never shoot in raw?

[Sime]

When I was shooting at the RedBull Air Race, All the guys were shooting raw.

raw -> capture one -> little bit of lightroom or aperture -> export to jpg -> upload

Raw... I'll never go back, I can't see any reason why I would.

[kirbinster]

You have to be crazy to shoot anything other than raw with only one exception. If super fast frame rate is what you need then shoot jpeg and give up quality for speed. Otherwise raw is the only way to go.

When you shoot jpeg what you are actually doing is taking a picture in raw, allowing the camera to process it as it wants to and then throwing away all the data that the camera decided you did not need. I like to make decisions myself rather than let the camera determine what is best for me.

[candleman]

i havn't read all of this.. but the only against raw is it can take allot of time..
but i shoot jpeg+raw

i usually delete most of the raw files if i'm appy with the jpegs.
i do keep the raw files and jpegs of those i would want to come back to, or those i think could be particularly useful in the future

[chopstickjayne]

Does it matter if you use RAW or sRAW? What is the difference (explained in a way that a "regular" person can understand )?

THANKS!
Jayne

[Mr Guy]

I think you're missing his point because you're applying knowledge that he doesn't expect you to have. Granted, I haven't read the book, but from the description you posted, I think he's saying the following: For a very novice user choose the very best setting of jpeg because if you use a lower setting of jpeg, you will lose quality that cannot be replaced. However, as a novice user there are additional hurdles to cover when shooting in TIFF or RAW that may require some additional education, so as a novice user it is probably preferable to let the camera make those decisions.

[OsmosisStudios]

I know i started with JPG when I first got my D80, only because I didnt know how to deal with RAW. man do I wish I had gone straight to RAW.

Hindsight is 20/20, though.

[B..]

Originally Posted by liverlipsyyz

i'm reading a book by tom ang and he states never to shoot in raw. everything i have read by scott kelby says you have to be crazy not to shoot in raw. other than file size is there any reason not to shoot in raw?

The workflow for post-processing a raw photo is different. It's, maybe, like the difference between a command-line interface and a windowing-system interface. You need to know a lot of 'under the cover' stuff. The upside is, you have a lot more control of that 'under the cover' stuff.

A more concrete example ... at work many of my colleagues use Windows XP Explorer's "search" feature. Because I'm a command-line nerd, I have found that the command-line command "findstr" is much faster. Some of my colleagues are willing to wait for Explorer "search". Others of them are grateful when I show them "findstr".

Ya' pays yer money and ya' takes yer chances.

[MarioG]

I think that not shooting in RAW, especially when you are learning, is a mistake. RAW gives you a chance to experiment more with your shots and learn what works and what does not.

Cropping and correcting exposure and white balance are just the most obvious.
For long lasting archival, you can allways convert to DNG.

I've read a lot of K. Rockwell's pieces. His aversion for RAW sometimes seems leaning towards boasting of been able to get the perfect shot every time. Some of the advise and technique explanations are Ok. But on the whole, I agree with the previous post... I wished that I had found DPS before I found Rockwell's site.

[Japaslavian]

I don't shoot in RAW.
Has nothing to do with file size, or speed or anything like that.
I did for maybe a month or so, but I just never really did anything in the RAW editors, and I rarely keep anything in full color anyway. Besides, I usually spend 10 minutes on a shot in Photoshop max. I generally try to get everything in camera as correct as I want it, and just make very minor adjustments after. I just can't see shooting in RAW making that much of a difference for my stuff.

So in conclusion, shooting in JPG format is for the lazy, and those who couldn't be bothered.

[RoyL]

Originally Posted by liverlipsyyz

i couldn't think of any reasons either but i'm just a beginner. ang's books states: "use the camera's highest setting, but avoid RAW or TIFF settings unless you have a specific need for these formats, such as printing large images. you can always reduce the size of the image but you cannot put back quality that is not already in the image". is he suggesting you lose quality shooting in RAW? i don't really understand his point of why not to shoot in RAW???

Tell Mr Ang that he is a moron. How anyone can say that a camera produced jpeg is better than Raw defies all logic. I don't know who the person is but if they are professional wildlife photographers in Africa then there is a possibility that they would say that. You would be amazed at the number of professionals that never get past Auto on their camera's, and they view anything else as Amateur.

I know I have said before that if the general consencis is then follow the one that isn't but in this case I think that the thousands of books, tutorials, courses, diploma's and degree's that stipulate that Raw is the best format would suggest that ang is wrong.

If all things being equal, Raw image has 10megapixels and the jpeg has 10megapixels, the jpeg does not contain a bit bucket for later processing it has already been processed on board the camera and even worse is that the contrast in teh image is increased by the camera to give the impression of sharpness to the eye, whereas Raw is just a collection of bits in a bucket (pixel) all 12 bits and each bit describes the tonality of that image. No Processing is done at all on a Raw image so what the fool is talking about I don't know.