Just wanted to get a consensus on how many photographers in the philippines actually shoot RAW. Lito Genilio of Smart Shot Studio, confessed to shooting RAW with 1 Ds MKII and going through 16 1GB CF cards in a single wedding, Richel Mascarinas shoots Large Normal (based on their statements last May on the WPPP summer camp). I personally think that shooting RAW is great but I also think it's very time consuming and adds a lot to the work and storage requirements. For me, its Large Normal most of the time, Large Fine sometimes, and RAW for portraiture or when I know I want to sell a really big enlargement. Any opinions would be welcome. Thanks.

RAW all the time. Why spend money on a fancy camera and then criple it by using an inferior file format for your images?

Mike

Mike is right, RAW is the way to go,

There are exceptions though, once covered an event using JPG Large Fine on a 20d because had to give cd's of the photos after the event agad.
More for the convenience of the client, because they had to sort and publish it within a week..

I've been shooting birds using 100 % RAW for many months now, thanks to the falling prices of CF cards. The other day, I shot almost 9 GB (over a thousand pics) at just one group of birds in Mt. Palay-palay. I would have shot more if the rains from the recent typhoon didn't stop me.

I regret that I shot JPEGs in my first two years of shooting bird pics.... I don't have as much leeway in correcting exposure errors and setting the proper WB.

At non-bird shoots and when I need the pics fast, I still shoot JPEGs. I believe each format has its own advantages, and I use the format that suits best the situation at hand.

Romy

I also shoot raw everytime. CF and SD cards prices are falling. I just bought a 2gb 150x Speed SD card for about Php2,560 (Sgd80). :)

hobbyist here and I shoot RAW as much as I can. I only have a 1GB and a 256MB CF cards but I bring with me a 15GB digimate for photo transfer! :D I'd say RAW is about 80% of the photos I shoot.

Enlightening thread. In line with the quality of RAW vs JPEG, when one wants to print on a large-scale (e.g. poster), should one use RAW files instead?

Enlightening thread. In line with the quality of RAW vs JPEG, when one wants to print on a large-scale (e.g. poster), should one use RAW files instead?

Based on my current level of understanding, RAW is a 12-bit capture and this is converted to an 8-bit jpeg in-camera if one chooses to shoot jpegs. The in-camera conversion engine throws away the "unnecessary data" and these are lost forever.

Aside from the larger leeway in highlights/shadows detail recovery, and setting the WB after the fact, 16-bit TIFF files from 12-bit RAW captures are less susceptible to posterization during processing than 8-bit jpegs.

Sure, if one is shooting in a well-controlled situation (a studio comes to mind) where the exposure and WB are set ideally, a jpeg large fine will almost equal the IQ of TIFFs converted from a RAW shot. But in other less controlled situations, there are just too many variables that can go wrong, and shooting RAW gives us that extra leeway in correcting these errors.

For very large prints therefore, RAW is the way to go.

Just my two cents worth,

Romy

I am a wedding photographer and I use a 5d and a 20d when I cover weddings. I ONLY shoot raw 100% with the 20d with the 5d I shoot RAW only for the really important highlights (1 gig is only 50 shots) I use a minimum now of 6 max of 10 gig in a wedding. All table hopping shots are jpg since I know for a fact that it will only be a 4x6 at most in their album. As they say...if you shoot a whole wedding in RAW, you have got to be insane however, if you also don't shoot in RAW you have got to be insane... I do a combination of both since the post production is a killer when it comes to wedding photography especially if you have like a min of 10 weddings a month:Dum:

Oh okay, I understand. Thanks for the advice and information Romy.

Just wanted to get a consensus on how many photographers in the philippines actually shoot RAW. Lito Genilio of Smart Shot Studio, confessed to shooting RAW with 1 Ds MKII and going through 16 1GB CF cards in a single wedding, Richel Mascarinas shoots Large Normal (based on their statements last May on the WPPP summer camp). I personally think that shooting RAW is great but I also think it's very time consuming and adds a lot to the work and storage requirements. For me, its Large Normal most of the time, Large Fine sometimes, and RAW for portraiture or when I know I want to sell a really big enlargement. Any opinions would be welcome. Thanks.
Hi Vince,

Since my shift to Digital about 5 to 6 years ago, been using RAW format it gives me more details and wide color gamut with my images, great flexibility and high resolution images. I am a hobbyist but sometimes do advertising shoot, now im more inclined to doing fineart.:)

Thanks for the replies guys! :)