Even Ken Marcus prefers JPEG over RAW!!

Jimmer411 wrote in post #14557725
No matter how close I meter the scene I appreciate the extra flexibility that raw gives me. I guess this guy is supposed to be a pro, but he sounds like an idiot to me.

I'd say it sounds like he's an accomplished photographer, and as such I wouldn't put him down, but I'd say that he lacks in his understanding of the digital darkroom. Not an "idiot", just not up to "times"...

As Ken shots in studio setting & he CAN control the lighting, which not everybody has this luxury.

This is not JPEG Vs RAW.

Obviously he screwed up with that client & should have known better.

He makes a good point here:

But as long as one max jpg from my 20D is 2,754 KB, & the exact same tripod shot with the jpg extracted from RAW is 4,315 KB which is 1.57X larger, I won't be throwing those extra bits away?

I'll always recommend RAW for beginners because, as they learn more, they can go back & reprocess & possibly salvage a once in a lifetime shot. I was in a hurry & screwed up the exposure in this one. RAW saved me from my mistake:
Why I love RAW - '53 Ford Sunliner

PhotosGuy wrote in post #14558396
I'll always recommend RAW for beginners because, as they learn more, they can go back & reprocess & possibly salvage a once in a lifetime shot.

I have posted these shots from a series before, but it bears reposting two of them to illustrate the point, that error recovery is far greater with RAW files than with JPG...

severe exposure error recovered from JPG

I remember when I read that article. I had to contemplate whether it was a joke or not... but realized the guy was serious. I'm surprised MM hasn't taken it down yet. With all due respect (we all make mistakes), it's embarrassing.

Just read to the end of the article, Ken states:

tonylong wrote in post #14557921
I'd say it sounds like he's an accomplished photographer, and as such I wouldn't put him down, but I'd say that he lacks in his understanding of the digital darkroom. Not an "idiot", just not up to "times"...

Hi Tony, have you had a chance to read the interview by Model Mayhem part two. It's interesting because he uses it to explain his approach - here:

http://www.modelmayhem​.com …em-interview-ken-marcus-2 - viewers be aware this is not necessarily work safe!

Right at the end of his interview he explains his approach. He also comments he shoots 600-1000 images each session and edits down to about 50. Probably this explains a bit more why he prefers jpegs as he's shooting for effect rather than retouching for effect.

Just as a matter of interest I timed a raw conversion on my laptops last night from a MK4 body in Canon DPP and it took 22.58 seconds. If I'd shot the last round of circuit races last Sunday in raw - all 1397 of them they would have taken about 8 hours in my estimation - however I only used 466 on my website which would have taken about 2.5 hours.

Any diehard raw shooter will no doubt dismiss my last paragraph and suggest I get better kit after all that particular laptop is 4 years old now!

If you want control over your image, shoot RAW......if you want your camera to control your image, shoot JPG. Which one is superior? Well that depends on what you're after I guess, but my 5DII screws up the white balance around 40% of the time, so you can guess what I use

Canon_Shoe wrote in post #14569425
If you want control over your image, shoot RAW......if you want your camera to control your image, shoot JPG. Which one is superior? Well that depends on what you're after I guess, but my 5DII screws up the white balance around 40% of the time, so you can guess what I use

Personally, if I want to take control over my image I tell that little box I hold in front of my eye exactly what to do. I have the control. It doesn't matter what format I use it does what I tell it. If the results fail, then it's my fault.

LincsRP wrote in post #14570268
Personally, if I want to take control over my image I tell that little box I hold in front of my eye exactly what to do. I have the control. It doesn't matter what format I use it does what I tell it. If the results fail, then it's my fault.

Yes, but having control over the white balance after the fact is probably the biggest advantage. You don't always have time to change the white balance in camera for a spontaneous shot, but hey, whatever works ya know. I know, I shoot RAW+JPG a lot and my converted RAW images always have more pop to them and are just better images all around the the JPG's created by the camera......put the images side by side and it's always an easy choice for me

Canon_Shoe wrote in post #14573364
Yes, but having control over the white balance after the fact is probably the biggest advantage. You don't always have time to change the white balance in camera for a spontaneous shot, but hey, whatever works ya know. I know, I shoot RAW+JPG a lot and my converted RAW images always have more pop to them and are just better images all around the the JPG's created by the camera......put the images side by side and it's always an easy choice for me

I do fully agree with your comments. The control you have after the event is enormous especially with some of these raw converters available now.

White balance? Yes, now there's a challenge for some bodies. In the cupboard I have a 12yr old MK1 body that at dusk auto white balance turns everything blue! The MK2s are much better but then on a CMOS chip, not CCD but our lounge with beige carpet and pinkish/red wallpaper gives everyone an orange glow with the CMOS chip. The MK4s are giving a grey image on a winters day in the forest doing cyclo-x with so much green present. These are all auto white balance so I use presets or custom WB.

Shooting stage shows I bang it on tungsten and leave it there. There might be slight light leak from the daylight on an afternoon performance but I can live with that.

IMO I have found better colours after doing a custom white balance before exposure than I can obtain using WB adjustment in raw converter. This and the fact that with non-destructive editing now the jpegs don't fall apart so easily as they used to. Much bigger jpeg files now of course.

Everyone to their own!

I learnt the hard way about shooting jpg on a job where we couldnt get back parts of the image becasue they weren't raw. Raw all the way.