Why shoot in RAW?

Shooting RAW should never be a crutch for poor photography techniques..

Make every endevour to get it right in the camera..

that's what i was thinkin yogestee/jurgen. besides, when you have 3000 shots to weed through and have them up in a gallery within a few days, who needs the extra steps when you could just get the wb set right while out in the field?!?

i'm not against raw, just playin the jpeg's advocate...

yogestee wrote in post #9592244
Shooting RAW should never be a crutch for poor photography techniques..

Make every endevour to get it right in the camera..

Not a crutch, more of a safety net. I try to get it right in camera, sometimes I fail. Once I'm totally perfect I'll stop using raw.

rickdog wrote in post #9592323
that's what i was thinkin yogestee/jurgen. besides, when you have 3000 shots to weed through and have them up in a gallery within a few days, who needs the extra steps when you could just get the wb set right while out in the field?!?

i'm not against raw, just playin the jpeg's advocate...

When you have 3000 shots, you are likely to have a few that are off or would look better with a tweak (even by a small amount). The extra steps take all of 10 seconds to do (IF required).

Me, I will use the safety net!

-=The RAW Faqs=- RAW Processing info and links

First off, your camera ONLY shoots RAW. When you select JPG, the camera takes the RAW data and pipes it into its on-board JPG processor to generate the JPG "image" to save to the card.

When you shoot RAW, the RAW "data" goes directly to the card and is not an image.

To generate an image, you use a RAW processor (software on your PC) which turns the data into a viewable image, much like the camera's JPG processor. The difference is that YOU have complete control over the image generation process. You can change the white balance, adjust the contrast/brightness/bl​ack point/etc....

So you can leave these decisions up to the camera's little processor (and hope it makes the right decisions since they are irreversible), or save the decisions for later where YOU have complete control over it.

Lots of great points made above. For a time I only shot in jpeg, but now I shoot in both. The only reason I can see to shoot in jpeg is convenience. As stated above, letting the camera convert to jpeg makes all the decisions for you. Sometimes these decisions are made optimally, but ofter better results can be obtained by doing it manually. And isn't it better to have the capacity to salvage a great shot than to loose it because you didn't want to be bothered with RAW processing?

One point I don't remember reading above is that when processing in RAW there is no loss of IQ, where as all post processing is a form of IQ loss. Also, since shooting in RAW I find that most shots require no PP at all. Whereas in jpeg I almost need to do some minimal PP of nearly all shots. From that perspective it's really a wash of my time to process a RAW image than PP a jpeg.

I use the analogy...

Jpeg is the Cliff Notes of the image....just enough info to get an idea what the story is about.
Raw is the unabridged original manuscript..... More details than you will ever need again.

well, we use raw with our 50D, but we had to wait for an update to lightzone first. however, with the 7D we use jpegs when there are hundreds or thousands of shots and raw when it's a smaller set or we have a lot of time. eventually, when lightzone updates again and they add 7D support we'll probably switch over. with lightzone it doesn't add any time to the workflow because the raw pic just loads and the wb and zone mapper are automatically loaded with it. no need to use a raw importer or dpp first.

Hi, i have been playing along with Photoshop's RAW program and because of it, i am now shooting on RAW for good.

Round and round we go...
Same ol' argument that will never be settled
Those who shoot RAW will always say it's better.
People who shoot Jpeg will say Jpeg is better.
No one's right, no one's wrong.
Whatever floats your boat....

Move along people....nothing to see here

philwillmedia wrote in post #9612295
Round and round we go...
Same ol' argument that will never be settled
Those who shoot RAW will always say it's better.
People who shoot Jpeg will say Jpeg is better.
No one's right, no one's wrong.
Whatever floats your boat....

Move along people....nothing to see here

I shoot in jpeg and then switched to RAW and wont look back

I always shoot raw+jpeg for "normal shooting" unless I need burst or speed (then I shoot RAW only). This way, I have the RAW file if needed, but will strive to get that perfect JPEG.

Lightroom makes it very easy to process RAW's, but for simple shooting around JPEG's are plenty. On vacations, I will shoot RAW only for more space (and those mentioned above).

It is nice to have, especially for photos you want to print and want to touchup before you send to the lab.

philwillmedia wrote in post #9612295
Round and round we go...
Same ol' argument that will never be settled
Those who shoot RAW will always say it's better.
People who shoot Jpeg will say Jpeg is better.
No one's right, no one's wrong.
Whatever floats your boat....

Move along people....nothing to see here

I don't recall ever seeing someone make a strong argument for shooting JPEG. A few people here have said it's more convenient -- which is undeniable if final quality is not your primary concern.

And to the poster (whom I was going to quote but did not) with the cake baking analogy... awesome!

rickdog wrote in post #9592323
that's what i was thinkin yogestee/jurgen. besides, when you have 3000 shots to weed through and have them up in a gallery within a few days, who needs the extra steps when you could just get the wb set right while out in the field?!?

i'm not against raw, just playin the jpeg's advocate...

Processing efficiency depends also on the software used to sort out large batches of shots. Now that I am learning to use Bridge that comes Photoshop CS4, the burst rate in the field remains for me the only occasional deterrent against using RAW.

For those shooting in JPEG, do experiment with the full JPEG processing capabilities of PS, PS Elements and others. Some enable JPEG and TIFF editing through their RAW editor - and these edits are non-destructive.