I'm In Durham as is DOIK and with Barrie we are all members of Durham Photographic Society. There's one or two in Tyne and Wear and another three living around the Blyth area. Tomkeet is from the south west part of Co. Durham.
David

PPG: http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/artists/davidtrout

All this is far too technical - geeky even - for me. In simple terms I regard the RAW image as I would the negative in film days. After making a JPEG, which is a copy, the RAW is then filed away, unaltered. It can subsequently be accessed again and again to make further copies for different treatments of the image without it ever losing any of its original information. That's really all the OP needs to consider.
David

Rescued image



David

Yes, I'm experiencing connectivity problems. Still trying.
David

You can do a lot to recover blown highlights, short of performing miracles, if you shoot RAW, which I always do.
I'm not a Photoshop wizard but even I can improve on images post processing, from RAW images.
Here's an example.
Lasts October I was shooting scenes on the Settle and Carlisle Railway at Appleby when the Jubilee Class steam loco 'Galatea' was working a charter train on the mainline.
The weather was not helping. One minute there were very dark clouds and torrential rain, the next very bright sunshine.
I had been shooting with my K5 and 200mm lens and then as the train came close I snatched the K30+DA*16-50mm from the camera bag and started shooting, failing to notice that in doing so I had knocked the controls from aperture priority to manual.
The resulting RAWS were grossly over exposed.

RAW original:




JPEG of image after work in PS



Not perfect but better than anything an original JPEG could have produced straight out of the camera.

David

PPG: http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/artists/davidtrout

Ditto
David

PPG: http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/artists/davidtrout

The detail is terrific Gary, a great credit to both the camera and yourself. Glad I splashed out and bought a K3 a couple of weeks ago.
David

PPG: http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/artists/davidtrout

And pigs might fly. Perhaps its genuine, the spinning view from the falling camera is quite convincing and it would have plopped into a lot of soft mud and piggy poo. I found it very funny. Love the pig's snout coming in for an inspection straight after it landed.
David

PPG: http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/artists/davidtrout

Nice change to see this in mono, the night shots are more often done in full fat colour.
David

PPG: http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/artists/davidtrout

I like it as it is, there's mystery in the dark foreground. Just a suggestion to try; in the dark building there's a hint of a couple of windows. Would it work if they were lightened very slightly?
David

PPG: http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/artists/davidtrout