Most books on Wildlife Photography casually mention that professionals always shoot in a RAW format.  I've seen it written about in popular photography magazines, yet in my experience it is rarely, if ever, explained what the real benefits are of shooting in RAW.  Most of the people with digital cameras do not really want to deal with such large complicated files and the accompanying extra work involved in handling such huge files.  A RAW file from today's camera has to be converted to something that computers can understand; a JPEG or a Tiff file for instance.  But Tiff files are giant in size; JPEG is a "compressed" format, and nobody wants something compressed unless the picture will not be compressed again.  Because every time you work on, and save a JPEG, the file is compressed yet again; meaning your photograph will not be as sharp as you hoped it would be.  A Tiff file is a "lossless" format; it is never compressed and your photograph is sharp after you have worked on it yet again.  So why do professionals shoot RAW?

You may have read that you can change the "White Balance" in a RAW photograph; what exactly does this mean?  Even some professionals do not really understand the implications of this power the photographer has at his or her disposal.  Here's a little secret; with the White Balance you have the ability to make your photographs appear to be shot in the "magic hour."  Every photo can be the perfect sunset kind of lighting that you see in major magazines!  That's right, long beautiful evening light in your photographs every single time; even if it is two in the afternoon on a cloudy day.  That is the real power of shooting RAW, perfect evening light anytime you want.  For the few people that will read my blog, fool around with the White Balance and you too will find the real power of shooting RAW. 

Now, for this week's photograph we have something truly rare in this part of the Wild West.  Because of the fires in the southern Rockies this year, we had Black-Chinned Hummingbirds nesting in the Wind River Canyon for the very first time.  These amazing hummingbirds would never have come this far north of their usual nesting sites, but here they are along with the Calliope and Rufous Hummingbirds we always see in the Canyon.  Compare this female Black-Chinned Hummingbird's beak with the other pictures of hummingbirds I have in my Hummingbird Gallery; I'll give you a hint, it's a lot longer.  I am sure that this species has never been photographed in central Wyoming like this before.  I hope they come back to the Wind River Canyon next summer. 

Camera-Canon 7D with 300mm f/4 Canon L-series lens and a 1.4 Canon extender II with the grip; hand held shot @ 1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 500; digital darkroom work in Canon Digital Photo Professional, Photoshop Elements 8, and the new Photoshop Lightroom 5.  Black-chinned Hummingbird, female, Wind River Canyon, Wyoming - 1st Place, 49th Cody Art Show