Shooting Raw

RealEstateKing

How many of you bother to shoot RAW?

If so why?

Do magazines/newspapers expect to receive RAW files or is a high qulaity JPEG enough?

Borderfox

You wouldnt transmit the RAW only the Jpeg or a TIFF file taken from the RAW. I shoot JPEG at events and RAW for portraits and weddings, much more latitude when working with RAW but you still have to produce good clean well exposed images.

helios

Bother? It gives you a lot more flexibility when you're doing processing. For any major event I would always shoot RAW, but I would also do it if I'm taking shots I know I am going to PP later on. The only time I would should JPG is if I was severly low on memory or if I'm just taking holiday snaps...

Paulw

I always shoot raw, unless requested by the client to shoot jpg.

Raw just gives me so much more scope for processing. I can take an under or over exposed image and recover much of the detail. This especially helps when working in non-ideal light conditions.

Any clients I've done work for (including just print) would require high quality jpg files, at 300 ppi. So, shooting in raw enables me to produce this quality jpg files.

Arciphel

RAW all the way baby, 14 bit colour depth and uncompressed ;-)

Unless you are short of memory, or wanted to shoot in hi-speed mode, why wouldn't you use it?

elven

Arciphel wrote: »

Unless you are short of memory, or wanted to shoot in hi-speed mode, why wouldn't you use it?

If you don't want the hassle of having to convert it, are happy with the settings you get from the camera in jpg, and sure of your exposures.

I shoot in raw because I see the processing as another part in the creative process where I want to have an influence, rather than just taking what the camera gives me. Both methods have their pros and cons.

WeekOldPencil

+1 All RAW

RealEstateKing

fair knuff I suppose. I like the extra space I get from shooting JPEG, and I come from the film days where you had to take a decent photo in the first place:), so processing for me is usually a simple/black and white conversion, boosting the contrast a bit or whatever. I dont really see the advantage, unless that's what magazines would insist on.

Paulw

RealEstateKing wrote: »

I come from the film days where you had to take a decent photo in the first place:)

That hasn't changed at all, and doesn't matter if you are shooting raw or jpg.

RealEstateKing wrote: »

so processing for me is usually a simple/black and white conversion, boosting the contrast a bit or whatever.

That's about the same processing as most do, even with raw files. But with raw you have much more scope to adjust the image. More detail in the original file means it gives you more control and more data to work with in processing your file.

It really comes down to your own personal taste and workflow. Raw works for me in the vast majority of cases.

nilhg

RealEstateKing wrote: »

fair knuff I suppose. I like the extra space I get from shooting JPEG, and I come from the film days where you had to take a decent photo in the first place:), so processing for me is usually a simple/black and white conversion, boosting the contrast a bit or whatever. I dont really see the advantage, unless that's what magazines would insist on.

If you are happy, stay as you are, but keep in your mind that if you meet a challenging situation that RAW can make life alot easier when it comes to PPing or even reproducing what you saw. An example, I took loads of photos of bluebells in my local wood and generally the colour was quite good straight out of the camera, but the last day I went down the beech trees had produced all their leaves and there was a strong green cast to all the shots which made the bluebells look completly unnatural, once I realised the problem it was childs play to correct the WB in Lightroom and apply the fix to all the affected shots.

AnCatDubh

I tried out RAW maybe 12-18 months ago at that stage being of the "why would you bother - sure isn't JPEG just fine" - in essence JPEG is fine if you are at a point of being completely happy with what your camera gives you. When I moved I made one or two recoveries of images which I totally messed up on and now I absolutely leave the shooting mode in RAW permanently. Maybe its a sign of a bad photographer - the need to have at at least the option to do a recovery of the image should we not get it right.

Calina had a thread recently and had an excellent point and example of shooting action shots (like 15 of them in a row) and the capacity of cameras to take/process/store such requirements. In such cases i think you have no other option to go JPEG as the camera will not be able to buffer sufficiently but you do need to accept that there will be only so much you can do in post processing.

Unless requested you wouldn't deliver someone a RAW file - jpeg normally or tiff.

RAW is also a pain in the butt as you now must have/adopt/create/invent a work flow which you may not have been doing with JPEG. The work flow at minimum is a processing of the image from RAW to JPEG, but more likely will involve additional steps of post processing. Given the size of the RAW files - at 6MegaPixels you'll probably get a RAW of about 10-12MB. Processing this is a brutal assault on your time. So you'll end up doing things like batch running them over an evening or night-time.

They're just a few points of my experience with it to date. The benefits far outweigh the disadvantages.

kjt

Raw Raw Rawrrr!

Duchovny

Raw is great...

I just use Jpeg in really exceptional occasions.

stcstc

i only shoot raw

it has nothing to do with processing (well not directly)

Main reason - more dynamic range - jpg is only 8 bit and therefore cant store as much range

second - if you shoot jpg - some japanese computer programmer does the photoshopping for you

5uspect

RAW for me too. Its nice to have all that uncompressed information for PP but also for future use and archiving.

I think of RAW as being similar to a negative and the JPEG bring the print.

quilmore

I shot 12 bits NEF + fine JPG at high FPS all the time on a D300

if the JPG needs nothing I'd leave it as it is (or follow my usual workflow from it) but 99% of the time I'd process the NEF file and discard the original JPG
I love the way of getting highlights back changing the exposure and the odd white balance correction before converting to 8 bits

Also, I keep all NEF I've done work with, discarded ones go along with the JPG to the bin

I have a card of 8gb (extreme iv) as my main card with 4gb+2gb as spare
I've rarely fill my 8gb and I've never filled all 3 cards even shooting NEF+Fine JPG (almost 20 mb per shoot)

sineadw

5uspect wrote: »

I think of RAW as being similar to a negative and the JPEG bring the print.

Same here. Raw all the way

mehfesto2

Ok, very amateur question as I'm not great at post-production, really.
Anyway, when I link my camera up to the PC I get two files when I shoot RAW, I get a .NEF and well, a 'picture' file. Is this picture file just a jpg file?

So, then if so, is it possible to use the .NEF file with Corel's Paint Shop Pro, or should I think of looking at getting PS?

Calina

Okay.

I have shot both RAW and jpg in recent times. My default for watersports is jpg and there are two key reasons for that:

1) the framerate and buffer issues as mentioned by AnCatDubh above - this is a major, major issue for me.

2) I tend to shoot a very large volume of photographs when I'm shooting sports. I have found from past experience that either I wind up batch processing them to tiff or JPG which sort of negates the plus side of having RAW in the first place. When I say large number, I mean up to 1500 a day. While I recognise that you get options with RAW that aren't available with jpg, I'm of the opinion that if you understand how your camera works properly and you know what's going to come out of it, you can expose accordingly.

So the key issues there are volume of shots and framerate/buffer issues.

That being said, when I am not shooting sports, I tend to shoot RAW. If you like, they tend to be my more arty shots and they get RAW treatment specifically because I may want to do a lot more messing around with them.

There are lots of arguments for and against RAW and jpg and they get rehashed on a regular basis. Ultimately, a lot depends on how well you know your camera's behaviour and to be honest, I'd agree with comments about coming from film and knowing how much work can be done there. Knowing how your camera processes the input to jpg, however intuitively, is on a par with knowing what something is going to look like from a given type of film.

While it's true that you wind up with a greater dynamic range for RAW files, it is not true that a Japanese programmer is responsible for the final output of your photography. Jpgs can be processed, and are successfully processed every day. It's just that compared to RAW files, there are some limitations although there are ways around them (if you're using PS, for example, file them down as TIFFs while you're processing).

One of the things that tends to irritate me greatly about debates regarding RAW and jpg and which should you use is that there tends to be a failure to recognise that either may be appropriate in certain circumstances. I will never shoot RAW where I need to process a huge number of photographs or am doing a lot of continuous shooting because the disadvantages far outweight the advantages and I have a pretty decent idea of how my camera compresses for jpg. I will, however, frequently shoot RAW where I am doing unusual things, like the series of selfportraits that I did recently, the tricks with the melting icecubes, and above all, if I am playing with non-natural light. There, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

There tends to be a certain amount of elitism in the RAW versus jpg debate. I think it's interesting that Borderfox and myself have a "it depends on what I am shooting" tendency going on here. Realistically, both options may be appropriate in certain circumstances, and finally, it is up to you to decide whether the advantages or disadvantages weigh greater on your mind.

Hugh_C

RAW rawks.

I only shoot jpeg by mishtake.

[edit] Calina, remind me never to buy a 2nd hand camera from you - 1500 actuations a day? Blimey. You'd be better off with a video camera.

Fajitas!

99% of the time, I shoot RAW. Snapshots, holidays, whatever.

If a client asked me to shoot jpeg, I'd tell them no - That's a stupid thing for a client to ask - There's no reason for it.

Tonight, however, will be the 1%.

Mellor

And is Why Fajitas?

Fajitas!

College ball

Messy messy nights, and I'll probably take about 700 shots minimum. It'll take to long to transfer them to my own computer, plus I can just drop them onto our SU comp for people to take off!

Saves me hours of hassle

mervifwdc

Another RAW shooter, no matter the volume. It does mean you've to have decent amounts of storage, fast and large cards, quick computers, decent software, but if you do all that, I dont think it's any slower than using JPG files. the downloading from the cards to the PC is the only places it slows me down much, and then we're only talking an extra 10 minutes if I've shot a lot.

even heading off to do a boxing night, where I know I'm doing to shoot 1000+ shots, I'll go raw.

I go out aiming to get my exposures right, white balance correct etc, but sometimes here is something in the shadows I want to brighten up or I want to play with the white balance on shots taken under floodlights, and then it pays off in spades.

I'd find it too messy to have 2 workflows, one for RAW and one for JPG, so it's easier to do them all the same. It took me a while to get my workflow to where I like it, and I'm almost there now!

Merv.

5uspect

Technically speaking its really a matter of asking what is the best data acquisition method for you.

A dSLR is like any analogue/digital converter. If you take any kind of measurement you need to decide what kind of sampling frequency you need (Nyquist usually), bit depth resolution etc.

The availability of cheap memory allow you to just shoot RAW with the benefit of more flexibility with the use of the information recorded.

Shooting JPEG or even at binned resolutions has its advantages too as you're not wasting storage and you only record what you know you'll need.

City-Exile

I use RAW for everything, except sports action.
RAW has saved my life too many times to mention!
If you forget to change the WB or you get the exposure slightly off, RAW is your friend.

YeahOK

I've only just started shooting raw as I've been trying to get to grips with Apple's Aperture in my spare time. (Which btw I seem to have less and less of lately)

Phaetonman

I'm confused.

I shoot jpeg and use Adobe Lightroom for my processing. With it I have access to all sorts of levels, curves, exposure correction, colour correction.

Why is using raw any better in this case?

nilhg

Phaetonman wrote: »

I'm confused.

I shoot jpeg and use Adobe Lightroom for my processing. With it I have access to all sorts of levels, curves, exposure correction, colour correction.

Why is using raw any better in this case?

Set your cam to RAW+jpeg and take a few shots, deliberatly under or overexposing a few, then import both into LR and process them to whatever you think is the correct exposure, see if you can see any difference.

Hugh_C

Phaetonman wrote: »

I'm confused.

I shoot jpeg and use Adobe Lightroom for my processing. With it I have access to all sorts of levels, curves, exposure correction, colour correction.

Why is using raw any better in this case?

Because the RAW file contains a lot more information than the jpeg and therefore allows you more freedom when you're making your developing decisions. If you make a mistake when shooting in RAW (white balance, exposure etc), you have a much better chance at retrieving the shot. Here's an example:

I accidentally used the wrong white balance in this image (shot in RAW):



On the left is the original (RAW) image with no correction, converted to jpeg.

In the middle is a "corrected" version of that RAW file, converted to jpeg.

On the right, the same "correction" (curves, saturation WB etc) applied to the jpeg (as opposed to the RAW file).

As you can see, the correction works best on the RAW file in terms of adjusting the screwed up white balance. Whether this example is a particularly fair test, I dunno because I'm relying on the impartiality of the encoding/decoding engines inside Lightroom. I don't know the technicalities of the innards of Lightroom, but I think these examples show how much more effective post production on RAW files is.

Hugh

leinsterman

RealEstateKing wrote: »

I come from the film days where you had to take a decent photo in the first place:)

:mad: this type of comment is one of my pet hates ... because it belittles one of the more skilled and important parts of analogue photography ... namely processing ... my suggestion is you pop off a roll of B&W and send it to a lab for processing ... then pick the best picture and send the negative to this lady for printing - Hetty ... compare the lab print to Hetty's version ... then you might understand that there is more to photography than getting your metering and composition right ...

Nothing has changed between analogue and digital photography ... you should always strive to get the best possible shot at the moment of shutter press ...

As to shooting RAW ... personally I think it offer benefits (in terms of dynamic range, colour balance, exposure) over JPEG ... however it does not mean it is automatic choice for everything ... e.g. for Sport you don't want to have a big processing burden afterwards as it is more important to get your images where they can be sold ... JPEG is often better for this reason ... also JPEGs are smaller so you get maximum burst and shooting speed performance ... also useful in wildlife ...

So I use RAW, RAW+JPEG, JPEG ... which one I select depends on circumstances ...

EDIT - For Travel Photography in remote places with poor infrastructure I use RAW + small JPEG ... I blog the JPEGs whenever I get to an internet cafe ... and hold the RAW's for when I get home ... picking the very best for processing

leinsterman

It is worth also considering that RAW is not in fact the RAW data from the sensor ... there is some processing applied in camera ... this is necessary to create a file with which your computer software can work with it ...

The actual RAW data from a Bayer filter sensor looks like garbage when unprocessed (e.g. there is no interpolation between each colour) ...

You can make adjustments to JPEGs but the contain far less of the original data than RAW ... so for example it is harder to remove colour cast from a JPEG than a RAW file without affecting the pixels of the image itself.

In addition RAW files have more of the original data to work with ... e.g. more shades of grey between black and white (8bit JPEg v 12 or 14bit RAW )... therefore it is easier to adjust exposure and colour balance in the displayed image ... because there is more information about the original subject in a RAW file ...

Generally the end result is mostly JPEG or some other publishing suitable format ... RAW is not really intended for published photography i.e. web and print ... it should be conisdered a step in a process akin to creating a negative in film

Here is a good explanation ... it is not totally correct about where Bayer interpolation takes place in the RAW creation process ... but generally it is accurate -

http://photo.net/learn/raw/