Quote:
Originally Posted by Grobby
I recently attended a workshop with Tom Ang, and the RAW vs JPG took far too much time. Honestly it's worse than the Mac vs PC debate, or the Ford vs Holden (ANZ people will appreciate that one).
Before anyone flames me, tries to convince me otherwise, just remember it's a personal preference. Personally I'd rather trust the engineers that built the JPG algorithm into my camera 99% of the time.
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Grobby, please don't consider this a flame, but I think you're missing the point of RAW. It's not a PC/Mac or Coke/Pepsi question. It's a matter of data. RAW files have more usable data. They capture a higher dynamic range and a wider color range than JPEG is capable of. That's not really a debatable point, so it's not at all like Mac or PC.
Working with them requires a separate step of processing and that is the downside of working with RAW. You can take the software's defaults and crunch out a jpeg just like your camera does and if that's good, then that's fine. Though I'll disagree that the in-camera jpeg algorithm in the camera is superior to one in software in your computer. Cameras have little tiny low-power processors. The algorithms there have to be generally very compact so as to be fast and not use much battery, so compromises between quality and speed need to be made. As a result they might not provide the quality that computer based software can bring where no such compromises exist.
If you are going to do any post-processing at all, I think there's little doubt that RAW gives you far greater flexibility than jpeg. It's not a matter of being "comfortable" shooting in jpeg. I certainly could. But I don't want to loose any data the camera captures. If you shoot in JPEG that's what the camera does... it tosses away a whole bunch of data before it writes the file to the card. How valuable that data is depends on whether you think you might
ever want to do any post-processing on that photo.
Don't get me wrong here. There's nothing wrong with shooting in jpeg. Most camera phones do and although those aren't generally great hardware for taking photos, in the hands of a talented photographer, they can produce amazing photographs. And the highest-end digital SLR can produce junk in RAW mode if the photographer isn't good at their craft and it can produce stunning images in jpeg if the photographer is good.
But if you have a camera that can shoot in RAW and if you want to have the most flexibility in getting the image the way you want it to be, then I highly suggest that you try to start working with RAW files. If you don't usually do anything with the photos after they're taken, then sure... shoot in jpeg in the camera since that saves you the extra step of processing.
-Steve