Camera RAW

Well, I did it. I have made the plunge into RAW. It is definitely a whole new world and given that a week ago I knew nothing about it, I am feeling much better about the prospects. I picked up a great book that is teaching me the ins and outs of Adobe CS3 Camera Raw editing. I have a long way to go, but have burned about half way through the text already. The amount of control is staggering and when coupled with Photoshop, it really allows for an incredible amount of post production control.

That being said, I quickly found out that you still have to take great shots with the camera to get great outcomes. RAW does not provide you the ability to transform a bad picture into a good one. One part I really like about it is the ability to adjust the exposure during the post production. Again, shooting with a good low light lens is superior, but I have found that I can really brighten up some of my low light shots after the fact by adjusting the exposure in Camera Raw.

Anyway, I am very excited to get out and shoot some more. I have been playing around with F-stops and shutter speeds with mixed results. The ability of a good lens cannot be understated, and I have come to the conclusion that the stock lens that my camera arrived with will need to be replaced/substituted with a fancier one. Maybe before Hawaii. Below is a nugget from Ben's visit. I post-produced it in Camera Raw and was pretty happy with the color output.



I did a lot of color altering here. As a reference, the wall in the background is actually yellow. The photo is soft, but again I need a better lens for low light shooting.