karl shah-jenner wrote:
Why would I shoot RAW? I'm iffy about the exposure (rare), I'm drunk and can't think straight enough to get the exposure right (rare), or I want a greater dynamic range to play with than the jpeg (chrome equivalent) can grab - like with some night shots.
Sometimes things are changing fast and you only get one try at each shot -- either the lighting is changing, or you're moving around.
And I'm nearly always iffy about the exposure, unless I've had time to examine the histogram on a test shot. I shot lots of chromes for years and got pretty good results, but some of that was from bracketing, too (remember bracketing? Used to be absolutely de rigeur for professionals).
While I'm ranting and rambling again, I'd also be inclined to ask who shoots automated? Aperture priority, shutter priority or full auto? ..or uses an auto flash / ttl flash or any other method of exposure automation? Do pros do that? do they *really* trust the electronics of the camera to guess the exposure for them? In such cases then a high dynamic range image is probably necessary.. No matter how good the exposure meter in-camera is it is just as readily fooled as any other incident light meter if pointed at a non-average, non 18% reflective subject - especially in the hands of anyone who cannot judge or evaluate exposures accurately.
The Nikon "D" series of AF lenses finally got TTL flash to the point where it was reliably better than I could do by hand (and I started using flash seriously doing bounce flash with a manual strobe). Once I was using that, I was much better off using TTL flash and letting the camera handle it. And it could do it quickly on-the-fly (think wedding reception). I probably over-use "P" now, and underuse "A" and "S" and "M" these days, I'm getting lazy because the automation is getting so good, and now and then that bites me on the ass. I probably use "M" second-most, though.
Incident readings aren't any more "automatically" right than reflected, they just fail in different situations (and they tend to be right in the studio). Really, for an exact exposure, you need multiple spot readings and some intelligence (which is why I still own a spot meter, and had a pair of OM-4T bodies from '87 to '94).
-- David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b@xxxxxxxx; http://dd-b.net/ Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/ Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/ Dragaera: http://dragaera.info
