Originally, I planned to start this post with some of the great Black Friday deals, but I won’t; you’ll find those later. Instead, I want to share an experience.
Yesterday I did a dawn shoot over at The Roaches. Although the UK is in lockdown, I had to shoot some material. The weather conditions were good, and I managed this shot (and a few others that I like).
But I did make a mistake when I shot this. I was using my new replacement Panasonic G9 and switched to the high resolution 80.5M mode. What I didn’t realise is that it has separate quality settings. Whilst I had the camera set to shoot in JPEG and RAW, the high-resolution mode was set to JPEG. The result was that everything I shot in high resolution (most of the images) is a JPEG and I don’t have any RAW files.
This is what happens when you get a new camera and don’t spend enough time setting it up. I must have noticed and changed the settings on the original G9 that I had to return. When the replacement arrived, I set it up in a hurry and must have missed the separate high-resolution setting for the file quality.
Fortunately, the image is still over 10,000 pixels wide and has a low dynamic range. The quality is therefore still quite impressive.
This Weeks Video
This weeks YouTube video is now live. I’m covering how to use the sharpening tools and noise reduction in the Affinity Photo Develop Persona. I decided this needed coverage because there are a few “gotchas” that often cause problems.
If you use Affinity this is well worth watching this (https://youtu.be/DoMnwqqzs7k).
Black Friday
Talking of Affinity Photo, have you seen their Black Friday deals?
There’s 30% off everything in the Affinity Store. And whilst that’s a good offer, it’s nowhere near as good as the 50% off at DxO (affiliate link). This includes the new version of PhotoLab (which I’m extremely impressed with) as well as the Nik Collection. I don’t think I’ve seen a better Black Friday deal from DxO.
I’m also having my own Black Friday sale with between 25% and 80% off many of my video courses:
- Simply Lightroom Develop now £10 – 50% discount using BF2020-DEAL1
- Photographers Guide to Luminosity Masks now £21 – 30% discount using code BF2020-DEAL2
- Photoshop Luminosity Masking Bundle now £30 – 25% discount using code BF2020-DEAL3
- Mastering Nik Viveza now £10 – 50% discount using code BF2020-DEAL4
- Mastering Photoshop Channel Masking now £15 – 50% discount using code BF2020-DEAL5
- Mastering Photoshop Luminosity Masks now £10 – 50% discount using code BF2020-DEAL6
- Get the Image Mount Sefton now £2 – 80% discount using code BF2020-DEAL7
You won’t see these deals advertised on my website. I’m only offering them to website and blog subscribers/readers. If you want to take advantage of these be sure to apply the discount code at the checkout. They are only valid until the end of November 2020.
I hope you like the main image and have a great weekend.
The Lightweight Photographer 
Have you seen the outstanding Topaz Black Friday deals …phenomenal. If you already own any of their products they tailor their BF deal to you . Incredible value .
It’s literally just landed in my inbox a minute ago. Topaz has always done a good deal on Black Friday and this also looks to be good. The only problem is that I have all their products already. That does remind me however that I could use the JPEG to RAW converter from Topaz to try to save some of my JPEG shots from yesterday’s shoot.
Anticipation can be such a tempting thing, making even the most cautious person jump before being ready. I only shoot jpegs with an Olympus camera and am find with that. Actually most of my career photographing for publications was done with jpegs and never really encountered problems. I understand why people like shooting in raw and its advantages. Have a great holiday. jerry
Hi Jerry. I don’t think that it was anticipation but being too busy and thinking I had already changed the settings. This was a replacement for a camera that had to be returned due to a problem lens. It’s a little confusing having two quality settings for the image quality. I agree that JPEG is fine for some applications but when it’s a landscape with a wide dynamic range I need the RAW file. Also looking at the detail I can see the stock library I supply will reject many of the images.
Hi Robin
Lately, I criticized Topaz for their (to me) unclear price politics. Now I took advantage of their offer (upgrades for 1 year) and am happy…
Regarding camera settings: My nightmare – I use analog and digital, in both more than one system. Luckily, mostly in manual mode and landscapes do not run away very often… 😉 Keep well and stay healthy!
My NikonD750 makes it very easy to change the image quality quickly without having to go into the menu and for that reason I’ve lost quite a few shots, when I arrive home I notice that my las photos are all jpgs and no raw… very upsetting.
I can imagine. If you have any keepers that you shot as JPEGs you may want to try out the Topaz JPEG to RAW software. I’ve found it very good and n excellent way of converting JPEG files from my phone into DNG files.