jsfarnsw wrote:
Thank you for your quick response--can't believe I missed the monocrome button.
As far as missing the point, my point is that the camera routinely makes better processing decisions than I would. Imagine not being able to percieve chromatic abberation, and not being able to correct white balance. Imagine adjusting the tone saturation and not being able to see the difference between the original and the more vivid version. If I did it your way, I'd have to post-process every shot to get a jpeg version that the camera can do for me automatically. Why bother? I've certainly got better ways to spend my time than that.
The only reason I take color photographs at all is because I use them for my lectures and for occasional publications. As it was, my publisher wanted a black-and-white photo of me for the back cover of my next book. Now I have one, and I thank you for that.
All the camera can do is to calculate a white balance setting that it determines from the lighting conditions it thinks it sees ("automatic white balance"). If you're shooting in JPEG, the camera applies that setting to the resulting image. It's part of the image file and can't be easily changed or removed. If you're shooting in RAW, the same calculation results in the same white balance adjustment; the only difference is that it isn't actually applied until DPP converts the RAW image to a JPEG. So unless you deliberately modify the white balance in post-processing, the two JPEGs, the one created by the camera and the one created by DPP, will look the same. So the argument that you prefer not to shoot in RAW because you like the way the camera handles the white balance in JPEG, is meaningless. And if you shoot in RAW, you can, in post-processing, apply an alternative picture style (e.g., Monochrome) to the JPEG image without losing any of the original color information.
I'm not trying to get you to change your workflow or your white balance preferences. I'm just pointing out that shooting in JPEG doesn't confer any special advantage over shooting in RAW (except, of course, that you don't have to convert to JPEG as a separate step). So if there's another reason to shoot in RAW = adjusting the brightness, for example, or changing the picture style - you don't need to avoid doing so.
Bob
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA
