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Understanding ProRAW

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Re: Understanding ProRAW

#51

Post by raegis »

mlyle wrote: post #21
lmilcin wrote: post #13

I find people misunderstand what RAW is about and what and who it is for. If you think your pictures are better, you are deluding yourself the same way audiophiles moan about qualities of their high end, thousand dollar per feet audio cables. I use RAW files and full manual because I have an actual workflow where I shoot a bunch of photos in similar setting and want to be able to create Lightroom preset and apply to…

I think this is a bit of a rant. Shooting raw lets me save a few percent of photos where exposure is a little wrong. This is huge on its own, and you mention it. It also lets me stretch things and make scenes work which would otherwise exceed the dynamic range of the exposure and the built in tone mapping would guess wrong. Storage is cheap these days. If you're not doing something boost-shooting/burst intensive, why…

Or you could do both. My camera is set to save two images per shot--one RAW and one JPEG. This is a great learning tool for a beginner like myself. The default settings yield somewhat over-saturated colors for JPEGs, so it's always nice to have a side-by-side comparison for every picture.

Re: Understanding ProRAW

#52

Post by jsjohnst »

altarius wrote: post #11
hughes wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there even any camera companies that even have ambitions of reaching a level like this?

AFAIK a good chunk of digital camera processing is still done in ASIC/hardware and mindshift to GPU/CPU SIMD/software will take time, so it will probably be a while until camera manufacturers even begin to catch up. That said, Olympus does a couple computational photography approaches (handheld multishot high res) and Fuji recently introduced in-camera HDR - but I tried neither.

> AFAIK a good chunk of digital camera processing is still done in ASIC/hardware

I’m not authoritative on this topic, but I can’t think of a camera produced by one of the majors which isn’t mostly or entirely ASIC based for image processing.

> Fuji recently introduced in-camera HDR

Canon has had in-camera HDR for years, but I’m not sure I’d really put the output in the same category as a modern smartphone.

Re: Understanding ProRAW

#53

Post by jsjohnst »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #33
knolan wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry but I cannot fathom using Android (or iOS) on a professional camera. My Canon gear is extremely fast and responsive and Android is anathema to that. It powers on instantly and I can flip through menus as fast as I can physically turn the control wheel. I can change batteries in less than a second. My cameras will run for years without slowing down. My 7D is ten years old and as performant as the day I bough…

I have no idea why this was downvoted. Android is bloated and clunky, and far too many manufacturers put it in devices where it solves precisely zero problems and creates hundreds.

I’m not one who did, but I’m assuming the confrontational tone of GP is likely a cause.

Re: Understanding ProRAW

#54

Post by jsjohnst »

sudosysgen wrote: post #37
knolan wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry but I cannot fathom using Android (or iOS) on a professional camera. My Canon gear is extremely fast and responsive and Android is anathema to that. It powers on instantly and I can flip through menus as fast as I can physically turn the control wheel. I can change batteries in less than a second. My cameras will run for years without slowing down. My 7D is ten years old and as performant as the day I bough…

The user interface in my A7ii is actually Android, mostly. Responsive Android is absolutely doable if you design it a certain way, and there is no need to remove features like removable batteries or literally anything else. There is also absolutely no need for it to introduce artifacts into your images. RAW+JPEG is already good enough for this. The actual advantage of an open camera are huge. For example, it would be…

> For example, it would be trivial to adapt the camera to literally any mount, from EF to E to G and so on, which in and of itself is completely disruptive.

That’s a bit hyperbolic, the collar isn’t the only difference between those lens connectors.

Re: Understanding ProRAW

#55

Post by sudosysgen »

jsjohnst wrote: post #54
sudosysgen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The user interface in my A7ii is actually Android, mostly. Responsive Android is absolutely doable if you design it a certain way, and there is no need to remove features like removable batteries or literally anything else. There is also absolutely no need for it to introduce artifacts into your images. RAW+JPEG is already good enough for this. The actual advantage of an open camera are huge. For example, it would be…

> For example, it would be trivial to adapt the camera to literally any mount, from EF to E to G and so on, which in and of itself is completely disruptive. That’s a bit hyperbolic, the collar isn’t the only difference between those lens connectors.

It is a bit hyperbolic, but both the EF, E and Nikon G mounts have been essentially fully reverse engineered as far as driving a lens. The issue is that the communication to the body of some information isn't fully understood yet and might never be, which prevents third-party lenses as well as adapters from working properly.

If you were to make a camera that is fully open, maybe even modifiable on the info it sends to the lens and what information it wants back, then you would get aftermarket adapters for Canon EF (you could also make one yourself with publicly available info). Sony E would be a tougher nut to crack, but there is a fair bit of info already out and there are already E mount adapters feasible.

So yes, maybe trivial is hyperbolic because of the Sony E mount, but very feasible.

Re: Understanding ProRAW

#56

Post by hapticmonkey »

lmilcin wrote: post #13

I find people misunderstand what RAW is about and what and who it is for. If you think your pictures are better, you are deluding yourself the same way audiophiles moan about qualities of their high end, thousand dollar per feet audio cables. I use RAW files and full manual because I have an actual workflow where I shoot a bunch of photos in similar setting and want to be able to create Lightroom preset and apply to…

I use RAW for iPhone pictures because I find Apple's noise reduction too aggressive. For printed photos, the difference is quite noticeable.

Of course, using an iPhone camera for photography is always going to have limits. But I find the camera good enough for most day-to-day use cases.

Re: Understanding ProRAW

#57

Post by jsjohnst »

sudosysgen wrote: post #55
jsjohnst wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, it would be trivial to adapt the camera to literally any mount, from EF to E to G and so on, which in and of itself is completely disruptive. That’s a bit hyperbolic, the collar isn’t the only difference between those lens connectors.

It is a bit hyperbolic, but both the EF, E and Nikon G mounts have been essentially fully reverse engineered as far as driving a lens. The issue is that the communication to the body of some information isn't fully understood yet and might never be, which prevents third-party lenses as well as adapters from working properly. If you were to make a camera that is fully open, maybe even modifiable on the info it sends t…

I agree the mounts have been mostly reverse engineered, but that doesn’t detract from my point (which I might not have done a good job of articulating). The point I was trying to make is that each mount has different focal characteristics which would make it non-trivial to support on a single body (with a swappable collar adapter). Doable, yes, but not trivial. Even ignoring the focal differences, electrically (aka lens to camera communication) wouldn’t be what I would call trivial either.

(For background, a friend and I worked on designs for making an open camera platform a few years ago)

Re: Understanding ProRAW

#59

Post by myself248 »

Cactus2018 wrote: post #42
SigmundA wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a Magsafe camera lens / sensor with some kind of high speed wireless interconnect to iPhone: https://daxpix.medium.com/can-the-magsafe-hold-a-camera-lens...

Sony was thinking of this too - DSC-QX series: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSC-QX100

The Olympus AIR is the same thing. Minimal sensor-and-battery behind a lens mount, do everything from your phone.

Re: Understanding ProRAW

#60

Post by sudosysgen »

jsjohnst wrote: post #57
sudosysgen wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a bit hyperbolic, but both the EF, E and Nikon G mounts have been essentially fully reverse engineered as far as driving a lens. The issue is that the communication to the body of some information isn't fully understood yet and might never be, which prevents third-party lenses as well as adapters from working properly. If you were to make a camera that is fully open, maybe even modifiable on the info it sends t…

I agree the mounts have been mostly reverse engineered, but that doesn’t detract from my point (which I might not have done a good job of articulating). The point I was trying to make is that each mount has different focal characteristics which would make it non-trivial to support on a single body (with a swappable collar adapter). Doable, yes, but not trivial. Even ignoring the focal differences, electrically (aka l…

Oh, I didn't mean that the physical mounts have been mostly reverse engineered. I meant that the camera→lens communications have been fully to almost fully reverse engineered.

Mount optical characteristics are very simple. Just make sure your base mount has a larger diameter and a shorter flange distance, and you're golden. If you are designing your camera around that it is almost trivially done.

The code for implementing a basic E mount is on github, for the EF mount you just have to go looking around on some forums or buy it from the guy behind Metabones, same for Nikon G.

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