processor? If you learn to get the most out of the software tools, I think you’ll find that post-processed RAW images produce consistently better results.

For more information on how a RAW processor works, see this article on the RAW file Format. (Off site link, opens in a new window)

Agree? Disagree? Let me know what you think!

Share This

Last time around, I addressed the RAW versus JPEG controversy and listed three advantages to shooting JPEG. I will get into the advantages of the RAW format, but first I want to explain why I shoot RAW almost 100% of the time.

When I acquired my first digital Minolta, I started shooting RAW because all of the top photographers recommended it. The truth is, however, I didn’t really see much difference between RAW and JPEG. I understood that the RAW image was capturing more data and therefore I should be getting superior images. Yet the difference didn’t seem that great.

RAW applications are much more than image converters

What I didn’t understand was that my early workflow was effectively canceling out most of the RAW advantages.

At the time, Adobe had yet to release the Adobe Camera Raw plugin for Photoshop. So the only way I had to process my RAW images was with the Minolta software that came with the camera.

I’ve used Photoshop extensively ever since version 2.0. I spent some ten years retouching high-resolution images for major advertising agencies, so I know Photoshop inside and out. The idea of using Minolta’s less featured application seemed counter productive. I knew how to get the results I wanted in Photoshop. I wasn’t sure I could get the same results from the Minolta app, So I simply used the Minolta application to convert my RAW images into TIFFs and then brought the TIFFs into Photoshop for my post processing. Hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Of course by converting the RAW images into TIFFs with the default camera settings, I was losing the major advantage of working with RAW data. TIFF images usually contain more data than a JPEG, so I might have gotten slightly improved images with this method. What I didn’t understand, however, is that you need to edit the RAW images before exporting them to get the maximum tonal range. Since I was determined to adjust my images in Photoshop and Photoshop didn’t have a RAW import function at the time, I was leaving a whole lot of pixel information behind when I converted to TIFF.

RAW images: the advantages start to show

The dawning of comprehension came when I was in the studio shooting a vibrantly colored board game for a presentation. I was shooting with tungsten lights, so I set the camera’s white balance to a custom setting to match., After shooting for a while, I broke out my off-camera flash. You guessed it, I forgot to reset the white balance.

When I imported the resulting images into my Mac, those flash images featured excellent contrast and tonal range. Unfortunately, because they were shot under the wrong WB setting, they featured a pronounced blue hue. Anyone remember Aqua Velva aftershave? These images looked like they were shot through a big bottle of the stuff.

While I suspect that I could have retouched the images to make them look more natural, I wasn’t looking forward to it. Photoshop has lots of tools for adjusting color balance, but I knew that it would be a challenge to neutralize the blue without adversely affecting the rainbow of colors on the board. Fixing one color would throw off another — leading to time consuming cutting of masks, making alpha channels and creating selections.

While I was mulling over my options, trying to determine if it would be better to spend hours retouching or if it would be best to re-shoot the whole thing, I noticed a white balance drop-down in the Minolta converter. With nothing to lose, I changed it to electronic flash and viola! In less then a second the blue hue vanished and all the game’s colors shown through in their wonderful, natural tones,

RAW image data to the rescue!

This worked, because I was still working with the RAW data. Had I exported the images to TIFF or JPEG (or shot the images directly in JPEG) the WB would have been locked down and the only way to correct it would be through painstaking retouching. Since RAW images have the ability to contain an infinite amount of WB settings, it was a simple matter to adjust to RAW image to the correct setting before export. Shooting RAW had saved me hours of work — whether in Photoshop or in the studio re-shooting.

A couple of weeks later, I was shooting a basketball game in an indoor arena. I was concerned about image noise, so I tried shooting at an ISO 0f 400. That didn’t allow me to shoot at fast enough shutter speed. Still wanting to avoid a higher ISO I switched to a flash unit. This gave me a fast shutter speed, but the flash wasn’t powerful enough to illuminate the scene unless the action was right in front of me. After about a dozen shots that appeared very underexposed on the LCD panel, I finally switched to ISO 1600 for the rest of the event

RAW doesn’t really care about ISO limits

When I imported these images, I was ready to throw the ISO 400 flash stuff away. The images were too underexposed to save, At least they would have been if they had been JPEGs. Sometimes you can rescue an underexposed JPEG in Photoshop, but these were just too far gone. By the time you got the exposure somewhat correct, the image would be a low-contrast muddy mess, with very little detail in the shadows. Since this is true of JPEGs, I thought it would be true of RAW as well.

Before tossing the nearly black images, however, I decided to experiment with adjusting the tonal range in the RAW converter. I opened the histogram palette and clicked on the “auto settings” button. I wasn’t expecting anything significant, yet a few seconds later I was looking at fully exposed image with plenty of detail in the shadows. I couldn’t believe it. The image was noisy, but it was fully usable. I ran some noise reduction software and had a salable image.

No way would a JPEG have been able to stand that amount of image editing and produce a useable image. The RAW image, however, saved all the data it captured, so even though I was metering at an ISO of 400, the RAW converter was able to “push” the ISO up to 1600 without losing detail. Yes the image was noisy, but under those lighting circumstances 1600 was the only viable option. Because I had shot in RAW, I was able to obtain that 1600 ISO even though the camera’s meter was set on ISO 400.

I’m convinced — I shoot RAW

Since then, I seldom — well never actually — take my camera off of RAW. In my last post, I did list some times I thought JPEG might offer some advantages. Thus far, however, I haven’t needed to resort to JPEG. It’s there if I should need it, but the more I shoot RAW, the more I prefer it over JEPG.

Next time I want to list all the RAW advantages. You didn’t think I was going to stop with just these two, did you?

Agree? Disagree? Tell me what you think!

Share This

I’ve noticed some very interesting discussions in various forums regarding the quality of RAW images from the new Sony A700. I want to explore that in the near future, however Today I want to address the whole RAW versus JPEG issue.

In reading these discussions, I was amazed at the number of comments from photographers who are opposed to shooting RAW. Several people indicated that they never shoot RAW because “post production” was just too much work – it took too long, it didn’t offer much benefit, yada, yada, yada.

Let me get this straight. These people are interested in buying a $1,400 dSLR but they aren’t willing to expend the relatively minor effort needed to get the most out of the camera? To my mind that is like buying a new Corvette and only driving at 25mph on straight roads with no curves. It might be a pleasant drive, but it is not what ‘Vettes are built for. By the same token, dSLRs are built to require post-production to achieve the best results. That’s just the way it is.

RAW versus JPEG: the controversy continues

I realize that the RAW versus JPEG controversy has been going on since the dawn of the dSLR, but I didn’t realize there were that many JPEG holdouts. If you are one of them, please don’t be offended if I seem to be ridiculing the JPEG format. There is nothing wrong with JPEG – it’s just that RAW, IMHO, has so much more to offer.

Continuous Advance: where JPEG shines

Of course there are times and applications when JPEG is the better format. Chief among these is action photography – when you want or need to shoot a motor driven sequence. In all the Minolta and Sony Alpha dSLRs I am familiar with, shooting JPEG ups the frame rate and allows more frames to be recorded in a sequence. The new Alpha A700 will allow you to shoot 18 RAW frames at 5 frame per second, but if you switch to JPEG you can capture as many images as you can fit on your memory card at a steady 5fps. The A100 will also shoot until you fill your memory card when shooting JPEG, but the frame rate is only 3fps. If you shoot RAW with an A100, the maximum number of images that can be captured in a single sequence is only 6. Clearly, this an area where JPEG shines.

Instant printing requires JPEG

A second area is when you want to use your images instantly. You might need images for the web or a Powerpoint deck. If you shoot JPEG you can skip post processing and upload the JPEGs right off your memory card. I have also seen more and more photographers start offering “instant printing” at events and functions. They haul along one of the new dye-sub printers and crank out some instant promotional prints that they can handout during the affair. It’s a great way to get your name and contact info in front of a crowd, and you don’t need to haul along a laptop, because these tiny printers can print directly off a memory card – no computer required. These printers can’t process RAW images, however, so you have to feed them JPEGs.

While these quick turnaround situations might be seem to be a good reason to shoot JPEG, don’t forget that many dSLRs, including the Sony Alpha A100 and A700 offer RAW plus JEPG settings. In this scenario you can use the JPEGs for instant turnaround, then process and make images from the RAW files when you have more time. So you have the best of both worlds, instant access to the JPEGs; and RAW files that you can use to create superior photos when the time allows.

Not enough hard drive space: try JPEG

A third area whee JPEG images seem to have the edge over RAW is file size. Typical JPEGs are much smaller than RAW images – resulting in quicker recording speed and reduced hard-drive storage. So you can typically store more JPEGs on a given memory card or hard drive. This may be a consideration for some, but with today’s inexpensive memory options, I don’t feel it is worth the trade off.

Are there any other advantages to JPEG over RAW? I can’t really think of any. I can, however, think of a host of advantages to the RAW format. That will be the subject of my next post.

Agree? Disagree? Let me know what you think.

Share This

I’ve been looking forward to the Ken Burns World War II documentary on PBS. I first became aware of Burns’ talents after watching his Civil War masterpiece some 17 years ago. I was mesmerized by The Civil War, enchanted by the hundreds of photos of famous and not-so-famous participants of that incredible struggle.

I’m a history buff, and WWII has been a special interest of mine, so naturally I tuned in to the first two episodes of Burns’ new seven part series. Called simply The War, it focuses on several WWII veterans and tells their story both at home and in combat.

It is great stuff, but somehow, I found it didn’t measure up to The Civil War. Don’t get me wrong. Burns certainly hasn’t lost his touch — the film is first rate and the stories are incredibly poignant. Nor do I mean any disrespect to the “greatest generation” who fought so bravely for the cause of freeedom in WWII.

Somehow, however, The War didn’t seem to have the same impact of The Civil War. I couldn’t quite figure out what was missing, but after watching tonight’s installment, it hit me. The Civil War was composed entirely of still images. In contrast, The War relies mostly on motion picture film shot during the conflict.

Now, I am a child of the sixties and like everyone else my age, I have watched untold hours of movies, TV shows, documentaries and home movies. I have wrote before how my original interest in photography grew out of studying film making. So I have nothing against a good film. So why do I feel that The Civil War was so much more interesting?

For me, the still images of The Civil War were far more haunting than the “moving pictures” of The War. Obviously, there were no movie cameras around in the 1860s, so all Burns had to work with were still images originally recorded on glass plates. Burns was able to add motion to the stills by slowly panning over the images. This was so successful, that when Apple developed their iMovie application they included a special “Ken Burns Effect” menu item, designed to simplify panning across your own still images when making movies.

Yet, it wasn’t the Ken Burns panning that made The Civil War images so memorable. You have to remember that in that era photographers were probably shooting at an ISO of about 5 or less. They couldn’t snap candids at 1/500 of second, or even at 1/50 of a second. Most of the images required the subject to pose perfectly still while the photographer counted off the seconds to create a useable exposure.

Somehow those still-life poses created incredible glimpses of the men and women involved in the war between the states. Whether it was William Tecumseh Sherman, Robert E. Lee, Mary Chestnut or Eisha Rhodes, you saw things in those images. Because they weren’t moving, you had time to drink in all the atmosphere and ambiance of the images. It was like leafing through a giant picture book, allowing you time to examine each image in detail.

You could see all the trappings of mid-19th century America and often things in the background jumped out to surprise or shock the viewer. But the real impact was the faces of those people who fought each other in that terrible conflict. Because they were forced to hold still while their photo was being made, you have a chance to examine every detail of their face. The eyes are unbelievably dramatic, whether you are looking at some unknown private or at a slave on a plantation or at Abraham Lincoln.

The War has some of these moments, the stills of weary soldiers on Guadalcanal definitely were in this class. Yet most of the film is told with film, and for me the motion detracted rather than aided impact. Maybe it is all those movies I have seen, it is easy to fool yourself into believing that this is just another hollywood movie you are watching, rather than one of the most horrific conflicts in history.

When the still images appear, however, I find myself riveted to those faces, those eyes. This isn’t a fictional story — this is real. If those still images don’t send chills up your spine, then there is something wrong with you.

What does this have to do with our modern world of dSLRs and images stored on silicon chips? I think it reinforces how important still images can be. There is a place for movies, but still images will never become obsolete. Movies can reveal the what, why and how, but still images reveal the soul.

On a more practical level, I’m considering experimenting with some long exposure portraits. I want to see if I can capture some of the essence of the photos of Matthew Brady and his contemporaries. If those long-dead photographers could record unbearably dramatic images with wet-glass plates and primitive lenses, I should be able to delve into someone’s soul with a tripod-mounted dSLR and some neutral density filters.

At least I think it is worth a try…

Share This