Quick Q - Outdoor portrat shoot on a dull day - should I shoot in RAW?

[Scatterbrain]

Thanks everyone. That shoot didn't go ahead in the end due to rain, but I did keep the RAW + Jpeg setting on when I took some photographs yesterday. I'm glad I did as I managed to rescue a gorgeous, but overexposed image.

I'm not 100% of the workflow etc as I just opened the images up in Digital Photo Professional (came with the camera) & colour corrected it. I did the same with the jpeg & it makes a huge amount of difference. Both are grainy, but the colours in the raw file are so much better.
Thanks

Scatterbrain

[takethislife5150]

RAW would definitely be the way to go here, much more options as far as manipulation in PP goes..

[dhart]

I shoot in raw and jpg. I haven't found a really quick way of batch processing RAW, so I shoot in jpg in order to preview the photos on my computer, see which ones are worth messing with or saving and then only processing those from raw. The size of the jpg depends on what I am doing - if I am just out for a little while, I will shoot in raw+normal or raw+fine so I won't have to even open the raw unless I need to adjust something. If I am at a longer event where I am concerned about memory issues, I will shoot in raw+basic.

[kencaleno]

At risk of everyone venting their wrath at me, I never shoot raw, and I shoot professionally-Most of my 47 years of photography has been with film,where you don't get the results until your slides come back from processing-and as slides could not be post-processed, it became necessary to master exposure, etc.,and I still retain this knowledge-It's not hard to learn,made easier with Digital cameras,and you are not filling up memory cards,or spending so much time at the computer getting exposure right,white balance right,and color correct. It seems that a lot of amateur photographers tend to want to fix things afterwards, instead of getting them right in camera. For My take on Digital photography(getting it right in the camera) E-mail me- gloriaj@xtra.co.nz Regards, ken

[FullAperture]

I love to beat a dead hose.

RAW always.

Shooting in JPEG compresses your image. Shooting raw preserves all details. Color balancing is a breaze. If you use lightroom, fixing a batch of photos is no harder than importing them.

The only thing that would stop you is do you have enough space to store RAW?

[Scatterbrain]

If you shoot in Jpeg & RAW do you still take the RAW file & convert it if the image doesn't look like it needs any colour correction & is exposed correctly?

I use an external memory drive with 500gb memory on it so hopefully I'll be able to store some RAW files too.

Scatterbrain

[JerBear]

Shoot raw, if you can, set your system to shoot raw and jpg.

No offense, but why would anyone restrain themselves from all the extra information that raw provides?

JM

[Scatterbrain]

Originally Posted by JerBear

No offense, but why would anyone restrain themselves from all the extra information that raw provides?

Fear of the unknown I guess. I didn't know how to process them. I still don't really, but I can open, colour correct and convert so enough to make shooting in raw & jpeg worth doing.

S

[kencaleno]

Originally Posted by JerBear

Shoot raw, if you can, set your system to shoot raw and jpg.

No offense, but why would anyone restrain themselves from all the extra information that raw provides?




JM

Where time is money: A busy portrait/Wedding photography business. Ken:

[fletch]

Originally Posted by kencaleno

Where time is money: A busy portrait/Wedding photography business. Ken:

Not sure I really understand why shooting in RAW takes longer. If you get all of your settings correct in camera then it is a very simple and quick batch process to get all the files converted to JPG. Can be done in the background or while you go for lunch etc. and you will end up with the same result as shooting straight to JPG. However you will have the RAW file for the 10% of shots you want to work on a bit. Uncoverted in all their glorious unprocessed form.