How important is RAW? (re: Canon s80)

I've only used film cameras before, but plan to buy a small digital

one. I was thinkng of buying the Canon S80 when it becomes available.

 

http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?

act=ModelDetailAct&fcategoryid=144&modelid=12074

 

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0508/05082205canons80.asp

 

It has a some nice features such as manual control and an 8 megapixel

resolution. But it doesn't have RAW.

 

I will use the camera in order of importance: (1) to photograph 2D

artwork, (2) for snapshots, and (3) to try to take some good artistic

photos. I will sometimes enlarge the photos to 8x10 or larger.

 

Do I need RAW? If so, any thought on what pocket-sized cameras I

should look at?

 

Thanks.

I believe that s70 can do RAW, and there's not a whole lot of differences between the two. RAW is great for both control of sharpening and control of lighting color temperature. Much more accurate and easy than trying to do it in photoshop.

i've got a 20d and i figured I would shoot in RAW most of the time. truth is, I don't. I shoot jpeg 90% of the time. I'm not a pro nor do I want to spend endless hours manipulating the photo.

 

if there was something that I really wanted to be able to perfect, then I shoot in RAW. but photos of the kids in Disney World, or photos of the flowers in the garden. i'm perfectly happy to shoot and look.

 

so RAW is nice but not essential to the package, unless you WANT to tinker since in the end you'll have to convert it to a jpeg anyway to send it to cousin ernie.

RAW makes it much easier and quicker to get quality photos than shooting JPEGs does. You just need to use the right tool, which for me is Capture One.

 

Bigger than the S80, but I would seriously consider the Olympus 7070 for the kind of work you want to do.

RAW to the s80 is like a subwoofer to the iPod.

IMHO S80 without RAW is an oversized and over-priced digicam. There are many choices for digicam in this class. Beside what other has said: RAW file allow you to choose the best JPEG encoder to get best result (instead of stuck with what the camera gave you). White balance is so much easier with RAW. You also get more range in contrast re-adjustment then Baked-in JPEG. IMHO, I think Canon killed the SXX family by not supporting RAW. It was a great little digicam back-up for Canon DSLR.

Is there an easy chart anywhere about which P&S's support RAW? I'd love a sort of

"photographer's friend" model that is pocketable but can take my CF cards and shoot RAW. If

you have CS2, shooting RAW is *easier* to manage workflow than shooting JPEG.

RAW is key if you intend to do any serious post-processing or printing beyond 8x10.

 

JPEG is fine if all that's intended is posting to the web and printing small images, or if speed is of the essence (Most PJ's shoot JPEG for this reason).

If you "intend to do any serious post-processing or printing beyond 8x10", then you're not going to use the s80.

It depends on what you're used to and how picky you are. Some people wouldn't shoot without RAW. But on the other hand, JPEG is fine for more people and most situations. My dad uses an S50 and I'm constantly amazed at how good the output is from that little camera, and from someone (my dad) who knows little or nothing about photography. Of course, he just shoots JPEG and doesn't even know what RAW is. I think the S80 is really aimed at someone like my dad-- someone who loves taking pictures but doesn't know about all the technical aspects of digital photography-- like RAW and RAW processing-- and just wants the best output straight-out-of-camera. Even though I shoot RAW with a DSLR, I don't think I would mind having an S80. The most critical thing for me (and for your photography of 2D artwork) would be the ability to set a Custom White Balance if I needed it. And in the case of the S80, it does have Custom White Balance, so that's fine for me.

Andrew is correct, the S70 does do RAW. Can't see why Canon dropped it but I suppose they must have had their reasons.

Yes, if you want the option of RAW, go for the S70. At 7.1mp, that's still plenty of resolution for most people's needs, and not a huge difference from the S80's 8mp. Good enough for 8x10 and larger. Check out the review at Steve's Digicam:

 

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_reviews/s70.html

http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/pix/rawvsjpg/

 

That's one side-by-side comparison of raw and JPEG. There are tons if you do a little research.

 

Personally, I agree with what most people said. If you want the most control over post-processing, go with raw. That's pretty much the only reason; the quality difference isn't extremely noticeable, and JPEG is a lot quicker for most applications, if only because pulling up a raw converter, tinkering, and then converting and opening in Photoshop takes forever if you have a lot to process.

Vladimir -- do iPods have subwoofers? What's a subwoofer?

subwoofers are large speakers solely dedicated to producing bass frequencies. They're large, and are usually contained in a wood housing for optimal vibration characterisitics. The usual basic setup is left channel/ right channel/ subwoofer for stereo setups.