Shooting in hd

I have always shot in raw and prefer to. I find adjustments such as cropping and lighting are better off done in raw. I am however curious to know how do I go by shooting HDR with the k5 and are there any benefits. I have always steered away from it knowing that you can only shoot in jpeg

Hi Mattox. You don't need to shoot in jpeg to do HDR. Shoot in RAW, then convert to JPEG before uploading the images to a HDR processing program like Photomatix. HDR is great for images with a high dynamic range. It does not work on all pictures, but used carefully it can yield spectacular results.

Regards
David

sorry, i was under the impression that the K5 has an inbuilt hdr function. Obviously not looking into my menu properly. Still a bit old school, sorry

Matt, just give it a go! It's as easy as peas with the in-camera HDR setting. Yes, you need to be in jpeg mode, then just turn HDR on in the menu - try the different strength settings to see which you prefer.

However with the dynamic range in the K5 RAW files I have seen, you hardly need bother with multi-shot HDR at all (just use the fill light / recovery sliders).

Just for info, Photomatix can load in RAW images so no need to convert to JPEG first. It can then save images as 16 bit TIFFs (as well as 8 bit TIFFs and jpeg.)

John

Thanks John, I didn't realise you could upload the RAW files to Photomatix. I will give this a try next time.

Regards
David

Had a fiddle with the hd settings. Quite simple really. If I were to shoot in landscape I'd think about it twice though. I will have to experiment a bit and see what results I get. Those of you out there shooting landscapes, what are your preferences, shooting in hd or raw? And why? Would be great to here what people think about this