Taking RAW photographs - is it worth it

chickmug

How many take these type of shots?

I hear they take a lot more PC power to mainpulate them but is the end result that much better than teking jpegs?

My question would be from the point of buying a bridge camera not DSLR.

Robertf

We have a DSLR so not sure if the same applies, but I found RAW a waste of time. No discernable quality advantage far as I can see. We always shoot and download highest quality JPG and find quality to be excellent

[Deleted User]

If you are taking difficult photos, in high ISOs or in low light, you can gain extra from procesing RAW. Typically, you can adjust the brightness with more control because you've not lost any initial data

My camera has a RAW+Jpeg mode.. i try to use that when i'm taking more challenging photos

hc25036

I have a DSLR and always use RAW. It gives much greater opportunity to correct photos, especially if something (like exposure) has gone horribly wrong. It also gives the best possible picture quality in case you want to make large prints (or normal prints from a small part of the image).

sharkie

I've got a bridge camera - nearly slr, and agree with ringo and robertf. I've found if you push the photo, the other bits get pushed over the top.

Useful for getting faces ina darkend room, but not good on the rest of the room, if you know what I mean.

If you still and EA, or wanting to photograph still subjects with brilliant looking shots, look at hdr - just type in HDR:j on flickr as i think that uses raw too.

chickmug

ringo_24601 wrote: »

My camera has a RAW+Jpeg mode.. i try to use that when i'm taking more challenging photos

Good point as I see from the user manual downloaded this option is available

Marty_J

I would say, for most people, it's generally not worth the effort. RAW images take up more space on your memory card, and on your computer. They also need to be processed before you do anything with them. You can't go out and take some photos, and pop into Boots on the way home and have them printed. You have to load them onto your computer and process them.

I used to shoot RAW, but now I don't. I love being able to load the images onto my computer and I don't have to do anything to them (unless I want to of course). The difference in quality between a RAW and a JPEG is generally tiny to non-existent. RAW files can be pushed a bit more when trying to recover detail from highlights, but it's possible to look at your photo right after you've taken it, so there's really no excuse to be taking over-exposed shots anyway.

There are certain situations when shooting RAW might be necessary, such as when you know you'll have to make big changes to a photo afterwards (fashion photographers for instance, have to ensure the colour balance is exactly right, so don't want to have it set in the camera), but basically if you have to ask, then you don't need to shoot RAW.

isofa

Firstly if you want to use RAW, shoot in RAW+JPEG (most quality cameras allow this so you get the JPEG and RAW file instantly to use, then you can decide if you want to keep the huge RAW data).

RAW is definitely not a waste of time for professionals or anyone seriously into photography - especially if you are shooting tricky situations where the white balance may be off, exposure slightly out, for weddings and all sorts - it give fantastic control. However I'm talking from semi-pro DSLRs upwards.

Taking them from the point of a bridge camera is less straight-forward - and if you are happy with a good JPEG created then there isn't such a clear case, but still issues with white balance and ultimate control are lost instantly with a JPEG.

If you shoot something irreplaceable, and find you set the white balance wrong (or the camera didn't resolve it correctly - a common theme with digital), you'll never be able to fully fix it in a JPEG; with RAW however, you can change the white balance and all sorts of EV, colour and sharpening controls without affecting the underlying image at all.

If you are experimenting with HDR, you can also take 3 to 5 shots from one RAW exposure.

For really important shots, or client work, I often in RAW+JPEG, gives ultimate flexibility then I convert to DNG for long term archiving. (Free converter and info here: http://www.adobe.com/products/dng/)

A RAW image file contains much more data (and without any adjustment or compression) than a JPEG - a JPEG file is always compressed "lossy" i.e. data is already missing from that file.

All Canon cameras (with RAW capability) come with Digital Photo Pro which allows manipulation of RAW data, Nikon on the other hand require you to shell out extra for the RAW editing software. Adobe Camera Raw is the plugin which runs in Photoshop, there are many other suites too.

If you have a Canon camera (such as a IXUS compact or A/G Powershot) without RAW functions, CHDK is a free firmware utility which adds it to many camera , without potentially killing the camera: http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK It can be loaded in the camera with many other Pro functions.

trcooke

I tend to shoot RAW only with my DSLR these days. I like the flexibility of being able to tweak the photo afterwards without reducing the underlying quality of the photo. I use Linux and a great little application called UFRaw to edit the RAW file and then export the JPEG/TIFF into GIMP for framing/cropping/printing or whatever I want to do with it.

In theory I believe that UFRaw does a better job of converting the RAW image to JPEG than the in camera processor does, particularly with the pixels around the edge of the frame. In practice I have not seen a difference although I haven't really looked very hard.

Given the current cost of memory cards I don't mind the larger file size. A 4GB SDHC card will take 250 RAW frames and costs around £15. I'd recommend the Sandisk 4GB Extreme III SDHC card.

Marty_J

You can change the white balance, exposure, and sharpening of a JPEG image. While JPEG is a lossy format, it uses a mixture of both lossy and lossless compression. Re-saved JPEGs can show little or no quality loss, especially if the JPG is saved in-camera at the highest quality setting, and saved again at the highest setting. Even when re-saved at 50% quality, it's very hard to tell the difference without viewing the image at 100%. It's a very efficient file format.

Oh, and Nikon cameras come with Nikon ViewNX for processing RAW files. It's not exactly full-featured, but it's there.

althas

i only EVER shoot in RAW (not even RAW+JPEG). It is not the quality of the shot per-say, it is what you can do with it afterwards that makes it important. Take a jpeg shot, and the camera shoots a RAW image then does some in-house conversions to what it thinks should be the correct balances for exposure, white balance, colours an such. Sometimes it gets it spot on, sometimes not

The jpeg image format is a lossy format. Everytime you do a manipulation and save it, open do a manipulation, save and on, you loose quality of image. Also you can not manipulate a jpeg image as much as a RAW file

So basically it all depends on what you will be doing AFTER you take the photo. If you want to simply download to a pc, tweak a little and print it, then jpeg will probably be fine. If you plan to make the most of a picture and have the option for ultimate control over the look, then RAW is the way to go

A good bridge camera like the Canon G9 lets you have the option. A friend of mine has one, and I must admit, I like the picture quality a lot on it. I personally use a DSLR as I want to be more creative with the time, appature and such. But good luck on what you decide and have fun