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What is the advantage in using this setting??

Hi embi,

I was was thinking to myself ... what the f... would you use that setting ?
I haven't got a clue why you would use that setting.

Regards,

CD

I've used it quite a bit. And it is good

For instance if you're travelling around overseas, you shoot RAW+JPEG, and store to portable HDD. You can take the HDD and print the JPEGs from any printing store, finding a place that processes NEFs would be hit and miss. Also if you have a storage device that allows you to view JPEGs such as an Archos AV420 or an iRiver PMP device it allows you to backup your RAW+JPEG for processing the RAW later. However while in the field or showing your relatives when you get back out from shooting photos, you can show them on your portable album. You won't always have access to a PC and Nikon Capture when travelling, plus you might not have the time to post process.

this is actually my setting of choice. If the photo works out and I just want to print a 4x6 then the JPEG saves me the time of haveing to process a NEF. If it doesn't work out because of white balance or something like that then I've always got the digital negative to play around with.

I read in a link that someone sent on this site that all the sports illustrated photographers use this method. The jpegs are used for fast browsing of photos and then if one is particuarly good the NEF is used.

On the downside it slurps up the memory so I don't use this when i'm on holidays or need to conserve memory.

Ajo, spot on.

That was the other thing, I think of it as a high res thumbnail in a sense. You can load up a 300k JPEG really quick, a lot quicker than a 6mb NEF file. So it's really good for fast browsing. I tend to look through my JPEG with FSView or ACDSee and go "soft", "crap composition", "crap lighting", "subject cropped", "subject looking away" etc and delete the JPEG+RAW.

Of course if you're running out of space, then you can sometimes just change back to RAW.[

Hmmm I like the idea of speeding up the viewing to see if the images are usable. Thanks everyone for you replies

I actually found this setting to be a bit misleading for me. I would scroll through my jpegs and think that a lot of them were crap, particularly soft, and when I looked at the NEF later, it was OK. I have no idea how this could happen though! I think though that if you are just using it on the computer, the "Preview Extractor" programme that was mentioned here previously is a great, very quick way to get some jpegs done.

JPEGs are compressed, so that could introduce softness.

I'm constantly surprised that people actually delete photos. I've never deleted one, because I don't see the need: storage is cheap, my old photos may come in handy and also show my evolution as a photographer. Also, what happens if you are tired when going through them? I've gone through photos when tired or distracted and thought I didn't have any good ones, and then looked again and been surprised.

Would you throw out film negatives when physical space isn't an issue?

Pippin in the long run, storing a load of images of birds that are cleaning their genitals or having it's arse facing towards me or that looks like it's been put through a motion blur of 400% isn't really what I need on a DVD. Especially when I go back a year or so later and want to find something quickly or just want to be able to find a decent photo of a subject. I don't want to be going "crap", "crap", etc. I just want to look through and know that I'll have a decent photo to take off my backup media.

Darryl,

kipper wrote:Pippin in the long run, storing a load of images of birds that are cleaning their genitals or having it's arse facing towards me

Isn't that a sign of affection towards you?

Seriously, this is my mode of choice as well. I can quickly review the jpgs, and even print something off quick and dirty, or just use the JPGs and downsize for viewing on the web - again quick and dirty.

But I always have the NEFs so that when/if I want to, I can make the best use of my images.

My only gripe is that they're all stored in the same folder - I'd prefer to see the jpgs syphoned off into a secondary folder, so that they're all related but separate. NBD; I just do that as soon as I've downloaded the images to my PC, but it would save me all of 15 seconds per card were that to happen in camera.

Yep I hear ya gary, I would of liked them put into NEF and JPEG directories aswell. I'd also like it so when you're in NEF you could have the choice with JPEG quality like you normally can eg. FINE, LARGE, NORM (not a big JPEG shooter so I can't remember options) or whatever it is.

I'm actually half way between Darryl & Nick on keeping pics. The blurry or disgusting ones I toss. The ones I like get moved to a Keepers folder, the rest stay behind in my working folder forever just in case

Taking lots of surf shots these days, I find myself ditching about 85%-90% of them. As your technique gets better, your personal standards raise a little. I look back on shots from 6 months ago and think, they're pretty poor, I'll ditch them.

Maybe it's because of a lack of storage? Just purchased an internal DVD burner last week for the PC so backups should be a lot better from now on.

Max