Sports Photographers use JPG? Really?

I keep reading places that a lot of sports photographers shoot JPG. Is that really the case? Naturally its not going to be a hard and fast rule but are there some really compelling reasons for this? I've spent a lot of time learning to love RAW and JPG just feels so wrong to me now.

What would the advantages of JPG be? I figure the essentially limitless buffer on a modern camera with a fast card would be key. I've definitely found myself cursing my buffer more than a couple times at a motorsport event. (My primary reason for upgrading to a 40D from the XT) Space would be another factor too but memory is relatively cheap these days so thats less of a concern.

Any other reasons? Is the bulk post processing easier? Do they care less? Am I off base? Tell meeeeee!

I shoot JPEG for my sports stuff. Simply for the reasons you list, less space = more shots, less processing time, especially downloading, converting, and exporting from Lightroom. Most times the lighting during an event stays the same so my exposure, once dialed in, is usually spot on. Most of my processing is cropping only so I don't need the latitude of RAW. Most of my customers buy 8x10 or smaller so JPEGs work great.

Buffer space buffer space buffer space. My 20D can only pull off a six-frame burst in RAW mode, and even if I'm doing multiple shorter bursts really close together, it'll still get clogged up. I shoot RAW for everything else, but with sports I definitely go JPEG, and just make sure I nail the exposure and white balance in camera. That being said, if I were shooting a D3 with dual 4-gig CF cards, then yes, I would probably shoot sports RAW.

It's mainly because it's far better to send JPG files to the editor than it is to process the RAW images.

RAW is mainly of use for when you process each shot as a separate entity. When sports shooters have to wade through hundreds of shots in a day's shoot, that's clearly not an option.

Plus

• You get way more JPG files onto a CF card
  
• You know what you're getting with JPG (when you've set it up the way you want)
  
• It's faster transferring files via the WiFi adaptor to your laptop
  
• Photo editor teams can deal with them right away (pretty much any photo software can handle JPGs, but with RAW, you have to keep on adding add-ons to the software to update it)
  

If 'sports photographer' is a photojournalist, time is important because a submitted photo might be chosen for publication because it arrives sooner than some else's photo! If you can pull out the CF and send the files from your laptop immediately, rather than having to do RAW conversion first, you win the race.

Yes. I shoot sports and use JPEG only. The advantages outweigh using RAW by far.

For starters, there's no conversion from RAW to a usable format and the buffer and memory cards don't fill up so fast. When I get 600 shots from a couple of hours of rugby tha last thing I want to be doing is converting them all from RAW! Most of my sport shots just go up on my website (usually soon after I get home, after uploading and cropping) with a small few being sold to some of the sportsmen so I have no need for the hassle and extra time needed for RAW conversions.

Asked a newspaper sports photographer what file format he used, and the answer was "JPEG." Why? Deadlines. They don't have time to fool with anything else. Also, a newspaper's sports staff usually has Nikon and Canon photographers, and the photo editors - who handle the real editing work - don't have the time to switch between at least two kinds of converter programs.

When you deal with deadlines, there's no time to make major changes in an image. Newspaper photographers need to get exposure and framing right the first time.

I can easily shoot a thousand shots on a busy race weekend, those need to be downloaded to the laptop, quickly reviewed, and made available to clients / sent out with press releases.

So for me it's a space issue, and also buffer when something major happens right in front of me.

I use RAW every other time, just not when doing events.

In2Photos wrote in post #6181884
I shoot JPEG for my sports stuff. Simply for the reasons you list, less space = more shots, less processing time, especially downloading, converting, and exporting from Lightroom. Most times the lighting during an event stays the same so my exposure, once dialed in, is usually spot on. Most of my processing is cropping only so I don't need the latitude of RAW. Most of my customers buy 8x10 or smaller so JPEGs work great.

You must be my long lost twin! Just change your last sentence to "Most of my prints are 8 x 10 or smaller so JPEGs work great" and you'd be me.

My NBA arena has very constant lighting. The only changes I've noticed is that the second half is usually about a half stop brighter than the first half. Go figure!?

I almost never shoot raw, but on the other hand, I almost never shoot anything but sport I could easily say that 99% of colleagues shoot jpeg only too. Sure if you shoot for some commercial catalog, where photos need to be done once by the end of the year, you can play around. If your photos should be in feed as soon as possible, jpeg is only chance. And thing is, faster your photos come to client, more chances you have to sell stuff.
I'm not joking now, even though it might look like this. But when you would only be copying raw files from card, my jpeg files would be selling already And to be realistic... for newspapers, magazines, web, etc., good jpeg is perfectly good enough. So shooting raw is pretty much useless overkill, which on top of that makes you less competitive.

As a professional sports photographer, time is of the essence when the game is over. I don't have time to process all of the raw images and convert them to jpeg's. I have to edit, caption and transmit as fast as I can to my employer in order for them to get the images out to the daily periodicals that subscribe to our news picture wire service.

I shoot sports and once again it's jpeg for the same reason the others have said. RAW is overkill and is an added step in the process of getting the images to the clients. I edit and caption using Photo Mechanic and then transmit, a lot of times while the game is still going on.

Part of it has to do with the photogs often upload to the editors right from the playing field! There is no step in the process where they can edit the raws.

I think it also has to do also with the known output. Why waste hours slaving over 300 RAWS when they final image is just going to be halftoned anyway. Half toning is the death of images. Wither it is B&W halftoning for a newspaper, Or even full color mags like SI. Printing the way newspapers and pagazines do it.... sure it ends up fairly good, but not museum quality. Or even wedding album quality. Jpeg results are more then acceptable.

All valid pints, but I'm pretty certain that most of the guys out there shooting for the Sunday sports pages, only ever submit between 2-6 images from a sideline anyway. That would take about 10-30 seconds to convert from RAW.
I've gotten images from RAW files out to an ed within 5 mins of a boxing k.o., just to prove I could more than anything else.

I'd like to one day get into professional-level sports photography and would likely use JPEG for the reasons already mentioned, but until then I'll take my time with my RAW conversion/tweaking since I don't have to worry about deadlines.