October 2019 – frans goes blog

Hervantajärvi, a moment after the sunset.

While learning to take better photos with within the opportunities and limitations provided by whatever camera technology offers, it is also interesting now and then to stop to reflect on how things are evolving.

This weekend, I took some time to study rainy tones of Autumn, and also to hunt for the “perfect blues” of the Blue Hour – the time both some time before sunrise and after the sunset, when indirect sunlight coming from the sky is dominated by short, blue wavelenghts.

After a few attempts I think I got into the right spot at the right time (see the above photo, taken tonight at the beach of Hervantajärvi lake). At the time of this photo it was already so dark that I actually had trouble finding my gear and changing lenses.

I made the simple experiment of taking an evening, low-light photo with the same lens (Canon EF 50 mm f/1.8 STM) with two of my camera bodies – both the old, Canon EOS 550D (DSLR) and new EOS M50 (mirrorless). I tried to use the exact same settings for both photos, taking them only moments apart from the same spot, using a tripod. Below are two cropped details that I tried to frame into same area of the photos.

Same spot, same lens, same settings – using EOS M50.

I am not an expert in signal processing or camera electronics, but it is interesting to see how much more detail there is in the lower, M50 version. I thought that the main differences might be in how much noise there is in the low-light photo, but the differences appear to go deeper.

The cameras are generations apart from each other: the processor of 550D is DIGIC 4, while M50 has the new DIGIC 8. That sure has a effect, but I think that the sensor might play even larger role in this experiment. There are some information available from the sensors of both cameras – see the links below:

While the physical sizes of the sensors are exactly the same (22.3 x 14.9 mm), the pixel counts are different (18 megapixels vs. 24.1 megapixels). Also, the pixel density differs: 5.43 MP/cm² vs. 7.27 MP/cm², which just verifies that these two cameras, launched almost a decade apart, have very different imaging technology under the hood.

I like using both of them, but it is important to understand their strengths and limitations. I like using the old DSLR in daylight and particularly when trying to photograph birds or other fast moving targets. The large grip and good-sized physical controls make a DSLR like EOS 550D very easy and comfortable to handle.

On the other hand, when really sharp images are needed, I now rely on the mirrorless M50. Since it is a mirrorless camera, it is easy to see the final outcome of applied settings directly from the electronic viewfinder. M50 also has an articulated, rotating LCD screen, which is really excellent feature when I need to reach very low, or very high, to get a nice shot. On the other hand, the buttons and the grip are just physically a bit too small to be comfortable. I never seem to hit the right switch when trying to react in a hurry, missing some nice opportunities. But when it is a still-life composition, I have good time to consult the tiny controls of M50.

To conclude: things are changing, good (and bad) photos can be taken, with all kinds of technology. And there is no one perfect camera, just different cameras that are best suited for slightly different uses and purposes.

One photograph – three data-sets, three realities.

Is it worth setting your smartphone camera to use RAW format, instead (or: alongside) of the standard JPG format?

I must say I am not sure. Above you should be able to see three versions of the same photo. The first one is one produced with the automatic settings of my Huawei Mate 20 Pro. It is a f/1.8 photo coming from the main camera module, processed with various algorithms to create a “nice”, tonally rather balanced JPG with 2736 x 3648 pixels.

The second one is direct/non-edited conversion of the original RAW (imported into desktop Lightroom, then directly turned into JPG), with 5456 x 7280 pixels and plenty of information that is potentially valuable for editing, yet it is also bit too dark and the lens quality is frankly probably not quite worth all those pixels, to start with (the depth of field is narrow here, and most of the photo is soft, when you look it 1:1 in a large screen).

The third version is the RAW-based and Lightroom-edited photo, where I have just accepted some “auto” corrections that the software has available for beginners. This time, we can see many of the details again better, since Lightroom has tweaked the exposure and contrast settings and tonal curves. Yet, the change of white balance setting into the automatic “daylight” version has made the cold, Autumn morning photo to appear a bit too warm in colours to my mind.

This could be of course fixed in further, more nuanced and sensible Lightroom editing, but the point perhaps is that the out-of-camera JPG that Huawei is capable of producing is a rather nice compromise in itself. It is optimised for what the small, fixed lenses are capable of achieving, and the file size is good for sharing in social media – which is what most smartphone photos are used for, in any case. Artificial intelligence does it best to produce what a typical “Autumn Leaves” shot should look like. That might then again be something that you like – or not.

It is surely possible to achieve more striking and artistically ambitious (“non-typical”) outcomes when the original photo is taken in RAW, even when it is coming from a smartphone camera. But I would say that the RAW based workflow probably really makes sense when you are using a SLR style camera with a lens that is sharp enough for you to really go deep into the details, do some more ambitious cropping or tonal adjustments, for example.

Or, what do you think?

There are various articles online that you can also have a look on this, e.g.