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2 Questions

BigJohno

BigJohno

macrumors 65832
Original poster
Jan 1, 2007
1,502
669
San Francisco
Ok so here they are. 1 What is a program that will control your camera from your comp. I have the Sony Alpha 700 and I also have a mac :). The software that came with the camera doesn't do long exposures.

Ok second question. Is a tiff the same quality as a RAW?

Thanks everyone.
 
BigJohno said:
Ok so here they are. 1 What is a program that will control your camera from your comp. I have the Sony Alpha 700 and I also have a mac :). The software that came with the camera doesn't do long exposures.

Ok second question. Is a tiff the same quality as a RAW?

Thanks everyone.
Click to expand...

Look for a program from Sony to do the tethered operation of your camera, I got mine from Pentax as a free download (I use a Pentax DSLR so obviously this won't work for you).

Comparing tiff and RAW isn't exactly useful. RAW files are files in which all the data that your camera's sensor records is put to the CF card. tiff files are large image files, but similar to jpegs. The reason it's not useful to compare RAW and tiff is that outside of image editing programs, RAW files aren't even displayable, for example I can't show a RAW image on these forums, but I can convert that RAW image to a tiff or jpeg and then it will show.

The best thing to do (if you don't have a HDD space limitation) is to shoot in RAW and do your basic exposure/white balance/ saturation/ sharpening adjustments while it's a RAW image, then convert to tiff to do your pixel editing. tiff files are less compressed and I can't remember for some reason right now but I think they are also recorded at a higher bit rate than jpeg. Either way image quality is degraded less when editing a tiff file than when editing a jpeg file. it is not degraded at all when editing a RAW file as long as you don't try to push anything to the extreme.

So RAW to tiff will give you the best detail preservation etc, but tiff files are huge (mine are 50mb+ compared to 2 or 3mb for a jpeg)

SLC
 
From what I understand, the software that came with your particular camera allows it to be controlled from your computer. You want to be shooting in "tethered mode." A stroll through the included software (and perhaps a quick Googling) should have you set.

As for TIFF and RAW, the difference between the two is not a question of quality, but rather of control. RAW lets you make all adjustments after the fact. If you want high quality and nothing else, use TIFF or the highest JPEG setting. If you want full control over your pictures, use RAW.
 
baby duck monge said:
From what I understand, the software that came with your particular camera allows it to be controlled from your computer. You want to be shooting in "tethered mode." A stroll through the included software (and perhaps a quick Googling) should have you set.

As for TIFF and RAW, the difference between the two is not a question of quality, but rather of control. RAW lets you make all adjustments after the fact. If you want high quality and nothing else, use TIFF or the highest JPEG setting. If you want full control over your pictures, use RAW.
Click to expand...

I could be wrong but I don't know of any camera that allows you to capture an image as a tiff file.

Also just to clarify my earlier post, it won't do you any good to convert a jpeg to a tiff, when a jpeg is created, a lot of data is lost in compression; converting it to a less compressed format will not bring it back. Instead you'll have a 50 megabyte jpeg with a .tiff ending.

SLC
 
Thanks everyone for helpin.


SLC Flyfishing said:
I could be wrong but I don't know of any camera that allows you to capture an image as a tiff file.

Also just to clarify my earlier post, it won't do you any good to convert a jpeg to a tiff, when a jpeg is created, a lot of data is lost in compression; converting it to a less compressed format will not bring it back. Instead you'll have a 50 megabyte jpeg with a .tiff ending.

SLC
Click to expand...

Well my camera does take RAWs But its like the sony raw and nothing reads it except the lame software that came with the camera. But I put it into photoshop it just takes that ARAW photo and makes it a tiff.
 
I just received an update to photoshop today that supports the A700. What version of Photoshop are you using? If it's not CS3 then you might be out of luck.

Otherwise you can download Adobe's software to convert your cameras RAW files and turns them to DNG which is Adobe's own RAW format. That way you will have no trouble doing RAW correction in whatever version of Photoshop you have. I think the download is free.

Just remember for max quality/minimum loss it should be RAW capture then convert to tiff.

Bwoods
 
SLC Flyfishing said:
I just received an update to photoshop today that supports the A700. What version of Photoshop are you using? If it's not CS3 then you might be out of luck.

Otherwise you can download Adobe's software to convert your cameras RAW files and turns them to DNG which is Adobe's own RAW format. That way you will have no trouble doing RAW correction in whatever version of Photoshop you have. I think the download is free.

Just remember for max quality/minimum loss it should be RAW capture then convert to tiff.

Bwoods
Click to expand...

Right on. I checked out Adobes website and they have the converter and you dont have to pay for it. Thanks a bunch for recommending it. I also checked and it supports the A700.

Thanks
 
SLC Flyfishing said:
I could be wrong but I don't know of any camera that allows you to capture an image as a tiff file.


SLC
Click to expand...

I'm fairly sure my camera allows that option, though I don't have it right now to check. Of course, it may only allow it if you also save it as something else simultaneously. Olympus E-500, FWIW.
 
Right you are! Well then, if Pentax doesn't answer that, I may have to look into the D300 (I already own some Nikkors as well as my K-mounts)

Shooting tiff instead of jpeg is HUGE in my opinion.

SLC
 
My goodness you are right. How did that get past me? I'm usually up on these types of things.

That's a huge feature IMO. Way better than shooting in jpeg.

SLC
 
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