Grafa Cafe, Subang; and some thoughts on shooting raw for the first time

November 11, 2013

This past weekend we headed all the way to Subang for Grafa, after running seemingly unending errands for the house. I will never underestimate the time my mum puts into the upkeep of the house since I think I’m doing only about one quarter of the total upkeep.

Anyway, I quite liked Grafa the first time we went because they had good honest food that didn’t put too much of a strain on our wallet. Then I found out that it’s actually a collaboration with Williams which explains the huge portions and reasonable pricing. This post is actually a combination of the two occasions we were at Grafa, and has pictures with my not-so-old-but-now-sold 60D (shot in jpeg) and my newest camera. See whether you can guess which ones were which. :P

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The front part of Grafa is also house to Pattern Store, where I got my first Kinfolk and various other interesting curated items.

Okay, I’m going to talk shop now so look away if you’re not into this sort of thing. I am so so bowled over by the quality of raw versus jpeg! The first five minutes I sat down to edit these pictures, I just sat there playing with the highlights and exposure sliders absolutely mesmerised. I can’t believe what I’ve been missing out on all these years and even if one photo is 20mb and I’m seriously going to clog up all my hard disks, I don’t think I could ever go back to shooting jpeg. One of these days I’m going to do a raw versus jpeg post just to highlight the ease of editing and recovering lost shadows or blown highlights, and WHITE BALANCE (!!!). I’m still learning how to do it properly and accurately but already I can see the huge difference compared to jpeg!

It helps that with raw files, Lightroom has so many useful tools like lens correction and camera profiles (the vsco filters have never looked this good) that just require a click. Seriously, I am in love.

6 comments :

  1. have you tried editing with photoshop raw, the software? my SLR just died, so I'm using my pocket camera which does only jpegs, obviously. but I edit them in PS raw and it's amazing what you can do. I don't buy too much into the raw vs jpeg craze. with a little creativity and a good eye you get fab photos, no matter the camera or the software... xo

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    1. No, I haven't tried editing with photoshop raw before, but my knowledge of photoshop is pretty low so I haven't really experimented with it. Yeah I agree, it's the composition and subject more than anything else but I found that shooting raw gave better white balance control and dynamic range control! Also, because the VSCO lightroom presets I normally use are tuned to work better with raw, the results just end up more pleasing somehow :)

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  2. awesome photos, love all your well-snapped shots :)

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  3. Aah, love your images! And I completely agree with the unending errands and house upkeep. Gives you a whole new appreciation and outlook ;).

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    1. Thanks Rikki! I know, some day I will be running those errands for my own children.

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