RAW or JPEG for events

[cherubinphotography]

<p>I'm doing more and more events and wondering if I am wasting time and data space always shooting in RAW. I often supply just a disk of JPEG files anyway and don't do any post work other than sharpening. Is anyone just shooting JPEGS?</p>

[ellis_vener_photography]

<p>If I can't control the lighting - raw. Even when I can control the lighting I shoot raw. I jsut finished working on an annual report for a client, and outside of the set up shots of the client's people with their clients, all beautifully lit and all shot in raw format, the client also decided to include two photos from different charity events they sponsored last year. I shot one of them and someone else shot the other. I shot raw, he didn't. For my grab shot I was able to smoothly color correct and otherwisetake what initially was a simple press release photo up to annual report quaily. The other guy's didn't fair as well. It need some substantial color and exposure correction and the dark tones were just mud. A lot of mud as it turns out becasue he had definitely under exposed the original and missed the color balance. So if you think your photo might have some future life down the road, shoot raw.</p>

[andylynn]

<p>Shoot raw, get another hard drive if needed, they're cheap. A 1TB drive is $100 ($1 per 1,000 10MB image files) and will probably hold more raw files than your camera will take in its useful lifespan.</p>

[picturesque]

<p>I don't, but there are several wedding photographers that do, although the majority shoot RAW. What to do is up to you--whatever makes sense for your workflow.</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Agreed. Storage space - even the redundant, safer-than-one-disk variety - is so inexpensive as to make this a non-issue. Speed? Memory cards and readers are now blazingly fast, and batch processing otherwise un-fussed-with RAW files into the JPGs the camera <em>would</em> have produced takes only minutes. But that still leaves you with RAW files from which you can squeeze some far more carefully handled work if the circumstances call for it. Better yet, just have your camera write both types of files. If you're really not interested in touching them in post (and are that good at getting them just so on the fly!), then you've got the best of both worlds: quick, easy delivery ... and lots of latitude for follow up work later. The sale of one or two multi-use images that were workable because of the RAW format can fund all of the hardware you need to just make that the baseline in your workflow.</p>

[cherubinphotography]

<p>Thank you, everyone. I agree and will continue shooting in RAW.</p>

[dsoleilstudios]

<p>I shoot JPEG. Get the exposure and white balance the way you want it in camera and then shoot. Processing becomes a lot easier. Many of the top wedding photographers in the world still shoot JPEG and they do it to cut down on processing time and to get the right look their after when they sit down to review the photos. Depending on what RAW processor you use, it can produce images that look slightly or a lot different from what you remember seeing on the LCD.</p>

 

[aimee_pieters]

<p>If you're good with your exposure, you should be able to shoot jpg. Although the LCD isn't accurate, it should be close.<br>

Remember, when we shot film, we didn't get to see ANYTHING until then next week and we made it work....-Aimee</p>

[bruce_margolis]

<p>If you are one of those who knows how to get-it-right-every-time with JPEG, there is no reason to shoot RAW. I shoot RAW because I don't claim to be that good -- or even that lucky -- but for those who are convinced their shot is as good right from the camera as it would be with any processiong, I see no benefit to RAW even if disk space is cheap. If you never do any post processing, RAW is an added unnecessary step.</p>

 

[edrodgers]

<blockquote>Remember, when we shot film, we didn't get to see ANYTHING until then next week and we made it work..</blockquote>

<p>Of course, film had a much wider dynamic range, was comparatively tolerant to under and over exposure, and was adjusted all over the place in the lab for density and color. You could shoot an entire roll with 2 stops of exposure compensation dialed in accidentally, and you would probably be OK. RAW gets us closer to what film did for us.<br>

Not that I'm against people shooting jpeg, I just have a problem recommending it to anyone that has to ask. If they have to ask, for a wedding, I say they should probably play it safe and keep all of the data.</p>

[KenPapai]

<p>Raw is 14-bit capture while JPG throws away 6-bits and is just 8-bit, lossy image file capture with little room for error or editing. </p>

<p>It's a no brainer which mode to shoot in, whether you're a highly paid pro or not.</p>

[steve_crist]

<p><em>"It's a no brainer which mode to shoot in, whether you're a highly paid pro or not."</em><br>

Well said Ken. When being paid I always shoot raw. The statements about "getting it right in the first place" are a bit weak. I've shot high speed bursts where my white balance was fooled by flickering flourescent lamps. Raw fixed it. My analogy is driving and wearing a seat belt. 99% of the time I don't need it. It's that 1% that is priceless - just like shooting raw. </p>

[lightsmith1]

<p>If you start with a 8-bit JPEG any manipulation of the image will cause data gaps and tone shifts. If you need to provide CYMK files to your clients it is far better to start with a RAW file. And it is more than just color. With the 14-bit RAW files produced by a number of cameras there is a DR of 12 stops which helps to capture highlights without loosing shadow detail. Yes it slows the camera down and might be a problem for sports photography but not for most event shooting. With JPEGs the RAW data is converted by the camera into a JPEG so you are letting the camera do the processing so your settings need to be dead on for the intended product you need to deliver to your clients. If you shoot with different cameras or with another photographer shooting a different camera it is much easier to take RAW files from all the cameras used at an event and make batch adjustments to produce final images that look like they were shot from the same camera.</p>

[andylynn]

<p>Don't get me wrong, you can get great output with JPGs especially if you are getting the exposure and color right the first time. But, two things:</p>

<p>-Why risk it? There's little to no penalty involved in shooting RAW and if you've got somebody paying you for wonderful photos of their big day, and you find that a few shots really could their exposure tweaked or the shadows brought up, isn't it worth the extra megs? If you've got decent software you can run the conversion in batch and not lose time on it.</p>

<p>-If you want to do anything special in post the extra bits will be very useful.</p>

[wedding-photography-denver]

<p>RAW.</p>

[steve_c.5]

<p>This subject has been debated to death, but my take is RAW for critical portraiture or difficult lighting, JPEG for everything else. We all know the attributes of RAW, but for most wedding shots, it's simply overkill. I simply don't need a 19 megabyte RAW file soaking up hard drive space for every little toast and table shot at a wedding, because most shots are never printed above 5 x 7 or 8 x 10 anyway. I'll switch to RAW for the bridal portraits and critical wedding portraits, but that's about it.</p>

<p>Here's the payoff to this strategy: If you shoot RAW for everything, you've got to process all those shots (even with batch processing) to turn them into JPEGs anyway. That equates to more processing time and disc space required. If you get it right with JPEG (which experienced shooters can do), then nothing else is required.</p>

<p>I've never had a client say, "gee, I wish you had shot RAW" or "we wanted more quality in this shot". Only the most photographically educated client could ever see the difference between the two, or even know what RAW is. We photographers tend to obsess over minutia like this. Our clients are usually the sort of folks who think MP3's have full sonic fidelity, so why would we expect them to know the difference in these two formats?</p>

[Marcus Ian]

<p>My vote is RAW for you. but it comes at a cost. It would be helpful to know what you're shooting with. With mid to lower end prosumer grade equipment, those heftier RAWs are gonna suck up your bitty buffer, and it takes valuable time for the "busy..." to go away.<br>

On the other hand, you can not predict (and if you can, please advise the final four, so I can lay bets) when you will get that perfect gorgeous front page worthy shot (regardless of what you MEANT to be shooting)... one thats ruined by a flourescent light, or some other mixed light colors nonsense....you get my drift <br>

Go w/ raw, shoot deliberately (and slower than normal if necessary), buy several FAST CF cards, and another HD (or two, you'll use them later anyway)!<br>

*L* My old XTi's given me over 2.5TB of RAWs...</p>

[pete_s.]

<p>Visually lossless compressed raw.</p>

[tdj]

<p>Another vote for RAW. Sure it takes up alot of space. Cards are inexpensive, as are hard drives. I just had a 10 TB RAID server built for the office. I haven't seen the final invoice yet, but it's not going to be that bad of an investment. As Andrew stated, you can buy external HD's cheap! The advantages of shooting RAW far outweigh the disadvantages. When I switched to digital, I shot the ceremony & formals in RAW, and the reception in Jpeg. At one wedding, I forgot to change the cameras back to Jpeg, which was a good thing...I started shooting totally RAW after that. Best of luck.</p>

[tdj]

<p><em>"My analogy is driving and wearing a seat belt. 99% of the time I don't need it. It's that 1% that is priceless - just like shooting raw."</em></p>

<p>Steve: Well said, I love it!</p>

[bill_clark___minnetonka_mi]

<p>100% RAW capture.</p>

<p>It's my workflow.</p>

<p> </p>

[steve_c.5]

<p>If you guys just want to shoot RAW for everything, then render yourselves unconscious (knock yourselves out). It's your own choice to make. I just think it's overkill for most shots, in my opinion.</p>

[bobsimsphoto]

<p>I'll echo what has already been said: shoot RAW. Even when shooting sporting events, theater, or dances when there are 100's of images, I still shoot RAW. I process all the files with Lightroom...pretty quickly, actually.</p>

<p>Bob</p>