RAW or JPEG? when photographing your kids out and about?

[professorman]

Following from my previous poll about photographing your kids when out and about and playing with them. (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=842571)

My next question to you guys is: Do you shoot Raw or Jpeg?

I find I go to the beach, play with my daughter, snapping away when I get a chance, but its more playful than really "photoshoot", as I always have my camera with me. These times, it seem like a lot of work processing RAW images.

What do you guys do when photographing your own kids in the mode of 'just documenting the event'. Do you go through the work of processing RAW images all the time? Fixing exposures and such? With jpegs, you can still crop, straighten horizons, etc.

I have been playing around with "picture styles", increasing my saturation, and such, and getting better jpegs. Obviously, I dont need "perfect shots". I am thinking of moving my camera off RAW for these shots. I even shoot in P sometimes, because scenes are always changing wit me running around with my kid. I am talking about ideal days, bright sunny day outside, not difficult shooting scenarios.

[egordon99]

EVERYTHING is raw for me. I use Lightroom, so my workflow is fairly straightforward. Memory/Harddrives are cheap. I started out a couple of years ago with a pair of 500GB drives. When they got close to full, I bought a pair of 1TB drives for about the same price as my 500GB drives (about 18 months or so ;) ) Figure when they get full, I'll be buying 2TB drives. Luckily I've been shooting with the same bodies, so my filesizes have not gotten bigger.

If I'm doing test shooting with my lighting equipment (I'm just getting into OCF), I use sRAW on my 40D.

[egordon99]

As for "it seem like a lot of work processing RAW images.", I just import them into Lightroom. Lightroom applies a default "preset" to them, and if I don't want to do anything to them, I don't have to. I have an export preset to "beam" JPGs up to my webserver for sharing with family/friends.

And if I do want to muck with them, I can, but I don't have to ;)

[Mark1]

Raw...Set it, and forget it!

[TTk]

Raw...Set it, and forget it!



+1.:D

[kayl]

I currently shoot in raw or jpeg depending on the day.

I'm going to start shooting raw + jpeg :)

[professorman]

I have been reading about more and more wedding photographers who actually shoot jpeg if they know they are going to nail the exposure to cut down on the PP time involved. That is why it got me thinking. I am always backlogged on my PP of images, and adding 'snapshots' from the day at the beach with my daughter to my work....., well, just adds more work for me.


As for "it seem like a lot of work processing RAW images.", I just import them into Lightroom. Lightroom applies a default "preset" to them, and if I don't want to do anything to them, I don't have to. I have an export preset to "beam" JPGs up to my webserver for sharing with family/friends.

And if I do want to muck with them, I can, but I don't have to ;)

I use lightroom too, but reading about the wedding photographers who are proponent for jpeg, if you set your picture styles in camera with the software from Canon, you basically do the same thing as using presets from Lightroom, letting the camera do the work before (faster), than waiting on your computer to do the work afterward.


EVERYTHING is raw for me. I use Lightroom, so my workflow is fairly straightforward.

Figure when they get full, I'll be buying 2TB drives. Luckily I've been shooting with the same bodies, so my filesizes have not gotten bigger.


My computer starts to get slower the more images I have in Lightroom. My computer is decent speed, but still, TBs of image, I might end up not going through them. I am one of those people who love taking pictures of everything. I might not even mind using my point and shoot for family 'snapshots'.

I use pictures as a way of "documenting my life", where I went, what I did. I am not really aiming to win an award from a day at the beach. My real photography is where my focus is for Post Processing.

[suecassidy]

im exclusively RAW now, because I never know when I'm out and about, am I going to get that once in a lifetime shot that would benefit from the extra stuff RAW would provide. It is easy to do a batch jpg conversion if I don't...

[professorman]

im exclusively RAW now, because I never know when I'm out and about, am I going to get that once in a lifetime shot that would benefit from the extra stuff RAW would provide. It is easy to do a batch jpg conversion if I don't...

Check out this post: RAW vs JPEG (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=843503&highlight=jpeg+shooters)

This is one of the post that got me thinking about this situation. Processing really takes a lot of time for me.
Like I said, people automatically blurt out "raw is better" without really knowing all the benefits of jpeg shooting.

Disk space is negligible.

The BIGGEST benefit is ZERO postprocessing time! That would save me thousands of hours of my life.

[bobbyz]

Never shot jpegs ever since I got my first 10d way back when they came out. Why does processing take time? What software are you using? I use LR now a days but use to use Capture One before that.

[Mark1]

And... not every image needs, or even deserves to be PP'ed I would say there is about a 25/75% split of images I have processed. Most get a cursory WB fix if needed and thats about it. If I dont plan on printing it right away I dont do much of anything to them. And if they are just snapshots from vacation, just batch process them all at once. Then go back if you find a gem. I was on vacation last week and shot 347 images. Post processed them in about 25-30 minutes. And it only took that long because my wife wanted to see them as we went.

Post processing does not have to be a long drawn out affair. Yes people have spent multiple days in post on a single image. But 99% of us here are not shooting for the same image destination. At the minimum I would shot in raw and simply batch them yourself. You can get the same if not better images. But have what you need when a great shot is found among the rest.

[Canonymous]

I shoot RAW for more serious shots. More snapshots, I shoot JPEG. I have enough photoshop ability and software know how, so just in case I get a "killer" shot in JPEG, I know I can blow it up the same as I would for RAW.

I know pro photogs shooting in JPEG at weddings blowing up images to 50 inches without any worries.

[Mark1]

Raw vs jpeg is irrelevant in print size. The quality of the image is key. A well exposed and sharp image cam be made into a billboard from a jpeg shot on an XT. The software that is used to enlarge the image cant even read raw I believe. Unless you are using Photoshop, but PS is only good till 300%. It would have to be tiff, jpeg, and possibly PSD.