This is why you should shoot in RAW and not delete "bad" photos

[kalendae]

you guys that shoot in raw, do u save all the raw files? or convert them then ditch? they can take up space quite quickly at 25megs a pop!!

[KathyA]

Originally Posted by manwez

My camera has the option to shoot RAW + jpg so it takes one of each. Do you think that is a good idea or not a good idea, or indifferent? I've been trying to figure out the advantages to shooting in RAW and you might finally have me convinced! Great save!

After finally getting a camera that could shoot RAW, I started doing RAW + jpeg. After a month or so, I realized the jpeg was a waste. The extra time I spent to transfer the extra files to the computer was way more than the little I saved the very few times I used the jpeg straight from the camera. For the last year I've shot just RAW and haven't missed the jpegs a bit.

[KathyA]

Originally Posted by kalendae

you guys that shoot in raw, do u save all the raw files? or convert them then ditch? they can take up space quite quickly at 25megs a pop!!

I convert the Canon RAW to dng when I import, which usually drops it down to 10-15 megs and is usable by more programs. I do delete a few (major techinical flaws like bad focus or someone walked right in front of the camera), but with the low price of hard drives now I'm not too worried.

[Grobby]

Originally Posted by manwez

My camera has the option to shoot RAW + jpg so it takes one of each. Do you think that is a good idea or not a good idea, or indifferent? I've been trying to figure out the advantages to shooting in RAW and you might finally have me convinced! Great save!

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).

Tom said, shoot RAW if the situation requires it. Obviously this concert did, but shooting in perfect light may not. The other reason to shoot RAW is if you are not comfortable enough to shoot in JPG.

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.

[zephod]

Personally I shoot in raw, convert to DNG, cull shots I don't want/like, dump it to my laptop where I make a file copy to my external hard drive with the date and a brief (2-3 word) description in case I need it later. Then I go back for edits and see what works. I think having external storage just makes it easier especially if you are working with a lot of files and lets be honest a few tweaks in DNG and most of the time you don't HAVE to do much PP.

That's just my .02

Doug

[matthewrigdon]

Originally Posted by Grobby

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.

Adobe (and other software makers) have some pretty impressive engineering talent working for them. And the processor inside your computer is liable to be far more capable than anything you can fit into a camera. Plus, every camera maker produces software that leverages that engineering knowledge on a platform with superior memory and processor capabilities.

That said, I shoot RAW and small JPEG with my 5Dmk2, partly because I think one day I'll start putting the JPEGs straight onto Flickr or something (I won't because I like to tweak too much, even though the engineers are "better" than me), but I will say having the small JPEGs makes it easy to do a quick slideshow of what I've just loaded on my computer, much faster than waiting for a RAW processor to produce previews. Lightroom and Aperture can take advantage of embedded JPEGs to speed up the review process as well.

[canonrt]

That is definitely the most unbelievable example of the advantage to using RAW that I have ever seen!

When I am shooting something very important, or if there is going to be some tricky lighting I switch to RAW + JPEG. For instance, the fireworks from this past 4th of July. The only disadvantage is the memory card space RAW eats up. I shot 139 photos of the fireworks & had to change an 8G card at just over a 100 photos on my Canon 50D.

They were all 5 sec exposures, if you want to see them:

John Nadrowski : photos : Fireworks July 5 2009 16th Street Park Bayonne NJ

[KathyA]

Originally Posted by Grobby

Before anyone flames me, tries to convince me otherwise, just remember it's a personal preference.

Very good point there. Hopefully everyone will at least give RAW a good try before making up their minds. Ultimately, you need to choose what gives you the most satisfaction, either as a hobby or a business.

Originally Posted by Grobby

Personally I'd rather trust the engineers that built the JPG algorithm into my camera 99% of the time.

Unfortunately, companies that make great hardware don't always make great software, and vice versa. You're also relying on the personal preferences of their engineers -- you might like your photos more or less contrasty than they do, you might not be happy with their white balance, etc.

[sdo]

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.

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

[ntinlizi]

wow i had idea shots like the white screen could be fixed! ive deleted sooo many white screens. im gonna start keeping them now and playing around with them. thanks for sharing!