Does anyone shoot \"normal\" quality?

[kendersplace]

The debate has gone on since the beginning of digital as for the RAW vs. Jpeg trade-off. I personally usually shoot Large "Fine" Jpeg mode. I see RAW as having the abillity to tweak exposure and white balance after the fact - which I only use when shooting something "imprtant" - but for everything else, Jpeg seems fine.

I have recently started playing with the "Normal" mode vise "Fine". It is the same MP size and yeilds almost twice as many images on a card. Looking at the test shots for the 10D review at dpreview.com - I can hardly tell a difference, and where I can see a difference, the 100% crop of the image is so small compared to the full frame, that I can't see you really loose all that much going down a grade.

Can anyone actually tell the difference? I'd go on a limb to say that 99% of people couldn't tell the difference when a 6 MP file is printed to 8x10 between RAW, Jpeg Fine and Jpeg Normal. Am I wrong on this?

Anyway, I've been shooting all my "play" and hobby shots at Jpeg Normal and this seems fine. Is there a real difference that I just can't see?

Thanks.

[Andy_Burnton]

Hi,

Don't know about the photographic stuff. My question is:

Why do photographers hate cats ?


Andy

[Morden]

Hmmm. Well....

1) Cats cannot hold lighting units.

2) Cats cannot process film, nor transfer files from memory cards to computers.

3) Cats have a habit of taking photos of the photographer whenever he or she is not at their camera. Whilst only a rumour, I think that this just has to be true.

4) Egg.

[Dans_D60]

Morden wrote:
Hmmm. Well....

1) Cats cannot hold lighting units.

2) Cats cannot process film, nor transfer files from memory cards to computers.

3) Cats have a habit of taking photos of the photographer whenever he or she is not at their camera. Whilst only a rumour, I think that this just has to be true.

4) Egg.
Cats are no good at holding lighting equipment … but … he does pose for metering …

By the by, I only take images in RAW on the 10D. With gigabyte CF cards now available, I see no other format that provides a workflow close to “negatives”. Only drawback is speed of data transfer in camera and from CF card to hard disk. But it’s a minor concern and with CF USB 2.0 card readers, a very minor concern… my thoughts …Dan
http://www.pettusphoto.com

Turn you head slightly to the left … that’s it ….
http://www.pettusphoto.com/cats.jpg

[Cal Maier]

kendersplace wrote:

Can anyone actually tell the difference? I'd go on a limb to say that 99% of people couldn't tell the difference when a 6 MP file is printed to 8x10 between RAW, Jpeg Fine and Jpeg Normal. Am I wrong on this?

Anyway, I've been shooting all my "play" and hobby shots at Jpeg Normal and this seems fine. Is there a real difference that I just can't see?

Thanks.

You are probably right - to a point -. A person that knows nothing at all about photography(in the technical sense) would probably not see any difference between fine and normal at the 8X10 size. A trained eye would probably find the difference without too much trouble. Like you say, you can "hardly" see a difference, there is still a difference no matter how small.

I shoot in RAW and Large Fine Jpeg for the most part - Jpeg for sports, action, and snapshot-type stuff, RAW for anything I deem important enough.

I say if you feel comfortable with it then do it. I don't feel that one has to shoot RAW mode for everything, that is just a personal preference for some of us. Life would be pretty boring if everyone did exactly the same thing.

My say,

Cal

p.s. I'm more of a dog lover myself! :p

[Roger_Cavanagh]

I shoot exclusively raw. It may not give me an advanatge every time, but I prefer have a standard workflow that's the same every time rather than have to think "how important is this picture?".

Is raw really better? It certainly cannot be worse. Consider this, a JPG image is around 3 mb (that's 8-bit and with lossy compression), If you convert raw to a lossless compression format such as JPEG 2000 or PNG, you have 12 mb in 16-bit files. That's an extra 9 mb of image data! Of course, that doesn't make them 4x as good, but if I don't have to throw the data away, I won't.

Regards,

[gudac]

I can understand that professional work one would use RAW. I honestly think that for recreational and travel photography shooting in fine .jpg should be acceptable.

It is nice to see so many responses to a question without critism. Thanks to all for opinions and help.

Regards,

[CyberDyneSystems]

I use jpeg normal when I'm just playing around,. experimenting with the camera, or getting to know the settings,. or feature I have not yet tried, or even when I'm running low on card memory.

[elm54]

I really like the advantage of "playing" with my photos digitally in photoshop or other graphics programs.
So since I am learning to edit and refine my raw photos with adobe camera raw and pekkas actions , I find I get the best results for printing and editing in raw . I have shot some stuff in large/ fine jpg but none in normal or lower.
I like to cut and pase objects in and out of my projects, and by shooting at the highest settings I find the material works the best. I guess if I was just going to look at my photos on a computer screen I might use a less resolution ( size ) mode like large /normal or medium/ fine as they probably look satisfactory that way just perusing (sp?) through.
I really like of the photos I see posted by the folks around here and other photo sites. That is what I am trying to achieve and I do know that shooting at lesser settings will not get the clarity and sharpness they are getting.
Just my 2 cents

[brault]

Are there Pekka actions for the 10D?

Frank B

...So since I am learning to edit and refine my raw photos with adobe camera raw and pekkas actions...

[Longwatcher]

kendersplace wrote:

Can anyone actually tell the difference? I'd go on a limb to say that 99% of people couldn't tell the difference when a 6 MP file is printed to 8x10 between RAW, Jpeg Fine and Jpeg Normal. Am I wrong on this?

At 8x10 most people would not be able to tell the difference, however, I can find some examples where you could see the difference if I pointed it out.

At 16x24, which is what I consider to be the highest full quality print size for 10D, the difference will be highly noticeable, if anyone pays attention. Stand back 2 feet and it is unlikely anyone could see the difference.

I shoot RAW only (unless I am running out of CF cards and don't have storage with me). This is because I have a couple of beautiful shots that I took in jpeg large/fine mode and the jpeg artifacts are very noticeable and annoying to me at 12.5"x18.5" (13x19 paper on S9000), so I would not waste the effort to go to 16x24. Had I shot them in RAW I probably could have sold them for wall art.

Just my opinions,