Who's over shooting RAW???

[jdear]

What cameras shoot in JPEG??

I can't help but shoot everything in RAW. I find RAW gives me a slightly higher dynamic range - in particular highlight information which is important for me shooting weddings. On average I bring home probably around 25GB / wedding and I have my workflow down where I can have a wedding edited within 2 business days of shooting them, blogged, uploaded to my ordering gallery and at my lab.

I tried shooting JPEG once, but I hated the way the files look SOOC (straight out of camera) - and that was shooting with everything neuted - (everything dialled down - much easier to add contrast then remove it) and found myself spending MORE time giving my photos the LOOK I process them with than when shooting RAW.

16bit editing of RAW is where it really comes into its own - I can filter quite destructively and the histogram doesn't break down. My next task is to calibrate Bridge to my camera to save even more time.

[Jase555]

For your workflow blues, try FastStone Image viewer, Download from http://www.faststone.org/

Thanks mate, exactly what I'm after, just tried it and works a treat.

[Pehpsi]

Not me, I love it.

[phoenix]

But i do a LOT of sport, and to be honest RAW is a complete waste of time for that sort of thing.

I'll bet you won't be saying that when, one day, you go out and shoot, but with a camera full of the wrong settings. It does happen, and yes, it will happen to you.

Good luck recovering those screw-ups from your jpgs.

It may be different for others, but i would shoot over 1000 shots a day with some of my stuff, and there is basically zero PP after I'm done with sports stuff. I just go through and chuck out the bad ones. Is there any reason at all i would consider RAW for this?

As you're earning money with these shots, my answer has to be yes. See above for reasons wy this can affect your income.

My shots get into newspapers, websites etc and no one has worried one bit about the quality.

And to that I do have to say bullshit.

Does every single one of your shots get published? Unless the answer is yes, then somebody, somewhere is looking at the images and caring very much about the content - which must equate to quality - and eliminating (probably) 95% or more of what you've shot to just publish a couple of them.

When i do portraits etc, i usually shoot RAW but to be honest my workflow sucks and i have no idea if I'm using it correctly.

While workflow is important, it's not the reason you shoot raw, and the lack of a good workflow is hardly a good reason to not shoot raw: I don't own a plane, yet I can still fly to LA, right?

Gary your correct on a few things. Yes it's handy to be able to recover if i stuff something up, and as much as i'd like to think so, I'm not perfect so it's going to happen eventually. I guess a lot of it is due to workflow. I've had a few goes at the RAW workflow and it's been a pain in the ass each time. I can't remember why each time now, but it's been a big hassle. Time is pretty important right now, so unless i can get a good one going I doubt i'll try too much, especially with the sport days. I know workflow shouldn't prevent me using it, but it has so far. I get a weekend off in about a month so i might look into it then.

To ask a question that was asked before, but i didn't see the answer: Do people convert from the nikon RAW to DNG? Maybe that's where I'm going wrong.

I do shoot RAW if i know the shoot isn't going to be in excess of a couple of hundred images. I'll try and make sure i get it into my sport days too.

[hrpremier]

Shot in raw initally when using my dads nikon and a mates nikon but since the purchase of my 40d I've taken a limited number of RAW images. Once again it may be me being lazy but not only is itthe workload it creates for me to convert and edit but the space on my PC is at a all time low at the moment. Ive resorted to storing jpegs for now instead of storing both. Many RAW that I have taken still sits on the hard drive untouched. The novelty wore off pretty quick. I have a mate who is a camera rep and with his help may get me back into shooting RAW using the correct technique.

Jase

4869

[RDW]

I shoot Raw + Fine Jpg. I use CNX, Adobe Lightroom, PS CS3 and ACDSee for PP. Memory Cards for Camera Capture and HDD storage are both cheap. A large percentage of my jpgs are used SOOC with only very minor fine-tuning or tweaks and NEFs are never viewed or touched. Having said all that, probably most of my 'Best Shots' are images recovered from NEFS -- TGFR(Thank God for Raw) I still haven't found any one PP package that does it all -- good. Some tweaks are good in LR, some are better in PS, yet some others are so efficient in ACDSee. I can't go past CNX for basic NEF conversion. Yes, shooting in RAW will take you more time in handling, cost in storage etc., but when it has given you a few really 'heroe' shots you wouldn't have otherwise had, the extra effort becomes worth it. I sent my wife off to Europe last month with a new D300 she wasn't familiar with. Knowing she would take a stack of photos, I told her to only shoot fine Jpgs. She came back with 16GB of them--big mistake!!! If it had been 50Gb of NEF+Jpg, it would have been fantastic. Now I've got my sparetime cut out for a while trying to recover the 'damage' of a lot of very poor light and a lot of wrong settings. At the end of the day, it's all subjective and personal so do what ever floats your boat! Afterall, a lot of people buy Ferarris and Porsches and never drive them over 80 -100 KPH and even more buy 4WD and never go off road, so if you don't want to shoot RAW, good luck to you and I bet you still enjoy shooting DSLR. And a Porsche is on my list, but only after the plane!!!

[gstark]

I guess a lot of it is due to workflow.

The point is, though, that it's not. Shooting raw plus jpg, you have all the advantages and fallback abilities of shooting raw, plus, if you've got it right, all the speed advantages of shooting jpg. It's a win-win situation, with the cost being that of the extra storage required. Which, as we've see, is not a major issue these days.

To ask a question that was asked before, but i didn't see the answer: Do people convert from the nikon RAW to DNG? Maybe that's where I'm going wrong.

I cannot speak for others, but I don't, and I don't believe that too many others do. The concept is good in theory, but while everything works in theory, we live reality, not theory.

[ATJ]

To ask a question that was asked before, but i didn't see the answer: Do people convert from the nikon RAW to DNG? Maybe that's where I'm going wrong.

I posted my workflow. Patrick posted his. I also posted a link to Peter's. That's at least 3 answers.

[Escapism]

New DSLR: $3000
A Bunch of shiny lenses: $5000
PC to process your works of art: $2000

Only shooting JPEG: PRICELESS

[aim54x]

New DSLR: $3000
A Bunch of shiny lenses: $5000
PC to process your works of art: $2000

Only shooting JPEG: PRICELESS

 LOLs!!!! I would have budgeted more on glass though!

[StarForge]

I mainly shoot in JPG for the reason of storage space and work flow.

I find it troublesome to have to get Capture NX out to make tiny tweaks on my NEFs before exporting JPGs into Apple Aperture.

Having said that, there are many times I've looked at an image and wished I had the raw image to fix up the exposure, etc.

[Reschsmooth]

I mainly shoot in JPG for the reason of storage space and work flow.

I find it troublesome to have to get Capture NX out to make tiny tweaks on my NEFs before exporting JPGs into Apple Aperture.

Having said that, there are many times I've looked at an image and wished I had the raw image to fix up the exposure, etc.

I think you have explained the reason for shooting in, at least, jpg & RAW. The cost of storage is so low that it becomes less of an issue - that said, it is never my place to tell anyone something is cheap, as I don't know their financial position, and doing so would be rude and disrespectful.

[StarForge]

I just looked at my camera's settings and noticed I left it in RAW mode

I forgot about the cost of storage, it has dropped quite substantially since I last got my most recent SD card 2 years ago heh. I'm one of those pedantic people that has a backup of a backup and I'm always deleting things except my photos so having RAW and JPGs of the same thing (because I import JPGs from Capture NX into Aperture, not RAW) bulks up everything.

I think it just me and my obsession with reducing clutter and things taking up my hard drives, but man you're right, storage is really cheap!

Having re-read what I wrote originally I think I've convinced myself to stick with RAW hehe