Why should I shoot RAW?

Tendy wrote in post #10223224
Forget that last post i found it, and heres my first ever RAW conversion,pretty basic but I'm like impressed!!

We have a convert!

birdman59 wrote in post #10245911
I shoot both RAW or JPG, depending on subject matter and other factors. I'm still experimenting. My DSLR is a non Canon brand and can save both at the same time. Since I don't have Canons DPP, I can use the other brand's software, which is just horrible, or Adobe camera raw. The CS4 bridge lets you open and process JPG files as if they were Raw files. The couple of times I tried it, I could do anything with a JPG that I can do with a RAW file.

While doing very basic editing, you are essentially correct. However, if you want to recover highligh/shadow detail, edit tone curves, alter WB etc then you will quickly find that the jpeg runs out of information and you end up getting losing detail as the depth of information is not there.

If you can capture a near perfect Jpeg, then RAW probably does exceed your needs. However, if you miss the perfect jpeg (over/underexposed by up to 2 stops, too large a dynamic range ie over 5 stops etc), then RAW will probably get you out of the hole.

i have a point and shoot macro on my camera for jpeg shooting.

for portraiture, landscape, and other crap (custom) i have RAW macros with the ADOBE (not RGB) color setting. crops, histograms, shadow detail, and everything you want to do in LR is limited by the jpeg data.

you can do more with a RAW (and that includes photos you messed up a bit with exposure or composition.

if you just want to take a lot of casual pictures, jpegs are more than fine. i went to the zoo recently and shot over 600 jpegs.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #10243335
In the end you have made the best choice! Welcome to the fold..
You may find that your new skills cause you to want to do more than post images to the web.. soon you could find yourself in the printer market!

Thanks. We do have a not bad printer but the ink and paper is sooo expensive! If I want to print something I will take a USB stick to a photo lab and let them do it, but that's for the futuure when the kids aren't so financially demanding and I get a full time job somewhere.

dontcallmeash wrote in post #10248389
i have a point and shoot macro on my camera for jpeg shooting.

for portraiture, landscape, and other crap (custom) i have RAW macros with the ADOBE (not RGB) color setting. crops, histograms, shadow detail, and everything you want to do in LR is limited by the jpeg data.

you can do more with a RAW (and that includes photos you messed up a bit with exposure or composition.

if you just want to take a lot of casual pictures, jpegs are more than fine. i went to the zoo recently and shot over 600 jpegs.

Yea I've come to a decision. If shooting in dodgy light or indoors at night I will use RAW but if outdoors doing macros in good light I'll shoot jpeg RAW. My son is autistic and quite demanding of time so I don't get a lot of time for endless twiddling on the computer, much as I enjoy tinkering (and I am quite happy playing around with a photo till its just right)

Just get more cards. You'll "future proof" your shots. The same happened to me. I used to shoot jpeg only and was happy with that. Later I started doing some post and found that the RAW images really help. I now wish I could go back and work on some of early shots.

Remember almost every photo program now easily converts raw files to jpeg in a flash.

Trackerxx wrote in post #10248692
Just get more cards. You'll "future proof" your shots. The same happened to me. I used to shoot jpeg only and was happy with that. Later I started doing some post and found that the RAW images really help. I now wish I could go back and work on some of early shots.

Remember almost every photo program now easily converts raw files to jpeg in a flash.

Unless there are glaring issues, you CAN work on your jpegs.

So guys what do you do with your RAWs once youlve got a finished photo? Do you archive the 'negatives' onto a CDRom or just delete them and keep the jpeg/TIFF files? Because RAW files are a lot bigger I'm going to be filling up my auxillary hard drive pretty soon!

Tendy wrote in post #10248977
So guys what do you do with your RAWs once youlve got a finished photo? Do you archive the 'negatives' onto a CDRom or just delete them and keep the jpeg/TIFF files? Because RAW files are a lot bigger I'm going to be filling up my auxillary hard drive pretty soon!

Hard drives are cheap

I actually don't save my converted JPGs after I export them to LR. Once I upload them to my sharing site or burn them to a CD for my clients, I delete them. I can always re-generate any JPG out of LR.

I DO backup the raw files/XMP files to a secondary hard drive, and also backup my Lightroom Catalog weekly.

I'm currently working off of a 1TB drive, and I mirror this drive to another TB drive. Once that drive fills up, 2TB drives will cost as much as I paid for my 1TB drives

Tendy wrote in post #10248977
So guys what do you do with your RAWs once youlve got a finished photo? Do you archive the 'negatives' onto a CDRom or just delete them and keep the jpeg/TIFF files? Because RAW files are a lot bigger I'm going to be filling up my auxillary hard drive pretty soon!

Keep the Raws!!!

You can pretty quickly delete shots that are outright bad, you can quickly convert the better ones to jpegs for whatever use they are. The original Raw files are what you can always go back to to "re-create" a new version.

That Raw Conversion thread had me going back to older shots and re-doing them, finding that I could make them better than what I was able to do back when I first took them. I have thousands of photos that, over time, I hope to revisit as my processing skills increase and time allows. If I threw away my Raw files, well, not so much, although I have also revisited old jpegs as well.

You are starting out in this venture with limited resources, understood -- we are all limited to whatever our limits are...take your time, try to develop a plan forward. Try to budget in an external hard drive to store images and if need be burn backus onto DVDs (while you still can -- eventually they just won't be enough)!

I always keep my RAWs. Why?
1) So that when companies make more powerful software and it improves the RAW conversion, I can always go back and revisit it. Adobe completely change ACR when they brought CS4 out and it completely changed the way I processed my shots. I revisited a lot of shots then.
2) When I learn a new PP technique, I still have the image with all the detail in it. Once written to Jpeg, its gone forever.

tonylong wrote in post #10249065
Keep the Raws!!!

You can pretty quickly delete shots that are outright bad, you can quickly convert the better ones to jpegs for whatever use they are. The original Raw files are what you can always go back to to "re-create" a new version.

You are starting out in this venture with limited resources, understood -- we are all limited to whatever our limits are...take your time, try to develop a plan forward. Try to budget in an external hard drive to store images and if need be burn backus onto DVDs (while you still can -- eventually they just won't be enough)!

DVDRs you say, not CDRs? And we bought a big USB hard drive recently which currently contaons my photos and videos to save space on the laptop's drive and also to back up our MP3 players.

Sorry if this is a stupid question but i'm pretty new here and with the 1GB card talk i was just wondering how many RAW pictures it takes to fill up a card? I'm getting a 16 GB 400X card with my camera (hopefully tomorrow, i'm getting impatient ) Just want to know as i'm going on vacation in July so i know if i need to stock up on memory cards before then

Thanks

Tendy wrote in post #10248977
So guys what do you do with your RAWs once youlve got a finished photo? Do you archive the 'negatives' onto a CDRom or just delete them and keep the jpeg/TIFF files? Because RAW files are a lot bigger I'm going to be filling up my auxillary hard drive pretty soon!

I only keep the RAW files I want, the others I delete after converting them to Jpeg. For example, if I shoot a session for a client, I will keep the good RAW files and delete the ones I don't care for, then, if I shoot something for myself like wildlife, landscapes, or other stuff not so important, I delete the RAWs and keep the Jpegs. Thats the method to my madness, maybe for others it doesn't work but this works for me.

My 2 cents...

Snuffy wrote in post #10250163
=%Snuffy%;10250163]Sor​ry if this is a stupid question but i'm pretty new here and with the 1GB card talk i was just wondering how many RAW pictures it takes to fill up a card? I'm getting a 16 GB 400X card with my camera (hopefully tomorrow, i'm getting impatient ) Just want to know as i'm going on vacation in July so i know if i need to stock up on memory cards before then

Thanks

Not a stupid question at all,altho it will depend on your camera,and thr make of card. I formatted my 1GB Extreme II Sandisk card and it gave me room for 121 RAW files. That's not bad at all,its like carrying 3 rolls of 36 exposure films!

Tendy wrote in post #10250654
Not a stupid question at all,altho it will depend on your camera,and thr make of card. I formatted my 1GB Extreme II Sandisk card and it gave me room for 121 RAW files. That's not bad at all,its like carrying 3 rolls of 36 exposure films!

It's a EOS 7D and unfortunatly it is Transcend 16GB 400x.... i hear bad things about that brand of card but it was part of the package deal so hopefully i don't get one of the ones that has problems or else i'll be shelling out more $$ for a sandisk

thanks for the response