who shoots in RAW and JPEG?

So, lately i've been shooting in RAW and JPEG.. at first I was uncomfortable with the RAW format and wanted to have both options available for me.. But, lately.. like now when I'm waiting for download and I know I won't be using any of the JPEG's i'm wondering why i'm still shooting in both?... So, what's the upside to it?.. and has anybody noticed how little the use the JPEG's?.. I know the memory on your cards isn't saying much with both.. maybe the difference of fifty pictures with a 2G..

So, who shoots in both and why or who shoots only in RAW and why not?....

sari

RAW only for me. Sometimes I'll check the scene with a quick jpg shot just to zone in on settings if lighting is funky.

I always shoot in RAW Plus Large (fine) JPG.

Most of the time, because I pre-select the white balance selection in the camera fairly carefully and pay strict attention to exposure controls (no fully automatic blasting), the .JPG files look just fine. My wife will often use the .JPG files directly without any additional post processing. A big benefit to having the .JPG files, though, is that I can preview the .JPG files without any post-processing at all thus saving a lot of time.

The RAW files, on the other hand, give me the digital equivalent of a film negative. If I feel that I want to do any critical work on the image, I always start with the RAW file so that I don't have any degradation due to the .JPG compression. The RAW file is also the file that always gets backed up (along with any post-processed copies of images) to my file server and other places.

I shoot only in RAW. JPEG just wastes space on my hard drive.

Only on the occasion when I need to provide the image within hours of shooting will I shoot both. This is a matter of timing only and it is still my preference to use the RAW file where possible. This is just a matter of personal preference and at the end of the day most of the JPG's would be just fine.

Skip raises a good point where he is very diligent in setting his exposure controls. When you are doing this you can afford to use the JPG. I recently did a shoot where I very carefully used a custom white balance and the RAW files were really good with very little changes that I needed to make to them. I could have used Skip's method here but I am so used to my workflow that it just doesn't occur to me to change to this setting.

Everyone has there own personal preference and whatever works for them is the correct one. Because I like to shoot almost exclusively CR2 doesn't mean that this is right for everyone. It is what you get comfortable with and if you are pleased with the results once you are done. Personal satisfaction will weight heavily in which way you go.

Definately shoot in Raw only, jpeg just doesnt have the editibility (not sure about that spelling) that Raw does.. its SO much better, I only ever shoot in Jpeg for when im wanting to use the burst mode on my 350D, as jpeg doesnt fill the buffer as fast as Raw does.

Nick

I shoot RAW only. My file importing process takes them straight from my CF card, makes a direct copy of the CR2 to one directory, and creates a DNG of it to put in another directory. In the process of making the DNG, it also makes a JPG straight from the RAW, and saves that inside the DNG file for all preview needs. This large JPG is also suitable for most uses other than printing. It is used by IviewMedia Pro for the light table function, and is of very nice quality for screen/web/small print purposes.

I shoot in RAW+L ....
I process the jpg images for display on my web galleries - because it's just flat-out quicker to just batch process those for web display and get them uploaded to the server. And when an image sells, I process the RAW file to get it to it's "prettiest" .
It's a little more of an involved process - but I figure if people are spending money on your stuff then they deserve the more "involved process".

i wish I could shoot RAW only but my 300D seems to automatically embed jpgs for some resaon.

That's the way the 300D works.

If it didn't embed the jpgs, you wouldn't be able to review the images on your cameras display.

i've use raw+jpeg same time.....

nothing but raw.

With my 20D I shoot both RAW and JPG, but never at the same time. Most of the time I shoot RAW. Occasionally for sports I want to get more than 6 frames at 5 frames per second so I switch to JPG. Other than that, I have no need for a JPG file.

What I really need is a EF-S camera with a buffer that will allow 20 or 30 frames in sequence, but Canon hasn't realized how many of us need that, yet.

raw