RAW or RAW + JPG

Crispin

Not sure if this is the right forumn so please shoot / move as appropriate.

In another thread, http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=26500, where asking about how to shoot white birds, Andy said use RAW or RAW + JPG.

Why the +JPG?? I have not understood why you want a top quality pic, straight from the sensor and a highly compressed JPG alongside it.:dunno

What is the advantage?

Richard

Crispin wrote:

Why the +JPG?? I have not understood why you want a top quality pic, straight from the sensor and a highly compressed JPG alongside it.

What is the advantage?

Good question. I suppose if you get the exposure and white balance nailed when you shoot you can save a bit of time in post by skipping the RAW conversion step. If the JPG doesn't measure up, you can always go back to the RAW file and tweak it. I speak from theory here, not experience. I now shoot only in RAW.

Crispin

Not sure about Canon but on my Nikon I can only have RAW and RAW + JPG (Basic).
If I could have RAW and Fine JPG then I might say it could be used.

Also, converting from raw to jpg is a simple, quick process with RAWShooter.

I'll continue on RAW intil proven otherwise:D

Also, justifies buying a Epson P4000

Andy

Some folks like to get their in-camera parms just right, and when done, the jpgs from the camera are nearly-done - requiring little or no adjustments - perfect for quick sharing, proofing, etc. Your choice as to whether you do this or not.

Still others, shoot ONLY jpg - many event shooters, for example, have taken the time to learn how to get their in-camera parms just so, and they nail the exposure and white balance as close as possible at shoot. They may have actions or a series of actions that they'll run for these events - tweaks to curves, sharpening, etc... but for them, the lighterweight of the jpg is critical to speed of their workflow.

And others, shoot only RAW.

Fascinating, eh? I'm moving this to PS Shenanigans - it's software related not hardware....

Richard

Crispin wrote:

Not sure about Canon but on my Nikon I can only have RAW and RAW + JPG (Basic).
If I could have RAW and Fine JPG then I might say it could be used.

Also, converting from raw to jpg is a simple, quick process with RAWShooter.

I'll continue on RAW intil proven otherwise:D

Also, justifies buying a Epson P4000

Canon lets you use Fine JPG if you want. So once you get your P4000 you might as well get a Canon.

Seriously, I shot in RAW + JPG when I first got my 20D only because I was away from home and didn't have access to any RAW conversion software. So I could see how I was doing, but when I got back I used the RAW files. Other than that, I don't much see the advantage. It really chews up storage as well, so you better have some sort of portable drive handy.

flyingdutchie

Crispin wrote:

Not sure if this is the right forumn so please shoot / move as appropriate.

In another thread, http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=26500, where asking about how to shoot white birds, Andy said use RAW or RAW + JPG.

Why the +JPG?? I have not understood why you want a top quality pic, straight from the sensor and a highly compressed JPG alongside it.

What is the advantage?

I think the JPEG is used for workflow optimization. The JPEG and the RAW filenames are the same (except for their extension). Quickly browsing RAW is often not an option and that's where the JPEG comes in.

When you want to see which shots you want to keep and which not, and you want to do it quickly, you use the JPEG versions of your pictures. E.g. Windows can create thumbnails for both RAW and JPEG. But it can not do a full-screen quick preview of RAW but it can do this for JPEGs.

Basically, shoot RAW+JPEG if you want to shoot RAW for final processing but do not have immediate access to a device that can preview RAW (when in the 'field') or you want to browse your pics real quickly in full-screen to weed out the bad ones.

mercphoto

Crispin wrote:

Why the +JPG?? I have not understood why you want a top quality pic, straight from the sensor and a highly compressed JPG alongside it.

Andy pretty much nailed the explanation. Every event photographer I know of shoots JPG only and they pay attention to the processing parameters in the camera, their exposure settings, and their white balance. Event shooters don't have the time to deal with RAW. And the price-per-photo typically doesn't warrant the extra work either.

Another reason to shoot RAW+JPG is to have a JPG lying around for fast previewing. And that can often times be satisified with a medium sized JPG (or even a small one). That is enough to give you a good idea of focus, composition, and whether the image is worth further work on the RAW file. And medium JPGs load and preview very quickly. So rate and rank the JPG's, then work on the RAWs.

Remember, though, we're all shooting in RAW. The only difference is where the JPG converter is: in your camera, or in your computer.

luke_church

Crispin wrote:

What is the advantage?

I think that some cameras allow you to push JPG to one card and RAW to the other. I heard that some people use this to ensure that they get their photos independant of a single card failure.

This said card failures are so rare in the real world, that I really wouldn't worry too much about it. (Though interestingly, they don't seem to really like extreme conditions. The guy at Luminous Landscape described that on an expedition to Antarctica, his group had 2 card failures. From what he said, this was out of ~1TB of files)

I shoot RAW only when I can due to space concerns and RAW + JPG or JPG only when conditions force it (primarily a Sony camera). I must get round to having Photoshop auto-generate fast JPG previews from these... One day...

Luke