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Raw is so great always...


- From today, a backstage capture from a friend's photo session -

iposiniditos
There are many who shoot JPGs. Most of them would have got the exposure right in the first place.

For small family events where i cbf processing everything i shoot jpegs... if you expose correctly it works out fine

I seem to do alright with just jpg.
Regards Colin

I never shoot JPEG - RAW only. Why use crayons when you can use oils

Matt. K wrote:iposiniditos
There are many who shoot JPGs. Most of them would have got the exposure right in the first place.

Ouch.

You are a hard man Matt.



Theo - no, RAW is best.

i shoot jpg

I shoot jpg as well, as i used to shoot RAW and love it but for my work i need to get the pics up onsite as soon as possible so RAW is great if you have time and i take a lot of shots so jpg is fine for me and raw is ok if only taking a few pics.

Cheers
BBJ

Matt. K wrote:iposiniditos
There are many who shoot JPGs. Most of them would have got the exposure right in the first place.

Really?
So then i have to ask them how could i exposure right in a studio with only the pilot from a softbox
(i was doing backstage), handeheld and without pushing the d2xs to 1600 iso
(because then the noise would be more visible than the model...)
Feel free to teach me...

i shoot RAW + JPEG

iposiniditos wrote: how could i exposure right in a studio with only the pilot from a softbox
(i was doing backstage), handeheld and without pushing the d2xs to 1600 iso
(because then the noise would be more visible than the model...)
Feel free to teach me...

I believe that is where this

BBJ wrote:I shoot jpg as well, as i used to shoot RAW and love it but for my work i need to get the pics up onsite as soon as possible so RAW is great if you have time and i take a lot of shots so jpg is fine for me and raw is ok if only taking a few pics.BBJ

Is applicable

I came up with a workflow using nikon and photoshop, where I shot RAW + JPG. I edited the raw and also added some colour/hue info from the JPG because I liked the nikon algorithms but hated the nikon software. It was a quick and dirty workaround.

I shoot RAW+jpg ..
but I must say Theo - that is a really well done 'save' !!

100% jpeg and lovin it.

iposiniditos
That's a different question. You are shooting RAW as a way to 'push' your exposure and that's a useful technique if you don't have the light. Dragging your exposure out of the shadows using Photoshop that way will introduce it's own level of noise anyway. I'd be curious to see a controlled noise test where shooting at ISO 1600 and removing noise = underexposing by 4 stops and using exposure compensation. All roads lead to Damascus! I guess It's a good strategy under those circumstances but not a reason to shoot RAW all the time.

For me, a working metaphor for RAW vs JPEG is chromes vs polaroids. Only that it doesn't quite capture the limitations of in-camera JPEG-conversion, and the flexibility of RAW.

The most important aspect for me is the dynamic range compression I can do in PP. JPEGs are limited to a dynamic range of 8 bits, whereas RAW files have 12 bits or more. That's at least 16 times the dynamic range. With in-camera conversion I have to live with whatever the camera image processor comes up with*. With RAW (out-of-camera conversion) I can play with pulling down the highlights and pushing up the shadows until I like the result.

Cheers
Steffen.

* the latest Nikon DSLRs apparently have some quite impressive dynamic range compression abilities

Use jpg, to dumb to use RAW

Steffen wrote:For me, a working metaphor for RAW vs JPEG is chromes vs polaroids. Only that it doesn't quite capture the limitations of in-camera JPEG-conversion, and the flexibility of RAW.

The most important aspect for me is the dynamic range compression I can do in PP. JPEGs are limited to a dynamic range of 8 bits, whereas RAW files have 12 bits or more. That's at least 16 times the dynamic range. With in-camera conversion I have to live with whatever the camera image processor comes up with*. With RAW (out-of-camera conversion) I can play with pulling down the highlights and pushing up the shadows until I like the result.

Cheers
Steffen.

* the latest Nikon DSLRs apparently have some quite impressive dynamic range compression abilities

Spot on

The analogy to film is, I think, appropriate, with the added benefit afforded to digital viz a viz the ability to process each shot according to its exposure.

Unless you use the option to process negs individually (LF or ignoring other negs on a roll), for most film shooters, if they try to push their exposure and over develop, they have to apply this process to all shots on the film. This would be akin to processing a RAW image to extract highlights and shadow detail without introducing too much noise, however, you can do this one shot at a time. You can adjust your ISO one shot at a time irrespective of what you had done to the other shots on the card.

Anyway, I shoot R&J as I don't trust myself to get the exposure right straight away.

I shoot raw + jpg ....

jpg gives me the ability to quickly grab a shot and do what I will with it, provided I've not screwed everything up.

But for when I have screwed most things up - that's a "when", not an "if" - I can always revert to the raw and launch a rescue mission.

The film analogy is really more akin to shooting trannies on movie stock: You have your final product immediately available, but you also have a full negative available should you need it.

sirhc55 wrote:I never shoot JPEG - RAW only. Why use crayons when you can use oils

Crayons, oils, coloured pencils, it didn't matter which one I used, I could never keep between the lines....

Incidentally, I usually shoot RAW + jpeg except for surf/actions shots where it's always jpgs.

There are, IMO, two types of film professionals. Take one professional out into the big bad world to shoot anything from sports to landscapes. The other would work in a studio. Over the years of working with film pros there was one fact that applied to both - shoot - shoot and shoot again the same shot (or subject). The idea being that at least one of the shots would be acceptable. Today in the digital world the same axiom applies. When studio shooting I always bracket my shots to cover the shoot - shoot and shoot again paradigm. In the field you do not have such a finite control over shooting. A classic example would be the A1 GP, you can’t stop the race and ask everyone to go back so you can get the shot you missed.

What, you may ask, has this to do with the RAW vs JPEG conundrum? Simple - control. Today we have far more control over what we can do after the shoot but only if we use RAW. RAW gives you the ability to fine tune a photo especially when field shooting. It also enables HDR. JPEG or jpg does not offer the same kind of control and as Matt.K said ”most of them would have got the exposure right in the first place” which as any who are aware of Matt’s humour will realise is a tongue in cheek answer.

Put simply, if you are a total professional with the perfect touch in controlling exposure and you have a personal pact with the man up stairs then JPEG is the way to go. But, if you are a normal human being who makes mistakes then RAW is your god.

On the other hand I could be talking total bollocks and in desperate need of a psychiatrist

gstark wrote:I shoot raw + jpg ....

jpg gives me the ability to quickly grab a shot and do what I will with it, provided I've not screwed everything up.

But for when I have screwed most things up - that's a "when", not an "if" - I can always revert to the raw and launch a rescue mission.

Agreed.

I also find the Raw + Jpeg option much quicker for just flicking through and checking out what you've shot.

I'm not perfect, we are all human, and we screw stuff up. I'd much prefer to save an under/overexposed shot with my raw converted than hassling the rider to re-shoot something... something that they might not want to actually do again.

If you have the hard drive space to store raw files, and a computer that is fast enough to process your stuff, then why the heck not?

Very nice save indeed!

And I always shoot RAW. I think half the fun is processing images; well I think so anyways. Aperture/CS3/NEF all work very well together for me.

I never shoot RAW for Motorsport. If I stuff the image, I'll wait for the car on the next lap :p

Seriously though, I don't have the time to process the huge number of .jpg images that I shoot, they ALL go up straight from the camera. If they were all RAW.. OMG, I'd never get them on-line..

I am just a lucky SOB and I think that my hit/miss ratio is pretty good considering.

Don't get me wrong, I don't go for the "money shot" every time and get it, but I shoot the images I CAN get and then if I have time, play about and try to get the harder stuff once I have enough keepers that will make my customers happy.

I will always remember when I was shooting a Dutton Rally a few years ago and another (quite well known, and very well paid) photograher that was there shooting for a magazine came up to me whilst we were running the "slide show" during the evening dinner function and commented on the great shots etc and he asked how we managed to sort the photos and get them processed so quickly. I said, "Umm, they are just running straight from the camera"
He didn't believe me so I pointed to the (then D60) that was plugged into the projector running the slide show. He replied, " F%#*.. I never show any of my photos until I have fixed them up".

I just smiled... Not in a smug way, but took that as a compliment...

your very savvy with your photoshop

but in the real world most professionals shoot jpeg for speed

for getty i shoot all press events in jpeg even the really cool ones
the getty field tool that processes captions and uploads press images only works with jpegs
and i find shooting in jpeg aint that much of a big deal if it's shot right you dont really need to fix it up and in press its all about speed and workflow no time to process 60 images
just move on to the next event
i
although i must admit when i shoot a sydney dance event in jpeg with high iso i wish i could shoot raw + jpeg but it prooves to slow but i only have a d2x

but im realising that you didnt post ths thread to really start a discussion about who shoots in jpeg

Wendellt, since the D2x exposes and white balances in such a correct manner, there is no need to shoot raw indeed.

Nice idea Theo, good technique.

I only shoot JPG and agree with Jason, shooting RAW for motorsports is just another level of PPing to be done. With thousands of images following a meet, I can be stuffed shooting RAW, not to mention the file size is so much larger also.

A couple of weddings I have shot I use RAW, but I've got time afterwards to play in Bibble and fix exposure etc.

I shoot raw, but I am open to alternatives.

Viz wrote:I came up with a workflow using nikon and photoshop, where I shot RAW + JPG. I edited the raw and also added some colour/hue info from the JPG because I liked the nikon algorithms but hated the nikon software. It was a quick and dirty workaround.

Viz,

I also prefer Nikon algorithms, but my laptop hates Nikon software. I would like to know more about your "quick and dirty workaround". Links?
Any help would be appreciated.

sirhc55 wrote:
On the other hand I could be talking total bollocks and in desperate need of a psychiatrist

The possibility does NOT exist Chris , and if does I feel sorry for the psychiastrist
but really unless your a press photog and in a hurry ,you be silly not to use both RAW and JPG.
NeoN
http://www.redbubble.com/people/neophytos

Good discussion. With the d70 and d200, I always (nearly always anyway) shoot RAW+JPEG. If I really want to keep a shot I usually go back to the raw, correct wb, exposure etc.

With the d3 I have got some fantastic results from just JPEG. Last week I went away with the d3 and just shot TIFF as an experiment. That was an interesting exercise (at 35MB per shot it sure fills up a 4gig card fast) and the results were fantastic. This camera is so good at getting the exposure and wb right that a lot of the reasons for using raw are reduced. And from talking to a workmate with a d300, it's results are similarly good.

I still have heaps of learning to do with the d3, but where I am at currently is:

d3: Normal stuff and especially sport: JPEG
d3: HDR stuff: TIFF (just removes one step from the PP)
d3: If I absolutely must have a perfect image: RAW+JPEG

d70, d200 as 2nd cameras: definately RAW+JPEG


Cheers
John

It's probably a little more handy with the D70, as it usually underexposes when shooting in a priority mode.

With the price of media so low these days there isn't any reason to shoot jpeg, unless of course you have a really slow PC or don't know how to batch convert your .raw files. shooting jpeg only is kind of like keeping the prints and throwing out the negatives.

G'day

Many of the folks here are in what I'd loosely consider to be in the "pro" or "pro-sumer" markets in the eyes of the marketing ppl. I'm very much in the "consumer" end of the market. Nevertheless, I thought I'd throw in a view from the lower end of the pond.

I don't have space or storage issues but I do have time issues. Time to take shots is very rare and time to post process shots is equally rare. A month in which I can use the camera 4 times and take a total of 500 images is very rare indeed.

I do enjoy time spent PP'ing but I need practise, to get better by doing it more. I love taking shots but I need practice, to get better by doing it more. I shoot raw + jpg. The jpg's give me images that I can look at straight away, I've made a couple of setting changes on the D70S that generally improve more images than they detract from. Often, I never get the time to even look at the raw files. However for the occaisional shot that warrants it, or sometimes just for fun, I will do some PP on a raw file. The jpg acts as giving me a base, or default of the image's possibilities and everything I do to the raw is aimed at going one step (or more) better than that. I never make changes to the jpg's, only the nef's. I try to ensure that all my editing steps are reverseable. I'd like to believe that maybe one day in the future I might have the time to do it again and better.

My workflow is also simpler by the sound of it than many. Initially I download into a folder on my desktop or laptop and I use ViewNX to skim through the images making the obvious deletions. From there the jpg's and nef's go to different folders and drives on my fileserver at home. The jpg's into folders where the main viewing tool I use is ThumbsPlus. The nef's live elsewhere and the main tool I use for image manipulation is CaptureNX. The more I use CaptureNX the more I find it suits my approach to editing. I do have PS CS2 but I think it overkill for the sorts of edits I generally want to make. I think the raw reader in PS is not up to much, in fact crappy springs to mind, I don't like sidecar files. If I must use PS for editing (like removing the ex-wife), I will use CaptureNX to create a tiff to move it into PS for some down and dirty pixel editing.

Okay, enough waffle - please understand I'm still in my *waiting for the D300 to arrive mode*. It is now 6 days and 10 hours since ordering and paying for it. No tracking/shipping number yet. *sigh*.

Thanks if you made it this far.
Bob in Bull Creek

edited for typos

I shoot RAW. With Lightroom it takes next to no time to make the same corrections the camera would make, and if you want to adjust it slightly it's just a few more secs. Easy and quick. And for those special shots I've got the latitude to fix it. I'd go through each shot anyway to determine if it's a keeper, and also analyse what worked and what didn't. Adding a RAW conversion to that doesn't take long. If time is desperate then just bulk-apply the same corrections to all and export. Disk space is cheap.

Be stuffed if im processing or storing ~1k+ photos from each event!!!!!!

I shoot raw only when it's needed

Matt. K wrote:iposiniditos
That's a different question. You are shooting RAW as a way to 'push' your exposure and that's a useful technique if you don't have the light. Dragging your exposure out of the shadows using Photoshop that way will introduce it's own level of noise anyway. I'd be curious to see a controlled noise test where shooting at ISO 1600 and removing noise = underexposing by 4 stops and using exposure compensation. All roads lead to Damascus! I guess It's a good strategy under those circumstances but not a reason to shoot RAW all the time.

Interesting subject which has received quite a bit attention on DPReview. Julia Borg always seems to be at the centre of it all if anyone is keen to search.

One such test (if memory serves). http://www.pochtar.com/push_test_psd.zip Warning!! 120MB file.

The following link is another comparison.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read. ... e=21927638

*sticks up hand and hides behind a chair* yep, i shoot mainly jpeg.

However there was this one time i decided to play with RAW and im very glad that i did - the D70s' AWB wasnt accurate (common problem? i dunno.. happens a lot with the low light work i do, but it could be due to the Flash WB being automatically used since i had an SB800 to provide some fill)
Anyways, shot the whole event in RAW, corrected the WB issues and golly gosh was there a huge difference between the norm JPEGS and the final submitted ones..

My belief, like some of you, is that RAW is reserved for the most important stuff - where max quality is needed.. then again, everything is important i guess.

Chris, I read an article a few years ago about some press photogs being sent on assignments - they also take many shots of one subject, in the hope that one will be the best.
"shoot - shoot and shoot again the same shot (or subject). The idea being that at least one of the shots would be acceptable"
That is pretty much how i shoot and what runs thru my head when i shoot (JPEG). Yes, it decreases efficiency of workflow and pisses people off (those who have to deal with the images after, having 20 or however many images of the same subject to choose from). But it gets the shot i want (usually).
"A classic example would be the A1 GP, you can’t stop the race and ask everyone to go back so you can get the shot you missed."
Comes quite handy also when shooting gigs in crap light or when they move quite erratically.
Many criticise me on this technique/habit/method/whatever though..

Jason, I rarely ever process my images apart from resizing/watermarking or whatever. No adjustments are made. Reason - same as yours but due to the above way of shooting - it would simply take forever..
It's the joy of shooting motorsport and other sports.. you get many chances to get what u want.
"I shoot the images I CAN get and then if I have time, play about and try to get the harder stuff once I have enough keepers that will make my customers happy."
I'm also a believer of this one. There's no point chasing the money shots and coming back empty handed or with a handful of lousy failed attempts.

John, i was also suprised at how few images my new 4GB card could hold on my D300.. i was expecting around 500 (since JPEG Fine on D70s & 2GB card = 500-600 shots, so 12MP on 4GB i thought would yield similar capacity)
Im blaming the increased image quality/dynamic range preservation (not that it's a bad thing!)

Bugeyes, media might be cheap but fast & quality media @ a cheap price rarely lasts long im waiting for some suppliers to restock on Extreme 4's.. 8GB cards next.

Bob, your views on PPing are like mine - if the image needs it, ill PP it. if it will pass, meh..
"The jpg acts as giving me a base, or default of the image's possibilities and everything I do to the raw is aimed at going one step (or more) better than that."
ditto..
"I try to ensure that all my editing steps are reverseable. I'd like to believe that maybe one day in the future I might have the time to do it again and better."
Which is why i use layer masking and painting out areas rather than eraser or similar non-reversible methods.

That's my thoughts for the day, how many of you are still awake after reading?

-j