Using RAW

And another thing to consider, is continuous shooting. When shooting fast bursts, the camera first saves the files to its internal memory - often referred to as buffer - before writing them to the memory card, because writing to the memory card is just a lot slower. At some point, the buffer fills up, then the camera has to write the shots to the memory card to free up space for the next shots in the sequence, at which point the burst rate is determined by the card's speed. In entry-level models, that buffer capacity is typically pretty small, and can only hold about a second's worth of Raw files. But if you shoot JPEG only, it can usually keep on shooting for much longer. Many sports photographers shoot JPEG only for that reason, but also speed up their workflow, which needs to be brutally quick.
 
End of the day as Kipax said don't do it because you think you should (or other people think you should) , do it if you want to or think it will benefit your photography.

Personally I shoot raw for weddings and other such work , and for landscapes and static nature

I shoot jpeg for anything thats fast moving - whether thats sport or nature like diving gannets , I also shoot jpeg for record shots and the like - basically because i don't want to PP 3000 images of trees.

End of the day thers nowt wrong with shooting jpeg if you want - but shooting raw will give you a greater flexibility in some circumstances , only you can decide whether its worth it or not
 
My take on that (but remember - if you ever knew it - that I'm a film user, not a digital one) is that I can never be certain in advance that even a "grab" shot might not assume greater importance later than it did at the time. If you choose to disable raw file storage before the event (rather than deleting them post capture) via a menu item, you can never go back.

It's easy for me to say (because my file sizes are much larger than yours anyway) that I'd leave raw cature enabled and just not use the file if I didn't need to. But I'd presonally still keep it.

Just in passing - you do have a backup strategy for your files, I hope?
 
Here are a couple of the ones I did yesterday. I shot in Raw, and jpeg, but only really used the raw ones, so don't really know which was "better". TBH, the photos were either rubbish or not, anyway, regardless. As said, shooting raw will not make a crap photograph better.

This was casually out and about in Ripon, with OH. (No tripod, weather a bit naff, and with OH, so couldn't take too much time).


 
I'll throw in my 2 cents worth as I have been a 600D owner for over 2 years and always used raw......until last week, 2 years of ACR adjusting to suit then tweaking in PS, no two photos are the same so each photo requires different adjustments, no big deal really except for the time it consumes.
Last week I thought lets try jpeg for a change, I went through the various picture styles and settled on faithful with a push on contrast and a shift on colour tone. The various photos I took looked ok on the viewfinder but I waited until I got home to view them on the monitor to judge them, sure they were not perfect but a lot better than I thought they would be. Next time out I used raw + jpeg as a comparison, my edited raw files were on par with the in camera jpegs. I then for a further comparison opened the out of camera jpeg files in ACR and edited them further, guess what I now use jpegs and tweak them in ACR. I know it's the wrong way to go but hey....I get better results in half the time.

It may not work for all but with the in camera settings lowered you have still got a bit of leeway on the recovery side in ACR.
 
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StephenM said:
Just in passing - you do have a backup strategy for your files, I hope?
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Yes, thanks. I've got an external hard drive.

StephenM said:
My take on that (but remember - if you ever knew it - that I'm a film user, not a digital one) is that I can never be certain in advance that even a "grab" shot might not assume greater importance later than it did at the time. If you choose to disable raw file storage before the event (rather than deleting them post capture) via a menu item, you can never go back.
It's easy for me to say (because my file sizes are much larger than yours anyway) that I'd leave raw cature enabled and just not use the file if I didn't need to. But I'd presonally still keep it.
Click to expand...

I agree, and I did think of that.

Ido Scharf said:
And another thing to consider, is continuous shooting. When shooting fast bursts, the camera first saves the files to its internal memory - often referred to as buffer - before writing them to the memory card, because writing to the memory card is just a lot slower. At some point, the buffer fills up, then the camera has to write the shots to the memory card to free up space for the next shots in the sequence, at which point the burst rate is determined by the card's speed. In entry-level models, that buffer capacity is typically pretty small, and can only hold about a second's worth of Raw files. But if you shoot JPEG only, it can usually keep on shooting for much longer. Many sports photographers shoot JPEG only for that reason, but also speed up their workflow, which needs to be brutally quick.
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That IS interesting. Thanks for the info and the tip! I don't do a lot of continous stuff, but it is useful to know

big soft moose said:
End of the day as Kipax said don't do it because you think you should (or other people think you should) , do it if you want to or think it will benefit your photography.

Personally I shoot raw for weddings and other such work , and for landscapes and static nature

I shoot jpeg for anything thats fast moving - whether thats sport or nature like diving gannets , I also shoot jpeg for record shots and the like - basically because i don't want to PP 3000 images of trees.

End of the day thers nowt wrong with shooting jpeg if you want - but shooting raw will give you a greater flexibility in some circumstances , only you can decide whether its worth it or not
Click to expand...


Thank you ALL for your opinions, they've been useful and given me something to think about. I think I'll be using raw more often for the type of shooting I do, for the flexibility. And editing yesterdays photos was beneficial.
 
BintyMcFrazzles said:
Yes, thanks. I've got an external hard drive.
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If that is the only place you keep your photos then that's not a backup.

You need at least 2 copies of every picture you value in case of disaster.

I keep multiple copies of all my photos on an external Hard drive, on DVDs and now on Blu-Ray (metal) discs, and at least 2 places on the cloud (Hotmail's one drive and Mega)

So I can be fairly certain that in the event of a complete loss of any one of them all my photos will survive.
.
 
Barso said:
I'll throw in my 2 cents worth as I have been a 600D owner for over 2 years and always used raw......until last week, 2 years of ACR adjusting to suit then tweaking in PS, no two photos are the same so each photo requires different adjustments, no big deal really except for the time it consumes.
Last week I thought lets try jpeg for a change, I went through the various picture styles and settled on fathfull with a push on contrast and a shift on colour tone. The various photos I took looked ok on the viewfinder but I waited until I got home to view them on the monitor to judge them, sure they were not perfect but a lot better than I thought they would be. Next time out I used raw + jpeg as a comparison, my edited raw files were on par with the in camera jpegs. I then for a further comparison opened the out of camera jpeg files in ACR and edited them further, guess what I now use jpegs and tweak them in ACR. I know it's the wrong way to go but hey....I get better results in half the time.

It may not work for all but with the in camera settings lowered you have still got a bit of leeway on the recovery side in ACR.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I think I'm going to shoot in Raw in jpeg for a while.

Sorry to sound stupid, but what is "ACR"?
 
petersmart said:
If that is the only place you keep your photos then that's not a backup.

You need at least 2 copies of every picture you value in case of disaster.

I keep multiple copies of all my photos on an external Hard drive, on DVDs and now on Blu-Ray (metal) discs, and at least 2 places on the cloud (Hotmail's one drive and Mega)

So I can be fairly certain that in the event of a complete loss of any one of them all my photos will survive.
.
Click to expand...

I agree, I should have added that my favourites are on flickr and any that I want to keep, but don't want to share on flickr, I have started to upload on to a cloud drive.
 
one point to bear in mind if you are used to jpeg - nearly all raw files will look a bit soft by comparrison and need sharpening. this is normal as nearly all jpegs have some sharpening applied in camera,
 
big soft moose said:
one point to bear in mind if you are used to jpeg - nearly all raw files will look a bit soft by comparrison and need sharpening. this is normal as nearly all jpegs have some sharpening applied in camera,
Click to expand...
I haven't noticed so far, TBH. So will I have to sharpen every image?
 
BintyMcFrazzles said:
I haven't noticed so far, TBH. So will I have to sharpen every image?
Click to expand...
your raw editor probably has a wee bit of sharpening already set somewhere within it already. And usually one of the last steps to do in photoshop/elements later is to sharpen your image anyway.
 
ajax_andy said:
Best example I've heard when it comes to JPEG vs Raw is the following (and actually do this so you see the effect):

Take a blank piece of A4 paper and draw something on it… this is your JPEG image, now fold it in half, and then in half again, and then in half again, and finally one more time. Imagine each of those folds is an adjustment you've made to the JPEG image and saved. Now open up the A4 paper and look at it… see how it's now crappy looking compared to before?

Now take another sheet of A4… that's your Raw file, it never degrades no matter how many changes you make to it. You never fold it or compress it, it just stays all lovely and flat and white… it stays as it always was regardless of the changes you make to it… you can colour in the picture you drew, add some words etc etc and the quality never degrades.

That's the beauty of Raw over Jpeg
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That's a great explanation - well said. I too have just started with raw - for a complete beginner its a nightmare trying to learn everything. Great site though :)
 
DorsetDude said:
your raw editor probably has a wee bit of sharpening already set somewhere within it already. And usually one of the last steps to do in photoshop/elements later is to sharpen your image anyway.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's true. :)
 
I shoot raw because I never require the shots there and then like a sports photographer or journalist. I want the most information captured as possible and the most flexibilty as I shoot landscapes and I cannot control the light. You need to determine if the abilty to change WB and make edits in post is what you require. (And yes you can make some edits to a jpeg but lets not kid ourselves we all know its not the same as using a raw file)
 
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