never shoot in raw?

[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?

[ChrisF79]

I cannot think of a single reason why you wouldn't want to shoot in RAW. I don't even see file size as an issue as memory is dirt cheap these days.

[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???

[OsmosisStudios]

Only other reason I can see is that it involves processing ALL your images in some sort of software. While this may seem kinda silly, try doing it for 1k+ images from a 10 day trip and you'll see what I mean. It can get... tedious.

I think the pros definitely outweigh the cons. Most people that advise against RAW are the old-schoolers: either the ones that think that its silly that anyone can get awesome pictures from just about anything, or the ones that just think theyre better.

[liverlipsyyz]

i go to this guy's site often. here's what he says about raw. http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/raw.htm i don't agree with the thing about software as i have elements 7 and no problems opening and working on raw files. what do you think of the rest of his rant?

[windrider86]

I can tell you one reason and its not my favorite. I purchased the Olympus E-520 and nothing I use recognizes the raw files that it produces- except for the Olympus program that doesnt really work well at all.
Not happy about it as shooting in raw has always been something i recommend because of its versatility.

[private]

Many sports photographers shoot in jpg - mainly b/c of speed. If you are the first one to get the "money" shot to your home office you win. If you are shooting in Raw, it just takes longer...and that's no good.

[Xposurepro]

Originally Posted by liverlipsyyz

i go to this guy's site often. here's what he says about raw. http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/raw.htm i don't agree with the thing about software as i have elements 7 and no problems opening and working on raw files. what do you think of the rest of his rant?

Ken Rockwell ... yeah you should hear how they go on about him on thephotoforum boards .. they really hate that guy over there. I wont beat on him like they do but I will recommend you avoid his site while learning. There is a lot of bad info there for somebody who doesn't know what to believe and what not to. As for this Tom Ang guy saying you shouldn't use RAW .. I think that is best answered with a question ... Who the heck is Tom Ang?

[fletch]

I'd listen to Scott Kelby over Ken Rockwell any day. He doesn't really talk a lot of sense a lot of the time IMO. His reasoning for not shooting RAW seems to be that in years to come you may not be able to read your RAW files beause the software will be out of date. Flawed logic as far as I can see, maybe you shouldn't archive in RAW but you should deffinately shoot in RAW unless their is a reason not to. Why?

12bit capture means more info in your shots
White balance, sharpening, clarity etc tailed to the shot rather than camera defaults
No JPEG compression, discarding data.
Loads of othe reasons.

If you really want a JPEG copy of each of your photos to keep Ken Rockwell happy then just convert them as a batch in your computer. It may take 5 mins to set up and run for a while on your computer but you don't need to do anything but do somehting else while you wait.

[Jim Bryant]

What ever he says about shooting is hockey putt! RAW gives you more latitude. It's basically a digital negative, which, in my humble opinion, forgives your mistakes you make in shooting JPG.