Does anyone NOT shoot RAW???

Ive been shooting for years and dont want to consider myself a rookie, but i'll admit im no expert! I had an EOS Rebel for years and shot and edited everything in jpeg for all that time. I now have a 7DII and am trying to figure out how to get the RAW images pulled up on my computer and im struggling a bit. (different thread)... Anyways, it just got me thinking. I love the capabilities of this new camera but im asking myself, for what I do, do I even need to shoot RAW 20MP files or am I just fine with the 4 MP jpegs 99% of the time!?!?

I feel like if you have a 20 MP camera, youde make the most of it and use the highest quality images possible? Bet then I think maybe im overthinking it and some times "really good" is good enough!?!

Does anyone else know what im saying? Do many of you just shoot jpeg so you can deal with smaller files that are easier to access and load and use??

Maybe this is more common that I think? What are some other thoughts/recommendatio​ns?

Thanks

I will shoot both my 7D2 and 5D4 with raw+jpg, but will use the JPG out of camera probably 90% of the time as long as I dial in all the settings correctly in camera. I shoot indoor sports this way, and even the wedding yesterday. I have the raw available should I need to really adjust a photo, and did from yesterday's shoot a few times, as it was difficult to get every shot correct right from the camera.

Ahhh good to hear! So you do use jpeg lot and only the RAW when more serious corrections are needed or a big crop i suppose.

Just curious? What size difference between LRAW and LJPG?? 20mp vs 4 mp.. does that seem normal?

Thanks

I usually don't shoot raw.

I use the raw when major edits are needed like exposure issues, etc. JPG files are compressed and have noise reduction performed, thus why they are smaller than the raw. The raw is lossless JPG inside a tiff wrapper, along with exif data, camera settings, etc and thus much larger.

TeamSpeed wrote in post #18459687
. . . The raw is lossless JPG inside a tiff wrapper, along with exif data, camera settings, etc and thus much larger.

Not exactly. For a quick explanation check https://en.wikipedia.o​rg/wiki/Raw_image_form​at

RAW standardization did begin with the ISO 12234-2 TIFF/EP, but most of the file consists of sensor metadata. The JPG included in some (most?) (all?) implementations is included for quick previews.

In my opinion, most of us benefit from shooting RAW because it helps us produce the image that, with extra time or extra skill or a less challenging setting, could have been achieved with saving an image file directly in the camera.

I shoot RAW 90% of the time. I enjoy the flexibility of editing the files and feel that most limitations are removed and I am free to make the image I want instead of an image true to the circumstance.

I shoot jpg mostly at sporting events where the light is pretty much set, like in a gym. I also enjoy a faster frame rate for these events.

I recently moved primarily to Fuji and have heard great things about its jpg files but I've yet to give it a try.

I shoot jpeg and RAW, but usually use the jpegs as previews or initial visualizations. Most all images I post have been processed to some extent. There isn't a right or wrong...if you're getting your intended results with jpeg, then it works for you. One of the main advantages of RAW is that even if you get intended exposure, there's more tonal information then what's able to display on screen (it's essentially a digital negative that can have more dynamic range then your output display/print). I tend to use this extra tonal range and will adjust highlights and shadows in the RAW converter to bring out more detail in my subject. I guess I'm also grounded to my film days where I found how much more latitude you had doing your own darkroom prints with film development.

I shoot in all modes, sometimes raw, sometimes jpeg, sometimes small jpeg, it all depends on what I need the image for. If I'm taking a shot of my tablesaw setting, or plumbing setup so I can reproduce things later, there is no need for a huge processing needed raw file. If I'm shooting a wedding or family event, then it's raw. I tend to use the right format for the job at hand. Like this one. o way am I going to shoot raw and process a pic. A small jpeg from the camera is fine.

Thanks everyone!

All great responses! I guess its clear jpegs have their place but that twisting in my stomach isnt going to go away until I can get at those RAW files when I need them!

SWIFFY

I saw in your other thread that Canon DPP might be the RAW editor you try. IMO, it’s pretty easy to shoot jpeg and RAW (HD sizes are always going up, so I backup all my RAWs on external drives). No harm trying to see what RAW brings to the table

I shoot about 95% of the time in JPG. About 80% of that 95% is just test shots. Testing lighting, framing, composition, or experimenting with DOF, macro, noise levels, processing and the like. My cameras are my toys. I play with them almost daily. Most of my actual 'shoot' work is done raw. The only 'real' work I do JPG is outdoor daylight stuff, and flash work. Everything else is raw.

In real numbers, I shoot about 20,000 frames a year. I'll assume 15,000 of those are experiments/tests/prac​tice shots. Of the 5,000 that is left, most (4,000) is either flash or outdoors. That leaves about 1,000 raw shots per year, tops. Of the 5,000 shots per year that are real, I keep less than 1/2 - the rest get binned. I just looked at my LR catalog. My keepers average just under 2,000 frames per year. I think that is about right - 10% keeps is OK with me. So in the end, about 50% of my keepers started out as raw files. The rest are JPG.

I can point you to the Canon CR2 specs if you would like. There is a JPG full size but also the lossless version. The wiki article is a general one. The actual CR2 contents and structure can be found here http://lclevy.free.fr/​cr2/

This last spring I shot jpeg by artistic choice. I was going to the Air and Space Museum out by Dulles (the Udvar-Hazy Center). I wanted to shoot in sepia, and I wanted Canon's interpretation of sepia. If you shoot in RAW and process the images in Lightroom, the images revert to flat color. You can convert them to sepia, but it's Adobe's version of sepia, not Canon's. I could shoot RAW and process the images in DPP, but DPP is terrible if you have more than one image to process. Shooting in jpeg with sepia settings means you must get the photo nearly right, no matter the challenges.

Here you have sunlight coming into the building from the middle level, as well as all over at the far end. The ground floor is lit mostly by artificial light, along with whatever ambient light makes it down there. Add that I was using a 70-200mm lens, and the challenges increase. No matter, I think the jpeg came out okay. Did I modify the photos in Lightroom? Sure! Might I have done better with RAW in DPP? If I had the patience to slog through the photos in DPP, perhaps.

In closing, I shoot mostly in RAW. There are times I need to turn around photos very quickly, where time is more important than perfect quality; in those cases I shoot jpeg, and let the camera do most of the post processing.

Hope this helps!

IMAGE LINK: http://grahamglover.ze​nfolio.com/p562340773/​e8ac597fc

The ONLY time I shoot JPEG is on the rare occasion when I want a whole lot of small photos and don't care about quality - e.g. shooting record shots of my house contents for possible insurance purposes in case of fire etc. or shots of a vehicle accident (that saved me megabucks on one occasion).

At all other times RAW is a no-brainer. File size and storage space isn't a problem these days so why not capture as much as possible in the image since you never know what you might want to do with it in future?