never shoot in raw?

[Jim Poor]

That's the key. Whichever you choose needs to work for you. Shooting JPG only is a risk, but for some the risk is worth it.

If you are confident that you can nail the exposure, white balance and everything else every time then you don't need the adjustments available in RAW format.

Even if you are not so confident, whether or not you need to be able to rescue any images that you miss any of those variables by a little bit will determine whether or not you need to shoot RAW.

All that being said, the pictures I make are too important to risk loosing just one because of something so simple as the choice between RAW and JPG, so I shoot RAW all the time.

The argument that disk space / card space is too valuable just doesn't hold water for the professional photographer and is pretty week for anyone who is even a remotely serious hobbyist. Memory is inexpensive (especially compared to the rest of the tools we use), so one can shoot all day on a single card now, and a 1 or 1.5 TB hard drive is well within the reach of anyone who can truly afford the equipment they are shooting with even in today's tough economy.

[Mr Guy]

Originally Posted by Jim Poor

The argument that disk space / card space is too valuable just doesn't hold water for the professional photographer and is pretty week for anyone who is even a remotely serious hobbyist. Memory is inexpensive (especially compared to the rest of the tools we use), so one can shoot all day on a single card now, and a 1 or 1.5 TB hard drive is well within the reach of anyone who can truly afford the equipment they are shooting with even in today's tough economy.

Sigh, perspective is a funny thing. I appear to be the only person left in the world that can't afford a laptop I'll hardly ever use and I've been trying to figure out how to deal with exactly this situation. I have a hard time justifying buying a memory card capture device just for one or two weekends a year, but then I struggle with buying extra memory cards for the exact same reason. My camera only takes the 2 gig SD cards, which is only 150ish shots raw. When I'm shooting in my home studio it's so easy to rotate through two or three cards and have them dumping onto the computer. Coming up this Saturday I'm working with another photography at an all day event rotating through 8 to 10 models with two designers on location at a club. It's much harder to justify having 30 memory cards to handle the load, but at the same time the difficulty of those lighting conditions makes it the ideal time to shoot raw in the first place.

It's driving me nuts trying to figure out what to do. Shooting jpeg, I'll be able to fit all the girls on the six cards I've got, but I'm much more likely to botch the balance and have to figure out how to fix it later. Argh!

[fletch]

Originally Posted by Mr Guy

...My camera only takes the 2 gig SD cards, which is only 150ish shots raw.

2GB San Disk SD cards are currently $6.35 on Amazon.com

I presume if you are shooting models the shoot in comercial. What is the cost of not getting the shot that you want or having to spend more time in PP than you would wish. I suspect that cost would be a lot higher than a measly $12 for two more quality cards. I can see cost being an issue when you are talking about 1TB drives to store your archive but it isn't really an issue with memory cards.

Here is the link: http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=12329863...in%3A673262011

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by kencaleno

You have just reinforced my point! It is just as easy to "fine tune" Jpegs as it is to fine tune Raw images-so why bother?
[...]
so I save only once and have virtually no loss of image quality-It would take at least a half-dozen saves to notice any degradation of image quality.
[...]
And I don't only know film as I got my diploma for advanced digital imaging in 2004. regards, Ken

To your first "point":
I said very clearly that RAW files allow for MORE and MORE POWERFUL fine-tuning than JPEGS. As has everyone else before me. Why is this so hard for you to understand?

To your second "point":
Saving over and over again does nothing to image quality. Nothing. Save at max quality and you won't lose a thing. And who even mentionned this in the first place? You're rebutting something that was never said.

To your third "point":
A diploma means nothing. Just because you have a piece of paper that says you spent a stupidly-long amount of time working on something doesnt mean you KNOW anything. It means someone thought you deserve a piece of paper.

I'm a university student, and have only been deep into digital for a few years, but already I know more than some people that have been doing it for years. And theyve admitted that to me. So your point is completely moot.

I dont understand why you're so stubborn on this. Just because people dont agree with you doesnt make them wrong. 40-some (constantly varying) years of experience, "writing a book" and so on means nothing when everybody else thinks you're wrong, or at least that you're being a grumpy little old man.

Now, before you get your shotgun, I'll get off your lawn.

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by Mr Guy

My camera only takes the 2 gig SD cards, which is only 150ish shots raw.

150 is plenty, to be honest. My D80 gets about 200-210 RAW files onto a 2GB card (which is all I use). The thing is, I've got 6 of them. The only time Ive even come close to filling up all 12GB is when I was on vacation, and even then I was being VERY snap-happy. I could see in a studio where youre firing off a shot a second or so, but even then, just take 2 minutes to change the card. Or, hell, shoot tethered. Youve got the option, and clearly want a simpler solution.

[Mr Guy]

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

150 is plenty, to be honest. My D80 gets about 200-210 RAW files onto a 2GB card (which is all I use). The thing is, I've got 6 of them. The only time Ive even come close to filling up all 12GB is when I was on vacation, and even then I was being VERY snap-happy. I could see in a studio where youre firing off a shot a second or so, but even then, just take 2 minutes to change the card. Or, hell, shoot tethered. Youve got the option, and clearly want a simpler solution.

That's exactly what I'm doing. 500 to 600 shots per model, 8 to 10 models straight: 30 cards! Even at $7 for the very slow cheap cards is $200! I know the ideal solution would be to eventually have a laptop to transfer images on the road, or some sort of back up drive. It just bugs me to have an extra hundred bucks in memory cards sitting around for something that I do a couple times a year!

I'm just grousing, really.

[fletch]

Originally Posted by Mr Guy

500 to 600 shots per model, 8 to 10 models straight: 30 cards!

Seriously 500-600 shots per model! That is a lot, how the hell do you proof 6000 shots? The answer may be to shoot less.

Fine JPEGs are only about 50% of the size of RAWs so do you already have 15 2GB cards or do you shoot in a lower quality? If its lower quality then you really will be suffering the effects of JPEG compression.

[Mr Guy]

Heh, it's just the workflow I'm used to. When I'm more confident, I'd probably take less, but I tend to bracket poses I like and do constant adjustments. I've never done something as massive as this upcoming weekend though, so I have no doubt I'll be backlogged after for quite a bit. High quality jpegs out of my camera are more like 20%, they run 2 to 3 a piece compared to the 9 to 11 for the RAW. I've got 9 cards now. In reality, I'm mostly just starting to get nervous about this weekend and talking through my concerns out loud as I'm trying to decide what to do. Last time I had less models but I also deliberately shot a little less than I would have preferred because I was worried about card space. Then proofing I felt like I didn't have the selection I wanted with the shots. I'm trying to avoid that this time but also trying not to invest heavily in equipment for a one or two time event, especially since I'm not getting paid for it. It's a purely TFP thing that another local photography and I have put together through contacts from modelmayhem, so there's the added pressure on me feeling like I have to give them value for their time.

My typical fashion session is about 100 to 200 shots in an hour, so yeah bursting up to several a minute (as fast as the strobes can recover!). I usually keep about 15% and really like about 5%. As I'm getting more confident, I'm keeping more and taking less, but I hate to not be prepared for worst case.

[Jim Bryant]

What year is this now...2009? A lot has changed since you graduated advanced digital imaging in 2004, Ken.

So, if you want to use compressed like colors when saving as a jpeg in camera, fine with me. Don't force your antiquated ideas on those of us who prefer to shoot in RAW. The advantages of shooting in RAW far outweigh those few space saving advantages in jpeg.


Originally Posted by kencaleno View Post
You have just reinforced my point! It is just as easy to "fine tune" Jpegs as it is to fine tune Raw images-so why bother?
[...]
so I save only once and have virtually no loss of image quality-It would take at least a half-dozen saves to notice any degradation of image quality.
[...]
And I don't only know film as I got my diploma for advanced digital imaging in 2004. regards, Ken

[fletch]

This thread inspried me to write a blog post about RAW. In doing so I tried to illustrate the difference by putting two files into the same image, one side the edited RAW file and one a JPEG with the camera's default settings. I thing the differnce is quite striking so I though I'd share it here as well.

Here's the image...



In the JPEG the shadow detail at the base is seemingly lost and some of the highlights are blown. If anyone wants to take this image and make the right side match the left then I may have to eat my words.