A very good reason for shooting RAW

If you're serious about your shots, RAW is the way to go as it gives more flexibility to compensate many factors that in other formats won't look as good and may take even longer to pp to get them to an acceptable level. The price is file size, but to me the compromise is well worth it.

incendy wrote in post #2032643
Just wait till you get the 5D Each file is 12mb.. I am going through hard drives like crazy!! I think I have 250gb right now and only 10gb left=D

This is a fact, I have almost 1.5TB worth of HDDs and between the Raw files and the pp files (saved them mostly in PSD format), it has eaten already about a third of that space in a couple of months. I imagine those with the 1DS MkII working with almost 17MP files have to deal with spacewise. I just wonder if Blue-ray will be an alternative solution with 25GB single sided and 50GB dual sided, guess we'll have to wait and see.

maxyedor wrote in post #2033852
So were these lit by strobe or natural light? I ask because if it was natural light that exposure issue should have never happened. It takes about .25 seconds to change exposure in camera. Sure RAW is great, but you should always try to nail the exposure in camera.

If the photo was larger you could see the strobes in his eyes. I agree that exposure should be pre-determined, and in a perfect world I do have a flash meter and would have made sure exposure was right on.

In this case, as explained in my original post, there was fast turn around time between subjects and this required movement of strobes. I did not have time to check every exposure so I set the main flash at f8 and kept shooting. This person is my brother-in-law, and with his glasses I had to move the strobe higher and closer than with the others. That is why the over exposure came as subject to strobe distance changed between individual and group shots, and some because of facial features that required higher or lower strobe position.

Time was the crucial element here. Life doesn't always allow us to do things as perfectly as we would like by marking X's on the floor, arranging all subjects equally distant to the flash, or rechecking exposure before every shot changes. I just did the best at what I had to work with and with a room full of peole waiting to get photographed and go home, to sit and play with exposure between each shot would take more than .25 seconds. I would need to unhook my synch code from the camera to the flash meter, recheck three strobes at the subject position, then re-connect and begin shooting. Not to forget that in the group shots subjects were rearranged throughout the session.

With automatic through the lens flash I suppose one could get better exposures in a changing environment, these strobes are completely manual. I also prefer manual flash for any portrait or studio setting.

i have a 3.6ghz dell p.c.

it havw about 400 gig hard drive

im told this is very good

so, i should be ok shooting in this raw business

jcw122 wrote in post #2032575
RAW rocks! You simply CANNOT get the same exposure control in JPEG, it so different.

I currently have 2GB in cards, and my HDD is running out of space QUICK! I have over 3000 photos, nearly all RAW, taking up 15GB on my HDD

sydneyguy30 wrote in post #2034343
i have a 3.6ghz dell p.c.

it havw about 400 gig hard drive

im told this is very good

so, i should be ok shooting in this raw business

400 GB is a lot of space but even then I'd create some sort of archiving system that would allow you to back up to an external drive and eventually DVD's. I've had external and internal drives go bad, so some means of archiving is critical if you want to keep your photographs whether they be RAW or JPEG.

I have two 250 GB external drives in addition to my 120 GB hard drive. My DVD burns dual density disks, and I bought a pack of a hundred CD's and found this to be kind of useless when the drive space from yesterdays shots alone took up 1.56 GB. The week before that I had a four day job that ended up taking 20 GB's.

sweet

RandyMN wrote in post #2034395
400 GB is a lot of space ....

1.4 TB here, of which 900 GB is the back up drive system

The person in the picture looks like a dead ringer of one of my friends (or at least what he would look like in about ten/fifteen years). RAW is definitely cool for donig adjustments like that.

Yea! 20d gives me around 7mb images. space sucks. but the control you get rocks!

cheers

RandyMN wrote in post #2034395
400 GB is a lot of space but even then I'd create some sort of archiving system that would allow you to back up to an external drive and eventually DVD's. I've had external and internal drives go bad, so some means of archiving is critical if you want to keep your photographs whether they be RAW or JPEG.

I have two 250 GB external drives in addition to my 120 GB hard drive. My DVD burns dual density disks, and I bought a pack of a hundred CD's and found this to be kind of useless when the drive space from yesterdays shots alone took up 1.56 GB. The week before that I had a four day job that ended up taking 20 GB's.

I heard from a local pro that he does all his archiving onto a hard drive by year. I am trying to understand the process. Do you keep your photos on the internal drive until done process and then move them to an external drive? I am now shooting in raw for everything except my action shots (football) and for archival I don't have defined workflow that I feel comfortable about. LJE

erbson wrote in post #2048257
I heard from a local pro that he does all his archiving onto a hard drive by year. I am trying to understand the process. Do you keep your photos on the internal drive until done process and then move them to an external drive? I am now shooting in raw for everything except my action shots (football) and for archival I don't have defined workflow that I feel comfortable about. LJE

I haven't really developed a workflow that I stick to very well either, but generally first thing I do is download all files from the camera to the local drive. I then do any post-processing and before I delete them from the camera I will copy a backup to the external drive.

For now I am keeping two copies of each, but when I have to clear hard drive space I will burn to a DVD so I will continue with two copies, one to work with and one in event of hard drive failure.

If you really have photo's that are important and would be a detrimental loss, I would not only keep two copies at all times but also make a third copy and store off-site in the event of catastrophe. Those people involved in 911 and Katrina will tell you the value of having a back-up source of everything stored off-site along with a recovery plan for how to continuw with business when everything is lost.

Nothing but raw for me... 3x 2gb ultra II cards allows me to shoot about 750 pics - more than enough for any single event... (especially considering I used to shoot 1/2 of that when I shot film - for weddings and special events)