On Thu, 15 May 2008 14:44:37 -0400, Sabrina Kilian wrote:

> A quick googling says the A30 doesn't shoot in RAW format. There might
> be a firmware hack somewhere, but it seems this is the main Pentax
> camera, and if none of them have RAW capabilities then it isn't likely
> this one would either.
> 
> I would be surprised if it did not have some way to automatically shoot
> bracketed exposures. Google again says it can shoot +-0.3 to +-2
> exposures automatically, somewhere in the drive menu options. Even if
> you don't composite the images, using that will make it easier to get
> the right exposure if you are just clicking off pictures.

Yeah, it doesn't seem to be supported by CHDK either - My S50 isn't 
either, which was somewhat disappointing (not because I want RAW 
capabilities - the S50 has that - but there's some other stuff that might 
be nice to have as well).

im

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On Thu, 15 May 2008 08:52:42 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> composite the pictures together.
> 
>   Somehow I have never liked that type of post-processing in
>   photography.
> It gives me the feeling that the photo has been faked.
> 
>   It's a bit like you took an image rendered with povray and then added
> some lens flare effect with photoshop and then called it a "povray
> image". Yes, part of the image was made with povray, but part of the
> effect has been "faked", so it's not a pure povray image. It feels kind
> of cheating.

I think it depends on how well the compositing is done - most people 
don't do a good job with it, though, so it tends to look faked.

But if not a composite, then what would be the way to get rid of the 
bloom in the window without losing the details in the darker parts of the 
image?

Jim

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Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> 
>>composite the pictures together.
> 
> 
>   Somehow I have never liked that type of post-processing in photography.
> It gives me the feeling that the photo has been faked.
> 
Hmmm, I suppose, but I also thought that the lines of people ready to 
muse upon truth and artifice in photography were wide and deep. Analogue 
cameras were bad enough, but now that the capture is digital and 
probably filtered digitally from the start, at least that is what I 
assume my camera's different shooting 'modes' are,...it seems that 
'faked' is an increasingly relative term.  I'm surprised there isn't 
already a camera that would perform such compositing automatically and 
present the result as truth.  And can we really say it isn't?

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Sabrina Kilian wrote:

> A quick googling says the A30 doesn't shoot in RAW format. There might 
> be a firmware hack somewhere, but it seems this is the main Pentax 
> camera, and if none of them have RAW capabilities then it isn't likely 
> this one would either.
> 
Yes I discovered that limitation almost immediately, in fact, when I 
tried using the camera to document some drawings I'd done.  Once apon a 
time I had a pretty good routine and adequate lighting equipment for 
documenting my paintings, but now I don't.  Without hot enough lights, 
the point and shoot fell well short of adequate for that task, and the 
limitations of jpg only worsened the problem.  I *thought* I'd seen that 
some other format from jpg was supported when I was shopping the camera, 
but I was obviously mistaken.  Well maybe I can find some adequate 
lights for cheap.

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Jim Charter wrote:
> Yes I discovered that limitation almost immediately, in fact, when I 
> tried using the camera to document some drawings I'd done. 

Personally, I find the lens far more important than anything else. A 
JPEG shot thru a 68mm lens is going to look better than a RAW shot thru 
a 7mm lens no matter how good the postprocessing, methinks.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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Jim Charter wrote:
> present the result as truth.  And can we really say it isn't?

Considering your eyeball does about 4 layers of preprocessing before the 
image even gets to your optic nerve, it's hard to say that anything you 
actually photographed could be considered "faked". :-)

An interesting and almost relevant article:

http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_releases/our_visual_system_has_future_seeing_powers_study

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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Darren New wrote:
> Personally, I find the lens far more important than anything else. A
> JPEG shot thru a 68mm lens is going to look better than a RAW shot thru
> a 7mm lens no matter how good the postprocessing, methinks.

And to think 7mm is a lot compared to most cellphone cameras :D

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Jim Charter <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote:
> Hmmm, I suppose, but I also thought that the lines of people ready to 
> muse upon truth and artifice in photography were wide and deep. Analogue 
> cameras were bad enough, but now that the capture is digital and 
> probably filtered digitally from the start, at least that is what I 
> assume my camera's different shooting 'modes' are,...it seems that 
> 'faked' is an increasingly relative term.

  I still consider there to be a difference between, for example, a white
balance filter and, for example, compositing an image from several source
images. There's a drastic difference between those two. The latter has
something the camera didn't "see" (at least not at one single shot), so
it has a sense of "faking" to it.

  A very wide panoramic image which has been composed of several images
taken in quick succession is a rather border case. Personally I consider
it "faked, but it doesn't bother me too much".

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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And lo on Thu, 15 May 2008 20:47:11 +0100, Jim Henderson  
<nos### [at] nospamcom> did spake, saying:

> On Thu, 15 May 2008 08:52:42 -0400, Warp wrote:
>
>> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>>> composite the pictures together.
>>
>>   Somehow I have never liked that type of post-processing in
>>   photography.
>> It gives me the feeling that the photo has been faked.
>>
>>   It's a bit like you took an image rendered with povray and then added
>> some lens flare effect with photoshop and then called it a "povray
>> image". Yes, part of the image was made with povray, but part of the
>> effect has been "faked", so it's not a pure povray image. It feels kind
>> of cheating.
>
> I think it depends on how well the compositing is done - most people
> don't do a good job with it, though, so it tends to look faked.
>
> But if not a composite, then what would be the way to get rid of the
> bloom in the window without losing the details in the darker parts of the
> image?

You can try and fake it to an extent from the one image. Here I created a  
gradient mask centred on the lighter building and then tweaked the  
histogram levels to match it in tone to the surroundings while keeping the  
struts visible. It was only a quickie about two minutes tops, with more  
time and more tweaking it would be possible to do more. Does it look  
fake/better/worse?

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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On Fri, 16 May 2008 02:05:35 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Charter <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote:
>> Hmmm, I suppose, but I also thought that the lines of people ready to
>> muse upon truth and artifice in photography were wide and deep.
>> Analogue cameras were bad enough, but now that the capture is digital
>> and probably filtered digitally from the start, at least that is what I
>> assume my camera's different shooting 'modes' are,...it seems that
>> 'faked' is an increasingly relative term.
> 
>   I still consider there to be a difference between, for example, a
>   white
> balance filter and, for example, compositing an image from several
> source images. There's a drastic difference between those two. The
> latter has something the camera didn't "see" (at least not at one single
> shot), so it has a sense of "faking" to it.
> 
>   A very wide panoramic image which has been composed of several images
> taken in quick succession is a rather border case. Personally I consider
> it "faked, but it doesn't bother me too much".

I tend to agree on the first part. You can white balance, or do a lot of 
the other 'processing modes' of the camera in analogue, with the right 
lighting and color filters on the lens. The fact that a digital camera 
makes it faster and requires a lot less investment to do it, shouldn't 
matter that much.

However, a camera does see a composite image, and can create one from a 
single shot. You could take film that had a higher contrast range then 
the paper you put the pictures on, and selectively expose the print to 
bring out the parts that you want. Shooting in RAW format acts a bit more 
like film, you can tune the RAW image the same way you would selectively 
expose a film negative, to get more contrast or the burn a sky out to 
white, even if the actual shot contained a few clouds. In analogue, this 
isn't even getting into print manipulation, just changing the time you 
allow the print to be exposed to light.

And even old film allows for good post processing, dodge and burn to 
composite two images, double exposure of the print media, gradient 
filters for both the shoot and the film exposure, using the wrong 
chemical in processing . . . there are tons of ways to 'fake' an image 
while still using the original film, and if you take out double exposures 
of the print and dodge and burn techniques, you can do all of them with 
just the camera and chemicals.

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