Digital

       Dilemmas

Hugh McLean-bsme, thb.

Which setting?

Several people have commented to me about previous articles that they appreciate a ‘simple’ explanation of the topic, since they are just getting into digital.

Jpg, Tif, Raw, Normal, Fine High, 1440, 2304, 3024, 4256, 100, 160, 200, 320, 400, 800, 1600, P, A, S, M, Auto WB, Continuous, Single, Manual - on and on and on. Take one dice (die) and what is the probability that a 2 will come up? One out of 6 right? Now take 2 dice and what is the probability that both will come up 2's? 6x6 or 6 squared. The exponent is the number of dice and the 6 is the possibility per die. Based on that logic, the number of possible settings on my camera - not counting shutter speed and f-stops, is somewhere around 50 million. A bit disconcerting - coming from the Hasselblad, where the only settings were shutter speed and f-stops. Not to worry! The very thing that is so disconcerting - is the very thing that is going to bail you out.

The numbers and types of settings can be somewhat frustrating and bewildering to someone just getting their feet wet in digital. I am going to compare the first 3 items mentioned jpg, tif, and raw to orange juice. Really. Suppose we have some oranges of various size, a cutter and squeezer with various sizes of blades, and an extractor which can be set to concentrate the orange juice so it fits in little containers. When you add water to the contents of the can, it ‘reconstitutes’ the juice to a quality similar to the original - but not quite. If you took an orange and squeezed as much pulp as possible out of it, and then only took out half the water, you would expect the concentrate to taste better when you ‘reconstituted’ it, since you would be closer to the original. But sometimes you are not looking for a whole pitcher of juice, but only a single glass - so with our analogy, you would select a small orange to begin with. Again, sometimes we are not looking for a totally fresh squeezed taste, and can settle for a less expensive brand of concentrate that has used lesser quality of oranges and has not squeezed them so completely.

I use all the different file size settings at various times and in various situations. Some people will say - shoot everything at the highest resolution that you can, and sort it out later. Ok, how may people shoot a wedding with a 4 x 5 and crop the images later? Maybe there are people who do that, but I don’t know of any. Suppose you know ahead of time that the biggest image you are going to print from a sporting event is 3-1/2 x 5. Would you use a Hasselblad or a Nikon? You select the tool you need to produce the result you want. Isn’t understanding your equipment and making decisions relative to the use of that equipment part of being professional? As digital technology continues its unbelievably rapid progress, it is highly conceivable that you may be called upon to shoot a job where a client’s guest has better equipment than you do. He also can set his equipment to ‘fully auto’ and probably get pretty good results. Auto exposure, auto white balance, auto focus, auto flash with TTL. I may have the same tools Michaelangelo had, but I can’t do what he did. “So howcome if I got the same camera you got, your ‘pitcheurs’ look better than mine?” Digital photography is going to force the professional to be a better ‘photographer’ and be able to make the distinction with his work, and not by virtue of the cost and size or his equipment. And hey - with 50 million setting combinations, that might not be all that difficult.

So to recap briefly what this article is all about.

A (Tiff) is like making fresh squeezed orange juice with nothing added and nothing taken out, using the biggest oranges and squeezing the maximum amount of pulp out of it.

A (JPG) is like making orange juice and then concentrating it in fresh frozen concentrate of various size cans and in various quality of concentration. Degree of compression is a more accurate description than the popular term ‘resolution’.

A (RAW) image is like picking the oranges off the tree, putting them in a bag and cutting and squeezing them after you get home with your own tools.

Previous DPPA articles, misc. charts and graphs can be d/l at www.hughmclean.com <!--hm9–>

Comments and kvetches to:hmclean@comcast.net