An instant hit Robin Sinha
Pro photographer and Leica UK Akademie Tutor, Robin Sinha says the immediacy of JPEG brings plenty of perks to his people-led pictures…
It’s difficult to underplay the advantages of raw in modern photography. Aspects like extra details in shadows and highlights, the ability to recover over- or under-exposed areas, and the fact you can export higherquality printable formats like TIFF are all very attractive, but JPEGs have their advantages, too.
For instance, I often shoot street portraits and the most challenging part is building a rapport in a very short time. Gaining trust, or at least making a person feel comfortable, is always my intention, and if I feel they’re hesitant I sometimes offer to send the images straight after the shoot. This is when having JPEGs is very helpful. Shot in the right way, they can look great straight out the camera and are small enough to send via my camera app to my phone and then to the subject with ease.
Having a file that requires little to no work after shooting it, one that’s easy to send and doesn’t require any specific imaging software all adds up to a format that’s very quick and easy to use. And the more images you shoot, the more those benefits multiply. As an example, I shot an event for Cartier a few weeks ago and knowing it was a very long event and that the images would only be used for social media, I took the decision to shoot JPEGs. Had I shot raw, the processing side would have been very time-consuming due to the large file size (120MB per image) and so would the exporting (to JPEG) time. I often have to send these types of images the same evening, so shooting JPEGS can mean I don’t have to stay up all night!
Working this way of course means accepting that your photographs will be the finished article. This can make you more disciplined as a photographer and one who’s not too reliant on editing software later. So in terms of getting it right in camera, if I’m shooting on a bright sunny day I will be exposing for the sunlight and embracing the deep contrasty shadows. I will allow the shadows to hit black on the histogram as this is where I would be processing them to shoot raw and processing later.
White balance is also key. When street shooting, I most often have WB set to Daylight, which I particularly find useful in the later afternoon hours when daylight is fading, and the ambient artificial light is becoming more prominent. With the WB on Daylight, I’m able to visualise what I’m seeing in the street on my camera.
If I’m doing portraits, I’m paying more attention to getting the skin tones correct
so this is when I may use a grey card to ensure I’m manually white balancing to my subject’s main light source. If in doubt, I’ll often shoot raw along with the smallest JPEG, so I have a file ready to send straight away and a reference for my editing in software later on.