Why shoot in RAW?

still, we shoot events with a 50D and a 7D and end up with thousands of pics sometimes. when i think about all the cf cards we have, maybe 24 gb worth (at this time) and realize that that would only hold around 1100 shots... a good show might use up 50 gigs on a hard drive. in going completely over to raw, alternative storage options need to be considered. 9 or 10 shows could use up a 500gb hard drive!

i look at it this way, for bulk shooting, where your shots are out there for people to pick and choose from and there's no guarantee, jpeg is economical. for smaller portrait shoots, where you know most of the pics are sold, go raw...

until i get a blu-ray burner maybe to archive old shots...

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Originally Posted by philwillmedia

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xepherys wrote in post #9612423
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!

Well said. Once I went RAW, I never went back.

What has been said before is true. The camera takes a RAW image. If you keep it RAW, you make all the decisions on how to process the picture. If you set the camera to JPEG, then the camera makes the decisions for you.

This being true, shoot RAW if you're smarter than your camera; shoot JPEG if your camera is smarter than you.

This means, of course, that a majority of photographers should definitely shoot JPEG. Especially the "I just got a new Rebel and I'm shooting my cousins wedding next weekend. What does 'aperture' mean?" crowd.

20droger wrote in post #9617705
This being true, shoot RAW if you're smarter than your camera; shoot JPEG if your camera is smarter than you.

It's unfeasible for me to shoot a basketball game in RAW, because the 20D buffer is pathetic and I need all the shots I can capture during concentrated bursts.

You need to shoot RAW because that's what us cool people do.

QED

20droger wrote in post #9617705
What has been said before is true. The camera takes a RAW image. If you keep it RAW, you make all the decisions on how to process the picture. If you set the camera to JPEG, then the camera makes the decisions for you.

This being true, shoot RAW if you're smarter than your camera; shoot JPEG if your camera is smarter than you.

This means, of course, that a majority of photographers should definitely shoot JPEG. Especially the "I just got a new Rebel and I'm shooting my cousins wedding next weekend. What does 'aperture' mean?" crowd.

Can someone pass the screenwipes? I just sprayed soup over my monitor at the second paragraph!

neilwood32 wrote in post #9618922


Can someone pass the screenwipes? I just sprayed soup over my monitor at the second paragraph!

Seems like I've heard you say this before. You must have one hell of a sticky monitor.

Perhaps you should stop eating soup while perusing POTN.

Then again, you could've been eating porridge....

20droger wrote in post #9617705
What has been said before is true. The camera takes a RAW image. If you keep it RAW, you make all the decisions on how to process the picture. If you set the camera to JPEG, then the camera makes the decisions for you.

ahh, but who tells the camera what to do? if you set it right the first time, you'll get what you want...

20droger wrote in post #9617705
This being true, shoot RAW if you're smarter than your camera; shoot JPEG if your camera is smarter than you.

then perhaps this should be the other way around?

In my canon 400d I am able to shoot on raw an jpeg at the same time. Best of both worlds for anyone still undecided

rickdog wrote in post #9619567
ahh, but who tells the camera what to do? if you set it right the first time, you'll get what you want...

then perhaps this should be the other way around?

I agree with 20dodger, just for the fact that on a few cameras depending what you set it for, wether RAW or JPEGS, what other settings you want to do will be different on what you allowed to set. See in the image attached, if you set it to shoot JPEG you can set it to shoot in all the basic zones but if you set it for RGB it will not allow you to set it in the basic zones. That's telling me that your camera knows that if you set if for RAW you know what you''re doing and you don't need to be wasting your time with the basic zones. Or you can look at it this way, shooting in JPEG, when you set it to shoot in certain zones, as for close-up for example, you're telling the camera how you want it to process it, where as RAW you process it yourself.

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Why is there so much talk about which one is better, and not very much talk about what PURPOSE each one is better for?

For a studio shoot, when you're going to be spending hours editing only several photos later, absolutely, shoot RAW, you're going to get a (Marginally) better picture for it, and will be able to print it a little larger, if that's what you want to do.

For sports shooting, when you're firing off hundreds, maybe thousands of frames, you sometimes can't afford the time or space to shoot RAW, time not only to clear the buffer, but also to cull and/or edit afterwards.

There's hundreds of uses in between these that fall into roughly one of these two categories, where either is better.

Landscapes - you'd probably be crazy not to use RAW - who the hell shoots 500 shots of the same landscape and picks the right one afterwards? Odds are you're looking at one picture, so it might as well be RAW.

Family/Party snaps when you happen to bring your DSLR along, I don't want to look through 200 pictures people in RAW mode - it's just not that important, and takes enough more time than JPG to be not worth it to me.

The cake baking analogy is interesting, but you also have to consider that buying a cake at the store is SO much faster than making it from scratch. What if you have to make 30 of them? Are you going to make them all yourself?

The people touting RAW as the ONLY way to shoot are right....IF they're talking about the top image quality.

The people touting JPG as the ONLY way to shoot are right....IF you're talking about the fastest way to get pictures somewhere, or the least space/time taken up while doing so.

dugcross wrote in post #9619914
That's telling me that your camera knows that if you set if for RAW you know what you''re doing and you don't need to be wasting your time with the basic zones

wait a second, let's get this straight. i don't think the camera "knows" anything. i tell it what to do whether it's raw or jpeg!

nonetheless, whether the pic comes out right or not is my fault not the camera's...

rickdog wrote in post #9620120
wait a second, let's get this straight. i don't think the camera "knows" anything. i tell it what to do whether it's raw or jpeg!

nonetheless, whether the pic comes out right or not is my fault not the camera's...

I can't argue with what you're saying there. But what I am say is that when you put the camera in one of those basic camera modes, on your part all you are doing is telling the camera what kind of picture you want to take, then the camera does all the work for you to get that result. There are a lot of people out there that are not secure with their knowledge of photography yet enough to set the settings so they pick the basic modes because the camera "Knows" how to set it. So I would say in that instance Yes the camera does know more than the photographer.

Either way I think it comes down to knowledge on RAW vs JPEG. If you have the knowledge of post processing then chances are you shoot RAW. If you're not that knowledgeable on post-processing then chances are you shoot JPEG. I never have and never will shoot JPEG. I personally have the knowledge and I would rather control the total outcome of the photo as opposed to the camera doing it for me. An speed or file size has never been an issue with me either. Get a big enough and fast enough memory card and your set.

Another analogy, JPEG is when you took your film to the local drug store or whatever and let them develop your film and you got the resulting photos that they gave you. You either liked them or not and that was it. RAW is when you developed your own film and in the darkroom you burned, dodged and used other various techniques and got the photo result that you wanted.

oh well, we use raw and jpeg and frankly, my only real issue is long-term storage space and the need to always buy more hardware. times are tough and who wants to keep adding 500gb or 1tb hard drives to their computer all the time? or should i say, who can afford it?

nevertheless, you still have some room for adjustment when shooting jpeg, while in the non-basic modes (ie, custom white balance, exposure, tone, contrast, etc.)

i mean, we could go on forever on this, but who cares? i say play with both, learn both and figure out what you need as a photographer.

thanks for the discussion!