JPeg vs RAW. What do you shoot?

[primoz]

Originally Posted by Zivnuska

I went out in the back yard yesterday and shot 100 RAW and later 100 Jpeg images. Using a stopwatch to load the images showed that it took an average of 1.1 seconds longer to load a RAW image to Lightroom 4.

Is the best possible image quality worth a second of your time?

As far as I'm concerned... yes. Besides it's not 1sec, but with let's say 200 photos, which is, based on postings on POTN, absolutely nothing when covering race/event, since most of people bring home few 1000 photos, it's already 220sec, or easier to understand, 3.5min. Then you have extra few sec with every other step in process you do, and you end up with extra 15, 20 or 30min.
Is best possible image quality, for who in reality noone gives a sh**, worth it? In real life of news photographer, these 15 extra minutes mean you are without job. But yes, you have best possible image quality... to bad noone except you will ever see it.

[johnb007]

RAW...I like processing as much as taking pictures : )

[J0eybb]

I like it Raw!

[Woolburr]

Originally Posted by Zivnuska

I went out in the back yard yesterday and shot 100 RAW and later 100 Jpeg images. Using a stopwatch to load the images showed that it took an average of 1.1 seconds longer to load a RAW image to Lightroom 4.

Is the best possible image quality worth a second of your time?

NO.....it isn't. When dealing with wire services and major publications, they want today's images yesterday. They want reasonably framed and composed images, in focus and in their hands now. Sometimes numerous shooters get a similar image, but the first guy to deliver gets the sale.

Time is money and when shooting for a paycheck....you soon learn that .jpeg is more than adequate for the job. Armchair quarterbacks selling an occasional print from their personal websites have the luxury of playing with images that working pros don't.

There aren't a lot of shooters on the forum with the experience and reputation that Primoz has. When he says that he shoots .jpeg for a reason, you can safely assume he knows what he is talking about.

[eye_projekt]

Originally Posted by Panoz

RAW vs. JPEG is a religious argument - no real answer, personal preference. Why can't we all just get along?

*LMAO ^ So much truth there ...

[NickJushchyshyn]

Originally Posted by Zivnuska

I went out in the back yard yesterday and shot 100 RAW and later 100 Jpeg images. Using a stopwatch to load the images showed that it took an average of 1.1 seconds longer to load a RAW image to Lightroom 4.

Is the best possible image quality worth a second of your time?

The equation is much different for many pro sports action situations.
At a typical, small outdoor tournament, we might have a small crew of 3 shooters out. After an hour, each comes back with 1000 shots, so now you're talking about 3000 seconds .... almost one full HOUR ... extra for RAW, and that's just for ingest, let alone conversion to our networked computer browsing gallery.(not to mention by the time that extra hour is up, there's now over 3000 more photos that need to be processed)

With JPGs shot, the galleries are typically ready to browse in about 30 minutes, just when the teams are walking by after their post-game chats, etc. This equals sales. If those images had been shot RAW ... they're not browse-able for another two hours later ... when many families have left ... i.e. no sales.

This is not a philosophical debate, it's economic.

[CK-Photo]

I've had this discussion with another shooter. well, he said "why the heck are you shooting RAW?" After talking it over I've switched to jpeg. For normal shooting, RAW all the way, but for sports (mainly hockey) jpeg is faster.

[bboowwyy]

There is only one time i have ever wished i was shooting jpeg.
That was on the weekend when i was shooting a rugby match. After maxing out my buffer for an exciting passage of play, a big brawl broke out right in front of me. So i was holding down my shutter but hearing no clicking

When i am 100% confident in getting everything right in camera, i will start to shoot jpeg.

[SnapLocally.com]

I shoot low quality jpeg 100% of the time.

Unless you're looking on the pixel level, there's very little quality difference between "normal" and "fine".

I'll also say that I shoot high volume. I'm not keen on storing all those files. And the times when I'm only taking a few shots, I have time to get my lighting and exposure right, so that right there negates the need for the fine tuning advantage RAW offers. But that's just me.

[angryman]

I shoot RAW, usually because I never nail the white balance or exposure and like a bit of flexibility when I get home. In the very rare chance that someone needs a photo there and then, I have a laptop, so I can do a quick quality check and edit.

I see a lot of start uppers who dump from their camera to their site, with no editing or processing, which to me is a poor way to operate, but no doubt shooting JPEG would ork perfectly for them. I pixel peep every shot, rate, keyword and edit every shot, and RAW helps me do this better than JPEG.

I view it as the old negative vs polaroid argument. Why would you shoot negatives when a polaroid is instant....need I say more?

[JJD.Photography]

I wish my camera did not have the option to shoot jpg. That is how much I prefer RAW files!