What file format do u use?

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naveen.nag

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Naveen
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Whats the best file format to use while shooting? These days i use RAW because i want learn editing and raw allows me to have more options. However, raw files are heavy, eachfile is like 25mb. What are the pros and cons of different file formats and what do you recommend?
 
To be honest - this topic has been done to death, maybe be worth doing a search to get the opinions youre after (y)

I shoot I RAW only as I have cs 5 and I love the flexiblilty RAW gives me for PP, I also use 32GB SD cards to enable me to shoot all day in this format :D

Mainly shooting wildlife/Birds Im out all day

Les ;)

Ps and I bought a 1 Terra Byte external Hard Drive for storeage too - cheap enough at around £60
 
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RAW for me also. Sure, there's extra to add with the workflow, but the pros outweigh the cons. Size shouldn't be an issue with the cheap cost of memory and hard drives these days.
Plus, you've always got the original to work from which has the most information in it.
 
Raw for me too.
 
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Most of my work is jpeg. The speed saved in processing is important to me and the sort of photos I'm shooting I'm not doing all kinds of HDR garbage on anyway.

For things like djs press photos I'll shoot raw as the workflow is totally different.
 
Just remember that even if you are shooting JPG the camera is still shooting RAW and giving you it's best shot at a JPG from it.

If you are using something like Lightroom you are using virtually nothing as far as processing time goes shooting RAW and then converting straight to JPG at default settings. This still leaves you with the latitude that the RAW file gives you should you want to post process further.

Conversely, once the camera has converted it to JPG an awful lot of information has been thrown away already and most of that latitude has gone forever.
 
RAW for me too, tough digital is still all new to me. The ability to change a whole range of settings post shooting attracted me to his format.
 
99% of the time RAW output.

As others have said, large memory cards are pretty cheap (16GB Sandisk around £30 gets you 500-600 RAWs), extra hard drives are cheap if you need them and if you don't quite nail the shot at the time, there's more scope to get it right.

The process flow in Lightroom is very simple and you can edit photos to a pretty decent standard in a matter of seconds.

IMO it's really a no brainer :)
 
I switched my cam to fine Jpeg the other day, i was messing about trying this 'Brezinhir' method ... forgot to switch back to RAW after. I was very annoyed after doing some macro, when I discovered. I like the processing aspect of photography. It's like a therapy, calming ... I'll have a mug of tea and some munchies while I'm at it. Once you go RAW, it's hard to ever go back. There's just so much more room to tweak.
 
JPEG + RAW. I mostly use my camera for travel photography and for keeping 'snaps' I usually don't edit them and just keep the straight out the camera JPEG. If there is a shot a particuarly like and want to get a larger print I will edit it in Lightroom and that I will process the RAW. I only ever keep the RAW's of the photos I edit, all the rest get binned.
 
99% of the time, shoot RAW with JPEG on backup card. Just in case.

Night club work, it was all JPEG since the photos needed to be up an online asap with no time to PP.
 
ukpbz said:
Maybe time for a side by side test,
Click to expand...

Exactly. This is the best way of knowing which is best for you, some people prefer raw while others prefer jpeg but only you know what you prefer and whether the differences are worth it.
 
RAW. There's no time benefit in JPEG for me, as with either format, it's just a matter of inserting the card, and letting Aperture slurp all the bits off. Long-term storage isn't free, but something like a pair of 2TB drives in a RAID enclosure will last at least a year or two before filling up, unless you're truly prolific.
 
depend on the job or what you doing it for. For landscape stuff i definite shoot raw or other social stuff i shoot raw also.

For paid job it all depend on the criteria. If the client require to have a copy of the photo straight after the shoot then jpeg is the way otherwise i shoot raw as well.
 
i recently have switched to RAW + jpeg S and i have to say i will never look back to crappy jpegs!! only reason i shoot + S jpeg is to view them on the pc as to view the RAW's takes an eternity to load, so look through my S jpeg;s see what ones i want to PP then load up my RAW's in PS, job done! Tbh i am kicking myself for not taking the plunge into RAW ages ago! as the PP options you can adjust are just outstanding! and i cant see why any one would not want to shoot RAW tbh! and people saying they only shoot jpeg, must have not tried shooting RAW lol
 
ChrisJ_SLH said:
Just remember that even if you are shooting JPG the camera is still shooting RAW and giving you it's best shot at a JPG from it.

If you are using something like Lightroom you are using virtually nothing as far as processing time goes shooting RAW and then converting straight to JPG at default settings. This still leaves you with the latitude that the RAW file gives you should you want to post process further.

Conversely, once the camera has converted it to JPG an awful lot of information has been thrown away already and most of that latitude has gone forever.
Click to expand...

Surely, if you shoot raw then batch process, it's just you making a decision based on the first photo in the batch rather than the camera making a decision based on its interpretation of every photo on an individual basis?

If you process each raw as a seperate entity, I can see that there can be a benefit for some people but batch processing totally negates it IMO!
 
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I use both Raw and Jpeg. Jpeg when it's a quick shoot and burn with lots of photos, no potential exposure probs. Everything else RAW + standard Jpeg...choose which photos I want to keep and use, then dump the rest.
 
ernesto said:
ukpbz said:
Maybe time for a side by side test,
Click to expand...
Exactly. This is the best way of knowing which is best for you, some people prefer raw while others prefer jpeg but only you know what you prefer and whether the differences are worth it.
Click to expand...

I don't see the logic in this - RAW needs to be processed (and then saved into, usually jpeg); jpeg out-of-the -camera is raw data processed by the camera. You can't compare raw side by side with jpeg. You must process raw before you can compare it with jpeg - which is a processed raw!

If you compare your processed raw with the camera's processed raw (jpeg) then you are not comparing formats but you are comparing your PP with the camera's PP. Sometimes the camera will do a PP that you can live with - sometimes not. With camera jpeg, you can tweak the PP that the camera does before the shot is taken only, but with a raw file you can tweak the PP on the big screen of the computer after the shot is taken.

The decision isn't whether you prefer the 'raw image' to the 'jpeg', but whether your camera is producing jpegs that you are happy with - to the extent that you can forego the opportunity to re-work the PP. That desicion might not be one of PP quality only - for example, if you have a deadline to hit, then time taken to PP might determine that you must forego the opportunity to re-work the PP.

Edit: I use RAW + Large JPEG 'fine'.
 
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Nod said:
Surely, if you shoot raw then batch process, it's just you making a decision based on the first photo in the batch rather than the camera making a decision based on its interpretation of every photo on an individual basis?

If you process each raw as a seperate entity, I can see that there can be a benefit for some people but batch processing totally negates it IMO!
Click to expand...

That brings up a good point. Why would one use batch processing. For me I shot as I move around out doors mostly and the lighting is always different from one shot to the next. I can't imagine adjusting the first pic and making all of the others the same. I could see doing this in a studio setup but that's about it. Is that what this is used for or does it get other uses?
 
I don't see why one would buy an expensive camera and then restrict it. It sort of like using the dslr in full auto mode. I do see where some have to export the photo right away and therefore have no time or equipment to pp them on location. That makes perfect sense to me but letting the camera choose what info it will process and what info it will throw away for good does not make sense to me. As far as time in pp I don't spend more then about a minute and a half per pic.
 
shaylou said:
That brings up a good point. Why would one use batch processing. For me I shot as I move around out doors mostly and the lighting is always different from one shot to the next. I can't imagine adjusting the first pic and making all of the others the same. I could see doing this in a studio setup but that's about it. Is that what this is used for or does it get other uses?
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I'll batch sections of an event that are similar / the same conditions. Auto white balance usually gets close enough, so that can change from shot to shot (you don't have to batch every part of the processing). I still go through and check and possibly tweak, every shot individually, but a batch process creates a similar look as a starting point.
 
shaylou said:
I don't see why one would buy an expensive camera and then restrict it. It sort of like using the dslr in full auto mode. I do see where some have to export the photo right away and therefore have no time or equipment to pp them on location. That makes perfect sense to me but letting the camera choose what info it will process and what info it will throw away for good does not make sense to me. As far as time in pp I don't spend more then about a minute and a half per pic.
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Equally, you could say, what's the point in going all the way out there, spending X amount of time shooting something, only to spend 90 seconds producing the image afterwards. ;)

Horses for courses, you buy the gear that does what you need it to do, and use it in the way that the job/shoot/your preferences dictate.
 
Raw + jpeg now - used to be jpeg. I'm still learning about the processing.
 
Nod said:
Surely, if you shoot raw then batch process, it's just you making a decision based on the first photo in the batch rather than the camera making a decision based on its interpretation of every photo on an individual basis?

If you process each raw as a seperate entity, I can see that there can be a benefit for some people but batch processing totally negates it IMO!
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Not really, all the camera is doing is applying the selected picture style, a level of NR, sharpening etc. There's nothing stopping you doing exactly the same thing in your PP software if you wanted. The camera JPG engine isn't doing anything magical.
 
I quite agree but it is treating each picture on an individual basis, while processing as a batch rather than individually treats each picture the same.
 
Nod said:
I quite agree but it is treating each picture on an individual basis, while processing as a batch rather than individually treats each picture the same.
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Yeh but don't forget you can often get better algorithms in decent raw conversion software for noise reduction, sharpening etc than the camera may be able to manage, or give the choice of, so even batching the lot you'd still get a 'better*' image.

For me, I shoot Raw because you can't do this....

rawcomp.jpg


...with Jpegs

That's not really fair either mind, you can't do that with many cameras even with Raw.

The flipside of course is it takes me 2 days to process an afternoon's worth of images! :puke:

*for better read more suited to the taste of the photographer. Most cameras you get a choice of 3 options each for sharpness, saturation and contrast, as opposed to however many possible permutations in raw conversion...
 
shaylou said:
That brings up a good point. Why would one use batch processing. For me I shot as I move around out doors mostly and the lighting is always different from one shot to the next. I can't imagine adjusting the first pic and making all of the others the same. I could see doing this in a studio setup but that's about it. Is that what this is used for or does it get other uses?
Click to expand...

It depends entirely what and how you shoot. It's very rare for my shots to be so different shot - to - shot.
If I'm shooting a wedding or event there'll be a large bunch of images shot under the same lighting - studio type stuff is such a no-brainer I sometimes shoot JPEG for speed. If I'm shooting motorsport it'll be a large batch too. The only time its a small batch is when shooting 'family snaps' wher 5 or 6 consecutive images could be completely different, but sometimes there'll still be small 'batches' where I'm experimenting with a composition.

Consistency is a sign that you know what you're doing. When your work is consistent - batch processing is the obvious thing to do.
 
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