Newbie-ish Question: Raw vs JPG

c18913

I've been thinking ... for the past six months or so, I've been taking almost everything as a RAW photo. (I have a Minolta Dimage A2 and Canon 20d).

But now I'm wondering, just because I CAN take RAW photos and do the post processing, does that mean I SHOULD be taking them as RAW. The storage space (both on the camera's flash card and my hard drive(s)) is huge; that's the main drawback for me.

Is the quality of a RAW photo that much greater than a good JPG? (that's a real question for the experts out there). Would I be sad that I shot my five-year-old's soccer match in JPG instead?

On what occasions do you think it's best to shoot RAW (if not all occasions)? When is JPG OK?

Now I'm in a dilmemma ... any help??

DavidTO

RAW is undeniably better quality...the question is whether it makes a real world difference for you.

RAW is 12 bit, JPEG 8 bit.

RAW allows you to set the white balance at any time, JPEG has to be set at the time you shoot.

RAW offers more latitude for exposure problems in post processing.

Those are the big things for me. I'm not as concerned about storage space, and I find that every time I shoot JPEG I'm sorry I did, so I just stopped.

It's really a personal thing. The speed of JPEG when shooting (especially for bursts at your kid's soccer matches) is a major advantage. It can be easier to post process a well exposed JPEG (harder to repair a poorly exposed one). You have to weigh it for yourself, IMO.

How about shooting RAW+JPEG on your 20D for a bit and seeing how it goes? Or just bite the bullet and shoot JPEG...you've got to find your own way through this...

Rohirrim

I shoot RAW 100% of the time.

Richard

Rohirrim wrote:

I shoot RAW 100% of the time.

RAW certainly gives you greater possibilities in post than jpg, which can mean better final prints. On the other hand, changing memory cards or downloading to a portable storage device at unexpected times can mean missed shots. I guess you need to figure out which is more important to you.

Cheers,

JCDoss

I don't think there's anything "newbie-ish" about this question.

When I was shooting with my D30, I used RAW 100% of the time because the 3 megabyte files weren't overtly humongous. Now that I've moved to a 20D, I've flip-flopped... I shoot JPG 100% of the time, mostly for file size/storage reasons.

GoBlue!

I've just recently switched to shooting in RAW. I started in JPG 100% of the time, then moved to RAW+JPG to ease into things, and have just now switched to RAW only.

I don't do a huge amount of post-processing on my images, but I became sick of seeing my histograms look like chain-link fences after a bit of processing on some of my images. Switching to RAW solved that problem, for the images that need a bit more PP work.

As for storage, here's what I'm currently doing. I'll transfer all the RAW files to the hard drive from the memory card, and discard the obvious trash. I then choose the images that I really want to print (or put on-line), and post-process those (converting to jpg). All the RAW files then get dumped onto a DVD (x2), and deleted from the hard drive.

Inevitably there are many images that I want to keep as "document-the-event" shots, but don't want to print immediately. I make a contact sheet of those & file it away. If I ever choose to go back to those images for printing, I just pull out the corresponding RAW DVD, post-process, and print.

The workflow is a work in progress, but seems to be working for now.

Jim

Art Scott

On the A2 you can also shoot raw+jpg....but talk about eating memory space....Talking from expience.....I still shoot both my A2 and 7D and only shoot in Raw....If I were to do a change it would be back to film....( i can NOT afford a Phase One back for my Kiev)Or..but then you have to scan.....then what file format.....Raw, jpg or tiff.....so I stayed with digital and shoot raw.....just wait till you have approx 4gig and burn to a dvd with a list of whats on it......or bite the big bullet and get a 1 or 2 terabyte diskdrive and I won't say you won't runout of space but how long will it take to shoot a trillion bytes of photos?

c18913

Thanks everyone for the replies. I agree, it just comes down to "knowing yourself" and what you'll be happy with. If I could be more ruthless with the delete button and trash more of my questionable shots, I'd be better off...

I guess part of what I was asking, however, was if professional/experts considere certain situations (studio portraits, indoor or outdoor sports, landscapes/travel, or ???) more likely to "need" to be shot in .RAW or if there are certain situations (outdoors, good light, with flash, or ???) that you can feel more comfortable relying on .JPG.

In case I don't get a chance to post again before the New Year, I hope 2006 brings everyone only good things.

Art Scott

c18913 wrote:

Thanks everyone for the replies. I agree, it just comes down to "knowing yourself" and what you'll be happy with. If I could be more ruthless with the delete button and trash more of my questionable shots, I'd be better off...

I guess part of what I was asking, however, was if professional/experts considere certain situations (studio portraits, indoor or outdoor sports, landscapes/travel, or ???) more likely to "need" to be shot in .RAW or if there are certain situations (outdoors, good light, with flash, or ???) that you can feel more comfortable relying on .JPG.

In case I don't get a chance to post again before the New Year, I hope 2006 brings everyone only good things.

Personally I would never shoot jpg again unless my storage space was such that a raw file would not fit but I could get several jpgs and bracketed.....I just don't like the non workability of jpg/tiff. Just my humble opinon.

erich6

Well, I almost always shoot in RAW also. The only times I shoot in JPG's is when I just want to take a few snapshots of an occasion and I'm not interested in making the best possible images (just documenting). In that case, I don't like spending the extra time in post-processing and the JPEG's usually provide sufficient quality.

If you are looking for situations where shooting JPG's may be "less risky" I would think the following apply:

1) Benign lighting conditions (i.e., easy to get proper exposure such as with overcast skies when outdoors or a well-lit indoor scene)
2) You have time to shoot, look at the on-camera histogram, and reshoot for proper exposure (like for static subjects and slow-changing lighting conditions)
3) You are not too concerned about white balance issues such as shooting in plain daylight and camera is set to dailight white balance (and you are not trying to get the best skin tones you can such as I would expect you don't need when shooting your kids soccer games).

Erich