This is why you should shoot RAW

This is why photographers shoot RAW.

Dan Plucinski captured a photo of the solar eclipse yesterday, and shared the before-and-after comparison showing the straight-out-of-camera image (on left) compared to the edited one (on the right) with PetaPixel.

During the eclipse, Plucinski bracketed his exposure on his Nikon D750. This photo was captured without a filter at f/11, 1/8s, and ISO 100 near Oregon:

Needing some editing to bring out details in the shadows, he tweeked the image in lightroom, and since he was working with a RAW file, there was quite a bit of detail that could be recovered. Here’s what his photo looked like after the exposure tweak:

“The ‘fog’ is actually from the French and Whitewater wild fires,” Plucinski told PetaPixel. “I bracketed my shots with the intention of shooting HDR, but after seeing how many recomposed images went viral, I just loved the authenticity of a single exposure like this.”

“It’s unbelievable, but that’s how it actually looked in person.”

Being able to push and pull exposure detail like this is one of key advantages of shooting RAW.

And here’s what the details in the shadowy landscape look like if you try to recover them from the JPEG: