Shooting for Post vs. In-Camera

Certain projects benefit from shooting straight, good JPG in-camera and outputting without any processing at all has its benefits. Shooting a birthday party for instance and handing the client a disc at the end of the session involves no more workflow than a quick edit and burn if that is your thing. If you can shoot a wedding as JPG files and output stunning prints and albums then so be it. Sporting events are also a very common JPG and deliver kind of workflow for very good reasons.

On the other side of the coin, not every project by every photographer wants to do that. Take printing for instance, just customizing the amount of sharpening for your print requires some post production before putting your image on paper, for each size printed. Good B&W is very seldom done in-camera now with products like Silver Efex Pro 2 in our kit.

Photography is Not Reality

Reality is reality. Standing in a scene we see it, feel it, smell it – it is a full sensory experience. Photography has always been an abstraction of reality – a flat representation of it. Lens choice, framing and a photographer’s eye separates it from reality. Might still be editorial, but it is not reality. Plus we all see the world differently. Abstraction from reality can make an image more engaging to the viewer. B&W for instance is a further abstraction from a color scene.

My Approach

I personally shoot both a JPG and a RAW workflow depending on the project. I love to nail the photo and make it *done* in camera, but that does not always happen, usually for good reason. I shoot RAW+JPG as I just find 8-bit JPG too limiting for my style, yet I like to refer to them for what I had in mind while I was there. All with the freedom to match a RAW file to a JPG as shot or to change my mind as need be. UDMA cameras and cards do not give me a performance hit for RAW+JPG so I do it. Other cameras I might use that do give a performance hit, or don’t offer that mode, I will just shoot RAW. I can always ignore the JPG if I wish, or delete them outright. Much faster than generating them if I do need them. Long-term storage I have made the decision to nuke them from many projects.

If I am shooting shots for something quick, editorial and not for art sake, I might switch to a JPG workflow and be done right out of camera. Most anything else though is a RAW workflow. My RAW workflow is a work flow, not a work slow. More on workflow in coming posts.

Not Losing Momentum

During a shoot, especially a portrait shoot, not ruining the momentum of a great portrait I will sometimes let little things go instead of disrupting the flow, fixing the little thing, then trying to pick up the energy again. You have to make judgment calls when to fix in-camera and when to fix in post. Photography is always a compromise. Just be aware of what those items are so you don’t get surprises.

Your Work Compared to the Masses

You have very few options in-camera for processing. If you are using a smartphone then you have lots of options on how to process it, but fewer options on how the photo was taken. I think now more than ever as a photographer you have to separate yourself from the masses. You need your style to be true to you and not look like every file that comes out of every body elses camera. When we shot film, we would buy film to achieve a certain image, often for technical and aesthetic reasons. Then we would hand it over to a lab and process it for more technical and aesthetic reasons. You can still do that today, but rarely on a production schedule people are accustomed to. So we shoot digital and we choose the “film” and we are the lab. Not saying everybody has to post process their images to have a style, but it certainly is common these days. But lighting, lens choice and your own approach certainly dictate much of your style as well.

Illustration vs. Photography

Maybe post work makes you more than a photographer. So what? If your style and vision extend beyond the shutter click then so be it. I personally don’t have an issue with more than a photographer. In many cases it can me more profitable to separate yourself from the shutter click. Ansel Adams did not print images directly from the camera. He shot with post in mind for each image and how he was going to print it to his mind’s eye. Be true to your vision and shoot for your workflow. I don’t get a big hangup about purist photography, illustration vs. photography, but I do understand the argument. For me editorial is one thing, but art is art. If your vision is being realized by your workflow then go for it. Just make it true to yourself, as good as you can, and don’t portray it untruthfully.

A Good Skillset

Moving beyond the shutter click, calling yourself more than a photographer, is all good I say. But fundamentals are still key. I still shoot assignments where it has to be right in-camera. No compositing and no removing big elements. It is fun and makes you think creatively. So having a foundation of how to get it done in-camera is very valuable, and can be profitable. A good skillset of knowing how to use your tools is still paramount. Even when shooting specifically for post, getting sloppy is never a good idea. Shooting sloppy green-screen for instance makes post work very difficult and time consuming. Shooting anything sloppy is never a good idea. Shoot with the final outcome in mind and do it to the best of your ability.

Signature Work

I have a hard time making my signature work in-camera. It is just too limiting for the certain work I like to do. Landscape work for me rarely is captured in a single shutter click. I even know now to do it all in-camera yet I still find that limiting. So I shoot with post in mind, and often post production is just a few minutes per image, not hours.

Then there are those ideas that do require a lot of extra work. Location scouting, location lighting, location logistics, intricate capture, post manipulation, careful compositing and possibly a handful of plugins too. That type of image might happen once a month for me, not daily.

-Landon