Dropping RAW and going Jpeg

[Allison Finch]

Sorry, but I still believe that photography has become much less about whether you can format and produce a great photo than it has become about using technological skills to create one.

I used to only shoot RAW, and found that I was starting to rely more and more on technology instead of careful and educated initial planning.

I sm not against minor tweaks to photos. I do it all the time. But to forget formatting and decent photographic techniques and rely on using PP to do all your work, well...........

 

[JahJahwarrior]

I think Manneca was one of the earlier ones in the thread to point out, it's really just a question of "what software do you use to process your image."

JPG people would have to answer, if they were honest, "I use the software in my camera to process the photos."

The RAW people would answer "I use the data from my camera, but I process in Lightroom."

Yes, you can use RAW to "salvage" some marginal shots, but the real magic of photography is more than just making the shot meet some qualifications such as sharpness, color, exposure, etc.

To take a great picture, you have to find an inspirational setting and subject, choose the story you want to tell, set up and try multiple angles, determine which tells your story best, set up additional exposure equipment, take an image, then process it, and post it on Facebook for a few friends to like.

Or, sometimes you just look up, see something cool, and push a shutter button, and post the .jpg from your phone in the parking lot.

I shoot RAW, I think I'll keep shooting RAW for the foreseeable future. Storage space is cheap, and I don't want my camera to make the decision on what pixels to throw out. The camera is old, and hasn't been improved at all. Since I got it, two new version of Lightroom have been released, and more are on the way. Not to mention, with Lightroom, I can use printer profiles and see what the file will look like printed, where it's going to be printed. The .jpg processor in the camera, has no clue. White balance isn't about getting something right or wrong, it's about what you photographed and where it is getting printed.

But, one of my goals with photos is to keep getting published in magazines. My favorite spot to be published is on the cover. RAW is worth it for me, and it's not because the original photo sucked, it's because Lightroom does a better job of exporting the image I saw in my head, than the camera does. It's a more powerful processor than the camera, and the end result was a more powerful front cover.

 

[KeithG]

RAW is too slow.

My first still camera took about 5 seconds to write a RAW image. It could sustain 4 frames per second in jpeg. My current camera can sustain 9 fps in jpeg but only just over 1 fps in RAW.

I routinely utilize burst mode, so fps is meaningful to me. RAW is too slow. Maybe i need a more expensive camera?

 

[jboneng]

For me, I see no reason not to shoot in RAW.
First of, as others have said, storage is dirt cheap. even the cloud backup solution I uses to back up my RAW images is a only few bux a year,
Second, I like to keep all the data captured by the sensor, spending time and money to capture this data, and throw most of it away is a waste.
Third, I don't trust automatic PP software (in the camera), and like to think that I can do a better PP than the built in algorithms in the camera.
Fourth, Once an image is compressed to jpeg you can't go back, want to export the image to png, sorry, you will get all the imperfections from the jpeg in the png too.

In short there is no reason not to keep the raw files, for me at least.

 

[Storker]

RAW is too slow.

My first still camera took about 5 seconds to write a RAW image. It could sustain 4 frames per second in jpeg. My current camera can sustain 9 fps in jpeg but only just over 1 fps in RAW.

I routinely utilize burst mode, so fps is meaningful to me. RAW is too slow. Maybe i need a more expensive camera?

That sounds like a buffer size and/or memory card quality issue. If your camera has a small buffer, data transfer to the card limits your burst speed.

My dSLR (model year: 2008) shoots >15 14-bit NEF frames (16MB each) in 8fps (it can't shoot faster in JPEG, BTW, but the buffer can take more pictures before it fills up) before the buffer fills up and the transfer to the card becomes the limiting factor. With a high-speed memory card (90 MB/sec), I go down to 4-5fps NEF when the buffer is full. YMMV, but I seldom need to shoot more than 10-15 frames in burst mode. That's topside, BTW. Underwater I don't see any need for continuous shooting mode/burst mode, so as long as the camera is ready when the strobe has cycled, I'm good.

---------- Post added December 9th, 2015 at 11:30 AM ----------

to forget formatting and decent photographic techniques and rely on using PP to do all your work, well...........

Who's advocating for that? No-one has said that you have to "forget formatting and decent photographic techniques" just because you want the best starting point for your PP'ing.


Well, except you, of course.

 

[boletus1973]

JPGS:

RAW:

i'm joking... but not at all..... i've only one think... many high-end cameras have poor jpgs performance.... i think this explain much... :shocked2::shocked2:

 

[tursiops]

Lotta folks in this thread trying to make their point by arguing that the extreme opposite of what they prefer is bad; very true. So is the extreme of what they prefer!
No reason at all that someone shooting RAW should ignore trying to do their best while underwater.
No reason at all that someone shooting jpeg is stuck with whatever their camera decides to do (witness the phenomenal success of VividPix).

Here is something I've noticed, however, while using RAW and Lightroom: my on-land out-of-water shots seem to need little to no "fixing" in post-processing.....what LR does in its Auto settings is just fine...exposure, color-balance, etc. But my u/w shots (same camera) are almost always improved by just a bit of PP....if only contrast and WB, and sometimes adjusting the exposure to be a bit darker. The way LR "sees" the on-land image is the same way I do. But not u/w. I'm unable to find a LR Auto Preset that eliminates my need to do some adjusting so the final image matches the way I see things underwater.

Here is the interesting part: I just had cataract surgery (both eyes) so when I'm allowed back in the water (2-month wait time), I'm expecting to see things differently than I did before. At least on land everything is brighter, contrastier (is that a word?), and seems higher resolution. I have no idea what that will mean for my u/w pictures!

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I'm learning a lot from this discussion. How much of it I'll use is something else;=). As a new dslr user I am finding some of the things I can do with my rig pretty amazing. I'm shooting a Canon sl1 with the 18-55 kit lens so far in the pool. I picked up a Tokina 10-17. Have not tried it yet. I use the 70 - 300 a lot on land. One thing I am really still getting used to is the level of detail on shots when I pull them up on the monitor compared to what I see in the camera display. I have not tried light room yet. Even though the photoshop version. I have is the latest one, I am very familiar with the use of it. The first version. I had was two and was processing scanned prints from my 35mm camera. You learn a lot about fixing photos doing that. Time constraints have not allowed me to experiment with raw files yet. Hopefully after the holidays that will change but I'm starting to book classes for 2016 already. So we'll see. I think I am going to continue to save as raw and fine jpeg. I don't see my camera having an issue with taking time to write data. Not shooting action shots or bursts yet so may try that and see. My goal is to get proficient enough with it through practice and instruction from 3 people I know who make part or all of their living from uw photography so that at some point I can offer a class that I would want to take. That is going to take some time, but I'm ok with that.

 

[KeithG]

That sounds like a buffer size and/or memory card quality issue. If your camera has a small buffer, data transfer to the card limits your burst speed.

My dSLR (model year: 2008) shoots >15 14-bit NEF frames (16MB each) in 8fps (it can't shoot faster in JPEG, BTW, but the buffer can take more pictures before it fills up) before the buffer fills up and the transfer to the card becomes the limiting factor. With a high-speed memory card (90 MB/sec), I go down to 4-5fps NEF when the buffer is full. YMMV, but I seldom need to shoot more than 10-15 frames in burst mode. That's topside, BTW. Underwater I don't see any need for continuous shooting mode/burst mode, so as long as the camera is ready when the strobe has cycled, I'm good.
.

Seems I need a (much) more expensive camera! I am using compacts. Mainly based upon size and cost.

 

[Storker]

My first UW rig was a Canon G9 in a polycarbonate housing. Never saw lag times like you talk about.


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