Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Landscape & Nature Photography => Topic started by: luxborealis on May 01, 2019, 09:54:20 pm
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For the long version of this, refer to my blog post (http://luxborealis.com/blog/?p=2702), but the short of it is...
Freeman Patterson is one of the most renowned and respected natural environment and outdoor photographers in Canada and around the world. Many photographers have learned greatly from this master of seeing, some of us from as far back as the 1970s. His work is equally remarkable when done in his own backyard of Shamper's Bluff, New Brunswick or in the drylands of Namaqualand, South Africa.
Periodically through the year, Freeman sends out a newsletter in which he discusses life and philosophy and photography. I find them meditative and inspirational and read them when I have an opportunity to sit and ponder and enjoy.
So, it was with some shock, and a little dismay, that I read the following in the last paragraph of his most recent newsletter, dated May 2019, Images, Ideas and Reflections (http://freemanpatterson.com/documents/newsletters/FreemanPattersonMay2019.pdf):
“1/ It’s my long-term observation that most digital cameras have far too many functions and are far too complicated for the needs of most amateurs and, in fact, many professionals. 2/ In my view, always shooting RAW is a sheer waste of battery power, storage space, and processing time. Although some very well-known Canadians professional photographers agree, many amateurs seem shocked when I say this. When do I shoot RAW? Only when I feel there is some possibility that I will make a 20x30 or larger print, which is extremely rare. For me, the old K.I.S.S. principle still applies – keep it simple, stupid. Never let your equipment or the way you use it interfere with your spiritual life!
”(Underscores are that of the original author).
Now, far be it for me to take on a legendary photographer such as a Freeman Patterson, but I simply could not sit by silently with a blanket statement such as "always shooting RAW is a sheer waste of battery power, storage space, and processing time" and "When do I shoot RAW? Only when I feel there is some possibility that I will make a 20x30 or larger print, which is extremely rare."
Here is my response...
Dear Freeman,
I’m just wondering if what you wrote in the last paragraph of your most recent letter – the part about jpegs vs raw files – was put there to see how many people have read to the end!
I very much enjoyed reading your letter, as I always do, as much as I have enjoyed your photographs and teachings since the 1970s, that is, until I read the last paragraph.
While I agree “most digital cameras have far too many functions and are far too complicated”, and “Never let your equipment or the way you use it interfere with your spiritual life!”, I am rather dismayed by your blanket statement in support of jpegs over raw files: “always shooting RAW is a sheer waste of battery power, storage space, and processing time”, with little explanation beyond “Only when I feel there is some possibility that I will make a 20x30 or larger print”. Limiting the creative potential of a photographer is deceptive, limiting and, frankly, unprofessional as an educator.
While your notions of less is more deeply resonate with me, the limitations created by a machine-created digital file may be helpful for simplifying photography in the short term, a decision to only shoot jpegs can be unnecessarily restricting in the long term.
A jpeg is like a Polaroid print or a machine print from Blacks or a Kodachrome transparency. While each could be considered fine enough quality for display as artwork, they are, essentially, end points, with much less ‘room’ for further enhancements once they are created. A photograph should represent the photographer’s complete vision - one realized through field techniques and processing techniques - not only field techniques and that of a machine with ‘under-the-hood’ computer algorithms.
So, I can only wonder if you were addressing those photographers who believe that what the camera spits out is the end product. Is this a remnant of your transparency days when the slide was very much an end product? One can alter a Polaroid, machine print, transparency or jpeg, but it will only lead to further image degradation – fine if that’s your style, but not as a blanket end result.
Polaroids aside (they were a niche art market unto themselves, pursued beyond snapshots by only a small minority of photographers), transparencies and machine prints would have been a suitable end product to non-darkroom workers. But stop for a moment and try to imagine an Adams black-and-white as a machine print?!? While his field techniques were legendary, his printing of each negative is what made each scene “sing”. A jpeg would never stand up to the modern-day equivalent of an Adams darkroom session.
Digital image files today are the negatives of before: an opportunity for a photographer to refine and/or extend their vision beyond what the camera machine produces. And, given the ubiquity of digital editing apps, and photographers willing to pursue the technology, it hardly seems appropriate to limit their future potential growth by recommending bog-standard jpegs. Again, I’m not referring to whole scale digital manipulation, stretching photographs beyond the recognizable; rather, I’m speaking of the myriad subtle enhancements to already finely crafted images that breathe life into the product of a machine – the same manipulations I once enjoyed working with in a wet darkroom (colour and b&w).
If interested, go you can keep reading here (http://luxborealis.com/blog/?p=2702)...
I end with...
I’m just very thankful that I can go back to the raw files I made 18 years ago in Tanzania with an early digital camera – a 5mp Minolta 7hi – and still make improvements with today’s editing apps, something I cannot achieve in the same way even from high quality jpegs made with the same camera. They’re good, don’t get me wrong, but they are not nearly as good as what I can do with the raw files. I can also go back to my 4×5 negatives and make silver gelatin prints, if I choose, or scan them into digital files.
You see, that’s the difference between raw files and jpegs – raw files have the potential for further improvements jpegs, not so much. One never knows what the future holds.
With great respect,
Terry McDonald
www.luxborealis.com
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I don't know if I am going to make a 20x30 print of something until after I have taken the image and seen it on a 27" screen. If I shot jpg, I'd be sunk. Besides, I haven't seen an image yet that cannot be improved by the judicious adjustment. Shooting jpg only is letting the equipment (camera software) get in the way.
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I am very puzzled by Patterson's claim that “always shooting RAW is a sheer waste of battery power, storage space, and processing time.” Extra batteries are cheap, huge SD cards and hard drives are cheap, and even my 8-year old computer zips along just fine with my 44 MP raw files. And you can always shoot in raw+jpeg mode.
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Your one sentence defeats the whole letter:
A jpeg is like a Polaroid print or a machine print from Blacks or a Kodachrome transparency
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Hi Terry,
A very interesting letter and a bit of an eye opener re Freeman's apparent view of RAW vs JPEG. It's been a while since I've visited his site, so I think I'd better correct that and peruse more frequently. I recall standing on the opposite side of the counter from Freeman many times in the early 70's when I worked at a custom colour lab in Toronto. We printed some of his images then and, if memory serves me, also processed some of his tranies. He was always very amenable and ready to start or enter a conversation concerning his work and or those of his contemporaries as I recall.
Having read your contribution here I will definitely be visiting Freeman's site more often and looking forward to perhaps a reply her at LuLa.
EDIT: I just revisited Freeman's site and I also have a bit of a bone to pick. I noticed that he is still making reference to Giclée Prints. It's been a long time since I've used that description attached to the printing I do for other photographers, my full-time business until I moved it to my home in early '17. I still occasionally get requests for Giclée prints, in which case I ask the newly referred customer to describe what that means. Of course in most cases they cannot do so, since it's simply a word that had been adopted in the early 90's but has since lost its glow. I think I might send Freeman the letter containing the origin of the word Giclée, written by the fellow who coined it. Not a big deal at all, but somewhat annoying to me.
Thank you for this Terry,
Gary
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So what can you do? In the past, mostly all folks had was an old shoe box of snaps from whatever camera was kicking around. Surprisingly, many of them were pretty good looking back as those who inherited the shoe box found. Then for someone serious, high tech scanning helps bring them forward out of the dim recesses.
I am soooo thankful I have always shot raw and have all those images today. As I go back, I'm able to ply a sophisticated toolkit of software and programs that bring new light to old images, long since forgotten.
But of course, art historians lament this because it destroys any recognition of the image processed with the then current technology.
Can't win whatever you do. Live and let live I say. Patterson can live with his jpegs, I'll live with my raws.
In the end, it's probably only the prints that will ultimately survive anyway.
Make your prints on archival papers with archival inks and store them in archival containers and forget about them.
Get a bigger shoe box....
Forget Raw and Jpeg both - you can't stop time and it definitely is marching on... and will plow it all under....
-Mark
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I'm with Gary on the "Giclee" bit...
I don't understand though, why he changes from Jpeg to RAW if he is going to make a large print... the large Jpeg setting gives you the same print size as the RAW, so why change? Unless, he is taking these other "disposable" photographs on the smaller Jpeg settings?
Another question: why bother taking those other jpeg pictures in the first place?
For his book "The Americans", "Robert Frank would end up shooting around 27,000 images on his journey across the country, which would be condensed into a classic set of 83 black-and-white photographs." - Is Freeman Patterson saying he would only have needed to take 83 images? ;D
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My mom in her later years was also plagued with dilutions and forgot a lot about the last ten years of her life. One thing she never forgot though is that she love chocolate!
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Today, I received a very helpful and insightful reply from Freeman Patterson regarding this recommendation of jpegs over raw – and, in the context of his discussion, his recommendation makes sense. Here is a portion of what he wrote:
Related to all this is what I’ve observed from the composition of workshops. Almost nobody is a beginner, although too many these days don’t understand how aperture relates to depth of field, alas. More than a few are top-notch, highly experienced photographers and, to go even farther, some are artists. ... But, for all the rest and for the general public (now armed with phones and often abandoning cameras completely), I find repeatedly that shooting raw causes them enormous frustration, as they have no acceptable files to show [at the workshop] without processing and they have no great desire to spend time at it in order to show family, friends, and even camera-club members a collection of their pictures. With slides, by contrast, it was a quick job simply to load a tray with selected pictures. In my view most of these people require nothing more than a jpeg for all their needs. They don’t need to wear a tuxedo when a pair of jeans will do just fine.
Thank you Freeman!
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Read this, especially the bit about Jay Maisel and those of us that convinced him to go raw:
http://www.lumita.com/site_media/work/whitepapers/files/pscs3_rendering_image.pdf
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This isn't really a debate whether raw is superior to jpeg. It is. At least for those who understand why it is. For the rest of the crowd, it doesn't really matter, as they anyway have no intention of fiddling with a shot after it is taken. Click and show instantly, is what millions are doing. And for that, jpeg is good enough. Like slides. Or Polaroids. Or machine prints. Especially now, that phones are producing incredibly lifelike pictures with a single click and showing it to the world seconds later.
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Almost nobody is a beginner, although too many these days don’t understand how aperture relates to depth of field
This is a perfect example of an oxymoron
With slides, by contrast, it was a quick job simply to load a tray with selected pictures
Wow, when I shot slides I had to develop them first, and it certainly took a lot more time than processing the raws
In my view most of these people require nothing more than a jpeg for all their needs
Yes, keep them ignorant, less competition for the professional photographers
Why would you want to buy fresh groceries if you can go to McDonalds?
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... Why would you want to buy fresh groceries if you can go to McDonalds?
That single question perfectly defeats the rest of your post.
Guess what, millions of people do go to MCdonalds, even those who most of the time do buy fresh groceries.
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That single question perfectly defeats the rest of your post.
Maybe defeats it for you, opposite for me as expected. ;)
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Maybe defeats it for you, opposite for me as expected. ;)
You've never been to McDonalds?
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You've never been to McDonalds?
Not in the last 40+ years; you? I prefer fresh and often raw foods!
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That single question perfectly defeats the rest of your post.
It was an irony :)
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It strikes me that there is the issue of exposure differences for RAW and jpeg. I shoot RAW and particularly for higher ISO, use ETTR to help out with noise. I also do very mild processing in camera so the imbedded jpeg is pretty flat and overexposed. The hope is that the histogram from the flat jpeg may be better. That can be argued. Anyway, I would approach exposure for a jpeg differently. I don't think I would have much to show at a workshop, but would hopefully have well exposed RAW files.
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It strikes me that there is the issue of exposure differences for RAW and jpeg.
Only if your goal is to expose raw optimally. ;) Your comment about the use of ETTR means that indeed, your goal is optimal exposure for that kind of data.
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This isn't really a debate whether raw is superior to jpeg. It is. At least for those who understand why it is. For the rest of the crowd, it doesn't really matter, as they anyway have no intention of fiddling with a shot after it is taken. Click and show instantly, is what millions are doing. And for that, jpeg is good enough. Like slides. Or Polaroids. Or machine prints. Especially now, that phones are producing incredibly lifelike pictures with a single click and showing it to the world seconds later.
Very true. I find that most snappers find even the act of cropping much too complicated and time consuming.
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With RAW I can adjust the color balance in post and that is reason enough to avoid using the JPG format. I have also seen the color compression and reduction in tonal range with JPG files that is little different than the heavy handed use of a noise reduction application. To my eyes it is like the super saturated images that resulted from the use of Velvia film that are fine for advertising graphics but not for depicting the natural world.
But most people are stupid when it comes to technology. I heard two college age girls in a restaurant talking about how the use of PV solar panels was going to drain the sun of its power. And these people vote.
There is much the same nonsense about not manipulating a digital image after it is taken. Every single color and black and white print produced has been manipulated in post production after the shot, with the exception of Polaroid prints.