This is not really a problem as such, as the 'RAW grain' is somewhat different in character to the 'jpeg grain' using the methods I use. The RAW grain I am getting reminds me of Tmax 3200 or Delta 3200 while the jpeg grain looks more like Ilford HP5. This is useful to know depending on the effect that one wants to achieve. I have been using Noise Ninja to filter the files.
I decided to do an experiment on a file yesterday just to see the different effects that were possible without spending an enormous amount of time. For example, is it worth shooting RAW and suffereing the write times of 10 seconds or more when an in-camera jpeg will do the job just as well (I'm only talking about black and white here)?
This is the file I started out with. Shot at ISO 800 in RAW mode with a simultaneous jpeg produced in monochrome.
This file was generated using Adobe Camera RAW on default settings and then running through Convert to Black and White Pro 3 (CBWPro) to arrive at an image I liked with a little warm toning applied. Click on the picture to get a bigger view and look at the grain. Unsharp masking has also been applied to this image as this tends to accentuate grain, but is a necessary step before printing.
The grain from the jpeg produced by the camera was much less pronounced as some sort of noise reduction is taking place in the camera. For a comparison I used Convert to Black and White Pro 3 again on the jpeg file and tried to get a similar picture in terms of tones and feel to the RAW effort. Again unsharp masking was applied. I find that it is easier to adjust monochrome (but still in RGB) files in CBWPro as it gives nice control using the 3 sliders even though the image is already monochrome. Here is the result:
I found it much easier to get this image than the RAW one. There is slightly more detail and the tones seem smoother. In fact seems quite a bit better than the RAW attempt and much less grainy. I probably could have got a better rendition of the RAW file if I spent a lot more time on it, but this experiment is partly about the relative convenience of shooting RAW versus jpeg on the GR Digital.
To cut a long story short I experimented with various combinations of Noise Ninja and came to the conclusion that the RAW image grain is nice, but difficult to reduce in coarseness. For some images this is useful. The in-camera jpeg was much smoother and difficult to replicate with Noise Ninja on the RAW version. Here are 6 crops of my experiments on the above images using various controls:
Again click on the image to see a bigger version.The 1st image here is the crop from the original RAW file after using CBWPro. The 2nd is a crop from the unsharpened jpeg after CBWPro. 3rd is an example of default Noise Ninja on the 1st image (that is using a profile generated from the image, sliders on 10/10/10 but with USM off). I usually find the Noise Ninja does too much reduction for my tastes so I also halved the sliders to 5/5/5 and produced the 4th example. The last 2 examples show the effects of unsharp masking on the grain. The 5th image being the RAW conversion and Noise Ninja followed by USM (65/2.8/0 in Photoshop). The final image is a crop of the jpeg after the same USM settings.
My conclusion is that I will probably not bother with RAW monochrome on the GR Digital. The in-camera processing is hard to better and good enough for my purposes. I have printed images up to A3 size and the in-camera jpegs are slightly less grainy than I can easily achieve using RAW files and Noise Ninja without losing detail. Noise Ninja has a tendency to wipe out details that were in the RAW files if you are not very careful, but these details are still present in the in-camera jpeg. The character of the grain is different in the RAW files and maybe nicer for some images.
I am not saying this is a robust scientific test, and maybe my Noise Ninja skills are not up to scratch, but the jpeg mode seems to me to give the nicest results and much more quickly than fiddling around in RAW.
Incidentally I use exclusively RAW mode with my Canon 5D and wouldn't shoot any other way, but then I don't have to wait for the camera to slowly write the images to the card. I would probably sometimes stick with RAW for colour work on the GR Digital to have control over white balance and so on.
If anyone is interested I will post the original full size images from this post on my Flickr page.
14 comments:
A question-are you shooting in color or bw mode, and in bw mode, on the camera, does the preview screen show a bw image, or a color image-
I really like the grd, the 28mm, lack of distortion etc, and was looking for a street camera replacement.
I'm shooting in RAW in the size/quality mode, but with black and white mode selected on the image settings. That way you get a black and white preview and a black and white jpeg. But the RAW file still contains all the colour information so you can get a colour and mono shot at the same time.
The example in the blog post of the RAW mono shot is converted using Convert to Black and White Pro from a 'colour' RAW file out of Adobe Camera Raw, but the jpeg is already black and white.
I read your posting on The Online Photographer that you found the same thing that I did, that it's easier working with the JPGs than the RAWs. But to produce B&W have you compared converting color JPGs versus working with the GR-D B&W JPGs?
--Mitch/Lubumbashi
I tend to just have the camera set on black and white, but I could give it a try. I am getting intrigued by this now. I shot some street scenes over the weekend with the GRD to try a comparison between mono mode and colour conversion at 100 ISO (not RAW). If I have time I will post some results later.
I understand now, it seems the camera gives you the best of both worlds in raw/monochrome mode, with a really grainy raw conversion and a smoother jpeg, assuming you can wait for the write times in raw. If you could post a full size in flickr that would be great, and any other impressions of the camera, specifically how you find the viewfinder-taking a look at that accessory finder (200$!) is an attractive option but the price is steep for a point and shoot really. the bessa accessory finders are less than that.
I will try and post some images to Flickr later and some comments. I got the GRD 'creative set' which included the viewfinder, hood attachment and the wider angle lens among other things. I understand that other cheaper viewfinders also fit. The Bessa might? The Ricoh one has two grids, one for 21mm and one for 28mm. I used it for the first time last weekend and it seems OK to me. You can turn the screen on the back of the camera off so you just shoot with the finder and the battery lasts longer.
That thread over on photo.net is getting some interesting comments-and I have to admit there is a "grain" of truth to Albano's comment that the camera is overpriced and we are fetishizing noise in some way. I agree the camera is expensive-I think Ricoh is taking all they can get from the crowd that would be interested in a prime lens point and shoot, like me, for example, I have a T2, a great camera, but 600$...not so sure. Same for the GRD, 799 is way up there compared to others, but who has a 28mm equivalent lens? So I admit, I am a sucker there. I would buy one. (need to sell the T2 first)
As for the grain vs noise issue, it does give me pause that we are praising a camera for exhibiting what in the digital capture realm is considered a flaw-noise. The purist in me wants to say that we should embrace what is natural to digital-the grainlessness of it as compared to film, yet here we are liking and artifact not for what it is, but for what it isn't. Sort of like idolatry? Film is dead but we are still praising grain? I don't mean that except as a metaphor. The question I am asking, if we like grain, what is wrong with film then? And why hobble digital to get this artifact?
I don't have an answer here, except its more convenient, which is bothersome, but I know convenient wins over idealism all the time...
One thing that is clear, all the galleries mentioned and the photos here point to some very good photographers using this camera. Presumably they would be as good using an instamatic. But good tools count for something too.
Robert:
There is nothing deep here. It's merely an aesthetic judgment: some of us like grain. Some time back a friend shot two identical pictures in 35 mm and medium format of a scene with a boat, a tree and a river. We both liked the 35mm shot more because the grain gave the picture "bite", which the MF shot simply did not have. Just as grain can be a 35mm artifact that defines the "35mm aesthetic", so noise with the GR-D is a digital artifact that apparently can do the same.
Again, we come back to aesthetics. Some of us like the 35mm aesthetic, and if that becomes possible, or natural, with the GR-D, so much the better.
Moriyama wrote somewhere that photography that is too exquisite takes itself too seriously and cannot question itself, and thus loses reality. Okay, it's a translation from Japanse, but I think you get the idea.
--Mitch/Lubumbashi
I don't think I am praising grain. I actually usually prefer clean images, I also have a 4x5 camera and a 5D, but I think the GRD may have something here (whether by accident or design) that will create a cult following.
I am interested in the aesthetic differences in images produced by different forms of capture, so I may have gone back to Delta 3200 for some moody images, but now I can just use the GRD and save a lot of hassle with the scanning etc.
On the other hand there is probably 'a grain of truth' in the fetishization of the overpriced GRD. I think I knew it was overpriced when I bought it, but I haven't regretted my purchase yet and have used the camera in ways I didn't think I would when I acquired it. I still usually shoot with it at 100 ISO, but the option to create interesting images at 800 and 1600 is just a nice bonus even though it's not what I bought the camera for.
great responses both. I have an M6 and I really do love it, it is a joy to use, in so many ways, and my experience of making pictures with it is very good. Could I do the same with a camera that costs a lot less, of course. But, yes, there is something else. So this GRD interests me. I clear way to get somwhere. it is not all about price.
On the poin tof aesthetics, I do agree that the point is left to the viewer, what they experience, their reaction, is the point, and how the photog gets there is not totally the point. So you like grain, fine, how to get there, many ways? No I am not lamenting the loss of the daguereotype. (or some other way that was the "normal way") But it is strange-no? why the aesthetic attachment to grain-surely it comes from a history of seeing it in films and pictures, it is trained-when I look through my eyes, I do not see grain, I see a plasticity, uncannily like digital, no grain, no noise. Memory, another story-there is texture, and grain, this is the landscape of memory, or is it how we have be conditioned to interpret memory?.
But imaging on film vs imaging on sensors, should we not go with what the medium does best? Poor question; should we not accept the native state of the capture, ie; film has grain, digital has not. In other words, were is the f64 group of digital capture?....
Still saving for the GRD, btw, great set of pics on flickr by mark t.
Thanks for looking at my photos.
I agree that the love of grain is partly learned. We learn to appreciate what could be called essentially defects of the medium.
Maybe in a few years people will get used just to seeing clean noise free images as technology evolves; and see most of the images on screens rather than in print. Then perhaps grainy images will take on an old fashioned or passe look only aspired to by quirky eccentrics. Perhaps the way alternative process afficionados
might be viewed now.
I'll try and post my original GRD files today as promised, but have realised that Flickr doesn't allow DNG files. I will try and put them up on some alternative site.
Mitch asked about mono conversion of colour versus straight monochrome from the GRD. I experimented with this yesterday. I found that the quality was not essentially any better, but sometimes the colour jpeg gave you some more options because you had access to the colour channels. So in Convert to BW Pro the filters can be used to create effects that are slightly harder with grayscale image files. So it is easier to darken skies if you have a colour file than a mono one by using the red filter in CBWPro etc.
However, I found that if you use selections in Photoshop you can still use CBWPro on different parts of the image and get different effects and use different 'grades' of contrast on different parts of the image.
Almost all the images in the set here were originally colour GRD files:
Flickr Set
I used CBWPro with selections to do the conversions. I might post a more detailed entry on the blog later.
Hi! Just want to say what a nice site. Bye, see you soon.
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The files (jpeg and RAW) have now been posted on the blog.
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