Monday February 25, 2013

Monday February 25/13  update #375

I had just a horrible night, hardly being able to lie down flat, with a cold setting in to the sinuses.  I somehow managed to get a couple of hours sleep before deciding to just seize the day and get moving.   In all my waking hours I had been fearfully formulating a strategy to take the next step in photography, to graduate to taking RAW photos.  I read the manual a few times and checked it out online and it was clearly a decision I had to make.  All the professionals shoot in RAW format because you have so many more layers of light and clour to play with.  I really had no idea what I was in for.

Monday is a grocery day for Bella so she was off and running.

I called up Paul Wolf, a professional and knowledgeable photographer who has been an immense help to me.  In the back of my mind I was hoping he was free to help me into this foray and surprisingly he was indeed available so we met near the Hospital Del Rio and began to just walk along the Yanuncay as he explained to me the benefits of RAW photography and what it would do for me.  I had my new Canon set to take both RAW and JPEG and we went over the settings I had chosen, which surprisingly, most met with Paul’s approval.

Paul and I do not always pick the best days for photo walks, because usually I ask him before I have even looked out the window.  Today was no exception, exceedingly cloudy, which makes for bad shots involving any sky.  The sun did try to show itself but those were very fleeting attempts that did us no good.

Not that we were trying to take any award-winning shots today, I just wanted to take a few reasonable shots in both formats to see what I would have to work with later.

With Paul’s help we managed to try different manual exposures to get some acceptable shots to play with.  About 1:15 my stomach was growling so we parted and I walked home, managing to get a few more floral shots on the way.  Lunch was a necessity as I competed with bella for kitchen space as she was making huge batches of muffins.

I took a chance on some of the things that Paul had told me and managed to not only download both formats, but I managed to get the RAW images to open in Adobe RAW, then PhotoShop.  After I had worked on only 3 photos I had to call Paul to thank him for all his help in opening up this whole new world for me.  The difference in the available data to work with is astounding, and the results completely amazing.  I just deleted all the JPEG images and concentrated on the RAW images alone.   Once processed, they are converted to JPEG images anyway, and 10 times superior to the JPEG coming from the camera’s processor.

I know the photos today might be laughable to a professional but they are giddily fantastic to me for a very first effort.  I hope you enjoy them.

That was today’s excitement.   Hugs to all.    Please see all new photos at http://souvenircuenca.blogspot.com/