First Images Shot in RAW - Flowers in the Tall Grass

[Dizzy]

Arrived at an MD appt. early, and since I had the camera along I went for a walk around the manicured grounds. Thanks to a creative suggestion taken from an image posted earlier today by SpeedNeeder, I decided to try and shoot the flowers through the tall dry grass and reeds. Did not realize after I got home that I had not adjusted my ISO on any of the pics, so all were shot at ISO 320. Rookies...go figure..

Switched over to shooting RAW + JPEG for several frames, and this was my first attempt at processing the data. All adjustments were done in Nikon Nx2.

Here are the best result,and any comments or critiques are appreciated:



Here is the image converted to .jpg, with no processing done besides cropping to size.



And another view that was also shot in RAW:





Mike

[Donald]

Mike

Congratulations on making that change on the menu and starting shoot RAW.

It will feel, for a while, as if you've taken several steps backwards, as you look at what you've got and think that it's not nearly as good as what you got from a JPEG out of the camera. But, please stick with it. That will turn around.

In terms of what you've posted, are you meaning that the first one is the JPEG out of camera and the second is the RAW file processed and then saved by you?

As you can see, the second one is not so sharp. At this stage - fine!. Once you get into post-processing and learn all about sharpening and those others steps that mean you are in control of the finished product, not the camera, your work will be far ahead of that JPEG straight out of the box.

[Dizzy]

Hi Donald,

Yes, the second pic is the RAW file that was simply cropped and converted to .jpg. No processing was done on it, and I only posted it to show the difference in the processed vs. unprocessed pics.

The focus/sharpness still isn't even close to what I desire, and that is what I'll be working on next. They majority of the red flowers looked somewhat sharp in Nx2, but as soon as I did any processing they seem to lose their sharpness, and the "sharpness" sliders in the programs seem to only make matters worse.

I've looked at one of the freeware programs (RAWTherapee) and it requires software skills that are miles beyond my abilities. Seems I'll just have to break down and buy a copy of Lightroom off the web, and hope that it comes with a good instruction book.

I very much appreciate the input Donald, and will go back and try this again, and again, and...

Mike