10-D action (sports) photos...RAW or JPEG

I shoot everything (mainly sports photos) in "large JPEG" format.

Should I also be shooting these same photos in "RAW"

format...hence "RAW+JPEG"?

I'm thinking that if the photos are for portraits, etc...then "RAW"

is the best choice.

Also, how does everyone feel about the "AWB" (auto white balance)

feature on the D-10? Or do you just set your own balance?

It sure is hard to find a local photo processor who will accept "RAW"

images.

Thanks for the input.

Derik (TX)<div></div>

What size do you print out at?

 

This question is really up to you. RAW will let you do a lot more

cleaner editing after you shoot the picture. But if you don't edit,

and the JPG is good enough, go with that. It also depends on

how critical you are to detail. It depends, it depends, it depends...

on YOU!

 

The only practical benefit I can think of is that when you shoot

RAW, it is a bigger file and slower to write on the memory. So a

smaller JPG will let you shoot faster.

Derik, I have shot sports action photos in both RAW and JPEG formats. The RAW does give much more edit control in the outcome of the final photos but eats CF cards and computer space quickly so there are some trade offs. I'm not quite sure why you would send a RAW photo to a lab unless you wanted them to do your post processing. Most often after I edit my raw photos I save them to a Photoshop PSD file or a Jpeg. Then you could send them to a lab if you wished to have the print them for you. If you are not doing your own post processing of photos but are sending them out to a lab I would suggest you just stick with JPEGs. Dave

Ok

 

Allow me inlightyou . For what I read you don't know any thing about white balance,and raw stuff.

 

I strongly suggest you to go to google and vivisimo.com and look in to it and learn as much as you can.

 

Shooting in raw its the best.For the follwing razons

 

1- You can adjust the exposure in the program that comes with your camera .

 

2- the "the white balance" its and awesome feature that gives your pictues a real lighting look and enhance the picture tremendoulsly.

 

Now I don't think anyone takes raw files unless they charge you extra hidden fees for converting you raw files to JPEG .which you can do it yourself with the software that the comera comes with.

 

(explore your software and take the time to learn on how to use it)

 

the downsize on shooting in Raw is that since the product is better than JPEG it takes more pixels and thefore more room in your memory

which means that if you can take 100 pictues with JPEG mode then in Raw you can only take 50 pictures.

 

so if you have like one gig compact card use the raw mode then fix the ones that need to bee fixed and convert them to JPEG for procesing..

 

enjoy your camera

"the downsize on shooting in Raw is that since the product is better than JPEG it takes more pixels and thefore more room in your memory"

 

??? I don't think so. Sure the files are bigger but not because it has more pixels.

In my experience shooting raw has two advantages. You can

adjust the exposure + or - in the computer (and this can make a

big difference to image quality) and you can adjust white balance

in the computer (ditto).

 

If you review your histograms and have the liberty to reshoot

based on the the histogram--for example, as in the protrait you

posted--then exposure adjustment is not an issue.

 

If you always shoot with electronic flash, again as in the image

you posted, then your lighting temp is constant and you do not

need to adjust for white balance.

 

Otherwise, if you want the best images, go with raw. Extract the

jpgs first, review them, and if you like what you see, ignore the

raw files. If there is an image you love but that needs a tweek on

exposure or white balance, go back to your raw files and make it

right.

 

Control is good. It's all about control.

 

Free advice, and worth every penny

 

Bill Poole

On my D30, RAW slows down continuous shooting mode (must be buffer size/flush issue).

 

How does the 10D perform in this department? Ignoring the benefits of the RAW format (which has been discussed at length allready) Has anyone noticed better continuous mode performance using JPEG vs RAW?

That last one nailed it... with raw you cannot shoot continuously (up to 3 frames per second up tp 9 consecutive shots), right? Sure you can work on it with much better control later, but dammit... I just missed an excellent shot because my camera was busy writing data from that last shot, which was mediocre at best. :D

I just totally love Photo.net . I feel like if I was in a classroom with the best teachers, this is so great.

 

you guy are right regrading the raw thing . it takes forever to be able to review a shot even though that I have read else where that in weddings some guys shoot nothing but raw and review them with the information , to see any over exposurness .

 

I have done it miss a lot os shots trying to review . I don't know about no being able to shot to a continuos mode.

 

I have learned so much here and at the same time I really don't know nothing.

 

happy too enjoy you guys in this disscussion

Anthony I must disagree with your statement that you cannot shoot 3fps in raw

mode. I just shot off 9 frames in 3 seconds in RAW mode with my 10D at which point my camera

slowed down to about 1.5fps. RAW or JPG it makes no difference on the fps. </p>

<p>You <strong>can</strong> shoot 3 frames per second for 9 frames at which point

the camera slows down until it dumps the buffer. If you look in the viewfinder

to the right of the exposure bars you will see a number - usually 9 - called

maximum burst (manual page 17). This indicates how many shots you can take before

the internal buffer fills up and the fps slows down.</p>

<p>Try it - see what you get.

I shoot motorsports semi-professionally using a D60 body (mine) and occasionally a 10D (borrowed); my preferred format is large fine JPEG at either 100 or 200 ISO and here's why.

 

1) I need the ability to shoot in continuous bursts during an incident - even at 3 f.p.s. my buffer gets filled very quickly and slows the camera down. If I was using RAW, I'd otherwise miss a lot of shots that have subsequently been published / sold. In sports photography, speed of image capture is of the essence.

 

2) Memory, memory, memory. RAW uses roughly four times the space as a large fine JPEG which means either buy more memory (expensive) or shoot JPEG, preferably at as low an ISO as I can get away with for the lighting conditions. I need to be able to maximise my resources since I don't have much time during the day to empty flash cards onto my laptop, hence another vote for the JPEG format.

 

3) I don't tend to do much in terms of editing beyond standard things like sharpening, cropping and occasionally tweaking exposure / colour balance. In my line of work, I need to be able to present the shot "as I saw it", so the flexibility of RAW doesn't really give me any benefits. AWB works fine for me since I tend to be outdoors anyway. I store my shots on CD as they come out of the camera and only edit when I have to print or post on the web. Therefore I eliminate compression artefacts from the images. If I really do need to edit significantly for any reason, I switch to BMP format to save my work.

 

4) In terms of image handling and archiving, JPEG is probably the most common format which makes photos easier to share with friends and business partners - everyone has JPEG-capable image browsers. RAW is a Canon-specific format which we don't know how long Canon will continue to use. At some point in the future Canon may change to some other file format which potentially means not being able to read thousands of photographs at a later date. On the other hand, JPEG files are pretty well much the industry standard and are likely to remain so for quite a while.

 

Hope my argument makes sense - I certainly don't feel tied-down shooting JPEG for sports at all. FWIW, I use the default settings on my camera.

Rich, I stand corrected. Last time I shot 3 or 4 frames with Raw, and then I paused for a moment, and when I went to shoot again it was busy, or at least I thought that was the case. Anyway, I missed something I would have like to have shot because of the delay. (I was at a rodeo). I will have to try this again in a situation where it doesn't matter. Thanks.

Just think of your digital camera as a PC. To save as JPEG the CPU "reads" the CCD then converts the data which it receives in RAW format to JPEG format and saves it to memory which is your CF card.

 

If you chose to save it as RAW the conversion step is skipped and a larger file is saved. The CPU which performs the conversion is alot faster comparatively speaking than save step.

 

As far as that step about not being able to view RAW images later on if Canon changes their standards you'll still be able to convert them to JPEG on your PC. I remember a few years back when I was doing a grad dip one of the lectures stated something about the JPEG format being owned by somebody (Adobe? not sure about that) but there is no gurantee that they couldn't start charging for licences to use there product. Where would that leave everybody with there photos ?