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

[Scatterbrain]

I'm due to do a toddler portrait shoot at a local forest this afternoon. It's a really dull day. It's not dark as such, just solid white cloud overhead ad no sun shining through at all. So quite a cold/flat light.

I think if I do manage to get any decent shots I'll probably have to do a fair amount of editting. Should I shoot in RAW? I haven't done his before but I understand that I'll be able to manipulate the resulting images better. Is it worth the risk if I don't yet now how to process them or would I be better just to stick with JPEG? Also, are there any particular things you need to take into consideration when shooting in RAW?

I'm assuming PSE5 can read raw files, or will I need to download something else?

Other than that I think i'll have to bite the bullet & use flash where required (430ex) and will take a gold reflector to try to warm up the colours on his face a little. Any other thoughts?

Thanks

Scatterbrain

[Sime]

I think shooting in RAW would be a good idea for you to try - that said, I'd go, right now and take your camera out and practice on anything, in raw, and then develop the shots to make sure you can actually work out how to do it. I use Lightroom and will never go back from shooting RAW 100% of the time. So much more flexibility. It could work quite well for you, you can work on the white balance and the color temp in lightroom (as you can in many other image processing applications) which should be helpful to you under the restraints of your shoot (flat light)

(And you'll be pleased to know that we've got that same, cold flat light here in London - you're not alone! :-)

Sime

[private]

And the same cold flat horrible light is here in Virginia (USA) I had a shoot yesterday with the same condition, I cannot waitto see what they look like... AND it was during the "golden hour"

If you shoot in RAW you will never go back - like Sime sd. I LOVE it, and its only b/c of folks here that I even tried it. So I am looking forward to seeing your first RAW photo

[oldwolf]

I shoot in RAW 100% of the time. Your camera should have come with some software on CDs. One of the programs is called Digital Photo Professional. You can manipulate your RAW files in there. If worse comes to worse and you don't want to mess with it then you can just convert your RAW files in there to jpg or tiff and work with them that way.

Like the others have said, once you go RAW (and figure out how to manipulate it) then you never go back.

[OsmosisStudios]

As with Oldwolf, i always shoot raw.

[ana.gr]

If you don't feel 100% at ease with RAW yet, you can set your camera to shoot both raw and jpg for every shot.

[Scatterbrain]

Thanks. I set the camera up to shoot both RAW & Jpeg in the end. I read up on raw processing, charged up my batteries, cleared my memory, cleaned my lenses. Got there & ... it rained! So a raincheck for this shoot, but the good thing is I got over my 'fear' of RAW & will keep it set lie this so I can experiment over the next couple of days.

Thanks for your help everyone.

Scatterbrain

[zeitz.photography]

I shoot RAW 100% of the time. So much easier to do post production with a RAW file.

[samleo]

I have to agree. I started shooting raw a while back and have never gone back to jpeg. There are a couple of basic raw converter software downloads on the net and they are free! I cannot remember the url but try your browser with-FastStone Image viewer and Stepok's Raw importer.

[mazhawes]

Yes, what they all said, it's RAW every time. However I would recommend you to be scrupulous with your workflow because RAW files take up a helluva lot of room... I learnt this after filling up my hard drive very quickly!