RICOH GR II x Flash Green water rain

#onlyfilter

A fun idea:

What if you only shot with your camera or phone in JPEG (with a certain filter/preset in-camera), and you didn’t allow you to further post-process your photos afterwards?

Let me outline my thoughts:

First of all, post-processing takes a long time, and often slows you down. So what if you could expedite your photographic workflow by:

  1. Only shoot JPEG in your camera with a certain filter
  2. Import your photos to your iPad or laptop
  3. Select the photos you like, then upload them to your blog or Dropbox/cloud storage service.

Perhaps this could keep us flowing with images — and keep focusing on photographic productivity and “onto the next one” creative mentality.

RICOH GR II with flash

JPEG x RICOH GR II

I’m a big fan of the ‘positive film’ preset on RICOH GR II, with additional in-camera +9 saturation and +9 contrast. I generally shoot in P (program) mode, and have been experimenting with shooting everything both with and without flash.

RICOH GR II with flash

The really nice thing with shooting with a flash is this:

It adds epic color, saturation, lighting, and ‘pop’ to your images.

Even with post-processing, the visual impact/effect of flash (or no flash) is dramatic:

iPhone and Vivid Filter

I played with my friend Jun’s iPhone XS max, and I really liked the in-camera ‘vivid’ filter. It really added a lovely pop and color/saturation to all the photos — even when you were in dark/low-contrast situations:

Conclusion

RICOH GR II x Flash

Using filter isn’t “cheating”. Nor is post-processing.

What I am trying to encourage for us is photographers is this:

Let us enjoy the creative process/flow while making photos, while also being more productive (creating more new photos) — sharing more, and to keep moving forward!

SHOOT ON!

ERIC