Woolcott

I started thinking about how I could streamline my workflow whilst waiting for 300+ shots to download from my S5 onto my computer (Bear in mind that the RAW files in extended dynamic range modes are about 50mb a pop. It was a long and boring wait.) and I suddenly realised something glaringly obvious.

I spent a fair bit of money on a high-spec camera (at least it WAS high-spec when I bought it. Whether it still is could potentially be something of a moot point, so we shan’t go there right now) and only use the thing in RAW mode. Ostensibly my main reasoning behind choosing this particular camera (other than the colour-negative film challenging 14 stops of dynamic range) was that it produced superb colours straight out of the camera. And yet I still chose to shoot RAW, which disregarded the camera’s interpretation of the colour information. Right.

I suppose the blame for this mainly lies in the fact that in shooting several other DSLRs prior to this one, I had taught myself the ways of the RAW format. I had persuaded myself that to get the best from the camera I had to shoot RAW and eschew using the compromising built in JPEG engine of the camera. Of course RAW does have its upsides:

1. It can cover a multitude of exposure-based sins.
2. White Balance can be changed dramatically after the fact.
3. You can apply your own noise reduction and sharpening as you see fit.
4. Having files which are 50mb each make for a great reason to upgrade your laptop on a regular basis because you ‘need’ a bigger hard-drive to cope with the files on the go. Not to mention more RAM and a faster CPU/GPU.

But it also has its downsides:

1. Big files take a long time to write, which is annoying in a camera which is hardly Speedy Gonzales at the best of times.
2. Big files take a long time to download from the camera to my HDD.
3. Big files are slower to work on in Lightroom and PS.
4. Big files take up more room and demand that I spend £1k every 2 years on a laptop, as well as money on back-up solutions.
5. Did I mention that the files are big?
6. Don’t even get me started on TIFFs for large prints.
7. The brilliant colours which Fuji prides itself on are pretty much out of the window, even with custom profiles in Lightroom.
8. I’m pretty sure that I don’t care about sharpening and noise-reduction in day-to-day shots enough to warrant spending any time on them.

I’ve decided therefore that I’m going to just shoot film from now on, because trying to decide whether or not to shoot RAW has led me to create this banal argument. Plus it’s retro-awesome and I’ve heard that all the cool kids do it. A little like crack then…

(if you don’t pick up on the sarcasm here I’m going to be forced to strangle you with the camera strap from your over-priced Urban Outfitters distributed Diana F+. Oh wait, that’s an optional $100 accessory, isn’t it…)