I took the featured free RAW photo 10 years ago during my trip to California National Parks on the Stanford University campus. It was morning hours, and the campus was completely empty. My goal was to achieve a symmetrical architectural composition.
I used my old Canon 60D camera with the Sigma 17-70mm lens.
Exif Data:
- Camera: Canon 60D
- Lens: Sigma 17-70mm
- Aperture: f/8
- Shutter Speed: 1/400s
- ISO: 250
- Focal length: 17mm
The featured free RAW photo reminded me of the main reason I switched from Canon to Sony.
Let me explain.
The Canon APS-C sensors had a very small dynamic range and poor low-light performance. This combination of shortcomings made taking photos challenging.
To not “clip” the highlights, I needed to underexpose the images or bracket pretty much all the shots. After I recovered the underexposed shadows, the photos were full of digital noise due to the camera’s poor low-light capabilities.
If you look at the Stanford campus photo, you can see that it is not very contrasted; the sky is covered with thick clouds, and the shadows in the middleground are no too dark. But when you load the image to Lightroom, you can see that both the highlights and the shadows are slightly clipped.
After switching to Sony, I realized that the dynamic range of Sony APS-C sensors is larger by a couple of stops, and it was much easier to cover the scene’s entire range of light with only one shot.
It will be a challenging exercise to edit the featured free RAW image.
First, you need to recover slightly “clipped” sky. Please, check my dedicated tutorial on how to deal with overexposed images in Lightroom.
Next, after brightening the shadow, you will have the challenge to eliminate or at least reduce digital noise. If you use a dedicated noise reduction program like Topaz DeNoise, it will be a perfect opportunity to test its capabilities.
Good luck with editing.
Free RAW Photos for Editing Library
My RAW Editing Version
To make sure my composition is symmetrical, I had to change the aspect ratio from the original 3:2 to 4:3.
The focal length of 17mm was not wide enough to fit the tall palms into the frame, so I had to tilt the camera backward. As a result, I ended up with the effect of “learning buildings.” To fix it, I used the Upright tool from the Transform panel. Check my dedicated tutorial on how to straighten a photo in Lightroom.
The last touch was to make the dull, gloomy sky more appealing.
What About Copyright?
All free raw images I share, I took myself, and they belong to me. They are not sourced from the public. But they are still copyrighted.
You are free to edit my RAW photos. And if you want to share them on your blog or social media, go for it; all I am asking is to credit me with the link to my site. And you can not use them commercially.
Free RAW Photos Library
Please remember to download my free Lightroom develop presets for faster raw editing.
