I always shoot in RAW as I have found that when trying to shoot a bird quickly it is not always possible to set the correct shooting parameters exactly and I have found RAW allows subsequent editing to correct for imperfect camera settings - accepting, of course there may be a slight trade-off in terms of image quality.

Hi Nigel,

I edit RAW files all the time in Lightroom 3.

Although Im not expert, if you have any specific questions and I can help I would be happy too.

I used to shoot in Jpeg, and always said I'd never go to RAW (as to be very honest Im not the most technical of people and get bored with computer detail very easily) - however I wouldn't look back now :)

The end result in RAW is definitely worth that bit of extra effort.

In terms of other equipment, although I have invested quite a lot in mine of late I would say the biggest things are knowing your subject and knowing how to get the best out of your camera through the settings. I did this by practising a lot - particularly with in flight shots and by going out with other camera friends and picking up tips as i went.

I don't know if any of this really helps, but I hope you have lots of fun on your journey - I love getting out with my camera - it makes me so happy

I always have white balance on auto. Only time I changed it, I forgot to change it back and ended up with some nice "blue" Little Owl shots. It also failed me on some Three-toed Woodpecked shots in Romania (which turned out "yellow") - but both were fine cos I shoot RAW, so easily corrected in Photoshop.

Dean Macdonald wrote:

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I used the full sunshine setting once about 2yrs ago i think it was

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You were lucky...........

I used the full sunshine setting once about 2yrs ago i think it was

Auto White Balance all the time for Outdoor shots :)

I use auto white balance and if it's off, I adjust it in Adobe Camera Raw.

Interesting discussion do you chaps put your white balance onto auto ?

A few times I have been caught out the shot happens and you need to be quick but the light has since changed and your white balance is off

JOHN TYMON wrote:

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Although this probably should be in another thread Raw v Jpeg.
My camera which is the newest Nikon D7100,not a pro camera mind, I cannot afford a £4000 body ,but its the best DX camera on the market and costs £1000 for the Body, so its not a cheap camera , but the 24m Pixels means in Raw ,you get about 6 shots at 7 frames per second before the buffer is full, and then you get 1 frame a second while it catches up, which is pretty useless for birds in flight, In Jpeg best quality I can get 7 frames per second continuous. The other day I took 21 shots to get one good one of the Penny Common scoter in flight. If I had shot in Raw ,I would never have got the shot as it was shot 17 I kept. :)

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Exactly the same point i was making, i use a Canon 7d which is roughly the same as yours in price range, out of interest my canon slows down by the same amount but can keep up in highest jpeg mode, in raw i can shoot about ten before it starts to fill up and start buffering and missing shots, just like you i need to shoot a lot of flight shots as the bird passes just to get that one good one, and that is using the fastest pro range most expensive compact flash cards, all good fun

cheers Dennis

The biggest thing that hasn't yet been mentioned is fieldcraft, learning how to get close to a bird without disturbing it will help your shots just as much as advice about gear to use and how to use it. Obviously I don't need to say that the welfare of the bird should always come first.

Although this probably should be in another thread Raw v Jpeg.
My camera which is the newest Nikon D7100,not a pro camera mind, I cannot afford a £4000 body ,but its the best DX camera on the market and costs £1000 for the Body, so its not a cheap camera , but the 24m Pixels means in Raw ,you get about 6 shots at 7 frames per second before the buffer is full, and then you get 1 frame a second while it catches up, which is pretty useless for birds in flight, In Jpeg best quality I can get 7 frames per second continuous. The other day I took 21 shots to get one good one of the Penny Common scoter in flight. If I had shot in Raw ,I would never have got the shot as it was shot 17 I kept. Also with Raw if you take as many images that I do ,storage of Raw files is an issue as is card size. I get 680 shots in JPEG on a 16 Gig card. ABOUT 180 in raw. Then the computer storage space with backed up Raw files and Jpegs, becomes enormous.
The argument RAW v JPEG is all over the net, but for me JPEG is good enough, but for people who think Raw is better that's ok, but Nikon must have put a long time into producing the best shots with their cameras ,so it seems pointless for me to try to better what they have spent years developing, by stopping the camera from doing its job, and then trying to do it myself.
I have used Raw many times ,but more often than not my Jpegs come out better than my RAW attempts on the computer .
All good info though :)

All digital cameras create a raw file, in those where you can't save or have selected not to save in raw, the camera adds the depth of colour, white balance, sharpening etc. to a pre determined level. If you think as the raw file being like a negative, you get the idea, raw is not an acronym or abbreviation, it just means the image is raw. If you prefer not to save this raw file in the more expensive digital cameras, then you are throwing away a chance to do any non-destructive alterations to that image at a later date. With the cheaper digital cameras and phones, you don't get that chance. With my camera I can take up to 130 images at 9 fps. That's enough for me, I'm sure the bird will have flown before my buffer fills up. As I've said before, stick with what you feel suits you best but I'd never advise anyone not to use raw.

im sticking to the Jpeg camp, lots of points being made about being able to salvage bad shots in Raw, this is true, but going back to my original comment, if you learn your camera, and histogram and get the shots correct when shooting then raw becomes pointless, and your camera also become twice as fast as the bufferring is quicker as the files are smaller, its no good having it set to raw and then as a bird flies by your camera cant keep up with the action, you could wait all day for this small chance to get this bird and your camera needs to be working at full speed to get as many shots as poss as to get the wings stretched perfectly for the perfect shot, im Sticking with John here, if you learn, know and understand your camera, lighting, exposure, and set it up correcty for the shot then Raw is no advantage, though if you do enjoy spending twice as long at the computer editing later then fine, but by no stretch of the imagination will raw produce a better shot than jpeg if you set up your shot, it will only save it if you mess it up, just an opinion, Each to there own, enjoy your photography

JOHN TYMON wrote:

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Karl Blundell wrote:

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I also only shoot in RAW, JPEG quality is only 8 bit. I fail to understand why people would buy a good camera and then limit it by shooting in JPEG.

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Feel free to check my Flickr page below,or many shots on the main Manchester site for proof that Jpeg for bird photography works and I have had many pictures printed in many magazines including Birdguides,birdwatching,birdwatch,birding world,almost every Manchester report.
So understand that with 35 years taking Bird photographs ,I can rarely say Raw gives me anything above Jpeg and the proof is in the pudding as they say.Raw has much lower Buffer rates for the high pixel cameras,like my new one and a bird in flight needs continuous buffer to capture the best shot.Its great for birds on sticks that are easy,but I like a bit of action and hate the buffer running out after 7 or 8 continuous shots,which is the price to pay for high pixels.
I also think it depends if your a photograher or a Birder/Photographer,I am very much the latter and enjoy my bird recording even more than my photography and my Birding sense gives me much more advantage than being on the computer processing Raw images. I use my images as a photographic diary of what I see.
I personally cannot understand why so many shoot raw,when they don't understand fully the processing after.I am no photoshop expert,but I get by and I know of many pro photographers,who use nothing but JPEG. so each to thier own.Feel free to view my jpegs of birds at penny :)



-- Edited by JOHN TYMON on Tuesday 30th of April 2013 10:55:14 AM

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John, if JPEG suits your needs, then stay with it. I was once of the same opinion but after converting to Raw, I won't be going back. The conversion was a bit daunting at first but now I have a bit more understanding of the process it comes as second nature. Anyway, stay with what you feel most comfortable with and enjoy your photography.

I also only shoot in RAW, JPEG quality is only 8 bit. I fail to understand why people would buy a good camera and then limit it by shooting in JPEG.

Karl Blundell wrote:

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I also only shoot in RAW, JPEG quality is only 8 bit. I fail to understand why people would buy a good camera and then limit it by shooting in JPEG.

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Feel free to check my Flickr page below,or many shots on the main Manchester site for proof that Jpeg for bird photography works and I have had many pictures printed in many magazines including Birdguides,birdwatching,birdwatch,birding world,almost every Manchester report.
So understand that with 35 years taking Bird photographs ,I can rarely say Raw gives me anything above Jpeg and the proof is in the pudding as they say.Raw has much lower Buffer rates for the high pixel cameras,like my new one and a bird in flight needs continuous buffer to capture the best shot.Its great for birds on sticks that are easy,but I like a bit of action and hate the buffer running out after 7 or 8 continuous shots,which is the price to pay for high pixels.
I also think it depends if your a photograher or a Birder/Photographer,I am very much the latter and enjoy my bird recording even more than my photography and my Birding sense gives me much more advantage than being on the computer processing Raw images. I use my images as a photographic diary of what I see.
I personally cannot understand why so many shoot raw,when they don't understand fully the processing after.I am no photoshop expert,but I get by and I know of many pro photographers,who use nothing but JPEG. so each to thier own.Feel free to view my jpegs of birds at penny :)



-- Edited by JOHN TYMON on Tuesday 30th of April 2013 10:55:14 AM

I use RAW all the time and pretty well always use AV setting ,set to the widest available on the lens, so I get the fastest speed.
I usually work at ISO400 unless the light is really bad.
I use exposure control very rarely unless it's tricky light like snow or a silhouette when perversely you want more light.
(the camera will try and make everything an average grey, so your main subject gets under-exposed. )

Settings like white balance, sharpness, tone, saturation etc. apply to if you are saving in JPEG and if you get it wrong, there is no going back.
That's why I use RAW which captures what the sensor sees. You can fiddle about with settings afterwards in Lightroom or Photoshop.

Think of JPEG like a Polaroid where you are getting the finished product 'in camera'
RAW is like a negative where you need post-production work to get the finished image.

Thanks for all the advice
I use RAW all the time as it affords a better quality of photograph and is far more tolerant of post-image processing
I do not have an issue of time so that is not a problem to me

Does anyone have first hand experience of Canon cameras - I notice there are a lot of picture settings, of which I have no experience - I have a Cnon 650d
These include: picture style (for sharpness, contrast, saturation and tone), high ISO speed noise reduction, exposure compensation and others
Each setting will have an impact on the picture quality and I am sure there will be trade-offs by changing these settings
Any comments or advice, plse
Cheers
Nigel

I'm sorry but I have to disagree with Dennis and John as I use Raw all the time. Every time you alter a jpeg image, you degrade the quality at the extreme you start to get jpeg artifacts that show up as grainy splodges in the image. When you process a raw file it's a non destructive process. I once had a bad lens that was drastically over exposing all my shots. With Adobe Raw I was able to recover the shots. Once you establish a work flow it does not take too much time. Just do a search on YouTube of Adobe Raw and you will find many visual examples of its uses and benefits.

Dennis atherton wrote:

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just to answer one question, i have never bothered with raw files, too much hassle for not much gain, if you take a bad shot, yes you can save it and in raw there is more controls, but and this is key to me, if you set up your shot properly, learn about your histogram, dont blow the colours or whites then you never need to use any of the extra settings in raw, this is only my opinion but i also know lots of other bird photographers also dont bother, it also slows down buffering as files are larger, i would rather have faster FPS and set up camera correctly and if you do this raw is no use, just a thought, cheers Dennis

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Agree ,leave Raw to studio photographers.jpeg is all I ever use, and have found with raw the time it takes to produce a good picture from raw is much too long.I can take 400 shots on one bird sometimes which takes me 4 hours with jpeg on the computer .The same in raw would take me a month. Also I have seen so many great shots ruined by bad photoshoping by people who use raw ,but don't understand why they use a Raw. Nikon have spent 50 years perfecting the out of camera picture , why then would I want to Ignore all that and do it myself? Good Advice from Dennis Stick to jpeg ,unless you want to spend more time messing on the computer than out taking shots :)

just to answer one question, i have never bothered with raw files, too much hassle for not much gain, if you take a bad shot, yes you can save it and in raw there is more controls, but and this is key to me, if you set up your shot properly, learn about your histogram, dont blow the colours or whites then you never need to use any of the extra settings in raw, this is only my opinion but i also know lots of other bird photographers also dont bother, it also slows down buffering as files are larger, i would rather have faster FPS and set up camera correctly and if you do this raw is no use, just a thought, cheers Dennis

There are plenty similar threads recently, with plenty of good advice, try using the search above and put photography, I'm sure you will find a lot that's helpful :)

Hello Nigel and welcome to the world of bird photography. So you are wanting to go to the next level. My advise would always be buy the best camera that your budget will allow for. There are many good cameras on the market. Nikon and canon are pretty comparable. YOur lenses are more important and with those you really need to sit down and know what you want from a lens. Do you want a zoom or do you want a faster prime? Are you wanting a lens with a huge magnification like a 500+ or something smaller that is easier to carry? With big heavy lenses comes aching muscles and more expense paying out for sturdy tripods. Also do you want a lens that will handle action shots in which case maybe a prime lens would be more advantageous.

Take time to read the reviews for all the latest cameras and know what you need from your camera. No doubt others here will be able to offer you more advise :)

Annette Cutts

I have become interested in bird photography over the last few months and have been achieving some reasonable results
However, i now wish to take it to the next level (which is going to cost me!!) and would be grateful for first-hand advice from serious amateur/professional bird photographers on their experiences
I would also be grateful for help from anybody who edits RAW photo files in Adobe Lightroom
Many thanks
Nigel