First vote: jpg, till lightroom or aperture update for the .orf files from the e-p1.

i use the great jpegs that the ep-1 produces

i would like to try raw , but have not yet

You forgot that the e-P1 can shoot both. That's what I do. Can you add that option?

there is a poll at the beginning of this thread , has everyone voted who reads this?

Not until the third option is added... I shoot both. That isn't an option.

-Jon

Quote from: JonInKrakow on September 07, 2009, 11:17:41 AM

Quote from: cosinaphile on September 07, 2009, 11:16:10 AM

there is a poll at the beginning of this thread , has everyone voted who reads this?

Not until the third option is added... I shoot both. That isn't an option.

-Jon

added

Thanks! And voted!

I note in passing, that it has jumped to second place.

-Jon

I used to use JPEG + RAW, but since I got Lightroom, RAW is much easier.

I agree with Voyager that using LR makes the development of RAW files virtually painless. Unfortunately LR has not been updated yet to recognize the EP1 RAW files - hopefully soon. So for the time being I am shooting RAW+JPEG but only keeping the RAW files from special/difficult pictures or when I use the ART filters (so I have the original version).
Steve

I am shooting RAW and converting to DNG and then processing in LR.

raw user here........

i did not think of the differences as so profound in raw vs jpeg ,is it similar to the forgivness of print film in years past vs less forgiving chrome?
have i been cheaating myself these last few years?
could someone start a thread so raw shooters can show examples of what transformations in an image are possible and perhaps an expanded study  of the benefits of raw and the best way to process

why are jpegs so limiting ?

i did not think of the differences as so profound in raw vs jpeg ,is it similar to the forgivness of print film in years past vs less forgiving chrome?
have i been cheaating myself these last few years?
could someone start a thread so raw shooters can show examples of what transformations in an image are possible and perhaps an expanded study  of the benefits of raw and the best way to process

why are jpegs so limiting ?

Well, with jpeg, you get 8 bits of shading--256 shades of grey. To achieve that, the processor has to chuck data. But it's not linear. If jpegs have 5 stops of resolving power, think of the top fifth getting something like _half_ of those 256 shades, with each stop getting progressively less. Since raw data is recorded at 12 bits of shading (several thousand), plus the added "benefit" that these shades of grey are linear, you get a bit more play room for fixing things. I haven't had much opportunity to play with my ORF files, but on my Canon, I could easily recover two stops of exposure. If I wanted to, I could go two stops over, and two stops under, and combine the three (original) images to create an extended dynamic range, compressed into 8 bits. That's a range of 4 stops. Guaranteed a jpeg isn't recovering that!!!

Here's a test. If you have Photoshop, grab a jpeg, and open it up. Call up the Levels adjustment tool, and grab the middle thumb, and drag it to the right. This will bump up your contrast. Notice the curve, and how it moves--yet is still smooth. Now, save your changes and open up the Levels tool again immediately. Now notice the histogram. It's got spikes--a comb effect. This should be to the left of where you dragged the middle thumb. This is all data that has been permanently lost. That's what you lose with jpegs. If you had done this with a 16 bit tiff, created from a RAW file, you wouldn't have that extreme combing effect.

I did some playing just now, but I still am not too comfortable with what raw processing software I have for my Pen, so I'm not comfortable with the results. For one, RPP is showing lots of noise, which can hide some things.

Oh, and one last point! From what I've read on DPReview and a couple other sites, Olympus' in-camera processor is excellent at dragging out the most from the raw image into the in-camera jpegs. I suspect that 99% of the time, with Oly, and especially the E-P1, you don't need RAW. I just can't bring myself to give it up yet. Time will tell. :-)

-Jon

thanks for the excellent explainations ,im beginning to understand  the difference

I'm a fan of RAW, but with the E-P1 I shoot JPEG. Also, I "gasp" shoot Normal, not Super Fine Jpeg.

I convinced myself of it the following way. Take a variety of shots both Raw and Superfine JPEG under different conditions. Good light, bad light, and some stuff with a wide variety of colors that you know, the blue sky, some grass, etc. Now, put the JPEGS away, don't look at them at all and don't look at them even on the camera screen.

Then take your RAW program, and spend as much time with them as you like. In my case I spent about 1/2 hr on each one, peeping the pixels, tweaking the noise settings for individual pictures; the very best I could do and taking into account the areas of the subject that I wanted to show. Then I output a TIFF file so that there would be no loss.  Then I got my very best effort and the JPEG up side by side.

You know what, it was a toss up. In almost all cases the JPEG color was better and matched what I remembered looking at. Even after looking at the JPEGs I could not duplicate the colors fully with my RAW program, it is going to require some kind of selective color processing. Resolution was the same. Noise was harder to interpret, in the cases where I had looked at some area and concentrated on that area for noise, that area looked better in the RAW, but the other areas were better in the JPEG. The JPEG was often a very good compromise. After seeing the JPEGs I often wanted to go back and try to fix the colors and the tone curve of the RAWs that I had done.

So in the end, I thought that I don't want to spend this kind of time on each shot just to get results that are maybe not even as good.  I take so many shots that I'd have to process a lot of them automatically, and the JPEG would be better than that. That's just me. I still shoot RAW if I feel that the picture is going to be important and I might want to goof with it. Maybe someone else is really good with their RAW program and can work faster.   And if  you have the time working with RAW is fun. But I think that realistically everyone should try the test before saying that one method or the other is better for them.