Who here has a 20D or 'above' and doesn't use RAW?

I can't imagine why in this day and age of cheap CF cards and disk space anyone would shoot JPEG. There's never been a single argument where JPEG can ever yield a better quality image. And if you get your settings right in camera then doing a RAW conversion in Aperture or Lightroom takes practically no additonal time.

How do you do a HDR image from a single JPEG shot?

Cheaper CF cards means all that much more JPEG images.

RichNY wrote in post #3960246
How do you do a HDR image from a single JPEG shot?

Why from just one? Shoot 3, or, hell, shoot 100. CF cards are cheap, remember?

Raise your hand if your camera doesn't let you switch from RAW to JPEG and back again.

It's not like your stuck with a single, fixed shooting strategy. And no one is saying that there are no advantages to RAW, but shooting in JPEG offers advantages of its own: smaller file sizes (short transfer times, machine runs quicker during edits), longer burst, less battery usage, and if you get exposure close enough, no perceptable quality difference at print or normal viewing size.

RichNY wrote in post #3960246
And if you get your settings right in camera then doing a RAW conversion in Aperture or Lightroom takes practically no additonal time.

If you "get your settings right in camera" then why do this step at all? "Practically no additional time" becomes "absolutely no additional time."

Shoot RAW if you like or shoot just JPEGs. Or if it floats your boat, shoot a combination of both. But whatever you do, just shoot. Both formats will get the job done.

(Not you, personally, Rich, but the proverbial "you." )

I just don't have time to shoot RAW. I wish I did, but I don't. And if I did I would need another hard drive.

I shoot RAW because I'm human.

overclock wrote in post #3960446
I just don't have time to shoot RAW. I wish I did, but I don't. And if I did I would need another hard drive.

More disk space has always been the downside of a higher keeper rate

We shoot jpeg because we do weddings. To do otherwise would be insane. I can't imagine bringing home 1100 raw images and needing to PP them all and we're running a quad core.
The main thing is to get your settings correct and do a careful job in the first place
Chris

gotta say for a raw vs. jpeg thread this has been a pretty civilized discussion....

ed rader

Chris&jess wrote in post #3961034
We shoot jpeg because we do weddings. To do otherwise would be insane. I can't imagine bringing home 1100 raw images and needing to PP them all and we're running a quad core.
The main thing is to get your settings correct and do a careful job in the first place
Chris

from the looks of your portfolio you guys do a very good job at it too...i guess that another myth we can throw out the window !

ed rader

Thank you very much for the complement Ed.
Chris

John_B wrote in post #3958090
mrkgoo,
Some users don't need raw to get excellent print results or even web displays of there photos. It's just like slide film, you create what you want, and development doesn't fix your errors. With many many prints of 16 x 20" or smaller with excellent results (to my eyes and many others).
I can say raw isn't needed to achieve beautiful photographs!
I try to put the effort to obtain the correct photo.
ex. correct white balance, ex2. correct exposure, ex3. correct saturation, tone, sharpness, contrast settings in camera.
But I don't mind, I like to claim I took the photo not the camera (or software)
However many things can also be corrected in jpeg files just like raw files. ex. white balance can easily be corrected, so can saturation, color tone, noise reduction and sharpening.
But see for yourself, set your camera for raw + large jpeg and take some photos and do a comparison in software and prints then see if jpeg can cut it for you.

Amen, tremendously well said.

number six wrote in post #3958599
And then there are the RAW snobs. Just like the L snobs.

And of course those who shoot RAW so they won't have to learn how to expose correctly - so they think.

-js

That too. So many people are reliant on RAW's safety net or so stuck up that they can't imagine life without it.

I look at my work. I am a selective RAW user, capable of identifying situations where I would like to utilize the extra power and promise of RAW (and it has a heck of a lot of power, you should see the way I 'cook' my RAWs in DPP and Photoshop). At the same time I know when a shot would be better served by JPEG. I have prints on the walls from both JPEGs where I nailed it, and RAWs. It doesn't seem to affect the keeper rate either which way I shoot because I try to get it right in camera. Sometimes that is the ONLY way to do it, there are things even RAW cannot fix.

I bracket when unsure, whether RAW or JPEG. I throw away plenty of both. My "DELETE" key is the fastest part of my workflow because it is the most practiced.

But the acid test is that even the RAW snobs cannot consistently identify which of my shots are RAW or JPEG.

Just to correct a few misconceptions. 2mins per file is just way too long when half time is 15mins and i need to get out all the pictures to the desk and onwards to the website. Its much faster to send out the jpg straight as those can be uploaded immediately. If i had 30 RAW files to send out to clients, that'd put me back 1hr even if i didn't have to do any tweaking. Compared to a direct upload, time is money.

I guess those of us who come from a film shooting background will liken shooting Jpg to shooting slides, lower exposure latitude, unforgiving etc. To be honest, the in camera sharpening and noise reduction has always been good enough for 99% of my clients and there is at the end no substitute for knowing how to expose a scene properly, for both white balance and exposure. Use a grey card for balancing light, or learn how to estimate color temperature and learn the rules of exposure and the nature of your camera's meter to under/overexpose in various conditions.

One big advantage i see in RAW is that when converted to Tiff files, it has greater potential for upsizing and cropping. Greater potential, but at the expense that noise starts to show. In general, even when shooting RAW, i don't adjust exposure by more than 1/3 of a stop. 1/2 a stop and noise starts to show minutely, even at the lower ISOs.

Use the right tool for the job :-

JPEG for

Sports and suchlike when you need to get a lot of shots quickly, you get a higher frame rate and more in the buffer than RAW.

Direct printing, quick work, general 'snapshots' where convenience is more important than ultimate quality.

RAW for

Absolute best quality when you really must have the exposure and white balance spot on.

Tricky situations, like high contrast, sunsets, snow scenes etc. where a couple of stops of shadow or highlight detail recovery can save the picture.

There is no 'always right', you use a hammer to bang in a nail and a saw to cut wood not the other way around. Canon very helpfully give you a menu option to change from RAW to jpeg and back again, probably because they expected that you might want to do that occasionally!

angryhampster wrote in post #3957937
Also, if you've got the money for a 40D, then you can shell out $125 for a 200GB hard drive

Where the hell you shoppin? I'm building a system for my cousin right now and got a high end 320gb drive for $75.

I got a 40D but only use JPEG been fine for the 2 days ive had it thus far

I shoot RAW+JPEG.

The best solution. JPEGs are there for quick stuff, and RAW is there if I need to get a little something more out of it.

Come on people, with CF cards so damn cheap there is no excuse not to shoot both!